Sunday, October 28, 2007

Haikus just for cause

Today we recall
the Resurrection's glory
our eternal hope

Heavenly Manna
Nourishes body and soul
Precious Body, Blood

Blessed Sacrament
Jesus' Holy Sacrifice
His Blood shed for all

Dangers of Bread

I found this on Snopes this morning. It cracked me up so I thought I would share.

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low occurrence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after only two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:

1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. No advertising of bread within 1000 feet of a school.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Three Church of Ireland Parishes Seek Reunion

Three Church of Ireland parishes are seeking full (corporate) reunion with the Catholic Church. Maybe these will be granted something like the Anglican use in the US or maybe they will join with the Traditional Anglican Communion and maybe form a new rite in the Church. Who knows?
Read the story about the parishes here.

In case you were wondering

Pope Benedict XVI's email address is benedictxvi@vatican.va

Belated Carnival post

I am late with the post linking to the newest Catholic Carnival, but here it is.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

IM Saints


Hat tip to Ironic Catholic and The Scriptorium

Let Say Thanks.com

Xerox has a site called letssaythanks.com where you pick one of several cards made by children and Xerox mails it for free to a Servicemember in Iraq or Afghanistan. No money on your part, only a few seconds to pick a card, give your name and hometown, then pick a message and submit your card to be sent.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Traditional Anglich Church asks Rome for Union

That's right! The Traditional Anglican Communion has formally petitioned the Vatican for full union.
I read in an article that I found at Pewsitter.
From the article:
The College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) recently petitioned for “full, corporate, sacramental union” with the Roman Catholic Church recently.
The appeal for union was debated during a meeting of bishops in Portsmouth, England during the first week of October. It was delivered in a letter, which was signed by all the bishops present. The letter was delivered personally to the Holy See by the Most Rev. John Hepworth, Primate of TAC, and two other bishops selected by the college...
With approximately 100 congregations in the U.S., the Anglican Church in America (ACA) is among the largest of several “Continuing Churches” which emerged from the Affirmation of St. Louis and the 1977 gathering of former Episcopalians and other Anglicans.
If it happens, and I pray that it will, this will be the first post-Reformation Church to rejoin the Catholic Church. Maybe it will lead many other Protestants across the Tiber.

Bishop's Wife Converts

I was reading at catholicnewsagency.com that the wife of a Church of Ireland bishop has become Catholic.

Anita Henderson formally converted Sunday in the private chapel of Catholic Bishop John Fleming in Ballina, County Mayo in the west of Ireland. Her husband, Church of Ireland Bishop Richard Henderson, and their three children, were present for the ceremony.
Its always great news to hear that someone else has reconciled themselves to the Catholic Church and joined in the fullness of truth.
The Archbishop who is head of the Church of Ireland, Archbishop Alan Harper had an interesting quote in the article:
"She has made what was for her and her husband a particularly difficult decision and a particularly difficult move. We must now pray that they are sustained in their integrity and continuing ministry. ...There are some awkwardnesses," he said.


I added the emphasis, but I can't help but wonder: how much awkwarness?

Reasons to be a Dad

In Catholic Carnival 141 there was a post that had 40 Reasons to have kids. It was from the Mom's perspective.
I saw yesterday that on Un-Muted Mumblings he had posted 40 reasons from the Dad's perspective. I was eager to see what he had since I will be Dad in late Dec.
Among the reasons I like from his list:
5. Kids make you a better man.
6. The first taught me to value the weak.
7. The second taught me the value of prayer (remind me to post his miracle story)
8. The third teaches me the value of Guardian Angels (notice the present tense)
9. Number 4 finally brought me out of my selfishness.
10. The fifth, well lets say my fifth is a good reason for a good fifth. A spitting image of me, but how different they can be.
11. #6 is the beauty following the beast. As collicy and feisty as #5 was, #6 is sweet and mellow.
12. The seventh (on the way) brought home the value of trusting God. Put away the charts and enjoy the married life. (thank you St. Joseph)...
25. Like a knife tempered in the fire and sharpened on a steel, kids provide both for a man's character.
26. We learn discipline starts with ourselves...
30. Wrestling time. When can getting beat be so much fun. Some day they will be able to beat me for real. I will have to give it up a year before that.
31. Games on a winter afternoon.
32. Having more than 2 really irks the liberals.
I am sure there are more than 40 reasons, but I'll have to wait and find out what those are.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church

Persecution of the Church will only end with the Second Coming. Please keep our persecuted brothers and sisters in your prayers.

Congratulations to Sarah

Sarah over at Snoring Scholar has a new addition to her family.

Allergic to everything but 6 foods

I was reading on MSNBC a couple days ago about a 12 year old boy who is allergic to almost everything. By almost everything I mean that they have only found 6 (wow that's a small number) foods that he is NOT allergic to. That poor boy can only eat chicken, tuna, carrots, potatoes, grapes and apples. Even still he has to receive additional nutrients through a tube. He now gets this through a port in his stomach since these daily feedings were rubbing his nose raw.

Its stories like these that make remember that I really should be thankful for my many, many blessings.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Catholic Carnival 141

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on down, its Carnival time!

October is the month of the Rosary and a couple of posts are about the Rosary.

Elena at My Domestic Church shares her favorite Rosary links and resources.
Melissa from A Third Way also shares various Rosary resources with us.

