J.C.R.U. "Jesus Christ Redeems Us"

SIRIUS Satellite Radio has EWTN in Canada

2005-12-23T17:24:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody! Consider getting this with any money you get for Christmas: A SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Why? Here are some reasons:

1. You can get EWTN - Global Catholic Radio Network on Sirius ch 160 (y 180 en Español). It also has about 150 other channels, (including some potty-mouth ones but you can block those out to prevent near occasions of sin).

2. It works in the car. You can say to your parents (or whoever is driving) "Please, PLEEEAAASSE can we listen to Catholic Answers Live on the way home and use the cell phone to call and ask a question?" This will be very handy once Catholic Answers Live goes from a one to two full hours from 3-5pm in January. And if you actually start doing that your parents will spend about all their time with their mouths dropped open in astonishment.

3. Your Mom can finally listen to and call Dr. Ray Guarendi, Dr. Coleen Kelly Mast, or Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio on "The Doctor Is In" weekdays at 10am, and finally DUMP Dr. Phil. She can listen either in the house or in the car.

4. It works in the house. You set it up and turn on any FM radio in the house to 88.1 FM and you'll hear it. You can also change it to other frequencies if you need to.

5. You can tell your neighbors about it. They might be able to pick up EWTN on their FM radios from your place, too. What a great way to evangelize!

Merry Christmas everybody. And may you also have a Holy, and a Blessed Christmas.

Remind people: the birth of Jesus is why we celebrate Christmas. Sing "Happy Birthday" to the Lord on Christmas morning!

The Tickers

2005-10-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

You know the tickers at the top of this page are not ads. Even though you may be sort of accustomed to seeing ticker ads, these aren't. If you come to this page every day (even make it your home page!) and spend a few minutes reading these headlines, even clicking them to get more details, you are going to start understanding that the Church in the world is not only a lot bigger than just your own parish, but it's a lot more involved in the world than you will ever learn from listening only to secular mainstream media like CNN, etc. This may not seem too important to you now, but believe me as you get older, it will.

Nextwave Faithful - Young Catholic Radio

2005-10-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

BOOKMARK ALERT:

This post has some very cool links. Check them out! Why? Because they are cool. Why are they cool? Orthodoxy, which means authentic faith.

This is the site for Next Wave Live, which is a live, phone-in weekly radio show on EWTN Radio Thursdays from 6pm to 7pm. The host is Stephanie Wood, who first appeared on EWTN with her Dad Steve, on Life on the Rock six years ago.

Catholic Music is a big part of Next Wave Live, and they make sure you know that there is such a thing as Catholic recording artists by playing a lot of Catholic music. So listen! Add Catholic recording artists to your list, and tell your friends about your favourites. I mean, if you really are Catholic, why not listen to some Catholic music, too?

Check out the Positive Music list. It has a table showing secular pop music stars matched up to Catholic recording artists you might like. So for instance, if you like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, you might also like V'enna, Stacy Orrico, Aurora, Divinity, Zoegirl. If you like The Dave Matthews Band you might also like Fringe.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23)

“For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” (Matt. 12:34-35)

Does your music fill your heart with good or expose it to evil?

The most dangerous fear

2005-05-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

Is not fear of death, but fear of sin. How many Catholics do you know who are afraid of going to confession? Do you know any? Are they afraid of sinning? If not, why are they afraid of confession? From the Catechism:
1465 When he celebrates the Sacrament of Penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial judge whose judgment is both just and merciful. The priest is the sign and the instrument of God's merciful love for the sinner.

1466 The confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness, but its servant. The minister of this sacrament should unite himself to the intention and charity of Christ. 71 He should have a proven knowledge of Christian behavior, experience of human affairs, respect and sensitivity toward the one who has fallen; he must love the truth, be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and lead the penitent with patience toward healing and full maturity. He must pray and do penance for his penitent, entrusting him to the Lord's mercy.

1467 Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents' lives.72 This secret, which admits of no exceptions, is called the "sacramental seal," because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains "sealed" by the sacrament.

So, maybe "no fear" could mean absolution?

No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church

2005-05-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of people kind of slink out the door whenever this topic comes around in polite conversation. Here's what to know about it, so you can be confident and certain, when you talk about this topic. And sooner or later, you WILL have to talk about this topic with someone. You can count on it.Hint: click this because it's short and VERY IMPORTANT.

"Be Not Afraid"

2005-04-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

+ Requiem eternam dona eis Domine
+ Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
--------------

Rest in peace John Paul II

Now we can call him John Paul The Great!

In 1984 When His Holiness came to Toronto for the first World Youth Day there, My wife, brother and I lived inside the security zone for his drive from the Airport to downtown Toronto. This meant that we could walk around inside the security zone anywhere we wanted because we lived there. The paper had published two possible routes that he might have taken, but for security reasons didn't say which one it would be. There was a 50-50 chance we might see the Pope.

