TABORA, Tanzania — One of Africa’s newest cardinals affirmed that the people of his continent will play a leading role in the future of Catholicism, but also acknowledged that the Church in Africa faces serious challenges amid its boom.

Citing the incredible growth in the Church in Africa, which has 250 million more adherents today than 125 years ago and is projected to be home to one out of every three Catholics in the world by 2050, Cardinal Protase Rugambwa told the Register that it is “true” that “the future of the Church is in Africa.”

“What is the Church, after all?” asked the leader of the Archdiocese of Tabora, Tanzania. “We are talking about the presence of the people; the believers, the adherents, the followers. In Africa, there is no question that if you count those who have been baptized, with each succeeding day the numbers are increasing.”

At the same time, Cardinal Rugambwa said that the Church in Africa is confronted by “big challenges,” such as obstacles to forming quality priests to serve its people, the rise of Christian sectarianism, as well as ideological pressures from outside.

Continued below.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Prior to the second anniversary of a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its prior abortion precedent, pro-life activists said much of their work remains to be done.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, told OSV News in a June 10 interview “we realized quickly we have a challenge on our hands,” pointing to losses at the ballot box after the Dobbs ruling, with more such contests on the horizon.

“So after two years, there is still reason to celebrate because we know God’s grace is more powerful than all this, but also, we have to embrace the challenge that faces us,” he said.

The impact of the Dobbs decision​

The Supreme Court issued its historic decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022, a little over a month after Politico published a leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in the case. The leak caused a public firestorm before the court issued its official ruling and is seen as the most significant breach of the court’s confidentiality in its history.

The Dobbs case involved a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, in which the state directly challenged the high court’s previous abortion-related precedents in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The Supreme Court ultimately overturned its own prior rulings, undoing nearly a half-century of its own precedent on the issue and returning it to legislatures.

While Roe and its ensuing precedents were in place, states were generally barred from restricting abortion prior to viability, or the point at which a child could survive outside the womb. When Roewas issued in 1973, fetal viability was considered to be 28 weeks gestation, but current estimates are generally considered to be 23-24 weeks, with some estimates as low as 22 weeks as medical technology continues to improve. After the Dobbs ruling, states across the country quickly moved to either restrict or expand access to abortion.

While supporters often described Roe as settled law, opponents argued the court in 1973 improperly legalized abortion nationwide, a matter opponents said should have been left to legislators in Congress or state governments. Many, including the Catholic Church, opposed the ruling on moral grounds that the practice takes the life of an unborn child. Opponents of the ruling challenged it for decades, both in courts and in the public square, such as the national March for Life held annually in Washington.

Pro-life movement’s efforts and public response​

Continued below.

The Massachusetts state government this week announced what it billed as a “first-in-the-nation” effort to discredit — and steer pregnant women away from — pregnancy resource centers in the state.

The state’s Department of Public Health said in a press release on Monday that it was launching what it described as an “education campaign” to highlight “the dangers and potential harm” of crisis pregnancy centers.

Those organizations offer aid and support to pregnant women, particularly women in desperate situations and who may be considering abortion.

Pro-abortion advocates have regularly criticized such centers for what they claim are misleading tactics that steer women away from having abortions. The Massachusetts government on Monday said those organizations “often mislead [women] about their options if they are pregnant and dissuade them from accessing abortions.”

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Look at this! I found this video on YouTube, God takes control over Olive Garden and waitresses get healed and receive the Holy Spirit! The link to the video is below: Login to view embedded media

The U.S. Catholic bishops are expected to approve a document at their spring meeting this week that apologizes to Catholic Indigenous communities for a “history of trauma” caused in part by their “abandonment” by the Church and proposes a way forward that takes into account the “unique cultural needs” of these communities.

The draft document, “Keeping Christ’s Sacred Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry,” provides an updated pastoral plan to address the concerns of Catholic Indigenous communities. The preface notes the last time the bishops formally addressed these communities was 1977.

“EWTN News In Depth” acquired the draft document from a source close to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. According to that source, the document seems likely to pass in its present form without significant changes. This Friday, the USCCB is expected to vote in approval of the text at its annual spring meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.

In the document, the bishops note the contributions of Catholic missionaries and the impact on Native people, stating: “Today, many North American Indigenous Catholics trace their faith to the decision of their ancestors to embrace Catholicism hundreds of years ago.”

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France’s controversial euthanasia bill has been put on hold following French President Emmanuel Macron’s dissolution of the country’s National Assembly after major losses in this month’s European elections.

The June elections in the European Parliament saw major advances from right-of-center parties, including from France’s National Rally party, which made huge gains relative to Macron’s Renaissance party.

