USHispanicMinistry.com

I recently met Patty Jimenez and her husband Vince Olea at the Diocese of Boise Convocation. They are the founders of ushispanicministry.com. Below is information about their mission and website.

Accompanying the Diverse Hispanic Reality in the U.S.
We are just like you, co-workers in the vineyard, living our Catholic faith by walking alongside others. Over the years we have dreamed of a gathering place where we can meet and hear from those doing similar work. From leaders in the fields to theologians, we all experience the grace-filled mixture of blessings and challenges within the diverse realities of Hispanics in the U.S. In support of these voices, we also dreamed of a place that supplies access to a variety of resources and facilitates a network for the benefit of all of us serving Hispanic ministry in the U.S. We are pleased to offer U.S. Hispanic Ministry as that place.

Our Mission
U.S. Hispanic Ministry believes that Hispanic ministry serves the entire Church and accompanies all Hispanics in their lived contexts and languages. Contributing to this mission, we offer three means of interaction.

1. Unique and Diverse Voices. From recent immigrants who may only speak Spanish, to Hispanics who are bilingual and bicultural, to 3rd and 4th generation U.S. born Hispanics who may only speak English, U.S. Hispanic Ministry is committed to promoting a dialogue around the diverse and unique communities within the U.S. Hispanic population. In order to generate these discussions, we offer a rotation of lively contributors, each giving voice to her/his community and prompting questions, insights and challenges. Articles, Facebook interaction, Twitter discussions, and other exciting social gathering vehicles will help build community at a local and national level.
2. Resources. U.S. Hispanic Ministry is dedicated to gathering quality resources and highlighting established and new ministerial models, services, and offerings. U.S. Hispanic Ministry invites all ministries, educational institutions, organizations, catechetical publishers, and service providers working with and for Hispanic communities to join us by providing a summary of who you are, your logo, and a link to your website.
3. Networking. Networking at U.S. Hispanic Ministry may happen organically through your participation in Facebook and Twitter, or commenting on our posts. U.S. Hispanic Ministry will create secure and purposeful ways to network with and accompany one another.

By providing a comprehensive central website, we believe U.S. Hispanic Ministry contributes to the forward moving efforts needed to accompany the growing diversity of Catholic Hispanics in the U.S.

A Man on the Street

How often do we take a moment to notice the people around us, even for a simple greeting or brief conversation? The human dignity inherent in every person must be recognized and celebrated.

Emotional Virtue

Many people ask me, “What is emotional virtue?” They say, “I know what emotions are, and I know what virtue is, but together?” One time I was talking with a young woman, and she said, “I feel like such a mess inside.” As we began to unpack the hurt of past relationships, her lack of confidence, the pressure she puts on herself, the images she felt like she had to compete with… she started to see why she felt that way. I gave a talk one night at Benedictine College called, “Love, Emotions, Taylor Swift, Mental Stalking & Mr. Right” over 300 women came, and I knew I was on to something.

Over the past few years, I have come to realize that both men and women are looking for answers. Many women tell me, “I know what not to do… but what should I do? How do I prepare for Mr. Right?” And men come to me with a puzzled look, “I don’t understand women? What am I doing wrong?” or “I have experienced many of the things you talk about!” In a hook-up culture where everyone seems to just be “texting, talking, or hanging out,” pursuing a relationship can be more than complicated – we need a plan, and lots of virtue.

Emotional virtue is all about realigning our own hearts in hopes of realigning our relationships with one another. Emotions are not bad and shouldn’t be suppressed. Emotions and passions are good and give us zeal and “fire” for life! But if we aren’t in control of our emotions (harnessing them and training them) then they will control us; and when they control us, we are no longer free to love. Emotional virtue, therefore, frees us to truly love with an undivided heart.

Want to learn more? Click here for a 10-minute podcast from Sarah Swafford about Emotional Virtue.

Visit EmotionalVirtue.com.

Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb

The Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb are a contemplative community that enables girls with Down’s syndrome to respond to a religious vocation.

To consecrate one’s life to God, offering it for love of the weakest and most deprived of our neighbors, this is our vocation! By accompanying them, we want to enable young, intellectually disabled girls to offer a consecrated life to God and to the Church.

To allow those who have the “last place” in the world, to hold in the Church the exceptional place of spouses of Jesus Christ. To allow those who depend on others for their everyday life to take in charge, in their prayer, the intentions that are entrusted to them. To allow those whose life is held in contempt to the extent of being in danger from a culture of death, to witness by their consecration to the Gospel of Life.

The Institute of the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb, a contemplative vocation, offer young girls with Downs the possibility of realizing their religious vocation. This realization is made possible only by the support of sisters without this disability, who have responded to a special call to consecrate themselves to God with their disabled sisters to form one community with them.