So we went to sit where he might have driven. Just the three of us on the grass next to the pavement. Soon, we heard motorcycles and vehicles, and then suddenly the Popemobile, slowly passed by us with the Pope inside it! He passed by us maybe 15 feet away. On the opposite side of the street was a police security barricade for tens of thousands of people.

As Pope John Paul II passed by the three of us, he turned away from the huge crowd, and instead turned towards the three little people he'd never seen before on the grass on the other side. As he passed by us, in a moment that seems me over 20 years later to have entered eternity itself, in my memory it seems it was slow motion -- he blessed each of us with the apostolic blessing of St. Peter given to him by Jesus, our Christ. Only then, after caring for the three little ones away from the crowd, did he turn towards them and continue on his Apostolic way.

As he blessed me, his ice-blue eyes looked into the eyes of a great sinner. I will never be able to forget the look on the kindest face I will likely ever have seen in this life.

Children, trust me when I tell you that you will take great joy in telling your children and grandchildren with loving pride in his great apostolate, that Pope John Paul the Great was your pope when you were young. You are every bit as blessed for that as I was by that intimately holy moment of his characteristic kindness to me in 1984.

I believe as Fr. Dominic of Mary Mother of the Church said today in his EWTN homily, that the Queen of Heaven herself, the most blessed Virgin Mother of God, came to him herself with the angels and saints to bring him home to her son, our brother by God's will, and our saviour by his redemptive sacrifice, for his eternity of holy reward.

Pray for him, young brothers and sisters! And Rejoice!

Phatmass

2005-03-19T22:58:00.000-08:00

phatmass.com - Catholic, Christian, music, games, celebrities, wallpaper and apologetics I think you'll like it.

Catholic News Portal

2005-03-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

You'll notice the new Catholic News Portal at the top of the page. It's not advertising. It's news. It looks like web ads we see everywhere, but there are not commercials there. Just news. And what's so important is that this is news that should be important to all Catholics. Especially at this time in history, laws may come into being that oppose the moral law of God. There are people working very hard to make these laws without even allowing the public to be involved. But most people don't even know about it.

Challenge: become a Catholic news junkie. Know what is going on, and be able to talk about it to other people. Can you?

My youngest son Chris talks about people who show an attitude he calls "Catholish." By that he means Catholics who don't really follow the faith. Only about 30% of Catholics attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Of those only about a third believe that Jesus is really and substantially present, body, blood, soul, and divinity--every bit as real as when He walked on earth with us, despite the accidents of bread and wine. He promised: "this is my body, this is my blood." And he keeps all his promises.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen said "When someone leaves the Catholic Church, the first thing to go is belief in the real presence."

Lord, protect us from being lukewarm in our faith--the ones who are lukewarm are the ones who caused you the most anguish of all when you hung on the cross to Redeem us.

Did you know that there is one prayer that God will always answer 'yes' to? With an honest heart, beg God to increase your faith and see what happens next.

Excellent explanation

2005-03-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

Read this short article, then carefully watch for anything said about the Church in the news, to understand what this professor is saying. It's very important to us as Catholics to be aware of how this happens.

Why Isn't Anti-Abortion in the News?

2005-01-27T17:52:00.000-08:00

This week as I've watched news coverage for the 32nd annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. In the secular news media (The big ones you've heard of like CNN, MSNBC, CBC, CTV, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.) at most I've seen a little text scrolling by at the bottom of the screen about the march. The only video pictures I saw were a couple of closeups of people talking.

The interesting thing about this to me, is the backgrounds of those shots.

As part of my work, I make videos of groups of people--sometimes large groups. I always include what are called 'establishing shots' in my videos. This is a wide angle shot that shows you how big the group of people is. If it's really a lot of people, I pan the camera to show clearly how many people are there.

Last year they had a Pro Abortion March in Washington D.C., complete with people like Whoopi Goldberg waving a coat hanger in the air over her head. When the secular news -CNN, etc- covered that story, they gave it lots of air time, and they made sure that they showed lots of wide shots to establish how many people there were present at that event.

It's very interesting that CNN and others don't do TV news coverage of the pro-life march in the same way. They don't show the wide shots of all the people. Not on CNN. On EWTN, they DO show how many people are there. It makes me wonder.

How many people were at the pro-life march? How many were at the pro-abortion march? Shouldn't fair, unbiased news coverage mention a basic fact like that? If it doesn't mention it, or doesn't even show it with a wide shot, is it fair?

In 2002 after the World Youth Day in Toronto, the Holy Father went to Guatamala, then to Mexico for the canonization Mass of St. Juan Diego. The official attendance count from the government of Mexico was approximately 12 million people present for that event. Peter Jennings of ABC news was saying on the air that there were "hundreds of thousands" of people present at the event. If Jennnings was talking about 300,000 people, that's 2.5% of 12 million. He was off by 97.5% in his estimate. That's a lot. For a world-class news outfit like ABC news to be off in estimating by 97.5% is pretty surprising. Was it on purpose, maybe?

