Faithful Priest Encourages Prayer, Fasting, & Voting For Upcoming Election
Fr. Ben Kosnac is the pastor of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Catholic Church located in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Fr. Ben explains what we need to do as American Catholics when choosing the president of our country. For the presidential election, Father Ben encourages his parishioners to pray the Rosary in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, fast, and vote. Fr. Ben clearly outlines that when we are voting for the president we are not merely voting for one person. Rather, with the President comes the Vice-President, Supreme Court Justices, and other federal officials. Also outlined in the video are the 5 nonnegotiables: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and so-called "homosexual marriage." Fr. Ben goes on to explain that it is important for Catholics to vote to promote certain goods. He also articulates that it's also important to vote to diminish certain evils. I encourage everyone to watch the video.
Read More...
Fasting Teaches, Self-Control, Patience, & Discipline
There are so many ways to follow after God. That is another way of saying there are many holy things you can do to please God. Some of these things can be easy and others can be hard to do. These “things” that we can do to please God are what Catholic's call penance. Penance is the holy work of giving to God our love and attention for the good of all people. Penance is also used as a way of 'paying for the cost of sin'. Let me explain with an example, let's say you were playing baseball and you threw the ball into my window and broke it! So you come to my house to tell me how sorry you were and let's say that I forgave you for breaking my window. Great! So all is well right? Well, not really because the window is still broken. Who do you think is going to have to pay for that window? It would be good 'penance' to work in some way so that you can assist me in getting the window fixed. In this way, you are not only forgiven but you also do something with that new found forgiveness and increase that goodness by doing something right. This is the same thing we experience in the Sacrament of Confession where we come to confess our sins with great sorrow for sinning (to have contrition) and the Priest gives Absolution (Priestly authority to forgive sins) but before the Priest forgives you, he asks you to do a penance that will help pay the cost of your sins. For as Scripture says, “the wages of sin are death” so therefore we do many penances for the sake of holiness but also to bring holiness to our lives that we may enter fully into Christ. As I said before, there are many different kind of penances, some easy and some not. One of those difficult ones is to 'fast'.
Read More...