WHO: All High School students, regardless of Church or Religion

WHAT: The Theology of the Body for Teens Series

WHERE: Sung Sam Korean Catholic Center

WHEN: 10 Fridays starting April 9th 2010 (Next Friday!)   7:30 PM

WHY: For any and all who may be interested in this series regarding John Paul the 2nd’s Theology of the Body, we are running a 10 week course that’s fun, educational and potentially life changing. Find out what the church has to say about all things sex, purity, chastity, marriage, love and more. Have any of these terms interested you? (I know they have for me!)

A few Fridays to learn about something that will affect the rest of your lives! Best of all… it’s Free

Share your faith. Submit your prayers. Help others pray.

Sometimes, life explodes with excitement; other times life sucks everything from you. God cares about both and is waiting to hear from you. Are you ready for that kind of relationship?

Prayer is the lifeline of faith. It keeps us connected to God when everything else seems disconnected. However, regardless of how the ups and downs of daily life go, prayer is the lifeline to keeping faith alive in our lives. But, we need each other!

Liz Halfmann, a recent high school graduate who was involved in Life Teen, is currently compiling a book of prayers for teens entitled, Ups and Downs: Prayers By & 4 Teens, to be published by Liguori Publications. Liz invites all teens between the ages of 14 and 18 to submit prayers for publication in this book.

Please consider submitting prayers relating to any of the following themes:

• Searching for answers or questioning your faith
• Feeling unhappy, apathetic, and upset with Life and/or Faith
• HANGING ON to priorities in the midst of life’s chaos
• Finding Happiness, Contentment in Life; Living FULLY ALIVE with God

Prayers can take any format including, but not limited to:

• Original poems and personal song lyrics
• One or two line statements or questions
• Stream of consciousness
• Original artwork (including photography and graphic design)
• Short personal narratives

Regardless of the ups and downs life throws at you each day, you will find a prayer theme that matches where you are now or where you have been in the past. Feel free to submit about both present experiences and those of the past where you have discovered God by listening to Him in prayer.

Selected submissions will be published in Ups and Downs: Prayers By & 4 Teens. Authors of published submissions will not only see their name in print, but will also receive two complimentary copies of the prayer book. Multiple submissions ok. When submitting prayer, please include the prayer’s intended theme.

• To submit all prayers, email: prayers_by&4teens@liguori.org
• Facebook for more information and sample prayers
• Twitter.com/prayerby4teens for news and updates

Deadline September 30, 2009

2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.

4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.

6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.

7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise.

9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.

11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.

12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.

14. All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion of my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

Check out Matt Smith of Lifeteen at the Wolverine Movie Premiere. He interviews celebrities on what it means to be a superhero.

By Todd Lemieux, LIFETEEN Blogger

9/10/2008

I am a homeowner so I often find myself in situations where I must spend a good deal of money for seemingly trivial things. I never thought something so fuzzy, so small, so stinky, would cause such a problem in my house.

We have a shower in the upstairs of our house. From time to time, we find that we have to make minor repairs to faucets, drains, and water bearing types of all kind. This shower that exists upstairs in our house seems to have its share of leaks. In the past three years we’ve patched walls, replaced pipes, and even sent small elves into the walls searching for areas where wetness may exist.

When my wife called me at work to tell me that there was a flood of the kitchen, I wasn’t surprised. My only shock was that my wife had not yet built a boat and sailed out of the house entirely. Admittedly that would have been pretty funny, except for the fact that she had my two small daughters in tow.

I told her where she could turn the water off for the upstairs as the water continued to drain at a rate that rivaled Niagara Falls into her kitchen. This caused the walls to bubble, the counters to get wet, and the gnashing of teeth. As soon as the water was turned off, my faithful bride decided to call the plumber. He quickly arrived to assess the situation, only to tell us that we had to replace the majority of the pipes that were found in the wall behind the tub at the time.

“How much is this going to cost?”

“How much do you have?”

That was always something I wanted to hear from somebody who had come to work on my abode. I had a fleeting thought of simply writing a blank check and telling them to get the job done, but my wife hides the checkbook and I don’t know where it is.

I decided I wanted to watch the plumber for a couple of reasons:

In the first place, I wanted to learn how to do this so that if it ever happened again, I would be prepared. I was a man, dang it, and I was going to be the best dang man I knew.

I also wanted to make sure that when this guy charged me $400,000 to fix the wall that I was getting my money’s worth in gold piping and caviar dreams.

As he started to chip away at the tile it became apparent that there was an abundance of mold behind the tub, in the wall, and surrounding the pipes. It seemed the mold had been growing for years, especially since it had receipts for college loans, was growing hair, and had artifacts of the Ice Age embedded in its soft, warm interior.

By the end of the day, half the shower had to be ripped out and replaced with a nice, new, vinyl material that made my upstairs bathroom look like the Marriott Marquis.

This whole thing got me thinking. How much is sin like mold to our souls? Especially venial sin which starts out under the surface, barely noticeable, and most of the time excusable – slowly it grows, ever faster, fed by our excuses and justifications.

In time, the mold starts to grow hair just as the sin starts to bear fruit. We find ourselves becoming more angry, vindictive, and snappy at people that we used to be very patient with. In time, that small, justified venial sin grows into something more mortal, ugly, and deadly. (Yes, mold can be deadly.)

What happens when sin becomes mortal? We have to call the plumber. We have to call the priest. We have to call the expert. We have to call the one person who can reach down into our souls and take the mold and pull it out. If we don’t, then we get used to the sin and it eats away at our very lives.

Mold is gross.

- Todd Lemieux