Centrist groups still command a majority in the continental parliament. But the results were devastating enough to mainstream politicians that Macron invoked French law to dissolve his own country’s National Assembly in order to hold “snap elections” in the hopes of shoring up centrist control of France itself.

The surprise move means all legislation currently under consideration in France has been put on hold, including the country’s controversial assisted suicide bill, which Macron earlier this year said might allow “the possibility of asking for help in dying under certain strict conditions.”

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Vice President Saulos Chilima of Malawi and nine others have been confirmed dead in a plane crash.

President Lazarus Chakwera confirmed the death of the 10 on Tuesday, June 11, a day after the military aircraft that left Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, en route to the Mzuzu airport went off the radar.

“I’m deeply saddened; I’m sorry to inform you all that it has turned out to be a terrible tragedy. The search and rescue team has found the aircraft near a hill... They have found it completely destroyed with no survivors,” Chakwera said.

“Despite the experience of the crew, something terrible happened to that aircraft, sending it crashing down and killing everyone on board,” he added.

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In 1931, when astrophysicist Father Georges Lemaître proposed the Big Bang theory — the idea that the universe expanded from the massive explosion of a “primordial atom” — some scientists “hated it, because it was too religious,” according to Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno.

“A lot of people said, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to reproduce Genesis,” Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, said in comments to EWTN News on June 11.

In recently recovered footage of a 1964 interview, Lemaître explains that the theory of the expansion of the universe was not accepted at first because it made the idea of a creation necessary.

Consolmagno added that “[Lemaître] was very careful to say [the Big Bang] is not the same thing as the creation in Scripture. It’s our best description of what happens after that creation.”

Dozens of astrophysicists and cosmologists will explore the Big Bang and other topics of the universe next week at a conference hosted by the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

Titled “Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Space-Time Singularities,” the June 17–21 workshop is the second international conference in celebration of the legacy of Lemaître, who is called the father of the Big Bang theory.

“The Big Bang is our best understanding today of what happened once the universe had been created,” Consolmagno said at a June 11 press conference at the Vatican.

Continued below.

The Vatican will publish a study document on papal primacy and ecumenism on Thursday that will contain proposals “for a renewed exercise of the bishop of Rome’s ministry of unity” recognized by all Christians.

The document, titled “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint,” will be released on June 13 with the approval of Pope Francis.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity put together the study document to summarize the ecumenical dialogue that has occurred on the question of papal primacy and synodality in the past 30 years.

In particular, the document includes responses by different Christian communities to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on Christian unity, Ut Unum Sint(“That They All May Be One”).

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You NEED to watch this! It is spectacular! God just shows up at Chick-fil-A, a whole family gets saved, healed, and filled with the Spirit! Then the pastor follows them back to their house and water-baptizes them in their hot tub and they all speak in tongues! MY GOD! This is amazing! The link to the video is below: Login to view embedded media

Please pray that The Heavenly Father immediately grants Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago Godly Wisdom to lead the city of Chicago properly:

Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s leftist mayor, is struggling

"Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." - Isaiah 26:20 - 27:1

Yahweh will come in judgement. That is very clear from this passage. But to His people He offers protection. That is also very clear from the first verse. When the indignation be over past, those who are His elect shall come forth from the place whence they have been hidden.

This may well be the meaning of Luke 21:36, "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." But can we safely say this means the rapture, and that we will be taken up as 1 Thessalonians 4 declares?

We do have Revelation 12:14-17,
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

Some say this woman is Israel, some say the church, some say both, and some say it's Mary. It has a threefold meaning, in that Mary who is a daughter of Israel brings forth a man child, who is Jesus. But from there on it is Israel specifically, and by extension the body of Christ, "the remnant of her seed" who are blessed with faithful Abraham, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:21) Point I'd like to bring out here is that these are all protected upon earth, ie: "and the earth helped the woman," and it does not indicate a snatching away here at this point.

Now when the verse says the earth shall no more cover her slain, we see this also in Revelation 14:19-20, "And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs."

And in 19:17-21,
"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh."

In Isaiah 27:1 we see the LORD has a sore, and great, and strong sword, with which He punishes the serpent that is in the sea. Here I believe He is speaking not of a sea monster or physical reptilian creature, but of the great dragon, the same as is mentioned in Revelation 12:9, "the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

That word for sore there means hard, severe, fierce; and it is also a great sword, and a strong sword. We see Jesus in Revelation 19:15, "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God."

With this sword Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of Yahweh, shall smite the serpent, the old serpent, the devil; and He shall smite the nations, and then, " many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." (Daniel 12:2-3)

Prayer to offer the Holy Face of Jesus to God the Father:
Almighty and Eternal Father, since it has pleased Our Divine Saviour to reveal to mankind in modern times the power residing in His Holy Face, we now avail ourselves of this treasure in our great need.

