Now for something serious/disturbing

This video is hard to watch and not something I would let children watch. Its about human trafficking for purposes of pornography and God's love for Constance (and everyone else) in spite of horrible situations. Its called "Constance" by Mr. J Medeiros.


How many of us could be the young man watching on his laptop? Afraid our wife could find, but just can't seem to help ourselves anyways; cause we're addicted and we don't want to let it go.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

"I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know Who holds tomorrow"
--unknown

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

7 Quick Takes Deuce

--1--
I have discovered that I cannot just pull out a Capri Sun, stick a straw in it and hand it to my daughter. She won't touch it. First I apparently have to ask her if she wants one. Then I have to ask if she wants me to open it. Then she will drink it. Any deviation means she just sets it to the side and refuses to acknowledge it.
--2--
I have been going to a new barbershop these last few weeks. The last barber did a GREAT job and new what haircut I wanted so I didn't to say anything anymore, I just sat down. I stopped going because it turns out he's a former grand wizard for the local Klan group. He left the Klan but still holds a lot of the racist views. I figured the Stars and Bars on the wall was just a southern pride thing, but after finding out his political/racial views I couldn't go there in good conscience anymore.
--3--
The new barbershop is decorated mostly with pennants. There are a few other random decorations, but the vast majority of the decorations are random pennants (mostly collegiate). I asked about them Monday and I was told that various people have brought in pennants over the last 15 years and he told me that if I brought in a pennant he find someplace to put it on the wall. So now I have to stop being lazy and get around to ordering a University of Idaho pennant so my alma mater can have its spot on the wall too.
--4--
Please pray for Father Nguyen Van Ly. He is a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested and sentenced to 8 years (about 5 years left) for resisting Communist influence on the Catholic Church in Vietnam. You can put together a letter in Vietnamese to send to him here. I am sure that he could use encouragement and sometimes when enough people write letters the government releases political prisoners.
--5--
Was anyone else taught that you should write an extra s after possessive words ending with s except in the case of Moses or Jesus? For example Chris' instead of Chris's.
--6--
Mental Floss has a Saint Quiz: Catholic Saint or New Orleans Saint? I got to admit that I only recognized one name and failed. H/T to Ironic Catholic
--7--
There are two kinds of people out there: 1. Those who hear their alarm the first time and get out of bed 2. Those of us who hear the alarm, hit the snooze and sleep til it goes off again.

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

I was looking for great quotes on fatherhood and found this gem from the Pope. This is from Pope Benedict XVI's address in Yaounde 18 March 2009 (emphasis mine):
"Speaking to the crowd and to his disciples, Jesus declared: “You have only one Father” (Mt 23:9). There is but one fatherhood, that of God the Father, the one Creator of the world, “of all that is seen and unseen”. Yet man, created in the image of God, has been granted a share in this one paternity of God (cf. Eph 3:15). Saint Joseph is a striking case of this, since he is a father, without fatherhood according to the flesh. He is not the biological father of Jesus, whose Father is God alone, and yet he lives his fatherhood fully and completely. To be a father means above all to be at the service of life and growth. Saint Joseph, in this sense, gave proof of great devotion. For the sake of Christ he experienced persecution, exile and the poverty which this entails. He had to settle far from his native town. His only reward was to be with Christ. His readiness to do all these things illustrates the words of Saint Paul: “It is Christ the Lord whom you serve” (Col 3:24)." --Pope Benedict XVI

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Christians formerly hidden by Buddhist monks

I saw an article on UCAnews about Christians hiding inside a Buddhist temple in Japan. I found it really interesting, since you almost never hear about persecution outside of Europe or Communist countries. The Church has a different history everywhere you go.

Japanese Buddhist monks hid persecuted Christians in a secret room in their monastery. They then chanted sutras outside to drown out any incriminating noise, Catholics learnt during a Church program.

Sixty people, led by Father Makoto Onchi of Hagi Catholic Church in Yamaguchi Prefecture, visited the Houonji Buddhist monastery on July 4. The program was part of the church’s annual visit to sites associated with Christian persecution which occurred at various times from the early 1600s.

