• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Talking About The Faith Path

Becoming Like Little Children (Chapter Talk) When Jesus says we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, could He be revealing what we already are? We are children. What we call “mature adulthood” is often just a more sophisticated childishness: seeking control, always...
Christ Jesus' Grace It is true, only grace can bring us peace, bring us home. Without Christ Jesus, all I am is a cauldron of chaos, desire, and alienation from God and others. It is God's love, as shown by Jesus, that brings our shattered souls back to healing by the grace of Christ. I pray...
Silence and the Soul’s Rest Silence is a virtue. Silence is a prayer. Silence is misunderstood by many. There are cloistered souls who practice silence but are not silent because, interiorly, they are distracted, anxious, and chattering. Silence is your soul in communion with God. It is in...
A Heavy Blessing Getting old is one of God’s greatest gifts— a heavy blessing. This new body, unlike the old, limps sometimes, the back aches, and now there’s a balloon in my head. Yet I would not want to be a day younger. Each age I’ve passed through had its troubles; being young once was...
The Human Heart (Rites- of- Passage) Silence allows you to embrace fully the sorrow of your heart. Silence allows you to enter fully the sorrow I am permitting in your heart. As you embrace this pain and suffering, you are embracing Me. You are embracing My pain and suffering and thus entering...
Our Place in the Body of Christ Silence allows us to get in touch with our sorrows so that we can enter them and unite them to the sorrows of Jesus. Then our sufferings are no longer obstacles in our path to God but actually become the path to union with Him. When Mary embraced her Son as in...
Tragedy in Gaza One of the monks shared a heartbreaking story about a family in Gaza devastated by bombings. They were a family of twelve, with ten children. This tragedy reminded me of my own family. In one horrific instance, a bomb struck their home, killing the husband and nine of the ten...
Grace At Work Trust in God takes time in each life. We each grow at a different pace, but the Holy Spirit is patient and is constantly working with us. When we pray, it is the Holy Spirit that calls us. Distractions are not a problem that many people make of them. Some days prayer is easy...
Our Cloister Garden This morning, we experienced a brief but gentle rain. Our cloister garden, dark green and vibrant, seemed to come alive, with all the trees and plants looking 'happy'. For nearly 55 years, I have walked through this garden, traveling to and from church. During the day, I...
Faith Lived Out September 15—“Who could be happier than you, My Christians? The same Father—Mine. The same mother—Mine. And I—your brother. Bossis, Gabrielle. He and I (p. 41). Pauline Books and Media. Kindle Edition. If our faith is not lived out, but dormant, our understanding will be...
Stop Running Away Before reaching the wounds, we must discover our disorders. Acquiring knowledge of our wounds is a process. As we dig within ourselves, before reaching the wounds, we discover layers of disordered tendencies that are affecting our behavior. A disorder is any behavior that is...
Christ’s Wounds We have already learned that we are healed by touching the wounds of Jesus. Only His wounds can heal because, unlike us, He willingly suffered them with pure love and forgiveness. Therefore, Satan could not infect them with hate or any other poison. This means that Christ’s...
Learn to Endure “Jesus, I Surrender My Life To You Take Care of Everything” After my heart surgery, they had to keep me loaded up on some strong drugs, for pain, of course. I have never liked drugs; in fact when I was very young in the Navy, I was surrounded by men who were highly...
When Our Wounds Are Healed In Chapter Two—At the Foot of the Cross—we learned the importance of digging deep within us to pull out our entire root system of sin. Now we learn that, buried with our sins, there is also a root system of disordered tendencies, anxieties, and fears that are...
Receive the Brokenness of All People I asked Jesus how to live as His companion of love. It is easy when I am in prayer, and He allows me to feel His presence and to see His gaze, but during the day, there are so many distractions. Jesus said: Be attentive to each person you encounter in your...
Suffering with Christ (Not an easy lesson) The path that Christians are called to walk is not easy. The revelation of Jesus to the world is about the infinite love of the Father. To see Jesus is to see the Father. Jesus shows us the passionate love that God has for all of us. He brings to our...
Mark Dohle
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Letter to a Prisoner at Christmas December 13, 2024 Dear Gregory, I ordered the books you asked for. They should arrive before you get this letter, specifically on Tuesday, December 17th. I love Amazon for making it easy to send items to you. I will also pray for the new warden, as it is...
Live your faith in Advent Advent, for those who practice it, is a place of peace, contemplation, and, yes, rest from the whirlwind of the holiday season. They can give an answer for the season: it is the reality of the love of God who has shown himself to us through Jesus Christ. God became...
Being Thankful is not Always Easy It is not always easy being thankful, as we age our burdens can pile up, when cynical or bitter, it is difficult to see a brighter light, yet faith is a way of seeing, of being, based on a sober choice, to be bitter or thankful, a choice as well, yet, it can...
Not a Doormat “Jesus commands us to take our Cross and follow Him, but that does not mean we should condone abusive behavior. Allowing others to use us as “doormats” or failing to stand up for ourselves is to live in bondage, not humility. Jesus came to set us free from disorders, fears...

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