Since our Saviour Himself promised that by offering to Thee His Holy Face disfigured in the Passion we can procure the settlement of all the affairs of our household, and that nothing whatsoever will be refused to us, we now come before Thy throne.
Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son; for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee His Holy Face covered with blood, sweat, dust, spittle and shame, in reparation for the worst crimes of our age, which are atheism, blasphemy and the desecration of Thine holy days.
We thus hope to appease Thy anger justly provoked against us. The All-Merciful Advocate opens His mouth to plead our cause; listen to His cries, behold His tears, O God, and through the merits of His Holy Face, hearken to Him when He intercedes for us poor miserable sinners.

Amen

Jesus healed a man (B1) born blind in John 9:

7 “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

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After we were born, we went through a process of learning to recognize what a human being looked like, what a table looked like, etc. We learned to recognize categories; that is the process of classification. Jesus' miracle was not only fixing the physical eye-sight hardware in B1's optical system but also his neutral network software for object recognition. He did not spend any time learning to recognize objects.

Similarly, when God created Adam and Eve, they did not spend time acquiring a language. It was built-in in general. In particular, how did Adam understand the concept of death after he was created?

Genesis 2:

19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

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Adam understood the concepts of life and living. To him, the concept of death is the opposite (or the negation) of the concept of life, the cessation of life.

9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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I.e., the tree of life and the tree of death. Adam knew what life meant. He saw it, and he was living it. Adam learned of the contrast between life and death. Death was the opposite of life.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

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If Adam had not worked it, the plant might have died. He might have seen some dead plants.

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

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How did Adam understand the concept of death?

Adam understood death as the opposite of life.

See also When you eat from it you will CERTAINLY DIE.

When I was born from my mother's womb, a detached breath/wind/spirit of God entered my head, and I became a sentient soul. That divine breath became my human spirit.

What happened when I was born the second time?

When I was born again, the Holy Spirit provided an extension (the Paraclete) to reach my spirit, reconnecting the detached breath to God.

Humans are born with a detached ruach-breath from God that longs to reconnect with the Indwelling Holy ruach-Spirit. We all have this void that can only be filled by God. We are meant to co-operate (co-agency) with God. When Jesus walked on earth, he demonstrated this cooperation perfectly.

The following is not some abstract theory but my personal experience.

John 3:

3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, except anyone be born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God."

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i.e., born from above or born again

5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

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The Holy Spirit (wind) comes to you to cause you to be born again. It is an actual supernatural event that happens. However, you may not feel it in real time. I did not

John 14:

15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper <Paraclete> to be with you forever—17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

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If one is born again, he has the Paraclete Spirit dwelling in his spirit/conscience.

1 John 3:

9a No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, because God’s seed [G4690 sperma] remains in them;

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i.e., the Paraclete

The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in the flesh, Romans 7:

18a For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.

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Instead, the Spirit is connected to our human spirit, Romans 8:

16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

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This is the promise of eternal life, John 10:

28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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The Paraclete is a special extension operation of the Holy Spirit. He is the Indwelling Spirit. The grammatical gender of the Paraclete is masculine. He enables us to hear God. I can sense him in my spirit anytime, all the time. Every time that I do, peace fills me. I was born of the Paraclete. He is directly connected to my human spirit. This is not some spiritual metaphor but a spiritual reality. Eternal life starts now inside us. The last time I experienced any doubts about God was back in the 20th century

2 Corinthians 13:

5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

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When I was born for the first time, a detached breath/wind/spirit of God entered me and became my animating human spirit. The second time, the non-detached Paraclete/Spirit from God connected with my human spirit and dwelled there. The latter is a spirit-to-spirit connection.

Another term for rebirth is palingenesis or regeneration.

In terms of spiritual mechanics/reality, do you have the Paraclete dwelling in you? Have you been regenerated?

Can you sense the Paraclete in you?

A true believer has the Paraclete dwelling in him; his spirit grows and strengthens daily in the Holy Spirit. After the resurrection, he will receive a spiritual and glorified body.

See also

• When do we receive the Paraclete?
• Filled (G4130 vs G4137) with the Spirit

The far right’s election gains rattle EU’s traditional powers, leading Macron to call snap polls​

Link to Table of Contents​

Continued from Hebrews It! (Legal Study, Chapter 2:1-2) Pt. 7​

2:2 For if the message spoken through angels was legally binding and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment,

2:3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was first spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.
2:4 At the same time, God also testified by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts from the Holy Spirit according to His will.
2:5 For He has not subjected to angels the world to come that we are talking about. 6 But one has somewhere testified:
6 But one has somewhere testified:
What is man that You remember him, or the son of man that You care for him?

