The following are five music videos that I found to be extremely creative, entertaining and meaningful. I am sure they will keep the creative juices of the workshop participants flowing.

SOUR (Hibi no Neiro)

L’homme 100 têtes by JUL & MAT

Jesse & Joy- “Chocolate”

Pacovolume “CookieMachine”

‘Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man)’ medley – Corey Vidal and Moosebutter – a cappella tribute

READINGS

FIRST READING: Jos 5:9a, 10-12
PSALM: Ps 34: 2-3, 4-5, 6-7
SECOND READING: 2 Cor 5:17-21
GOSPEL: Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

VIDEOS

The first video can be downloaded here. If you don’t know how to download videos from YouTube then follow this link to watch a tutorial.

The second video can be downloaded here and the third one here.

HOMILIES

• A Love That Is Too Much to Take! [www.bible.claret.org]
  The story leaves us with the message that there are two kinds of bad people. The bad bads are those who have fallen through human weakness and who eventually come to admit it and repent. The good bads are those who hold themselves up as paragons of virtue and who self-righteously reject the lesser mortals who are tainted by human weakness. Another shock! The Lord is much more partial towards the bad bads than he is towards the good bads. The people who get the worst press in the Gospels are the Pharisees who looked down on, and set themselves apart from sinners. Read more…
• I will Arise and Go to My Father [dailyscripture.net]
  In this parable Jesus gives a vivid picture of God and what God is like. God is truly kinder than us. He does not lose hope or give up when we stray. He rejoices in finding the lost and in welcoming them home. Do you know the joy of repentance and the restoration of relationship as a son or daughther of your heavenly Father? Read more…
• Fourth Sunday of Lent [www.catholicmatters.com]
  For the vast majority of us, Christians, our message of consolation and hope is in the first part of today’s parable. All of us have, many a time, been prodigal, ungrateful, selfish sons of our loving Father. But he is still a Father of infinite love, of boundless mercy. He is not only waiting for us to return, like the human father in the story. He is continually sending out messengers to recall us and to help us on the return journey. Read more…

SLIDE PRESENTATION

The following presentation can be downloaded here.

GOSPEL TOON

By ReverendFun

IMAGES

To view and download their full size versions, please click on the images or the names of the artists/sources.

CLIPART

READINGS

FIRST READING: Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15
PSALM: Ps 103: 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11
SECOND READING: 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12
GOSPEL: Lk 13:1-9

VIDEO

The video below is about second chances, which is the core message of the parable Jesus told to his listeners in this Sunday’s gospel. Our God is so loving, that every time we fail He gives us a clean slate and a fresh start. That is because His only interest is for us to bear fruit. It can be downloaded here. If you don’t know how to download videos from YouTube then follow this link to watch a tutorial.

HOMILIES

• Do You Deserve What You Get? [www.bible.claret.org]
  Mercy is not mercy if it is deserved. A gift is not a gift if it is deserved. Gifts and mercy are what we get from God. Often the gifts are extremely well disguised – sometimes so well disguised that it takes a lifetime to recognize them as gifts! What comes to us from God, good or bad, is totally undeserved. But even if it is unsolicited and undeserved it calls for a response from us. These are the paradoxes of God’s ways of working with us, and Jesus is trying to grapple with them in today’s Gospel Story. Read more…
• If It Does Not Bear Fruit, You Can Cut It Down [dailyscripture.net]
  Jesus’ parable of the barren fig trees illustrated his warning about the consequences of allowing sin and corruption to take root in our hearts and minds. Fig trees were a common and important source of food for the people of Palestine. A fig tree normally matured within three years, producing plentiful fruit. If it failed, it was cut down to make room for more healthy trees. A decaying fig tree and its bad fruit came to symbolize for the Jews the consequence of spiritual corruption caused by evil deeds and unrepentant sin. Read more…
• Third Sunday of Lent [www.catholicmatters.com]
  The parable of the useless fig tree, while it applies directly to the stubborn Jews of Christ’s time, has a lesson for all time and for all sinners. God’s mercy is infinite but man’s earthly life, during which he can obtain that mercy, is very finite. God’s mercy can forgive sins no matter how grievous, but it cannot forgive even less serious sins unless the sinner is sorry and asks for forgiveness. Christ, our true mediator with God, is continually interceding for us, but unless we do our part by repenting and changing our behavior, his intercession will be of no avail to us. No man is lost because God so wishes it, but no man is saved unless he himself wishes it and works for it. Read more…

SLIDE PRESENTATION

The following presentation can be downloaded here.