There are even more posts this week about family and children. These are especially dear to me since my wife and I are expecting our first child in the last part of December.

Sarah, the author of Snoring Scholar, gives us 40 Reasons to have children. At A Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars, we have a post about the benefits of an evening spent without television. SFO Mom wrote a Pro-Life post in Just Because its Legal Doesn't Make it Right.

There were also some posts about readings from Mass this last week.

Heidi Saxton posts at Streams of Mercy that the greatest healing is spiritual not physical as Christ's healing was attributed to the Devil. Heart, Mind, and Strength had a great post last week on the importance of thanksgiving, a la Naaman and the Samaritan leper.

Then there were the posts about Catholic writings. St Teresa of Avila and Pope Benedict XVI are mentioned among others.

Catholic Fire has a great post about St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church and important inspiration to at least two other Doctors of the Church (St Therese of Lisieux and St John of the Cross). Daughter of the King wrote a review of "The Apostles" by Pope Benedict XVI. Christine Schult posts about Pope Benedict XVI's teachings on families. Running Red Lettered considers writing a memoir about her Catholic life and experiences.

Richard has a post about which would be the lesser of two evils if both won their party's nomination, voting for Giuliani or Clinton.

I also want to include a post from Faith and Country about the Life Chain in Kenosha and a post from Dominican Idaho about suffering.

I can't seem to download pictures right now, so those will have to wait.
Good night and God bless all of you.

O Sacrament Most Holy,
O Sacrament Divine,
All praise and all thanksgiving,
Be every moment Thine.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Catholic College in Idaho?

I just found out today that Wyoming has a new Catholic College. I have wondered for some time why Idaho doesn't have a Catholic College and/or university. After all, if the least populated state in the union has enough support to have a Catholic College why don't we?
Montana has fewer people than Idaho, but they have TWO Catholic Colleges. A Catholic college near Moscow would be ideal since a college there could draw on the research and other academic infrastructure already in place at the University of Idaho and Washington State. Reciprocal agreements could allow Catholic students use of their libraries and there is the possiblity of taking some classes at UI or WSU.
Idaho has one of the top five fastest population growths in the US. With the recent explosion of people and business in the Treasure Valley it is more than possible to raise the appropriate support. Of course we only have one Catholic High School as well. I take that back, I know of two. Only one is approved by Bishop Driscoll. I understand that Summit Academy set itself up without his approval and I understand that that isn't cool. But with that said it still seems like Bishop Driscoll isn't very supportive of Catholic education in the diocese.
Boise is a missionary diocese and that's all the more reason to establish more Catholic education, to shine our light unto the rest of the state.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Hiatus

I haven't blogged much in the last week or so, and it will be few more day before I have time again to blog. Contra will continue, just later in the week.
I shall return.

Friday, October 05, 2007

I am hosting the Catholic Carnival on 16 October. Does anyone have any thoughts on a special theme or a particular Saint's day that week?

Heaven Meme

I was over at Faith and Country with the Heaven meme. It seems like most everyone in the Catholic Blogosphere has already done it except me.
There is only one question:
How do you envision Heaven?
Ok, when I first thought about this I saw the clouds and angels with harps like on the Bugs Bunny Cartoons, etc. Then I thought some more and I remembered Marge's vision of a divided Heaven as she worried ove Bart and Homer becoming Catholics. Although that version of Heaven seemed like a lot of fun, its not really how I envision it.
When I stop and think about it, I think Heaven will be the all-encompassing sense of God: His love, joy, glory and greatness. The Bible says that the angels are forever singing "Holy Holy Holy". So it sounds like they have been singing and praising God with ceasing since their creation. I think it will be an eternity of forever basking in all Jehovah's greatness so far above our own ways. This is just my vision, I long to see how what its actually like.

I tag:
Transitus Tiber
V for Victory!

Mathetes


Catholicgop has tapped me for the Mathetes Award. Its apparently an award spread from blog to blog for discipleship of Christ. She also tagged me with the Heaven Meme, but I'll have to get that one next since it takes more thought.
I am always honored that other people read my humble blog. I am now even more honored that I am awarded for my blog.
So according to the rules I name 5 other blogs and post the following:
As per the rules I'm including the original post, and 5 (6) blogs I would like to honor.

"Mathetes is the Greek word for disciple, and the role of the disciple (per the Great Commission) is to make more disciples. I'd like to take the opportunity to award five other bloggers with this award and badge for acting in the role of a disciple of Christ. These five all share the message in their own creative ways, and I admire them all for what they do.

In the spirit of this award, the rules are simple. Winners of this award must pick five other "disciples" to pass it on to. As you pass it on, I just ask that you mention and provide links for (1)this post as the originator of the award (Dan King of management by God), (2) the person that awarded it to you, and then (3) name and sites of the five that you believe are fulfilling the role of a disciple of Christ. If you know of other deserving recipients of this award, and would like to start a new string, then please post a link to where you've started in in the comments to this post. I would love for many deserving bloggers to be blessed with this recognition."
My five awardees, in no particular order, are:
The Ironic Catholic
The Lair of the Catholic Caveman
Dominican Idaho
V for Victory!
Steve Ray's Blog

Catholic Carnival 139

Catholic Carnival 139 is at Snoring Scholar this week.