Psalm 8:1 Yahweh, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth!
You have covered the heavens with Your majesty.
2 Because of Your adversaries,
You have established a stronghold from the mouths of children and nursing infants to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I observe Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You set in place,
Hebrews 2:6 ...What is man that You remember him, or the son of man that You care for him?
7 You made him lower than the angels for a short time;
----------- This verse is about how Jesus was willingly Constrained by Love according to His Father's will
You crowned him with glory and honor
8 and subjected everything under his feet.
For in subjecting everything to him,
He left nothing that is not subject to him.
As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him.
9 But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time
so that by God’s grace He might taste death for everyone—
crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering in death.

With the imminent and unexpected departure of Joseph Donnelly as the US Ambassador to the Holy See, it seems likely the post will be vacant for a while. It would make little sense to try to ram through a nominee before the US election in November, and afterwards it can take a new (or returning) administration six months, or more, to work its way down to the Vatican post on the list of federal jobs to fill.

As a result, we have a cesura, a pregnant pause, which could provide a moment to rethink the US’s approach to whom it sends as its envoy to the Vatican.

I’m going to lay out here a modest proposal that I’ve been floating periodically for the better part of two decades, in the serene confidence that it’s no more likely to be taken up now than at any other point over that span. The fact I can’t get anyone to listen, however, doesn’t, ipso facto, make me wrong.

Both elements of this modest proposal are intended to expand the talent pool, as well as privileging competence and preparation over politics. I suggest the United States break with what have been two unquestioned assumptions about the position since full diplomatic relations were first launched under President Ronald Reagan in 1984:

First, we should end the bias in favour of political appointees and instead give consideration to career foreign service professionals.

Second, we should also break with the convention that the ambassador to the Vatican has to be a Catholic.

To be clear, these are US conventions, not Vatican requirements. Plenty of other nations appoint career diplomats to the Vatican role, and plenty also nominate non-Catholics.

Let’s take each point in turn.

Continued below.

When Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha turns 75 on Wednesday, he will be one of 10 U.S. metropolitan archbishops serving past the formal retirement age for diocesan bishops.



With Lucas’ birthday, nearly a third of America’s archdioceses will be led by an ordinary awaiting retirement — and three more metropolitan archbishops are due to turn 75 within a year’s time.

As presbyterates in Boston, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and elsewhere wait to hear who will next lead them, speculation about bishops likely to be promoted has become a frequent topic of conversation.

But with massive turnover among the metropolitans in the offing, who are some of the American bishops most likely to see themselves receiving an archbishop’s pallium?

The Pillar looks at five men possibly on the move.

Bishop Daniel Flores​

Continued below.

COMMENTARY: Malena and Narciso want to see a culture in which the brutality of abortion becomes unthinkable.

Malena Muñoz answered a recent call from the social services agency with her usual alacrity. Not two hours after receiving the information about an expectant mother of two who had been evicted from her rented room, Munoz met with the young woman herself. The heavily pregnant, visibly distressed mother opened the back of a beat-up van and showed Malena the old mattress she had placed there. Her plan was to sleep in the van with her toddlers in the suffocating heat of a Miami summer night, maybe in the parking lot of the nearby Walmart.

Malena’s heart broke, but that didn’t stop her from swinging quickly into action. By nightfall, the pregnant woman and her toddlers were safely ensconced in Lotus House, a comfortable shelter for women and children. Two weeks later, the baby was born safely in a local hospital, and a whole web of social services had been activated to keep the little family off the streets and on a path to a better future.

Continued below.

Saints are sinners remade in the image of Jesus. His love not only redeems them but also transforms them into channels of his love for others. Hearts, once callous and turned inward, are softened and opened up, making Christ’s saints into the flesh-and-blood proof of the power of God’s mercy.

Every saint is devoted to Christ, in whom the saints have found and received life, but some saints focus a particular devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in which they have found the source of all healing and grace. Those devoted to his Sacred Heart have allowed their own hearts to become like his in gentleness, humility and suffering for love. The list of such saints is long, but gazing even at some of them allows us to both marvel at the wonders of the love of God in Christ and draw inspiration for developing our own devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Continued below.

After the fall, God cursed the ground in Genesis 3:

17 And to Adam He said: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

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God's curse affected the creation. Romans 8:

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

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Decay and death have been the norm since the fall, but there is good news. Jesus will return on the last day and recreate heaven and earth. Animals will be there.