i spent the first two weeks of February in Minnesota, preparing to move there by looking for where i might live. while there, i stayed with two different families — one a Lutheran Christian family, the other, Baptist Christians. due to circumstances beyond my control, i was unable to attend church on my second Sunday in MN, which would have been with the Baptist family. i, however, did attend church the previous Sunday with the Lutheran family. while there, i picked up a January through March 1012 copy of Christ in Our Home, the mini magazine of three months’ worth of devotionals (http://store.augsburgfortress.org/store/productfamily/76/Christ-in-Our-Home). for the record, in my heart i am Catholic. i live and practice a Catholic faith. i am yet to go through RCIA though. but i will read any Christian devotional; if we worship the same God and call on the same Christ to save us, then it shouldn’t matter if the publication is of a different denomination. it’s still Christian, isn’t it? to claim it isn’t or to claim this practice isn’t okay is to separate yourself from other members of the Body of Christ where there is supposed to be unity. this type of thing isn’t pleasing to Jesus, our God. it grieves Him. this isn’t my words or my teaching; this is a teaching directly from His Sacred Heart to St Paul the Apostle. guided by the Holy Spirit, St Paul corrected the Corinthian Christians (the Christians at Corinth) in 1 Corinthians 1:10-13. to them he said, “i beg of you, my Christian brothers, by the Name of Jesus our Lord, to united perfectly in your shared understanding, your comprehension of our faith and the things that are related to it, and to unite yourself in our shared faith in Jesus Christ. Chloe’s household has made clear to me that you’re arguing amongst yourselves on your practice of faith and diving yourselves from the church of Corinth — your local body of Christian believers. you either say, ‘my allegiance belongs to Paul,’ or ‘my allegiance belongs to Apollos,’ or ‘my allegiance belongs to Peter,’ or ‘my allegiance belongs to Christ.’ tell me, is Christ divided into fractions or is He whole? was Paul crucified that you might be saved from your sins and their punishment and forgiven of them? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

overall today’s spirit of denominations demean the way other Christians practice their faith and condemn other styles and methods of worship as incorrect and ungodly when that isn’t true, dividing Christians by “types”. the unity of the catholic church — meaning universal; the unity of all believers from all generations, from all corners of the world, and from all groups of believers by location and/or style of worship — is destroyed, making smaller “churches” (i.e., denominations). if we worship “in spirit and in truth,” as Jesus said “true worshipers” would worship (John 4:23-24), then how can He not accept our worship or refuse it as an unholy thing? true worship of the true God is by definition holy; how can true worship of a holy God be anything but holy?

again, in 1 Corinthians 11:17-19, St Paul emphasize his point about their divisions in chapter 1 by saying, “what i am about to say to you i do not say in admiration and respect, for when you assemble in the Lord’s Name, it isn’t a good thing, for it isn’t in a good way that you assemble. you, the Lord’s people, have divided yourselves as a congregation, disagreeing in your worship and your practice of Christian faith.” Christ Himself was accused of being of satan when He freed people of demonic possession (St Matthew 12:24). in answer to this, He said in verses 25-26 and verse 28,  “a kingdom, city, or household that is divided against itself can’t stand; it will surely fall. if satan drives himself out, then he has become divided against himself. if what you said of Me is true and i drive out demons with the help of satan, the prince of demons, then how can his dominion continue? if by the Spirit of Almighty God that i evict demons from these people, then this is evidence for what truly is happening, something that you haven’t considered, that the Kingdom of God has come before you expected that it would.”

i believe that my words here, my quotes of Christ and of St Paul, reflect the Heart of Jesus. please hear It. this division has left It broken, shattered even. so often Christ has spoken of His people being of one group. we are the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12, New American Standard Bible) and the Bride of Christ (the Book of the Revelation 22:17, Amplified). and don’t forget when He spoke of uniting the sheep of Israel (Jews who believed in Him) and the sheep from among the goats (non-Jewish believers in Him) as one flock, blended together (St John 10:16). Jesus, our God, desires His people to “attain oneness in the[ir] faith [in Him]” (Ephesians 4:13).

my reason for this post was not to rant about denominations. instead i wanted to share how i’ll spend Lent 2012.

i, Christina, a firm believer in Jesus worshiping in the way of the Catholic Church, do, on this day, Saturday, the 18th day of February 2012, affirm the following ways as the ways i shall spend this Lent:

1) on Ash Wednesday (February 22nd) i will either attend Ash Wednesday Mass (if my circumstances permit) or watch televised Ash Wednesday Mass (if my circumstances do not).