There were people at that time who said about the 12 million attendance "oh, that's nothing, every year 30 million Hindu pilgrims come to wash themselves in the Ganges river." That's true. But that's 30 million people over the course of a month.

For the canonization mass of St. Juan Diego, 12.5 million people dropped whatever else they were doing, and many travelled from very far away to be there. 12.5 million people showed up to be present in the same general place over a period of some hours in one single day. There is hardly a reasonable comparison you can make with the annual Hindu pilgimmage to the Ganges. Apples and oranges, folks.

It turns out that the 12.5 million people who showed up for thar canonization mass in 2002 was the largest gathering of human beings for a single event in all of recorded human history. The second-largest gathering was the WYD final mass in Manila in the early 90s.

Did you hear any of this in the news?

I haven't seen the official count yet, but from the TV pictures I've seen on EWTN, (locally Shaw Digital channel 249--call shaw and ask for it if you don't have it already) there were a lot of people at the March for Life.

What do you think?

http://lifesitenews.com/ Catholic concerns: Canada & World

World, Pope, Vatican, Church
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/headlines.asp

Educate yourselves by reading these pages each day. You won't believe your eyes.

Cardinal Ambrozic asks to BLOCK SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

2005-01-21T17:03:00.000-08:00

Will Canada's government listen to him?This is very important and you're NOT going to hear much about it in the news, except for attacks on our Holy Mother Church, and on Cardinal Ambrozic, so please pray for both.

Anything you do hear about this in the secular media (like CBC, CTV, CNN, MSNBC, etc) is probably going to be kind of a put-down of Cardinal Ambrozic. Basically our Prime Minister, who says he is Catholic, has decided that Canada's public shouldn't be allowed to decide whether same-sex marriage should be allowed in Canada--

He thinks only Judges should be allowed to decide that. Problem is, a Judge's job is not to make laws, but interpret them. The government's job is to make laws. Mr. Martin is trying to escape his sworn legal responsibility to make laws, by giving that over to Judges. Some Judges are very happy to get the chance to make laws, especially about certain things, even though they are not supposed to. We call them "Activist Judges" because they have a plan to change the world to suit their personal opinions and they are abusing their powers as a Judge so they can do that.

He also acts and speaks like he thinks the Canadian Charter of Rights should be treated like it was law, even though it isn't.

Read this CTV story. Here's what Irwin Cotler did not say, but might as well have said: "Well, when it comes to the right of every Canadian child who is ever born in this country from now on to have the chance to be raised by BOTH a real mom and a real dad, instead of two moms or two dads, we're just not going to respect that kid's right."

Effectively, what he's saying is "If you're an unborn child and your Mom or Dad is in a permanent same-sex relationship, then you don't get the right to be raised by a Mom and a Dad, and that's the law."

Hey, they don't respect that kid's right to stay alive long enough to be born, either.

Get your parents to call their elected MLA and demand an answer from Justice Minister Irwin Cotler and Prime Minister Martin if their government is willing to offer children the the chance to be raised by both a Mom and a Dad instead of guaranteeing that some of them will never have such a chance.

Our government wants to turn that right of every child into a coin-toss because there is a very small group of people in this country who are very loud with their opinions, and a very large group who are very quiet and don't express their opinions -- or even do their patriotic duty to vote in elections.

Now is the time to ask bold questions and demand answers from our elected officials. And that is something YOU can help to do, too.

What do you think?

Cool Devotionals page

2004-11-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

A collection of Catholic devotionals from EWTN. Some are text, others are short RealAudio. You can't believe how rich our faith is, and this page starts to show you.

EWTN Open Line Call Today

2004-11-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

I called Colin Donovan today on EWTN Open Line to ask him how best to argue against the culturally prevalent concept of moral relativism.

In addition to giving me a wonderful answer (you can stream or download -- my question starts at 38 minutes), they suggested I mention on-air the refusal we Canadians receive from our Federal Bureaucracy (the CRTC), that suppresses our freedom of religious expression when it comes to allocation of the public radio airwaves.

Interestingly, Colin Donovan earned his B.Th studying with the Benedictines at the Seminary of Christ the King in Mission, BC. A sign perhaps?

Listen to the call, then add some comments...

Fr. Dion is Doing Great!

2004-10-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I went to Mass at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Cathedral, and had the great pleasure of surprising Fr. Dion when he walked in to the Sacristy to prepare for the 5:10pm Mass.

He looks great! He seems very healthy and strong. He says it's very busy with four Masses each day and six on Sunday. He asked me to read for the Mass which I was very happy to do.

