Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts

Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts

Reintroducing Logic and Reason to the Age of Sentimentalism

Spiritual Warfare

Lent is the perfect time to discuss the importance of Spiritual Warfare. I, as well as many often, whether they realize it or not, struggle with attacks from Satan and his minions. What is somewhat difficult to realize is that even with the realness of God, also comes the realness of Satan, for you can not have good, without having the exact opposite exist, evil.

When it comes to spiritual warfare, we must realize that it is a war that takes place over the course of our entire lives. Just like any war, it consists of many battles. Some battles we will win, some battles we will lose. We must always remember that we must fight each battle with our entire being. We must fight off that which is evil, in any form that it comes in, whether it be Satan, demons, or even in those that we encounter who constantly seem to be siding in with the evil ones.
We have many weapons in our arsenal that we all to often forget. When it comes to prayer we have the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), we have the Virgin Mary, Our Lady and Our Mother, Angels, our Guardian Angel, and all the Saints that we can ask for their intercession. We have Sacraments in the form of our Baptismal call, Confession and the Eucharist. We have many sacramentals in the forms of Holy Water, the Rosary, Scapulars, Medals and Holy Cards to name a few.
Its always important to understand and remember how difficult it is when temptation kicks in, that we absolutely must and need to use everything at our disposal to fight off the enemy in whichever form that they arrive. It is easy to give up and fall, but in the end you will feel great about yourself and know that you won this battle.
Temptation is always easy to give in to, which is exactly why its a temptation. Temptations are tests that God gives us, not for God to see how we stand, but for us to see where we are. God knows where we are in our temptations and struggles far better than we do. When we win, we know that within this struggle or battle, we are doing fairly well, we managed to hold off the enemy and it makes us stronger in the end. When we fall, we have to remember its time to get back up and get ourselves back in the battle. If we fall into the state of mortal sin, its important to get to confession, so that we can repair our relationship with God and ultimately be back in the state of grace.
Be wary always of potential attacks. Solidify your defenses and be immersed in God’s love. Ultimately, this will help you when the time comes and spiritual warfare begins to attack. We must never give into evil temptation when it rears its ugly head. Remember, the war is not over until we are dead, and if the war is won, our reward will be Heaven. If the war has been lost, eternal damnation will be our only reward.

Jeff March 26, 2011 Leave A Comment Permalink

The Android Confession App


The other day I had the opportunity to use a confession app for the Android device. The app is called “Guide to Confession” and is available for any Android phone for $1.99. This tool is not a replacement for confession, so do not think that this will “count”.

What the tool is more or less used for is an examination of conscience as well as a reminder for the sins you have committed. It has gone through a series of upgrades over the past couple of weeks and only continues to improve. There is an account system so multiple users can have access. It is password protected so that if someone does steal your phone than they have to know the password in order to get access to your sins. It is a very good tool as it has the basic questions needed to allow for a good examination before you go for confession.
I think the one thing that was most difficult for me was not being used to using an app for my confession. This made it somewhat
difficult to pay attention (which the app does make a very good point at saying) and I wasn’t used to hav
ing to have my phone out during a confession. I myself am used to bringing in the “grocery list” of sins that I have committed since my last confession and this was slightly different. I believe though, with practice and using the app more in my free time, it will help me and other users to
figure out the timing.
I highly suggest this app as it is worth every penny. Especially with it being Lent, if you haven’t gone to confession in some time, I highly encourage you to go. Lent is the time to do penance, and confession allows us to be forgiven of our past sins so that we can continually grow and heal from our past wounds that have prevented us from being all that we can be.
Another feature that I forgot to mention that I’ll mention here is
that you can do multiple examinations of conscience per user. To make this point clear, each time you commit a sin, you can press the add button. If I go through and hit a particular sin 3 times, it will remember that.If say, tomorrow I do it another 2 times, I can hit the add button twice and it will remember come time for confession that yes, I commited this particular sin a grand total of 5 times since my last confession. After you have confessed all of your sins to your priest, there is a nice “Sins Absolved” button that you can press, that will clear the database. As God forgives you of your sin and the priest has absolved you, your phone forgets them as well.

Jeff March 18, 2011 Leave A Comment Permalink

Ash Wednesday

Happy Lent! Yes, I know, its Lent, that means no more of those little things that we enjoy most in our life. But, at last, we are imitating Jesus, when He went into the desert for 40 days to be tested and tempted.

So, it being Ash Wednesday, today is a day of fast and abstinence! What does this mean?
Fasting- Eating only 2 small meals and 1 average size meal. This means no snacking in between meals. For example, I will be eating a Fiber One bar for breakfast (small), a cup of Shrimp Flavored Ramen (small) and probably a slice of fish, some veggies and something else for my normal meal.
Abstinence- This is the practice of abstaining from flesh meat. This includes beef, pork, chicken, goose, etc. You can abstain by having seafood (fish, shrimp, lobster, etc) or not having any meat, fruits and veggies.
Its important to realize that it is ok to drink. The only stipulation on this is that if the drink can be considered a meal, that it would count as one of your meals. For example: You can have milk, but a milkshake would be considered a small meal. This is important to realize. You can also drink coffee, unless, of course, you gave it up for Lent.

Hopefully this helps you if you have questions. For some reason its easy to forget what the rules of fasting and abstinence are, but its important for us to begin Lent on a good note. Good luck to you on what you gave up, and remember:
All Fridays are days of abstinence…so no meat!

Jeff March 9, 2011 Leave A Comment Permalink