The monastery had discovered a secret room attached to its main hall, with a tunnel leading out to the fields behind the temple, chief Buddhist monk Venerable Toshiaki Namba told Father Onchi during an interreligious gathering.

read more...

May God bless all who read my ramblings,

Raising children to stay in the faith

I was reading a post over at Conversion Diary about how to raise children in the Christian faith and raise so that they will stay faithful Christians. The author grew up as an atheist and later converted to Catholicism and so has no background on how to raise a Christian family. She has been asking different Moms how they go about it and different people how their parents went about it. She goes on that of course Christian life is not about formula, but about a relationship with God. She noted 3 common elements in families where the children remained in the faith:

The parents prayed for their children to have faith



The children saw the parents rely on God in real, concrete ways (e.g. if the father didn't get a big promotion at work he'd pray about what God wanted him to do next, express trust that God would bring good out of the situation, etc.)



The parents and children prayed together at least occasionally

The only thing I would add is that it is very important to make sure your children are receiving the sacraments. At the least baptism because prayer and a prayerful example are one thing, but you need your children to also enter into the covenant with God. A relationship with God is paramount and nothing says relationship like a binding covenant. Moreover, insisting upon your children receiving the sacraments (as long as you also receive them) sets an example and one should never underestimate the power of grace received in them, most especially the Eucharist.

May God bless all those who read my ramblings,

500th POST!!

So this is my 500th post on this blog. It took me a little over 5 years but I don't post as often as a lot of others and I had gaps in posting while I was deployed. What do I want to talk about in my 500th post... I don't know I am making this up as I go.
OK, here's something: 2 days ago Pope Benedict XVI established a Syro-Malankar exarchate in the US. I wonder how many people before reading this had heard of the Syro-Malankar rite. I found this article on Zenit. The commentary in green is obviously mine.

New Apostolic Exarchate for Syro-Malankara Church

1st Bishop Will Also Be Visitor to Community in Canada, Europe

NEW YORK, JULY 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI erected an apostolic exarchate (I wonder what is the difference between eparchy and exarchate?) for the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in the United States, and appointed Father Thomas Naickamparampil (appropriate for a priest to St Thomas Christians) of the Major Archieparchy of Trivandrum as its first bishop.

The bishop-elect, 49, was also appointed apostolic visitor for the Syro-Malank

ara Catholics in Canada and Europe.

Thomas Naickamparampil was born on June 6, 1961 at Mylapra in Pathanamthitta District of the Eparchy of Pathanamthitta.

After completing high school, he joined St. Aloysious Minor Seminary, Pattom, Trivandrum, and then later completed his priestly formation at the Papal Seminary in Pune. He was ordained on Dec. 29, 1986.

He has a doctorate degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University Gregorian in Rome.

The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church traces its roots back to St. Thomas the Apostle (That's right "Doubting Thomas" evangelized India long before the Age of Discovery brought European powers there. I am personally a big fan of his and I think he got a bum rap. He's no worse for his disbelief than Peter for his denials). The Church split from the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in 1930, and then entered into communion with Rome. In 2005, the Eastern Church was elevat

ed to a major archiepiscopal Church. It is currently led by Major Archbishop Baselios Cleemis, and currently has eight eparchies and some 500,000 faithful.

The community of Syro-Malankara Catholic Church began to organize in 1984 in New York. Today there are an estimated 10,000 members, 16 parishes and 15 mission stations (The nearest one of these to me is Miami. I am

curious to see their liturgy, but there is a Syro-Malabar parish in Atlanta that I could go to. I would think the liturgy is similiar since they are both St Thomas Christians) of the Church in the United States and Canada. It also counts with 30 priests, and 34 religious.

The new exarchate will have its headquarters in New York City, and the main parish will be the Malankara Catholic Church in Long Island.

Malankara Major Archbishop Isaac Mar Cleemis(above)

On another note remotely related note, the Syro-Malankar and Syro-Malabar rites are based out of Kerala State in India which is home to Vailankanni, which is a major site of pilgrimage because of the shrine to Mary that is there. I first heard about it right after the tsunami and I have wanted to visit there ever since. Maybe some day I will finally get to go.

