St Joan of Arc burned for wearing men's clothing

Its true! The inquisitors were not able to have St Joan of Arc condemned to death for any other heresy, so they managed to have her burned at the stake for wearing men's clothing. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Moreover, as one of the points upon which she had been condemned was the wearing of male apparel, a resumption of that attire would alone constitute a relapse into heresy, and this within a few days happened, owing, it was afterwards alleged, to a trap deliberately laid by her jailers with the connivance of Cauchon. Joan, either to defend her modesty from outrage, or because her women's garments were taken from her, or, perhaps, simply because she was weary of the struggle and was convinced that her enemies were determined to have her blood upon some pretext, once more put on the man's dress which had been purposely left in her way. The end now came soon. On 29 May a court of thirty-seven judges decided unanimously that the Maid must be treated as a relapsed heretic, and this sentence was actually carried out the next day (30 May, 1431) amid circumstances of intense pathos.

She actually had dispensation from French bishops to wear male clothing, but this was not recognized by the English inquisitors.
I meant to post this earlier today, but I forgot until tonight.
May God bless all who read my ramblings,

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Sometimes its that one word in a homily

The summer after my junior year of college I went to training at Fort Lewis for about a month. The first Sunday myself and other from my class were released to go to Mass. We came in late and we had to leave right after communion. Father actually told the others to wait until we received the Eucharist to line up.
Back to my point: I don't remember anything else about the homily (and we had missed the readings) except that Father said that Christians are supposed to be "counter-cultural". That word and its connotation made and still makes me cringe. However, the word was so shocking that I couldn't help but remember it and it has marinated in my mind and soul for these eight years. I was thinking about it tonight for reasons that I can't recall and I felt compelled to share with you my take on the main point of Father's homily in my own words from my Northwestern experience:
Father's point was that we are called to be "counter-cultural" that is to say, more than just salmon swimming against the current. We are called to change the course of the river until it flows the direction that we as Christian salmon are swimming. We shouldn't just content ourselves to be different and separate as we the Pilgrim Church swim up the stream, but we are called to transform our world, to change the "streams" we swim in.

Thanks for reading.
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Memorial Day

Today as our nation honors our our war dead, I'm reminded of Memorial Gym. I have a lot of great memories of the swimming pool and pick up games of basketball there, but the gym is more than a gym. It is a memorial to the fallen.
My alma mater, the University of Idaho, built Memorial Gym after WWI to honor the alumni who fell in the service of our republic. Since then, plaques have been installed on the walls of the gym to honor the alumni who have died in every war since.
 

Before I began my freshman year I had visited the UI two or three times, but my Dad had never been. As we walked past Memorial Gym, he was convinced that it was a church. It took quite a bit of insistence on my part to finally convince him that it really is a gym. From the picture above, you can see why someone might mistake it for a church.

May those who died to defend these United States rest in the eternal peace of our Lord.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

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