Deacon Richard Pryor of CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Michigan, has been blessed with a new truck weeks after his vehicle was totaled while helping to stop a man who attempted to carry out a mass shooting during the church's worship service on June 22.

A police report cited by the Detroit Free Press states that 31-year-old Brian Browning, who was fatally shot by a member of the church’s security team, was witnessed erratically driving a silver SUV before parking it on the west side of the church building. Dressed in camouflage clothing and a tactical vest, Browning approached the church entrance armed with an AR-15-style rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition. He opened fire at the church before being run over by Pryor, who was arriving late for church at around 11 a.m. that day.

Pryor’s quick thinking in using his vehicle to stop Browning’s attack on the church gave the congregation’s security time to take him down while getting members to safety.

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Pope Leo XIV brings to the papacy his roots in the United States, an Augustinian religious vocation, decades of ministry in a poor diocese in Peru, and service to Pope Francis at the Vatican. He began his papacy by calling for peace, mercy, and justice in our hurting world. He spoke of the importance of building bridges and has a track record of doing so.

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There are people living on this planet earth who give lip service to the Lord Jesus, but whose hearts are far from him. They fake their Christianity to make others think that they are good Christians, but while, behind closed doors, they are sinning in secret, and they are plotting evil against others, some of whom are those who are walking in obedience to the Lord in holy living. Just like Jesus’ opponents, they are jealous of the truly righteous, and so they hate them, and they want to destroy them any which way possible.

These are people who are, by nature, liars, manipulators, the addictive, the unfaithful, and abusers who put on a mask (pretense) to cover up who they really are and what it is they are really doing when no one else is watching. So they perform for an audience, and they may even be people who lie to get the sympathies of others, posing as though they are the victims, but they are the perpetrators. For these are people for whom lying, trickery, and deception are what they practice, to present a false image of themselves.

In character, many of these people are morally corrupt, malicious, liars, egocentric, opportunistic, cunning, crafty, and predatory, who catch people in their webs of deceit. And many of them are those who are teachers of the Scriptures and ministers of “the gospel” who are altering and diluting the truth of the gospel to make it more appealing and acceptable to human flesh and to the ungodly. And so they teach God’s grace as though it is a free ride to heaven with no requirements for death to sin and obedience to God.

Many of them are chameleons who blend in with their environment and who wear many “different hats,” i.e. characters. For they like to be approved of others, and they seek attention, and they want praise. And so they feed off the attention and the approval of others. And so if someone comes along who confronts them with their sinful practices, and who calls them to biblical repentance, and to walks of obedience to the Lord, and who can see through their façade, they may find a way to try to discredit those people.

Now the people being spoken of here are not generally those who make no professions of faith in Jesus Christ, but they are among those who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their lives, and some of them are pastors. Some of them know the Scriptures well, and were and/or are teachers of the Scriptures. But they are those who look at their own characters, as talked about in the word of God, and at what they should be like, instead, but then who just walk away and willfully choose to forget what they look like.

They know the right way. They know that they are not walking on the right path. But because they do not want to let go of their sins and their pride and their sinful rebellion against God, they willfully choose to play ignorant. But they are not ignorant. They just choose to block out what they do not want to accept, like the man who sees what he looks like but then who just walks away and willfully chooses to forget the truth about himself, so that he can keep on living in deliberate and habitual sin against God and other people.

So, what is this perfect law that we are to look into? It is the law of God’s grace and mercy which sent Jesus to the cross to die. But in his death he put our sins to death with him so that, by faith in him, we will die to sin and we will now obey him and his commandments. For this is not liberty to now live however we want, without punishment, but this is liberty from our slavery to sin so we will now serve God with our lives. We are now to be those who listen and who obey, who not just hear, but who do what God requires.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]

My Sheep

Based off John 10:1-30 NIV
An Original Work / June 24, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

My sheep hear me. They know me.
They listen to my voice and obey.
I call them and lead them.
They know my voice, so they follow me.
They will never follow strangers.
They will run away from them.
The voice of a stranger they know not;
They do not follow him.

So, I tell you the truth that
I am the gate, so you enter in.
Whoever does enter
Will find forgiveness and will be saved.
Nonetheless whoever enters
Not by the gate; other way,
He is the thief and a robber.
Listen not, the sheep to him.

