Prayer

Madge Winch came home this year.

Prompted by the Catholics Come Home television commercials that aired throughout the Archdiocese of St. Louis this winter, Winch returned to the Catholic Church through St. Joseph Parish in Farmington.

"I really came home, and I just love it," said Winch, who had been born and raised Catholic but left the Church before she was confirmed. "I returned because I saw those ads. It was like the ads were talking to me."

It was no coincidence to Mother Mary Salvador that she was admitted to the hospital on Feb. 10, 2012 -- the same day President Barack Obama announced his so-called "compromise" for religious employers who objected to the HHS health care mandate.

The Passionist Nuns' superior, who was treated for pneumonia and a collapsed lung, said there's value to be found in the kind of physical suffering she experienced. With all of the evil present in the world, it's especially important now, more than ever, to take human suffering and turn it to prayer.

Litany for Liberty

INTRODUCTION

Christ the Lord has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Let us turn to Him in humble but fervent petition,

seeking the grace to root out from our hearts all trace of darkness,

and all that holds us back

from walking in the full freedom of the children of God.

As Christ is our great model for that inner freedom,

which enables us to do the right,

let us turn to Him with confidence

that we, too, may follow Him to the fullness of spiritual freedom.

As the creation account in Genesis shows, our Lord recognizes the importance of rest from labor and taking the time to enjoy the beauty and goodness of life and creation. Far from speaking of merely six days of creation, the author of Genesis mentions that the seventh day -- the day of rest -- is itself an integral part of the whole creation process. It is sacred time. It is holy. Rest and renewal are intimately bound up with labor and production.

On Sunday, May 27, the Church will celebrate the feast of Pentecost, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Mother and Jesus' disciples, as they awaited in fear in the days after His Resurrection and Ascension.

Pentecost is a birthday, of sorts, for the Church, when the Holy Spirit initiated the Church's mission, marked on the 50th day following Easter.

The archdiocesan Catholic Renewal Center is organizing several events to celebrate the feast.

PHOENIX -- As Manny Yrique prayed before the Blessed Sacrament, his heart was burdened with concerns about the United States and the level of animosity in American discourse.

"I knelt down to pray and I was overwhelmed by the feeling that Our Lord wanted me to pray a rosary," Yrique said. "I felt him telling me, 'Take it to my mother.'"

He pulled out his rosary beads and as he began to pray, he was struck by the realization that each of the 50 Hail Mary prayers of the rosary could be offered for one of the 50 United States.