May God bless everyone who reads my ramblings,

7 Quick Takes

--1--

It wasn't a good idea to check on my daughter before PT on Thursday. Next thing I knew she was awake demanding food, drink and TV, but I had to leave so that meant waking up Hephzibah. This might not sound like a big deal but I had to leave just before 6 AM.

--2--

I have been reading The Count of Monte Cristo with my wife, we take turns picking books to read together, and even though its an abridged version it feels like the book that never ends. Don't get me wrong; I am enjoying the book, but I never seem to have the time to make a dent in it. I am definitely enjoying it more than The Gospel According to Biff. Each page of that was more painful/blasphemous than the page before it.

--3--

If you want to sound smart (or perhaps annoying) you always start saying welkin instead of sky. They mean the same thing, but no one obviously says welkin anymore.

--4--

I just got done writing a nine page paper. Its amazing how being told that you have to do something makes it not fun anymore. I would have studied the Battle of Cowpens for fun, but being told to do it and write a paper killed the fun factor.

--5--

I posted a trivia question about a month ago: What is the only country in the world without a Latin Rite Catholic diocese? The answer is Eritrea. There are eparchies, but no dioceses. Don't ask me how I know these things.

--6--

I posted another Saint Quiz about a month ago. No one has yet answered it. The saint portrayed was St Maron. He is the namesake for the Maronite rite.

--7--

I bought the book "Pope-Pourri". I like a lot of the trivia and history in it, but the author seems to spend an inordinate amount of space on Papal scandal, statistics on how many priests are in favor of married clergy and statistics on how many nuns are in favor of women priesthood. I wish that I hadn't bought it.

God bless all who read my ramblings,

Nudiustertian

So I learned a new word: nudiustertian. It means having to do with the day before yesterday.
I am not sure in which context this could ever be used, but I am actively seeking it.

People seem to sanctify me a lot

Don't say: 'That person gets on my nerves.' Think: 'That person sanctifies me.'
-- St. Josemaria Escriva: The Way

I just remembered this quote today. Its a day late, but still one of my favorite quotes.

He who... does not thank God that he is an American, should in simple consistency betake his foreign soul to foreign shores, and crouch in misery and abjection beneath tyranny's scepter. --Archbishop John Ireland

This would have also been an awesome 4th of July quote, but it was a great posting by Suzanne.
h/t to Big Blue Wave

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience – almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one's deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good (cf. Spe Salvi, 24). Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows, time and again, that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation”, and a democracy without values can lose its very soul (cf. Centesimus Annus, 46). Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.

++ Pope Benedict XVI, speech at the White House in April 2008.

Syrian Catholic posted an amazing video on Ecce Agnus Dei. Check it out.

I was reading Rachel's post about how the Devil used fear in Thomas Merton's life and I remember another great passage from Seven Storey Mountain appropriate for the 4th of July.

The eloquence of this liturgy was even more tremendous: and what it said was one, simple, cogent, tremendous truth: this church, the court of the Queen of Heaven, is the real capital of the country in which we are living. This is the center of all the vitality that is in America. This is the cause and reason why the nation is holding together. These men, hidden in the anonymity of their choir and their white cowls, are doing for their land what no army, no congress, no president could ever do as such: they are winning for it the grace and the protection and the friendship of God.

Gilligan's Island based on the Seven Deadly Sins

Creative Minority Report posted that the cast of Gilligan's Island were each based on one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The breakdown went like this:
The Professor – Pride
Thurston Howell III - Greed
Ginger - Lust
Mary Ann - Envy (of Ginger's looks)
Mrs. Lovey Howell - Gluttony
The Skipper - Anger or wrath
Gilligan – Sloth
If that's true it makes me feel bad for laughing. I think its a bit of a stretch though. For instance, Mary Ann never seemed especially envious.
The article is here. You can judge for yourself.

Melkites

I started going to a local Melkite Catholic parish and when I saw this on Byzantine, Texas I knew that I had to post it.

H/T to The Crescat by way of Byzantine, Texas.

