St. Barbara Young Adults

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila. One of her well known prayers is called St. Teresa's Bookmark. Enjoy it in both text and sung forms. The sung version is called Nada te turbe, a Taizé chant.

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

—H. W. Longfellow (translator).

Every month the Pope focuses on a particular prayer intention. For October intentions are:

Catholic Universities
General: That Catholic Universities may more and more be places where, in the light of the Gospel, it is possible to experience the harmonious unity existing between faith and reason.

World Mission Day
Missionary: That the World Mission Day may afford an occasion for understanding that the task of proclaiming Christ is an absolutely necessary service to which the Church is called for the benefit of humanity.

For most people, the answer is "not much."

The Pew Forum on Religion and Culture asked adults to respond to a U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. Most Americans scored 50% or less on a quiz measuring knowledge of the Bible, world religions, and Constitutional issues regarding religion in public life.

One of the surprising -- to me -- responses is that barely half of the Catholics who responded know that when they receive communion they are actually receiving Jesus' body and blood. (I wonder how many of the people who identified themselves as Catholic are regular Mass-goers and how many participate only occasionally.)

A summary from CNN is available here.

A 15-question version of the quiz is available here. (I couldn't get the quiz to work with Firefox but it did work with Internet Explorer.)

What do ya know?

Natural disasters never seem to end. Currently the people of Pakistan are dealing with the aftermath of the worst floods in living memory.

Catholic Relief Services is providing shelter and hygiene kits containing plastic sheeting, bed mats, soap, kitchen supplies, water purification tablets, rehydration salts and covered buckets to store water. CRS is also hiring residents in cash-for-work programs to restore clean drinking water by rebuilding water supply systems.

You can read more about the situation in Pakistan here and donate to CRS here.

Every month the Pope focuses on a particular prayer intention. For September intentions are:

SEPTEMBER 2010
The Word of God as Sign of Social Development
General: That in less developed parts of the world the proclamation of the Word of God may renew people’s hearts, encouraging them to work actively toward authentic social progress.

The End of War
Missionary: That by opening our hearts to love we may put an end to the numerous wars and conflicts which continue to bloody our world.

Do your friends on Facebook and other sites have any idea that you're Catholic? Do you sometimes feel like you're too Catholic? These questions are addressed in an interesting article called "How Catholic Should You Be Online?"

If you want to share your faith online, you might consider the advice given by the blogger, Matthew Warner:

Evangelism is about relationships. Don’t use your online platform (be it large or small) as only a megaphone (you’ll soon find nobody listening). Use it to listen, share and to build genuine relationships. That is a key ingredient of effective evangelism. It’s about truth and charity. If you have not Love, you are but a clanging cymbal. Clanging cymbals are not Catholic at all.

There's an interesting article in the New York Times about how people allow their faith to affect where and how they live.

The article profiles a Christian group called Radical Living, a Jewish woman who wanted housing close enough to her synagogue to walk to services, a Muslim who wanted roommates who understood her prayer life, and a Buddhist looking for a roommate who accepts her incense.

It raises questions in my mind about what requirements I would have if I moved. I like being close enough to the church to be able to get there easily for Mass, meetings, or whatever is going on. I would love to live close enough to St. Andrew's Abbey to be able to join the monks for Mass or prayers. Hmmm...what else?