Oh, I am the Good Shepherd,
Who laid his own life down for the sheep.
I know them. They know me.
They will live with me eternally.
The thief only comes to steal and
Kill and to destroy the church.
I have come to give you life that
You may have it to the full…

They know my voice, so they follow me.

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Hearers Who Delude Themselves
An Original Work / July 15, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Please strong prayers for my doctor. His name is John. He is very ill and we are very worried about him. Please pray for healing and for his stress. Also please pray my husband comes home safe and my son has a good happy night. Thank you and God bless you. I ask in the name of Jesus and if it is God's will. Carmen

St. Catherine of Siena is counted among the thirty-seven Doctors of the Church and is one of the most respected and revered woman in all church history. She was a mostly-illiterate laywoman, a third-order Dominican who worked among the sick and poor. She is revered not only for her deep piety and spiritual wisdom, but for using her supernatural skills of persuasion to mediate conflicts among the most powerful men of the 14th century, ultimately persuading the Pope Gregory XI to return the seat of the church from Avignon to Rome. She lived only 33 years, but in that time exerted and outsized influence on the church, and continues to inspire through her Dialoguesand letters.

Here's her head.

Continued below.

It is 2008, it is my 16th wedding anniversary, and I am walking into the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to pray for a miracle. I am about to turn in my letter of resignation from a dream job in Washington, DC. I am about to give up a forty percent raise, wonderful friends, and the best parish I have ever joined. So, I make my way past various side chapels until I find the statute of Our Lady of Sorrows. I kneel down. I am in tears. I pray for a last-minute miracle.

Why am I resigning? As much as I love DC, my wife hates DC. So, months ago, I began to pray that God somehow would change her mind. I’m praying, praying, but nothing changes at all.

Eventually, after a couple months with no results, I say to my wife, “Honey, I’ve been really praying for you that you can grow to love Washington DC. I just want to let you know. I’ve been praying every day for that.” And she says, “Well, that’s interesting. Have you asked God what God wants?” My first thought was, “No. I haven’t done that.” Next, I thought, “I don’t want to ask God what God wants. What if God wants me to go back to Los Angeles? That’s the last thing I want.” I was afraid to pray. But after maybe three weeks, I thought, “God is all knowing and all loving, and maybe I should check-in with God just to see.”

So, I finally prayed to ask God what God wanted. I pretty much came to conviction right away that my family ought to move back to Los Angeles.

I’d like to tell you that when I got back to Los Angeles, I was a happy camper, and that everything was going great. But that would be a lie. In fact, I was miserable and dejected, missing my friends and missing lots of things about DC.

So, I did what every scholar would do with a serious question. I googled, “how to be happier.”

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LONDON (AP) — Scarlet uniforms flashed against the riverbank. Wooden skiffs glided in formation. A young swan, gently lifted from the water, was measured, inspected and released.

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St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore — founded 1791 — is helping its seminarians become the best priests they can be.

St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore — founded 1791 — may be the oldest seminary in the country, but its approach to helping its seminarians become the best priests they can be is very new.

When Sulpician Father Phillip Brown took leadership of the seminary as rector in 2016, he came on a mission to revamp the way it trains priests. After a period of thorough observation, seminary leadership realized that St. Mary’s had a problem. While — true to its reputation — its academic programs were strong, they concluded that an overemphasis on study was causing other important aspects of the seminarians’ training to fall by the wayside.

While courses on Scripture, moral theology, and Church history are essential to make priests effective teachers and witnesses to the Gospel, knowledge alone is not enough. Father Brown recognized that the seminary could be doing more to raise up priests who are holy, well-adjusted and able to care for their people.

Seminarians from dioceses like Buffalo, Louisville, Richmond, and even Kumbo, Cameroon, spend their final four years before ordination at St. Mary’s. The new approach has resonated with them.

