Be like children – believe in your guardian angel, Pope says
By ANN SCHNEIBLE
Vatican City, Oct 2, 2014 / 07:37 am (CNA/EWTN News) - In his homily for the Feast of Holy Guardian Angels, Pope Francis told those gathered for daily Mass to be like children who pay attention to their “traveling companion.”
The doctrine of the angels, the Holy Father stressed, is not imaginary, but “reality.” Citing what Jesus has said, “I send an angel before you to protect you, to accompany you along the path, so that you do not make mistakes!”
According to the tradition of the Church, each of us has a guardian angel who protects us and helps make us aware of things, the Pope said at the Santa Marta residence Oct. 2. Often times, we have the feeling that “I should do this, this is not right, be careful.” This, he said, “is the voice of” our guardian angel: our “traveling companion.”
The art and soul of adopting an 'attitude of gratitude'
Stewardship, Justice, Respect Life Conference
By DAVID MYERS and TIM WENZL
Southwest Kansas Register
There is an art to stewardship.
It is not only placing money in the collection basket, although that’s part of it -- it is also accepting and acknowledging with a grateful heart the multitude of gifts God has given all of us.
Having that “attitude of gratitude” was one of the primary themes of this year’s “Stewardship, Justice and Respect Life Conference” at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe Aug. 27.
Among the speakers was the Most Rev. John B. Brungardt, who asked a young child who it was who first taught him to say “thank you.” Looking into the microphone, the child whispered a shy, “I don’t know.”
These moments are expected with the bishop, who typically engages the congregation during his homilies and talks. He asked those gathered to get into groups of four: “I want you to write down 50 different things for which you are thankful. You have five minutes!”
First woman appointed to a Vatican congregation joyful
By ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI
Vatican City, Sep 30, 2014 / 02:04 am (CNA/EWTN News) - The first woman ever to be appointed a member of a Vatican congregation explains that “women still have much to give to the Church with their personal charisma.”
Sr. Luzia Premoli, superior general of the Combonian Missionary Sisters, was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples on Sept. 13, and spoke recently to CNA.
“The appointment took me by surprise, I did not expect it … but I was also joyful, because the appointment is a concretization of Pope Francis’ wish for more women in high ranking positions in the Catholic Church,” Sr. Premoli said.
She added that her appointment “shows Pope Francis’ commitment” to having more women as decision-makers in the ranks of the Church.
Retirement isn’t easy for 
cathedral mainstay
-- even at 92
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
Gertrude Jones lives in defiance of the laws of physics.
Even as it was announced a few weeks ago that she would be retiring as sacristan at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she was fulfilling a marathon of duties. A typical weekend could include preparing for a wedding in the afternoon, serving as a Eucharistic Minister at a 5 p.m. Mass, and then preparing for a 7 p.m. Spanish Mass.
And that’s just on Saturday.
Pope Francis: Don't 'over-dramatize' your complaints to God
By ELISE HARRIS
Vatican City, Sep 30, 2014 / 09:13 am (CNA/EWTN News) - In his homily on Tuesday Pope Francis said complaining to God in times of suffering can be a prayer, but cautioned not to exaggerate our difficulties in front of those undergoing major tragedies.
“Our life is too easy, our complaints are overdramatized,” the pontiff told those in the Vatican’s Saint Martha house in his Sept. 30 daily Mass.
“Faced with the complaints of so many people, of so many brothers and sisters who are in the dark, who have almost lost all memory, almost lost all hope – who are experiencing this exile from themselves, who are exiled, even from themselves, (our complaints are) nothing!”
The Holy Father noted how Job's prayer in the first reading seems to be a curse after having lost everything, and “his body had become a plague, a disgusting plague.”
“He had lost all patience and he says these things. They are ugly! But he was always accustomed to speak the truth and this is the truth that he feels at that moment,” the pontiff said, noting how the prophet Jeremiah also cursed the day in which he was born.
People of the Catholic 
Diocese of Dodge City
Great Bend family
enjoysthe blessings
of ‘opportunity’
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
By day, he’s a supervisor at an oil company, and when he’s at home, he’s nothing short of an artist.
She’s a catechist; a Eucharistic minister; lector; and, like her husband, she sings in the St. Rose choir in Great Bend.
They are Armando and Irma Herrera, and they are blessed.
“God did a lot of good things for us,” Armando said from his Great Bend home. “We have our kids, and we are healthy. We appreciate God and all he has given us.”
Christian groups stand with diocese to protect Seal of Confession
By MATT HADRO
Baton Rouge, La., Sep 30, 2014 / 04:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Nearly 20 organizations, both Catholic and other denominations of Christian, have joined the Diocese of Baton Rouge in asking the Supreme Court to protect a priest from being forced to violate the Seal of Confession.
The group heading the support for the diocese, Catholic Action for Faith and Family, stated it “fully supports the Diocese of Baton Rouge’s position that ‘civil courts are entirely without jurisdiction to decide what constitutes a sacrament in the Catholic Church’.”
“For this reason Catholic Action has filed an Amicus Brief, supported by 17 other Catholic and Christian organizations. The brief decries the fact that the Louisiana Supreme Court has directed the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing to decide whether or not a sacrament actually took place.”
From the plains of Burma 
to the plains of Kansas
Pastoral assignment
welcomed by new priest
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
It just may be that nobody has ever heard the call to the priesthood earlier in his life than Father Firmin (pronounced “Feer-min”) Kyaw, the new pastoral administrator of Holy Rosary, Medicine Lodge, St. John the Apostle, Kiowa and St. Boniface, Sharon.
“The first born male in our family died after three or four months,” said the Burmese priest. “When Mother was pregnant with me, she went to a big Eucharistic feast in the capitol city of Burma -- far from home – and prayed for me. She said, ‘Lord, I offer you my son to the call of the priesthood.’”
Put your gifts at the service of others, Pope Francis exhorts
By ELISE HARRIS
Vatican City, Oct 1, 2014 / 01:41 am (CNA/EWTN News) - Pope Francis dedicated his weekly general audience to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, saying that rather than making us better than others, they commission us to serve our brothers and sisters.
“A charism is more than a talent or personal quality. It is a grace, a gift that God gives through the Holy Spirit. Not because someone is better than the others, but rather so that he puts it at the service of others with the same gratitude and love with which he has received it.”
Pope Francis began his address by drawing the attention of the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square to “the manifold gifts of the Holy Spirit,” saying that they “enliven and enrich the Body of Christ.”
Annual Scripture Day looks at God as ‘creator’ versus ‘deliverer’
By TIM WENZL
Southwest Kansas Register
Violence in the Old Testament was the topic of the annual Scripture Day held Oct. 20 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe. More than 135 people from throughout the diocese were in attendance.
Sister Dianne Bergant, C.S.A., a professor of biblical studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago was the English presenter. Jose Antonio Medina, a consultant for Hispanic Affair for Liguori Publications was the Spanish presenter. A synopsis of his presentation is in Spanish on Page 8.
Sister Dianne spoke about the Bible as having the three essential parts of any piece of literature: the writer, the reader and the message.
“There are different ways of reading the Bible. Historical background helps to understand the original meaning.”
She said that interpretation of a writer’s message would be different depending on the experiences of the reader.