Lent

Prodigal Daughter's blog "Journey of a Soul" has a good lenten reflection. It starts:

What better time to talk about freedom than the start of Lent. Many sincere Christians question the practices of Lent. "Why" they wonder, "do you deny yourself everyday pleasures? What can possibly be gained from spending 40 days tying yourself to some outdated and irrelevant Catholic ritual? It's a throwback to the middle ages of extreme asceticism and monastic flagellation. After all, it's for freedom that Christ has set us free! When you gave your heart to Jesus, you were set free from bondage to the law. Anyone in Christ is a new creation right, so why continue denying yourself since you're already made new?"

Read the rest here.

Alan Keyes Rips Obamanation

H/T The Intellectual Redneck

The Second American Revolution

Thomas Paine, author of “Common Sense,” returns to modern times to plea for a Second American Revolution to take back America.

Archbishop Chaput discusses Pelosi on Neil Cavuto

Pro-life Mass: Recover Our Catholic Identity

A very good read found at the Catholic Exchange column The Bishops Speak. It starts:

I was very edified this past Saturday to see the Cathedral almost filled for the Pro-Life Mass. Then to see such a large contingent, on a very cold day, make a pilgrimage to the abortion clinic, praying the Rosary for Life, was truly heartwarming.

At the very moment I am writing this, our new president, Barack Obama, is being sworn into office. We congratulate him, and we pray for him, but we cannot condone his pro-death policies, even while we are happy that so many people feel they have new hope. We must do everything we can to oppose his pro-death-to-children efforts.

Joseph Bottum, in an article entitled “Abortion after Obama,” writing in the January 2009 edition of First Things, pages 13-15, tells us, “Now the 2008 election has brought us the presidency of Barack Obama, the most consistent supporter of legalized abortion ever nominated by a majority party.”

When asked about making decisions as to when a baby gets human rights, President Obama answered that “is above my pay grade.” He also stated that he would not want his daughters “punished with a baby.”

He has made it known that, upon taking office, he will remove all federal restrictions on funding embryonic stem-cell research. He also intends to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Seldom has our nation ever been confronted with such an extreme measure. The Freedom of Choice Act will invalidate for the entire country all restrictions on abortion before viability, including parental notification, waiting periods and partial-birth abortion bans. President Obama has no problem supporting legislation that would even kill a child who survived a botched abortion....

Find the entire article here.

Eight Responses to the Pro-Choice Mindset

Jennifer Fulwiler has written a good article in InsideCatholic.com that is a worthwhile read. It begins:

I once said that I'd die to keep abortion legal and easily accessible, and I meant it. I was vehemently pro-choice, as were most of the women in my social circles. We believed abortion was a critical right for women and could not imagine how anyone could be pro-life. We were products of a culture in which human sexuality had been severed from its inherent connection to the creation of human life. Our generation had been taught in our public school sex-ed classes not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. We were assured that the creation of new human life was tangential to sexual activity, something that was not only optional but completely controllable. In fact, babies were considered downright antithetical to sex.

 

In my life as a young adult I knew many women who had abortions, and in every case their attitudes regarding their pregnancies were ultimately the same: "I didn't sign up for this." Society had assured them that sex did not have to have life-altering consequences, and their unplanned pregnancies came as unwelcome surprises. In this panicked frame of mind they -- and those of us who supported them -- were susceptible to the pro-abortion message that their babies were nothing more than "tissue," that abortion was merely "pregnancy termination" and not the taking of a human life.

 

After a religious conversion that led me to the Catholic Church, I began to rethink my pro-choice position. Specifically, the Church's teaching on human sexuality reshaped my worldview in such a radical way that, for the first time, I was able to take an honest look at what abortion really is. The Church's teaching that sex intrinsically contains the possibility of creating new human life released the pressure that the contraceptive mentality had put on me to see babies as enemies. Once I saw abortion for what it was, I could hardly believe that I ever supported such a procedure. It is a testament to the power of the contraceptive mentality that for so many years I managed to ignore the reality of my beliefs.