Today, more girls with Down’s Syndrome are knocking at our door. To respond to their request, our family needs new vocations. Vocations to share a contemplative life with “the smallest in the Kingdom”.

Together in work and prayer

Guided by the wisdom of St Benedict, we teach our little disabled sisters the manual labor necessary for their development. We live poverty in putting ourselves at their disposal. With them, we share the work of everyday life.

The office, adoration and the praying of the rosary are adapted to their rhythm and their capacities. In a spirit of silence, our prayer feeds every day on the Eucharist and on the meditation of the Gospel.

Close to the abbey of Fontgombault, we benefit from its spiritual support.

The Institute of the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb

The community was founded in 1985, and canonically recognized in 1990 as a public association by the Archbishop of Tours. It settled in Blanc in 1995, and was erected as a religious institute of contemplative life by the archbishop of Bourges in 1999.

The Little Sisters now have at their disposal a priory on the edge of the town. Here, for a period of vocational discernment, they can receive young girls touched by the spirit of poverty and dedication, ready to offer a whole existence to the service of Christ in the person of their sisters with Down’s Syndrome.

At the school of St Therese of the Child Jesus

We follow every day the “little way” taught by Saint Therese; knowing that “great actions are forbidden to us”, we learn from her to receive everything from God, to “love for the brothers who fight”, to “scatter flowers for Jesus”, and to pray for the intentions entrusted to us.

[Text from a leaflet produced by the community, trans. bat Ionah.]

The community was founded with the encouragement of Jerome Lejeune, and is currently supported by, among others, the Lejeune Foundation, according to this page. One sister made her perpetual profession last June.

Text from Laodicea.

Read more about the sisters here.

Chastity Project

Jason and Crystalina Evert have spoken to more than one million people on six continents about the virtue of chastity. After working for Catholic Answers in San Diego for more than a decade, the couple moved to Denver and began a new ministry focused solely on promoting purity: Chastity Project.

Although the two speak to 100,000 students per year, one of their dreams was to make chastity resources available to as many souls around the world as possible. Leaders (both young and old) from more than fifty countries have contacted Jason and Crystalina, asking for chastity resources to be donated to their communities. The two have authored dozens of chastity books, CDs, and DVDs, but didn’t have the funds to purchase the rights to the products and didn’t have the resources for global distribution. Upon moving to Colorado, Jason took the photo below of a few boxes of chastity books in a closet in his home, hoping that one day he would have an entire garage of them to send around the world. Scripture promises that God “is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine,” and we know that He always keeps His promises.

Not long after taking the photo, Jason received an invitation to present his ministry vision to the leaders of Stewardship: A Mission of Faith. He shared with them how he had created numerous resources, and hoped to purchase the rights to them, so that they could be given away or sold for as little as possible. However, he didn’t have the money, and didn’t own a warehouse. David Abel, the founder of Stewardship, simply said, “Come downstairs with me.” Jason followed, and watched as David opened the doors to one of his warehouses (below) that ships more than 200,000 products daily, and said, “I’m all in.” Thanks to the providence of God and the generosity of a pair of benefactors, Jason and Crystalina were able to purchase the rights to more than a dozen of their resources, and now are offering everything at up to 90% off.

Chastity Project believes that young people play a pivotal role in the new evangelization, and therefore invites them to launch chastity projects within their schools and churches to promote the good news of purity to their peers. As Pope Francis said, “Do you know what the best tool is for evangelizing the young? Another young person. This is the path to follow!” Those who minister to teens today have unlimited needs, but very limited budgets. Therefore, through low-cost resource distribution, media appearances, seminars, and social media, Chastity Project exists to promote the virtue of chastity so that individuals can see God, and be free to love (Matt. 5:8). The orange and green colors of the Chastity Project logo are from the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to whom the ministry is consecrated.

Visit Chastity Project.

The Porn Effect

Half of all Christian men say they are addicted to pornography. The Porn Effect's mission is to expose the reality behind the fantasy of pornography and to equip individuals to find freedom from it. Matt Fradd and a number of well-trained medical, psychological, and theological professionals work together to help individuals end their pornography addiction.

Visit ThePornEffect.com.

MassTimes.org

The purpose of the Mass Times ministry is to help Catholics get to Mass by helping them find churches and worship times worldwide. We do this by hosting and sharing the most comprehensive database of Catholic churches and worship times in existence. Dioceses, parishes, and many volunteers help us keep the database current. We also host the masstimes.org website that our visitors use to search for Mass times.