2) i shall eat as little food as i can on this day and my dinner shall be vegetarian or contain fish (as the symbol of Christian faith is a fish).

3) on Fridays during Lent, i shall eat meals that include seafood, eggs, and/or diary as my source(s) of protein. also my food shall be as flavorless as possible as a reminder of Christ’s Suffering when He was crucified. keeping with this idea, i will not eat anything sweet, as dessert type foods tend to be pleasureful to eat. (since i live in a non-Catholic household and haven’t disclosed that i am Catholic, this one may not be practical/possible every week. on Fridays that it isn’t, i will give up all things that i normally do for pleasure (watching tv with the exception of Mass, giving up internet games, etc.).

4) each day i shall do my best to read from Christ in Our Home and to read the daily Scripture readings as found in the Missal.

5) i shall do better to watch televised Mass each day. i shall watch it no less than every Friday and every Sunday.

 
may He Who is my God give me the Grace to fulfill this vow of mine, for it is for His Honor i wish to do them. amen.

today i got an email from CatholicCompany.com’s parent site: my sacramentals have shipped! :) now i just have to wait two to seven business days for them to arrive. just before i found their email, i registered with the church i’ll attend until i move out of the area. finally i downloaded my Catholic apps: iMissal, iPieta, Catholic Cheat Sheet, and some prayer/devotions apps (Prayers Lite, Devotions Lite Holy Rosary, and Catholic Meditations for 8 Days). looking back, i can see the steps that Jesus led me through so that i could finally get my apps. to Him i offer my thanks.

tonight i spent about $90 ordering my first two sacramentals from CatholicCompany.com: my very first rosary and my chapel veil. i give Jesus my thanks for providing the money for this purchase and for keeping adequate stock of them until i was able to order them. when i viewed my cart with my items, it said that there was only one of the rosaries i had picked out and a couple of the chapel veils left. not only did He preserve one of each for me, He stretched my money so that i could afford to have the rosary engraved with my other “name” — gracefulphoenix — and blessed me with a coupon for my order.

the name gracefulphoenix defines me. life and satan has knocked me down again and again, but i always rise gracefully from the ashes of these attacks.

here are the links for the items i ordered and one for some info on chapel veils:

www.catholiccompany.com/6mm-blue-pearl-rosary-p2011247

www.catholiccompany.com/floral-large-triangle-veil-p9002713/?sli=9002714

www.catholiccompany.com/content/The-Tradition-behind-MantillasChapel-Veils.cfm

the tradition behind chapel veils may be a Catholic one, but wearing of one is actually Scriptural. other Christians have abandoned this tradition, save for a token few women who attend services at a messianic Jewish congregation. (the messianic Jewish faith is essentially Judaism hung on the new Covenant of the Blood of Christ, not the original old covenant of Abraham, which Christ retired by offering Himself as a Sacrifice on the Cross.) i attended one of these services once and found one or two women who wore a chapel veil. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians about this manner in 1 Corinthians 11. he said that a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered is as disgraced as the woman who shaves her head (v. 5-6). man, however, being the glory and image of God, should not cover his head while he prays, prophesies, or teaches, while woman is the glory of man (v. 7).

according to the tradition behind chapel veils, girls and unmarried women are to wear white veils and married women wear black. because i am not married, i ordered a white veil. i usually keep my hair at least a little beyond shoulder length, so i decided to go with a bigger veil. and if the one i ordered turns out to be too big, i figure i can always fold it in half before draping it over my head.

hello. you may call me eternallyblessed. (that’s my online Christian name.) i first trusted in Christ in my early teen years after being raised in church with a primarily non-denominational Protestant background. today things are different for me. after seeing things that i know break Jesus’ Heart — things that broke Paul’s back in his day and after being exposed to the beauty of Catholic worship. after Jesus removed the veil that covered the Catholic faith, the veil that prevented me from seeing and appreciating (understanding) its beauty, and opened my heart to the Catholic faith, i have joyfully received that faith as my own. this blog is a record of my Journey of Faith.