 

Below are eight statements that I believed when I was in favor of abortion, along with suggestions for how you might respond to those who hold similar views. And remember: Most people who favor abortion need to re-think human sexuality before they can be in a mindset to really "hear" the arguments against abortion....

Read the rest here.

12-year-old speaks out on the issue of abortion

The Red Envelope Project

Here is a posting from Standing on My Head (Fr. Dwight Longenecker) I thought you may want to participate in:

Red Envelopes

I guess you've heard about the red envelope project. It's simple. This guy has an idea to get 50 million  empty red envelopes sent to President Obama. On the back is a simple, handwritten message which says, 

This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.

I'm going to send some and get my friends and students to as well.

Go here to learn more.

What is in the Stimulus Bill?...Ask Ann Coulter

Here is a snip from an interesting article. Just what is in the stimulus package?

Read the full article here.

HHS bureaucrats will soon be empowered to overrule your doctor. Doctors who don't comply with the government's treatment protocols will be fined. That's right: Instead of your treatment being determined by your doctor, it will be settled on by some narcoleptic half-wit in Washington who couldn't get a job in the private sector.

And a brand-new set of bureaucrats in the newly created office of "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology" will be empowered to cut off treatments that merely prolong life. Sorry, Mom and Pop, Big Brother said it's time to go.

Litany of St. Thomas More

Litany of St. Thomas More, 
Martyr and Patron Saint of Statesmen, Politicians and Lawyers

V. Lord, have mercy
R. Lord have mercy
V. Christ, have mercy
R. Christ have mercy
V. Lord, have mercy
R. Lord have mercy
V. Christ hear us
R. Christ, graciously hear us 

V. St. Thomas More, Saint and Martyr, 
R. Pray for us (Repeat after each invocation)
St. Thomas More, Patron of Statesmen, Politicians and Lawyers
St. Thomas More, Patron of Justices, Judges and Magistrates
St. Thomas More, Model of Integrity and Virtue in Public and Private Life
St. Thomas More, Servant of the Word of God and the Body and Blood of Christ
St. Thomas More, Model of Holiness in the Sacrament of Marriage 
St. Thomas More, Teacher of his Children in the Catholic Faith
St. Thomas More, Defender of the Weak and the Poor
St. Thomas More, Promoter of Human Life and Dignity

V.Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world
R.Spare us O Lord
V.Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world
R.Graciously hear us O Lord
V.Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world
R.Have mercy on us

Let us pray: 

O Glorious St. Thomas More, Patron of Statesmen, Politicians, Judges and Lawyers, your life of prayer and penance and your zeal for justice, integrity and firm principle in public and family life led you to the path of martyrdom and sainthood.  Intercede for our Statesmen, Politicians, Judges and Lawyers, that they may be courageous and effective in their defense and promotion of the sanctity of human life - the foundation of all other human rights. We ask this through Christ our Lord.  

R. Amen.

H/T: Opinionated Catholic

Stimulus Package

As a Republican and Conservative I am not happy with the outcome of the recent elections. It is hard for me to understand, rather, I can’t understand, why my fellow Americans decided to elect such an extreme pro-abortion person – he even embraces partial birth abortion and, yes, even infanticide – and an extreme liberal to the office of the President. What, in heaven’s name attracted them to him? And even more disheartening is the liberal Democratic majority in the Senate and the House

The current talk has been on the economy and the stimulus package. I have lost a great deal of my retirement savings. This was brought on by greed and The Democratic Congress that demanded low cost mortgage loans to those who couldn’t afford it. And we haven’t learned our lesson. We keep reelecting these Politicians. We need Statesmen.

So now we are going to have a stimulus package. But not a stimulus, rather it is a pork frenzy. How will our children and grandchildren fare with such a burden on their backs? For it is not we who will have to deal with this but our children. The next generation and following will have their own troubles without our burden as well. Our national debt is already beyond reasoning.This is wrong.

Those businesses should have failed. We should not throw out good money after bad. Any vacuum created by these failures would be soon filled by others. We are rewarding poor management and they are wasting our money on executive perks and so forth.

We are becoming a socialist nation, and that is something to fear.

Tithe Rap

H/T JillStanek.com

Quote

Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.

[GK Chesterton “Christendom in Dublin,” 1933]