It can be difficult for Catholics to find a Mass when traveling or when it is not practical to attend their regular parishes. It is not always easy to find the right diocesan or parish websites. Mass Times makes it much easier to search for a Mass by presenting all the possibilities in a geographical area on one page. We provide worship times, church locations, contact information, website links and maps. There are 117,000 churches in 201 countries/territories.

Since Mass Times began its ministry we have performed over 150 million church lookups for visitors to our website. Mass Times cooperates with parishes, dioceses and bishops, councils and conferences to assemble the information about the churches. Mass Times only lists Catholic churches that are on diocesan web sites or information provided by a dioceses.

Visit MassTimes.org.

Are You Raising Nice Kids? A Harvard Psychologist Gives Five Ways to Raise Them to Be Kind

Earlier this year, I wrote about teaching empathy, and whether you are a parent who does so. The idea behind it is from Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist with the graduate school of education, who runs the Making Caring Common project, aimed to help teach kids to be kind.

I know, you’d think they are or that parents are teaching that themselves, right? Not so, according to a new study released by the group. (Chat with Weissbourd here.)

About 80 percent of the youth in the study said their parents were more concerned with their achievement or happiness than whether they cared for others. The interviewees were also three times more likely to agree that “My parents are prouder if I get good grades in my classes than if I’m a caring community member in class and school.”

Weissbourd and his cohorts have come up with recommendations about how to raise children to become caring, respectful and responsible adults. Why is this important? Because if we want our children to be moral people, we have to, well, raise them that way.

“Children are not born simply good or bad and we should never give up on them. They need adults who will help them become caring, respectful, and responsible for their communities at every stage of their childhood,” the researchers write.

The five strategies to raise moral, caring children, according to Making Caring Common:

1. Make caring for others a priority

Why? Parents tend to prioritize their children’s happiness and achievements over their children’s concern for others. But children need to learn to balance their needs with the needs of others, whether it’s passing the ball to a teammate or deciding to stand up for friend who is being bullied.

How? Children need to hear from parents that caring for others is a top priority. A big part of that is holding children to high ethical expectations, such as honoring their commitments, even if it makes them unhappy. For example, before kids quit a sports team, band, or a friendship, we should ask them to consider their obligations to the group or the friend and encourage them to work out problems before quitting.

Try this. Instead of saying to your kids: “The most important thing is that you’re happy,” say “The most important thing is that you’re kind.” Make sure that your older children always address others respectfully, even when they’re tired, distracted, or angry. Emphasize caring when you interact with other key adults in your children’s lives. For example, ask teachers whether your children are good community members at school.

To continue reading, click here.

Evangelism at 30,000 Feet

By Todd Aglialoro

Catholic Answers

I have a plane trip coming up, and with it, my standard pre-flight anxiety.

It’s not fear of flying (I don’t love hurtling through low orbit, separated from death by a few inches of aluminum and plexiglass, but I tolerate it)—it’s fear that God may put someone in the next seat for me to evangelize.

Some people—extroverts, probably—relish the opportunity to witness, but not me. I’m just no good at it. Give me a theological point to argue, an enemy of the Faith to fight, and I’m your man. But I can’t seem to work up the gumption to lean over to a stranger and say, “Hello there. Can I tell you about Jesus?”

Nor am I particularly good at explaining the very basics of what I believe and why. I remember once in high school getting into a lunchroom argument with the school atheist. He wore Slayer t-shirts and mosh-pit bruises, and would later be elected senior class president—an embarrassment that the student council soon rectified by impeaching him on technical grounds. (They couldn’t do anything, though, when the same voting bloc picked Wish You Were Here as our prom song.)

“How do you know God exists?” he asked with an edge to his voice.

From my mouth squeaked out the feeblest of replies: “Because he does.” Honestly, that was the best I could do.

I won’t be too hard on my ignorant teenage self, though. Fact is, many of us are more effective apologists and evangelists when we have something to work with. Cold-calling souls or giving a basic witness can be a much harder task than, say, responding to a direct attack on the Eucharist. As Chesterton put it, “There is about all complete conviction a kind of huge hopelessness. The belief is so big that it takes a long time to get it into action.”

So I’ve been thinking about what I’d say if, while several miles above the earth, someone were to see me crossing myself before eating a bag of peanuts and ask, in all sincerity, Why do you believe it? Ground-up, blank-slate answer: Go.

To continue reading, click here...

Bunch O Balloons

Does this sound fun to anyone?



Fill and tie hundreds of water balloons in minutes with our attachment that comes ready-to-go, no preparation necessary!

Find out more about Bunch O Balloons at Kickstarter.com.

Teenage boys want intimacy, not just sex, survey finds

 

(HealthDay News) -- The stereotype of the sex-crazed teenage boy may be dead wrong, according to a small study that asked boys what they really want from romantic relationships.