GOSPEL TOON

By ReverendFun

IMAGES

To view and download their full size versions, please click on the images or the names of the artists/sources.

CLIPART

READINGS

FIRST READING: Gn 15:5-12, 17-18
PSALM: Ps 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14
SECOND READING: Phil 3:17—4:1 or 3:20—4:1
GOSPEL: Lk 9:28b-36

VIDEO

The video below can be downloaded here. If you don’t know how to download videos from YouTube then follow this link to watch a tutorial.

Other relevant videos can be found here and here.

HOMILIES

• Matching Face and Heart [www.bible.claret.org]
  The face of Jesus always showed who he truly was. On Tabor he was the divine Son of God; in Gethsemane he was a frightened human being whose face sweated blood as he was denied even human companionship. To be Christians we are called to be who we truly are; God touched but frail. Sometimes we have a glimpse of our being God touched. More often we are all too aware of our frailness. Read more…
• Jesus Transfigured in Glory [dailyscripture.net]
  What can blind us or keep us from recognizing God’s glory in our lives? Sin and unbelief for sure! Faith enables us to see what is hidden or unseen to the naked eye. Through the eyes of faith Abraham recognized God and God’s call on his life. He saw from afar not only what God intended for him, but for his descendants as well – an everlasting covenant of friendship and peace with the living God. Abraham is the father of faith because he put his hope in the promises of God. Faith makes us taste in advance the light of God’s glory when we shall see him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12) as he is (1 John 3:2). Read more…
• Second Sunday of Lent [www.catholicmatters.com]
  “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” it is wonderful to be adopted sons of God on the road back to our Father. It is wonderful to be assured that in death this body of ours with its pains and aches, its attraction to earthly things and worse still its propensity to sin, will give place to a glorified body. This glorified body will be free from all pain and corruption and will possess all the human spiritual gifts of intelligence and will to so much greater a degree as will enable us to appreciate and enjoy the eternal happiness in store for us. Read more…

SLIDE PRESENTATION

The following presentation can be downloaded here.

GOSPEL TOON

By ReverendFun

IMAGES

To view and download their full size versions, please click on the images or the names of the artists/sources.

CLIPART

The following is a list of online retreats made especially for the Season of Lent. All you need to do is to follow the guides and resources provide for each day/week. You also need to be solely focused on the One who seeks and invites you to spiritual communion.

SEVEN WEEKS FOR THE SOUL: A REFLECTIVE JOURNEY FOR LENT
Seven Weeks for the Soul is an online Ignatian retreat for Lent, based on the book of the same name by Gerard W. Hughes.

LENTEN RADIO RETREAT
Experience a “Radio Retreat” this Lent 2010 with U.S. Catholic bishops. Listen to inspiring words and songs for Sunday Lenten reflection.

THE ONLINE LENTEN RETREAT
Two podcast retreat experiences with Fr J. Roger McGuinness and Fr Timothy Canaan. Fr McGuinness is the Pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in West Chazy, New York while Fr Canaan is the pastor of St. John’s Church in Plattsburgh and the Diocesan Director of College Campus Ministry.

SACRED SPACE
The retreat is broken up so that you can have time for prayerful reflection, and also for coffee and lunch. Feel free to adapt the timetable below to what is best for you. You may wish to take a walk between sessions to ponder on some of the material. Then you can return to your computer and resume where you left the retreat. The important thing is that the time you spend on this Retreat Day is fruitful for you. May the Holy Spirit guide you in the way that is most suited to you.

DAYS OF DEEPENING FRIENDSHIP
This retreat will give us a chance to reflect on our daily lives and to prepare prayerfully for Holy Week and Easter. This retreat will provide you with an opportunity for spiritual renewal as you participate in the reflections and exercises.

JOURNEYING WITH JESUS: A LENTEN RETREAT
“Reconcile us to you, O God, that we put on the holiness of Christ and give you glory. Help us to live the season as true disciples on our way to transformation and fullness of life. Grant this as we journey to you with Jesus, our brother. Amen.” This prayer, adapted from the liturgy for Ash Wednesday, can provide a focus for your Lenten journey with Jesus.

LENTEN RETREAT 2010
A retreat is a special time to be with the Lord in quiet and solitude and to say: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” This Lenten Retreat will provide reflections from the Lenten liturgies and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, a “School of Prayer” that encourages many ways of praying.

THE LENTEN SEASON
This site includes both audio and video resources for a lenten retreat online.

