Welcome to Keeping The Home

Welcome to Keeping The Home: "Of my immediate family, I think that my mother was the only saved person. She knew in her spirit that the Catholic Church was spiritually dead, and it was hard on her to go there"






and of course this "dead" Catholic youth conference from last year!

Visits to Candyland: Search results for erik

Thanks to the limits of Candy's blogging, it is relatively easy to bring up the topic of Erik' Brauer's lack of Catholic Catechesis. In fact, I told my 11-year-old to just type in "Erik" in our little search box and voila!!! All the rebuttals to the same ole stuff about Erik instantly available for your reading pleasure!

Visits to Candyland: Search results for erik







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Catholics Come Home

A very good video that actually promotes the Catholic Church! Catholics Come Home

A list of all of the Catholic Carnivals in one place! From the first one until they were discontinued about a week ago.







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My Domestic Church: No clue!

Hey guys! I just had an experience on another blog that I need your help with. I wrote about it at My Domestic Church: No clue!

Maybe some of you can help me remember or figure this out. Thanks.

Just a Bird Squawking: Good Friday

My Niece's Conversion Story.







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Blessed James Duckett

Today is the feast day of Blessed James Duckett. Who was he?

James Duckett was an Englishman who lived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. As a young man he became an apprentice printer in London. This is how he came across a book called The Firm Foundation of the Catholic Religion. He studied it carefully and believed that the Catholic Church was the true Church. In those days, Catholics were persecuted in England. James decided that he wanted to be a Catholic anyway and would face the consequences. The clergyman at his former church came to look for him because James had been a steady church goer. He would not come back. Twice he served short prison terms for his stubbornness. Both times his employer interceded and got him freed. But then the employer asked James to find a job elsewhere.

James Duckett knew there was no turning back. He sought out a disguised Catholic priest in the Gatehouse prison. The old priest, "Mr. Weekes," instructed him. Duckett was received into the Catholic Church. He married a Catholic widow and their son became a Carthusian monk. He recorded much of what we know about his father.

Blessed Duckett never forgot that it was a book that had started him on the road to the Church. He considered it his responsibility to provide his neighbors with Catholic books. He knew these books encouraged and instructed them. So dangerous was this "occupation" that he was in prison for nine out of twelve years of his married life. He was finally brought to trial and condemned to death on the testimony of one man, Peter Bullock, a book binder. He testified that he had bound Catholic books for Blessed Duckett, a "grave offense." Bullock turned traitor because he was in prison for unrelated matters and hoped to be freed.

Both men were condemned to die on the same day. On the scaffold at Tyburn, Blessed Duckett assured Bullock of his forgiveness. He kept encouraging the man as they were dying to accept the Catholic faith. Then the ropes were placed around their necks. Blessed Duckett was martyred in 1602.

Martyrs such as James Duckett go against everything we've learned from the Candy version of history. Good model Christians such as Elizabeth persecuted Catholics? Even killed them?

The printing press was used for something besides printing Reformation literature? I would point out that there must have been literate Catholics, despite the Catholic Church's famous attempts to keep people illiterate, but one could make the argument that Bl. Duckett could read because he not Catholic, and used the books to try and convert other people who weren't Catholic.

Easter

From the Office of Readings for Good Friday (I'm behind):

From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
The power of Christ's blood
If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ. If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it. “There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death. Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.

h/t Bearing Blog

TheHill.com - Gingrich becomes a Catholic

TheHill.com - Gingrich becomes a Catholic: "Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) converted to Catholicism on Sunday and celebrated his new faith with some close friends at the hot spot Café Milano.

Gingrich, who had been a Baptist, attended Sunday evening Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill and was confirmed into the Catholic Church that evening during a separate service."







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An interesting side note.

One of commenters here had this observation to make:

Sem, you have to understand that Elena and her crew are simply not use to coming up against people who are doctrinally sound and know their faith. They - just like they accuse us wretched Protestants - take what they ‘believe’ to be the truth about our faith instead of the facts as supported by Scripture.

And they are all self-righteous. Normally the go after some more mentally unstable woman who rants, raves and waves Jack Chick tracts around the blogosphere.

I love it that she has met her match. Thank you Elena for coming here.

I thought the bolded part was an interesting observation from someone who has been looking at our blogs.


As a side note, isn't "take(ing) what they ‘believe’ to be the truth about our faith instead of the facts as supported by Scripture" exactly what they do with Catholicism?

Candy on Steroids.

Unashamed gave me the heads up on this blog.

Everyday Mommy » Observations…

This gal also blatantly disallows comments and as I have already BTDT I'm posting my comment here as well:

Catholics don’t worship Mary. In terms of “praying,” Catholics use that in the same way as asking for prayer. When you ask your sister to pray for you you aren’t worshipping her are you? In the same way we ask Mary for her prayers. Period.

Catholics do however honor Mary and that is very scriptural. In most Eastern cultures, of which Jesus and Mary were most certainly a part, it was not the wife of the king, but the mother of the king that was honored as the queen, because the wife of the former king and mother to the present queen was a living symbol of continuity of succession. By the time the people of Israel wanted a king, this tradition of the queen mother had been well established in the region.

In scripture we see that Solomon reigns with his mother Bathsheba in the place of honor as queen mother.

“So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his thrown and had a seat brought for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right” (1Kings 2:19

I think this is key to understanding the Catholic thought on Mary. Jesus is Lord. He is King of Kings. It is then no small matter that the role of Mary, as mother of the king should be one of honor and respect. As Catholics we believe that Jesus does honor his mother (as any good Jewish boy would!) and as we imitate Christ we imitate Him in honoring his Queen Mother as well.

Further, of course Catholics are Christians. Catholics world wide are winding up the season of Lent, where we imitate Christ’s 40 days in the desert and we follow his teachings of penance and sacrifice. This week we will commemorate Christ’s ride into Jerusalem to celebrate passover. Next week is holy week and we will follow Christ’s passion on the Good Friday and celebrate his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Incidentally, Catholics follow the life of Christ whenever they say the Rosary, from his joyful conception, through the sorrows of his death, and the glory of the resurrection, as well as his ministry here on earth.

So if following Christ makes one a Christian, then Catholicism qualifies. The rest of it is just what makes one Protestant or Catholic.







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