In interviews with 33 boys between the ages of 14 and 16, researchers found that most said they wanted a relationship with a girl for the closeness and trust. Very few boasted about sexual conquests or saw sex as a "main goal" in starting a relationship with a girl.

"In our culture, we have lots of assumptions about how guys behave," said lead researcher Dr. David Bell, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

"What this study tells us is young adolescents want intimacy and trust in a relationship, even though the culture is telling us they just want sex," said Bell, who reported the findings recently in the American Journal of Men's Health.

To continue reading, click here.

Mary "Pink" Mullaney

 

If you're about to throw away an old pair of pantyhose, stop. Consider: Mary Agnes Mullaney (you probably knew her as "Pink") who entered eternal life on Sunday, September 1, 2013. Her spirit is carried on by her six children, 17 grandchildren, three surviving siblings in New "Joisey", and an extended family of relations and friends from every walk of life. We were blessed to learn many valuable lessons from Pink during her 85 years, among them: Never throw away old pantyhose. Use the old ones to tie gutters, child-proof cabinets, tie toilet flappers, or hang Christmas ornaments.

Also: If a possum takes up residence in your shed, grab a barbecue brush to coax him out. If he doesn't leave, brush him for twenty minutes and let him stay.

Let a dog (or two or three) share your bed. Say the rosary while you walk them.

Go to church with a chicken sandwich in your purse. Cry at the consecration, every time. Give the chicken sandwich to your homeless friend after mass.

Go to a nursing home and kiss everyone. When you learn someone's name, share their patron saint's story, and their feast day, so they can celebrate. Invite new friends to Thanksgiving dinner. If they are from another country and you have trouble understanding them, learn to "listen with an accent."

Never say mean things about anybody; they are "poor souls to pray for."

Put picky-eating children in the box at the bottom of the laundry chute, tell them they are hungry lions in a cage, and feed them veggies through the slats.

Correspond with the imprisoned and have lunch with the cognitively challenged.

Do the Jumble every morning.

Keep the car keys under the front seat so they don't get lost.

Make the car dance by lightly tapping the brakes to the beat of songs on the radio.

Offer rides to people carrying a big load or caught in the rain or summer heat. Believe the hitchhiker you pick up who says he is a landscaper and his name is "Peat Moss."

Help anyone struggling to get their kids into a car or shopping cart or across a parking lot.

Give to every charity that asks. Choose to believe the best about what they do with your money, no matter what your children say they discovered online.

Allow the homeless to keep warm in your car while you are at Mass.

Take magazines you've already read to your doctors' office for others to enjoy. Do not tear off the mailing label, "Because if someone wants to contact me, that would be nice."

In her lifetime, Pink made contact time after time. Those who've taken her lessons to heart will continue to ensure that a cold drink will be left for the overheated garbage collector and mail carrier, every baby will be kissed, every nursing home resident will be visited, the hungry will have a sandwich, the guest will have a warm bed and soft nightlight, and the encroaching possum will know the soothing sensation of a barbecue brush upon its back.

Above all, Pink wrote -- to everyone, about everything. You may read this and recall a letter from her that touched your heart, tickled your funny bone, or maybe made you say "huh?"

She is survived by her children and grandchildren whose photos she would share with prospective friends in the checkout line: Tim (wife Janice, children Timmy, Joey, T.J., Miki and Danny); Kevin (wife Kathy, children Kacey, Ryan, Jordan and Kevin); Jerry (wife Gita, children Nisha and Cathan); MaryAnne; Peter (wife Maria Jose, children Rodrigo and Paulo); and Meg (husband David Vartanian, children Peter, Lily, Jerry and Blase); siblings Anne, Helen, and Robert; and many in-laws, nieces, nephews, friends and family too numerous to list but not forgotten.

Pink is reunited with her husband and favorite dance and political debate partner, Dr. Gerald L. Mullaney, and is predeceased by six siblings.

Women Made New

Crystalina Evert's site challenges women to "Face it. Own it. Heal it." Women Made New encourages women in need of personal healing, empowering them to become the women God created them to be. Visit Women Made New.

Invitation to Adventure

“This is what is needed: a Church for young people, which will know how to speak to their heart and enkindle, comfort, and inspire enthusiasm in it with the joy of the Gospel and the strength of the Eucharist; a Church which will know how to invite and welcome the person who seeks a purpose for which to commit his whole existence; a Church which is not afraid to require much, after having given much; which does not fear asking from young people the effort of a noble and authentic adventure, such as that of the following of the Gospel.”

St. John Paul II, 1995 World Day of Prayer for Vocations

It's Not About the Nail