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Genesis 1:1
Gen. 1:1
Gen 1:1
Gn. 1:1
Gn 1:1

Revelation 1:1
Apocalypse 1:1
Apocalypse of John 1:1
Apoc. 1:1
Apoc 1:1

Psalm 50:1
Psalm 50:1 KJV1611
Psalm 50:1 LXX

Wisdom 1:1 NRSV
Sirach 1:1 RSV
Ecclesiasticus 1:1 NRSV
Tobit 1:1 VULG
Baruch 1:1 DRC
Psalm 151:1 NRSV
Psalm 151:1 LXX
Prayer of Azariah 1:1 NRSV
Prayer of Azariah 1:1 KJV
3 Kingdoms 1:1
4 Kingdoms 1:1 LXX
1 Maccabees 1:1 NRSV
2 Maccabees 1:1 NRSV
3 Maccabees 1:1 NRSV
4 Maccabees 1:1 LXX

1 John 5:7
1 John 5:7 YLT

Song of Solomon 1:1
Canticle of Canticles 1:1
Song of Songs 1:1

Ezra 1:1
Esdras 1:1
1 Esdras 1:1 NRSV
2 Esdras 1:1 NRSV

1 Pet 4:6 " Because it was for this that the good tidings were proclaimed to the dead, that though judged in flesh according to human beings they might live in spirit according to God"
This passage is talking about non believers who had died, but the good tidings, or gospel was proclaimed to them so that they might live in spirit according to God.
Why would God allow the preaching to the dead if they could not respond? Does God just tease them knowing that their fate is sealed?
Can the death of the mortal body not be the end of the story for those who never saw Jesus for who he really is?

While Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary specifically caters to older vocations, many other seminaries have a significant portion of their seminarians made up of older vocations.

Deacon Brian Delaney has begun his final year at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts. He hopes to be ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston in 2025.

While serving in the U.S. Navy, he first felt the call to become more involved in the Church — and eventually decided to “get rid of everything” and enter seminary. His time there has been “absolutely wonderful,” he told the Register. As a priest, he wants “to be the best spiritual father than I can be.”

While Deacon Delaney’s enthusiasm and desire to serve may be common among many seminarians, his personal journey is somewhat less so: He’s a widowed 63-year-old with an adult daughter who decided to enter seminary after retiring from a 40-year career in the military and defense industry.

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I came across this short daily devotional on YouTube that is great for starting your day before work. I listen while I am getting ready and having coffee. It prepares my heart before my quiet time with God.


The prayer offers a time of peace and meditation on God's word and how it impacts your life. Let me know if you guys have any other recommendations! I'd love to try anything!

House GOP blocks Dem maneuver to force release of Epstein files​

What happened: The House Rules Committee, which prepares legislation for votes on the House floor, voted 5 to 6 against attaching Khanna's amendment to a procedural measure related to the GENIUS Act and a defense funding bill.

• The measure would have forced Attorney General Pam Bondi to publish all documents related to Epstein on a "publicly accessible website" within 30 days of procedural measure being enacted.

...
In a rare move, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) crossed over and voted with the panel's four Democrats in favor of attaching the amendment.

• He told Axios earlier on Monday: "The public's been asking for it. I think there are files. All of a sudden not to have files is a little strange, We'll see how it plays out ... I think the president will do the right thing."

FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) — Flames roared through an assisted-living facility in Massachusetts, killing nine people and trapping residents inside, including some who leaned out of windows and screamed for help, authorities said Monday. At least 30 people were hurt.

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Michelle Obama was recently pontificating on her podcast about the alleged difficulty of being a woman in the modern world:

“We weren’t raised with the certainty of maleness… That kind of confidence that young men in their 30s have, which they haven’t earned. They just have it.”

Click to expand...

But men weren’t “raised with” confidence either. Rather, there is a certain amount of assertiveness that comes naturally to men. They have a hormonal framework that is different, as is the way that men think. It is a mistake to reduce nature to mere “social construct,” as if every difference between men and women is imposed by a meddling society that yearns to oppress women. We therefore err when we claim that men are more assertive because they have been raised to be such, and imply that women in the modern age were either deprived of such ‘training’ or were taught to display doubt, indecisiveness, and anxiety.

Michelle went on to claim that society “discourages” women from expressing confidence, even when their experience level would justify it. There’s a conflation happening here. It is widely agreed that exuded confidence is attractive to both sexes. What is actually “discouraged by society” is acting rudely or overbearingly, including when one thinks themselves better than others because of real or imagined accomplishments. Likewise, women over-compensating with misplaced aggression when in traditionally male roles is discouraged albeit common (that female police officer isn’t giving you a warning).

Continued below.

