Pope Excommunicates Mafioso

Evil.

Excommunication.

In a statement made on June 21st, Pope Francis issued strong words for people who choose to make a conscious decision to follow the ways of money, sin, and exploitation. The Pope is specifically quoted as saying, “Those who follow the path of evil, like the Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God; they are excommunicated!”

The Pope was speaking to tens of thousands of people in the southern region of Calabria when he issued what is the most severe ecclesiastical penalty within the Catholic Church: excommunication.

But what exactly does it mean to be excommunicated?

And how is it enforced?

Read more  here

All Things Girl Just .99 on Kindle

School's out and it is time for sun and fun! 

We're excited at Bezalel Books to offer All Things Girl: Truth for Teens--one of our most popular teen books--at an amazing price of .99 on Kindle.

As one Amazon reviewer wrote: All Things Girl is jam-packed with Catholic girl awesomeness and we think you will agree!

Contributors include best-selling author Peggy Bowes and the effervescent Heather Renshaw.  

So for this week only we are offering "Catholic girl awesomeness" for the special Catholic teen in your life!

The Company We Keep

If we are known by the company we keep, then hats off to one of my favorite authors--Laura Pearl--for the company she is keeping on Amazon!

Check it out:

Customers who bought Finding Grace by Laura Pearl also bought The Ear of the Heart by Mother Dolores Hart; Come My Beloved by Ellen Gable Hrkach; Past Suspicion by Therese Heckenkamp; and Frozen Footprints also by Therese Heckenkamp (which I am currently reading and loving!).

Congratulations, Laura!

check out Laura's blog at: http://mumsie2five.blogspot.com/

or follow Laura on Twitter @Finding_Grace_

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Hang New Curtains this Lent!

Did you ever notice that the Lenten season seems to come and go in the blink of an eye? All of a sudden you find yourself at Easter Mass wondering how time so easily slipped through your fingers. Darn! You had promised yourself that this Lent would be different. You wouldn’t be caught by surprise, yet again!

But already you can feel it happening again; you are not experiencing Lent the way you wanted.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can make the conscious choice—right here, right now—to stop in your busy tracks and embrace the Lenten season.  

Lent is a season of preparing for the resurrection of Christ—to be ready to live in that resurrection  

Prepare room so that he may dwell in your heart: Your heart is where Christ wishes to dwell and where his resurrection can be most noticeably felt. Lent is the perfect time to make room in it for His presence. If your heart is filled with unforgiveness, it has no room for Christ. This Lent do an honest, even painful Examination of Conscience wherein you ask your Heavenly Father to reveal to you any unforgiveness that exists in your heart. Remember that as God has forgiven you, you are also asked to forgive others.

Clean out the cobwebs: After an Examination of Conscience where you ask God to reveal any unforgiveness that you are holding, it is important to clean out the vestiges of cobwebs that may still be lurking in the dark corners of your heart. A beautiful time to do this is during a Stations of the Cross service. As you move through the Stations of the Cross and participate in the responses, you will find the cobwebs being dusted away and preparing you for the resurrection.

Hang new curtains: The room of your heart is now ready: unforgiveness and cobwebs have been cleared out. Now it is time to hang new curtains! Many of us fall into a rut in our daily lives and forget how to live in joy. You are preparing for Christ’s resurrection and that ought to bring great happiness! So throw out the old curtains of fear and despair and exhaustion and hang new curtains of joy and praise for the resurrection.

Get out the fine china and set the table: Company is here! We aren’t doubtfully thinking that maybe He’s been resurrected. We are certain in our belief of His resurrection and every cell in our body joyfully shouts, “He lives!” This is the time we get the fine china out of the cupboard to celebrate the resurrection. Our fine china goes so well with our new curtains!

Open the front door: Whenever we have company in our home, after all the preparation is complete, we open our front door and wait expectantly, excitedly on our couch. We can’t wait to visit with our company. The same is applicable now: let’s rejoice in the resurrected Lord and celebrate by the way we live and love.

 

Cheryl Dickow
www.BezalelBooks.com

All Things Girl: Truth for Teens

Heather Renshaw, the contributor for the chapter on vocations and motherhood in the new 2014 release of All Things Girl: Truth for Teens invites you to connect with her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

Come and join the fun!

Here is the FB page:  

https://www.facebook.com/AllThingsGirlTruthForTeens?ref=hl

The Twitter feed:

www.Twitter.com/ATGTruth4Teens

Man Up!

The ultimate men’s conference is now here…easy to attend in the comfort of your own home!

Jared Zimmerer has accomplished a herculean task and gathered some of the best voices together for Man Up! Becoming the New Catholic Renaissance Man.

Fr. Robert Barron endorses Zimmerer’s work and writes: What does it mean to be a man and a disciple? For too long, the Church's outreach and witness to men has suffered from a lack of coherence, vision, and zeal--a sad situation that has left too many men at the margins of the Church's missionary endeavors. Man Up! is evidence that a hope-filled change is in the making. Jared Zimmerer, with his "Man Up!" team, is boldly taking the lead into one of the great peripheries of the New Evangelization.

Catholic Apologist, Matt Fradd says of Man Up!: This book encourages men to become who they are—who they were created to be. Jared Zimmerer, and his extraordinary contributors, offer sage advice to a culture of men gone soft. I believe that it will contribute a significant amount to the renewal of authentic masculinity in the Church.

Perfect for hubby’s Easter basket—or for dad or brother—Man Up! truly is the best “men’s conference” in a book.

Check out the video, too!

Are You Setting Yourself Up for Failure This Lent?

This Lent I’m doing some different things. Or maybe I should say I’m doing things differently.

Regardless of my intentions, I’ve noticed that the last few Lenten Seasons (and Advent, too) have started out as gangbusters but then have really petered out. I’m reminded of the saying “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Talking with some friends, I’ve found that it is a far more common occurrence then most of us are willing to admit. We purchase the Lenten book, we buy all the pieces for the Advent wreath, we envision the holy and anointed times that will take place in our homes and in our hearts during these sacred seasons.

Of course, the more we plan, the more likely we are to fail. After all, 40 days is a long time to stay committed. It is test of endurance and we unwittingly set ourselves up for failure because we aren’t always realistic in what we set out to do.

So this Lent, I’m doing something different: I'm setting myself up for success.

This Lent I’m re-reading a couple of books that I have loved over the past few years; books that have fed my soul AND kept my interest. I’m not about cutting down bare tree branches and painting them and hanging Easter eggs on them (yes, that was one activity we did years ago that had less than successful results! LOL!).

This Lent I’m excited to pick up Nancy Carabio Belanger’s latest book The Gate and delve back in. It is such a great story and one that seems so fitting for my Lenten reading.

I’m also going to re-read Rosemary McDunn’s The Green Coat. Every time I read her book my heart is filled with a renewed sense of hope in all things. Perfect for Lent!

Last month I was invited to be a guest on Catholic Television’s This is the Day and talk about Young Adult literature. The fastest growing segment of the YA market is adults! This Lent I am reminded why that is the case and will be enjoying great Catholic YA literature—and invite you to do the same.

It is something I promise you will finish and feel nourished.