READINGS

FIRST READING: Dt 26:4-10
PSALM: Ps 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
SECOND READING: Rom 10:8-13
GOSPEL: Lk 4:1-13

VIDEO

The video below can be downloaded here. If you don’t know how to download videos from YouTube then follow this link to watch a tutorial.

HOMILIES

• Not Settling for Pleasure [www.bible.claret.org]
  The extraordinary story that we read in today’s Gospel is a sort of Psycho-drama which tells us what becoming human meant to Jesus. It meant that he, like us, had to struggle with the temptation to settle for pleasure rather that to aim at transcendence. Not only that but the tempter wanted him to use his divinity to escape the human struggle. He wanted him to avoid accepting his humanity by solving his problems through miracles. He wanted him to settle for an easy pleasure, as we all tend to desire, rather than to aim at transcendence. Read more…
• Tempted by the Devil [dailyscripture.net]
  Jesus was tempted like us and he overcame sin not by his own human effort but by the grace and strength which his Father gave to him. He had to renounce his will for the will of his Father. He succeeded because he wanted to please his Father and he trusted that his Father would give him the strength to overcome the obstacles that stood in the way. Read more…
• First Sunday of Lent [www.catholicmatters.com]
  There are few, if any, amongst us who can honestly say: “I am free from such inclinations or temptations.” The vast majority of us can and should beat our breasts and say with the publican: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” And merciful he will be if we turn to him with true humility. He may not remove all our temptations, all our wrong inclinations, but he will give us the grace to overcome them if we sincerely seek his aid. Read more…

SLIDE PRESENTATION

The following presentation can be downloaded here.

GOSPEL TOON

By ReverendFun

IMAGES

To view and download their full size versions, please click on the images or the names of the artists/sources.

CLIPART

Today is Ash Wednesday and today is the start of the forty-day Season of Lent. As I have said in my previous post, Lent is about radical conversion – leaving behind our old ways of being and doing in order to become like Christ. Here are forty practical suggestions on how to make a radical conversion this Season – by doing a loving act each day of Lent.

1. Forgive someone who has hurt you deeply.
2. Say thanks to a tricycle/jeepney/bus driver.
3. Read the Bible.
4. Write a love letter to your spouse.
5. Plant trees.
6. Make someone smile.
7. Help your parents do the household chores.
8. Play your favorite game with your siblings.
9. Help an old person cross the street.
10. Cook for your parents.
11. Pray the rosary with your family.
12. Sincerely pay attention to your parents.
13. Make someone laugh.
14. Support a human rights advocacy.
15. Help someone without being asked.
16. Plant vegetables.
17. Give your extra shirt to a beggar.
18. Offer your seat to a lady or an old person.
19. Hug your children.
20. Learn to recycle everything.
21. Visit a sick friend.
22. Attend Mass with your family.
23. Do the Stations of the Cross with your family.
24. Be patient with your teachers.
25. Be the reason for someone in despair to find hope.
26. Send biblical text messages.
27. Say grace before eating.
28. Give thanks after eating.
29. Visit a friend you haven’t seen for years.
30. Pray for your enemies.
31. Hug your father.
32. Spread peace wherever you go.
33. Volunteer to teach out-of-school children.
34. Give alms to street children.
35. Be patient with slow learners.
36. Give clean water to homeless families.
37. Help someone build a house.
38. Visit an orphanage.
39. Give books to poor children.
40. Spend some time alone in prayer.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/62765012@N00/399078301/

The music video begins with these words: “There’s a little black spot on your head today. I guess it must mean today is Ash Wednesday. And we enter a time when we will give things up. For some it’s so easy but for me it’s tough.”

The title of the video is “This Time of Forty Days” and it is a funny take on Ash Wednesday in particular and on Lent in general. Its upbeat melody is borrowed from The Police’s “King of Pain”. According to its uploader, the video aims “to inject some much needed joy into the Lenten season.”

Although it is about almsgiving, prayer and fasting, you do not have to look desolate and cheerless to observe Lent. The three traditional practices of Lent are acts of love, not just some obligations to fulfil. As Jesus said the Gospels, “whenever you fast, do not look dismal,… (but) put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:16-18).

Gloria.tv aims to be “a Catholic pulpit on the internet.” Aside from the usual news and entertainment clips, the site also offers videos on catechesis, mission, liturgy, vocations, pilgrimages, Mary, the saints and other content of particular interest to Catholics.

Gloria.tv encourages Catholics worldwide to upload parish events, homilies and other Catholic content to its site. Like other popular videosharing sites, Gloria.tv allows the embedding of its videos on other people’s websites. The site’s slogan is “the more catholic the better.”