*You are in the Catholic forum*

Our Lord teaches that no worship can be acceptable while we harbour malice in our hearts, or stand outside the unity of the Church.​

Editor’s Notes
​

In this section, Fr. Coleridge tells us…

• How Christ declares that charity is a condition for offering anything to God.
• That peace with our neighbour is necessary even for entering into divine worship.
• Why interior bitterness or schism renders all acts of zeal unacceptable.

Reconciliation, both personal and ecclesial, must precede sacrifice if we are truly to worship God.

For more context on this section, and its place in the Gospel and the Liturgy, see the previous part.

See also here:

Anger is not always a sin, nor is revenge: St Thomas​

https://www.wmreview.org/p/anger-is-not-always-a-sin-nor-is
Continued below.

Spoke to my priest regarding baptism of my son after mass and unexpectedly got called out for my tattoos.. It was awesome. He said “You do understand there are certain spiritual ramifications for tattoos, right? Have you ever seen Fr Rippergers talks about them?” He continued: “They can be a source of visual scandal, so ensure you are dressed modestly so as to convey an outward sign of an inward change. I will also be looking into the prayers of decommissioning for them that I will perform on you.” This man was taught by Fr. Ripperger and I experienced that in real time today. Some people might have been offended by this, but this kind of ‘hard’ truth really spoke to my soul. In all of us as men is the desire to be called out by men we respect. That happened to me and it was intensely refreshing. And I’m very much looking forward to getting them decommissioned. Glory to Jesus Christ and thank God for loving priests that take their vocation seriously.

Tattoos & the Catholic Church

'The message speaks about the practical apostasy of our time that is the going away from Christ by so many in the Church and the violence and death which are its fruit,' said Cardinal Burke.

The message of Fatima relates to the “practical apostasy of our time,” Cardinal Raymond Burke said this weekend.

Offering Mass on Sunday to mark the 108th anniversary of the third apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Cardinal Burke homilized about the importance of the First Saturday devotions and the import of the message of Fatima for current times.


“The message speaks about the practical apostasy of our time that is the going away from Christ by so many in the Church and the violence and death which are its fruit,” he said.

Expanding on his commentary about individuals within the Catholic Church, Burke added:

Many – while they may not directly espouse heretical teachings – in practice reject the truth and love which flows unceasingly and immeasurably from the glorious pierced heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Instead they embrace the confusion, lies, and violence of contemporary culture. Their lives contradict the most fundamental truths of the faith.

Click to expand...

Continued below.

Three seminarians were kidnapped and a security guard was killed in an armed attack on Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary in the Diocese of Auchi in Nigeria on the night of July 10.

In a statement issued July 11, Father Peter Egielewa, the director of communications of the Auchi Diocese, provided details about the attack. He said the 9 p.m. attack on the Catholic institution located in Ivhianokpodi, Etsako East Local Government Area (LGA) of Edo state, involved “several gunmen.”

“In the process, the Nigerian Civil Defense Security official, Mr. Christopher Aweneghieme, stationed at the seminary was killed, and three minor seminarians were abducted and led into the bush,” Egielewa said.

The other seminarians have been moved to what Egielewa described as “a safe area until security measures around the seminary are tightened.”

Continued below.

The funeral of Matteo Balzano, a young Italian priest who recently took his own life at the age of 35, was held July 8 in the presence of the faithful — especially young people — he served at the parish in Cannobio in the Piedmont region.

The bishop of Novara, Franco Giulio Brambilla, who offered the funeral Mass, gave an impromptu homily marked by hope but with considerable effort due to the fact that he was, as he put it, “devastated by grief.”

Before the tragic event, Balzano had resumed his mission among the young people at the oratory of the parish in Cannobio, so Brambilla wanted to address them in particular: “I was struck by the inconsolable grief of the young people, the same ones who are here before us today,” he commented.

‘You always believed in all of us and in every one of our dreams’​

Continued below.

In context, both before this and following this, this is in reference to the Word of God (the Word of Truth). We should be quick to listen to what the Scriptures teach us, in the appropriate context, and we should be slow to forming our own opinions of the matter, especially in anger, for that does not achieve the righteousness of God. For not all of us were taught the truth when we were growing up, or else we were taught partial truths and partial lies, because what we were being taught was being taught out of context.