As iron sharpens iron

As I look back on the baptism classes I went to before my daughter's baptism, I remember a lot of talk about the role of parents in leading children to a closer relationship with God. However, as I have found out since her birth, that is a two-way street. She's only two so we don't yet have in depth conversations on Theology or the nature of God, but Fatherhood has opened my eyes and made me understand much of Christ's and the Church's teachings and explanations more vivid to me.
Writing this the first thing that comes to mind is the repeated references to the First Person of the Trinity as Father. I understand in a way that was not clear before how much more than I do, God the Father knows what's best for me. Any parents out there know immediately what I am talking about. I know its best for my daughter to go eat fruits and veggies instead of cookies, but she doesn't see it that way. For that matter, I am realizing through her how selfish I am when it comes to what I think is best vs. what the Father tells me is best. She is a wonderful little girl, but after all she is 2 and still doesn't think about much outside of herself.
As a Dad, I can understand now much better the level of love that the father had for his prodigal son. I understood the parable before, but feeling that powerful, unconditional love for my daughter has made it much more real for me. I couldn't imagine not taking her back if she were the prodigal daughter.
The other thing that jumps to my mind as I type this was an example from Story of a Soul. She compared a child who knows that the father is removing things that might trip the child vs a child unaware of the father's actions. The child who knows is more grateful, because the child who is unaware does not know that it happened in order to be grateful. After many times leading my daughter away from harmful things such as tripping hazards, I am realizing everyday that our Father removes many more things from my path and leads me away from many dangers I would have otherwise fallen into. I am grateful, but again the example has become much more vivid as a father.
I think the best example of how much having a daughter has taught me, was the other week at St Ignatios parish here in Augusta, GA. As my daughter and I left church and older lady from the parish remarked that with her penchant for pretty dresses, pretty hats, shoes and purses she is going to be expensive. I replied that "She is worth every penny." The lady said, "Think how much more the Father feels about us."
St Joseph and Joachim, pray for us.

He is that Important

I have never liked the new "Common Era" and "Before Common Era" schema for marking the years. First of all, it obviously offends me as a Christian to see and hear people try to erase anything to do with Jesus from our day to day lives. Secondly, He is still the marker for years you just changed the words at the end of the number. Oh yeah, and btw you are also using a calendar made up by the Catholic Church and named after a Pope.
With that in mind the following picture from The Stained Glass Buffalo about sums it up:

Saint Quiz

Obviously that is Jesus at the top, but who is the Saint beneath him?
Hint: He is popular in Lebanon.

Morelia and Comments

I have noticed some traffic coming here looking for Fr Ben Uhlenkott's blog. The address for that is http://missioninmorelia.blogspot.com
On a totally unrelated note, I will delete all comments on 50 Days After that are not in Latin characters and not in a language I can read. I have had repeated spam comments with Chinese characters that lead to site of questionable intent.
Peace,

Archbishop Broglio's Statement on Proposed Legislation

Archbishop Broglio, as the Archbishop for the Military Services has published a statement on homosexuals in the military asking Congress not to allow open service:

In a response to a request from the Chiefs of Chaplains of the Armed Forces I communicated some considerations and concerns regarding the proposal to change the existing legislation regarding persons with a homosexual orientation in the military. In fulfilling my role as the chief shepherd of Catholics in the United States Armed Forces, I have had the opportunity of visiting many installations in the recent past. A number of chaplains and commanding officers have expressed concerns about the effects of a change. There is a request for guidance.
The teaching of the Catholic Church is clearly expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Consequently, those with a homosexual orientation can expect respect and treatment worthy of their human dignity. The prohibitions regarding sexual harassment and intimidation refer just as much to homosexuals as to anyone else. However, unions between individuals of the same gender resembling marriage will not be accepted or blessed by Catholic chaplains. Furthermore no restrictions or limitations on the teaching of Catholic morality can be accepted. First Amendment rights regarding the free exercise of religion must be respected.
This means that Catholic chaplains must show compassion for persons with a homosexual orientation, but can never condone—even silently—homosexual behavior. A change might have a negative effect on the role of the chaplain not only in the pulpit, but also in the classroom, in the barracks, and in the office

more.

Personally, I hope his words have some effect.