After Mass, I spoke with him a little more and he said that he had just gotten a new TV for the priests' room in the residence. I asked if he had EWTN yet and he said he hadn't. So the long and the short of it is that Monday morning, Shaw Cable will be calling the Parish office there to arrange to get EWTN into the residence at the Cathedral!

Leave a comment: do you have EWTN at home? Do you know what EWTN is? It is a great resource to have in any Catholic home.

Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia

2004-10-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Last year, Pope John Paul II, our Holy Father, wrote the Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia - in English, "ON THE EUCHARIST
IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE CHURCH."

Especially because last year, which was the year of the Rosary, His Holiness addressed this encyclical letter to you and me, the faithful of the Catholic Church, we should all read to better understand why the Holy Father's proclaimed this Eucharistic Year.

Here's an idea: bookmark this link to the encyclical, and read a bit more of it each day. It's about ten pages long. Can you read a ten-page letter about how great Jesus in the Eucharist is?

Free 20MB @catholic.org email address

2004-10-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

Catholic Online Webmail just fill out the form and in a few minutes, you can have a catholic.org email account like this:

yourname@catholic.org

You can even set it up to work as a POP3 server for Outlook Express or whatever email client you use. Hotmail is the largest distributor of internet porn spam. Think about what you are saying by using a hotmail account--it's important.

People are listening to You!

2004-10-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

Since I started broadcasting the Freedom 2004 recording of Archbishop Roussin's address, there has been 2 hours, 19 minutes of listeners, 26 from Canada, and two from Japan. How cool is that?

This means that you guys need to record some more things to put in there. How about the Chapel of Divine Mercy? Make sure you have a nice arrangement, then tell me when you're ready and we'll pray it and record the prayer. I'll schedule it to play at three o'clock in the afternoon each day, the Hour of Great Mercy, and if you're near a computer with internet connection, like maybe at home, you can pray the Chaplet with the recording. If you get bored of that recording, we can make another one.

Think about it!

Age of Consent Law

2004-10-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

Age of Consent Law is 14 in Canada. Listen to more via Internet.

Fr. Benedict Returns!

2004-10-16T00:10:00.000-07:00

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR (Capuchins of the Franciscan Renewal) was hit and nearly killed in a terrible car accident last January. He's almost 80 and on medicine that keeps his blood from clotting. He was very badly injured in the accident and was unconscious for weeks and on a respirator for months. As he recovered slowly, his Franciscan brothers used their web site to communicate his progress to the world. They started doing this because there were so many people calling the Florida hospital where he was taken, it was threatening to overwhelm the Hospital's phone system, which was a serious problem. You can actually read all the posts they made nearly every day for months. It's a really amazing thing to read. You just can't stop reading pages! Then they started to make videos and put them on the web site.

You have to understand that they received thousands and thousands and thousands of letters from all over the world. EWTN, the Global Catholic Network, is after all the largest religious broadcaster in the world. A lot of people have heard of Fr. Groeschel. Have you?

The doctors said "it's a miracle" about his eventual recovery. EWTN Press Release Millions of people all over the world know and love Fr. Benedict from his 300 programs on EWTN over the years.

(Go here and search for 'groeschel' to listen to one).

There aren't many nearly 80-year olds who would start up a live TV phone-in shows airing on Friday nights. Even fewer after surviving a VERY nearly fatal accident. Well October 24th, Fr. Groeschel is back on the air with a live phone-in show on EWTN:

Maybe you will call and ask Fr. Benedict a question? You can watch his program from here or on EWTN on Shaw Digital channel 249 Sundays from 4-5pm Pacific Time, starting Sunday, October 24th.

JCRU@Door: Photos At Last!

2004-10-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

FINALLY!!! 43 Photos from the Sunday at Door is Open.

Not too fancy, but at least you can see them.

Check this out soon because I can't leave it up forever: we have to move it to J-CRU's own server. JCRU-1 Andrea is going to let me know when she has access to get it onto this web site. Don't forget to remind her (:^O

Listen While You Surf: Spiritandsong.com

2004-10-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

In the summer I was working a bit late one evening and listening to Stephanie Wood, who hosts EWTN's excellent live phone-in interview radio show, The Wave Factor (Thursdays 6-7pm PT). I heard Chris Padgett give his testimony. He converted to Catholicism from Evangelical protestantism. It's a good thing it was after hours because I had some tears. He's really Marian.

Chris Padgett is one of the singer/songwriters on Spirit and Song. This free internet radio station plays quality Catholic Pop. Nothing like the lyrics you hear on commercial radio, for sure. Treat your ears, heart and soul and listen while you surf!

J-CRU Internet Radio is On The Air!

2004-10-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so there's only one song there now. But tune in tonight at 7:30 for Freedom 2004 from St. Mary's.

Stay tuned: MUCH more to come!