So, we have to be very careful to make certain that what we were taught, and what we came to believe, is the truth of what the Scriptures actually teach, if taught in their appropriate context. In other words, we should be students of the Scriptures who study them in the appropriate context, and who are seekers of truth and righteousness, who want to know the truth, and who refuse to believe the lies which were handed down to us from generation to generation. We should want to know and follow the truth.

Now, this applies in our conversations with other people, too, especially on personal blogs or Christian discussion sites where we are having interactive discussions with other people on biblical topics. We should be quick to hear and slow to speak and slow to anger. But that does not mean that we have to engage with profanity, hateful and spiteful remarks and false accusations, and that which is inflammatory against God or against the Scriptures, etc. We do not have to listen to such hateful, mean, and cruel rhetoric.

But just because we might disagree with what someone else is saying, it does not give us the right to be nasty and hateful and cruel in our responses. We can learn to disagree respectfully, and with kindness, and to speak the truth of God’s word, in love, one to the other, without lowering ourselves to name calling, or to false accusations against another. It is possible for us to have kind, thoughtful, and reasonable discussions with others without it turning into hate, spite, and to name calling.


We the people who profess faith in Jesus Christ are to be putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, and in humility we are to be those who are receptive to the word of God implanted in our hearts through biblical faith in Jesus Christ. And we are to be those who want to hear the truth of God’s word, and who obey his word, in practice, by the grace of God, in the power of God. We must be seekers of truth and righteousness who obey God’s word, in practice, which is for the salvation of our souls.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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Slow to Anger
An Original Work / July 15, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

When does the Biblical evening begin and end?

Human life is both a gift, filled with love and beauty, but also with suffering and difficult rites of passage. Most of these experiences are bittersweet, while others are very painful and challenging. I don’t know anyone who does not have them. Sometimes we may not recognize them as rites of passage, but they are, because how we react to them can lead to greater freedom or deeper slavery to our fears.

About a month before graduation from high school, I was trying to get to sleep, but that night my hidden anxiety about graduation came to full consciousness. For me, it was life-shaking because I had never really paid attention to it. I was both happy and deeply terrified about my unknown future because, at that time, in 1967, you either went to college. or you were drafted. Well, I certainly was not college material, and since I believed I had a monastic vocation, I just needed to grow up a bit, so the Navy was what I picked. For me, it was a good choice. I guess I was forced to choose, and I am glad for that. Looking back, it was not that big of a deal, but at the time, it was. It was also a rite of passage for my parents, who had their own way of dealing with another son going off into the world.

This inner split was important, painful, but also exciting. In my monastic life, these so-called rites of passage continue. Some seemed small but were important; others seemed large, but they were a tempest in a teapot. Yet each had to be dealt with. I still have many to go through, even if I only recognize them in hindsight. These events highlight the importance of choice and not just being pulled by rapids without thought.

In seeking to live out a prayer life, I find that it is not as easy as many think. Like any other worthwhile endeavor, there will be many hurdles to overcome. So yes, suffering is involved and cannot be escaped.

Prayer draws us deeper in, and what the Lord brings to our minds and hearts can be heartbreaking but must be faced. There is forgiveness that can be given, but the pain of the wounds remains, as well as the dark thoughts that accompany it. So, prayer allows us to stand back and observe in the Lord’s presence. If not, we can drown in the inner whirlwind that our inner wounds can cause, leading to forms of self-medication that are harmful to both body and soul.

The hardest rite of passage for many is to learn to love ourselves, which is why the Lord commands us to do so. Also, understanding that we have many hidden character flaws, but in prayer, we get a small glimpse of them. Until the time comes when we can face them with the Lord and work through them. This takes time for us to learn and allows us to grow in compassion for others. Lord, protect us from perfect people!

Prayer for a Christian is not a luxury but a necessity, for without it we are adrift. So, pray at all times of life, especially when we enter a painful rite of passage. The Lord walks with us, feels what we feel, but He can seem cruel at times. We are being pruned and must learn patient endurance. I still have a way to go with that. The Lord will never let go of us; it is we who ‘freely’ let go of Him. Trust is a choice, no matter how dark it is to trust. It is not based on emotion but a deep faith that is tested and grows in strength by each rite of passage.

There is always hope, always a path to be chosen, and as we mature and our faith deepens, these choices can be more difficult. Our choices lead to either healing or deeper enslavement to our past and the ways we self-medicate.MD