In the News

This past Sunday we celebrated Christ the King, the end of the Church year. Next week is the first week of Advent, and the start of the new Church year. For anyone that has been to Mass the past few weeks may have noticed that the reading all had something to do with the end of times. But Last week had to do with Christ in his last few hours and he is questioned, and proclaims his kingship. The reading was from the passion of Christ, we all  know it, its the one were Pilot questions Jesus and asks him if He is the King of the Jews. But that is not really what this blog is about, rather it was a comment the priest made during his homily that struck me. Funny how that works, the priest spends 10 minutes talking about the major theme, yet I pick up on one minor point, almost made in passing.

The point…

He was talking about how the newspapers and news outlets all seem to pick up on the negative aspects of the Church, how we seem to make the front page for every minor transgressions, and yes our major ones as well.  Now he was not saying that the media should not cover it, they should and sometimes it’s even warranted. But his complaint was that it was not fairly done. It seems the Catholic Church is singled out over other faiths, often times if a non-catholic church does the same thing the story, if it even makes the papers, will end up hidden in side the paper or not even covered.

This is not a revelation, as a Catholic I am use to the double standard, but the spin the priest put on this never occurred to me.  He went on to say that back in the day, when he was a younger man, many companies in Detroit would hire Catholics, they would seek them out, because they were known to be honest and hard working.

He went on to say that maybe that is why we are singled out by the news media, because we are expected, more than other religions, to be hones and hard working, so when we fail to meet up to this standard, it is big news. Maybe we should look at it as a complement and not a slam.

Interesting, a very positive spin on what can be seen as a very negative story. I like it! We all know that the Catholic faith is not perfect that we sin as individuals and that reflects upon our Church. We know that not all our priest are perfect, that they too can sin, and as we have seen in the past, they do! And yes sometimes the Church herself can sin. Yet we also know that the Church is not truly ours, but it is Christ’s Church. He is the head and we make up the body.  As the many parts of the one body, we also know that some parts my be working harder that other parts, that some parts are truly holy and other parts are in a state of sin. We are a fallen people, and the Church is the Church of the and for the fallen people. Jesus came for the sinners, he ate with them and spent his time with them.

So the next time you read an article or see a news report that is slamming the Catholic Church for one of our many sins, write to them and thank them for pointing out our shortcomings, and thank them for having such a high and pious view of the Catholic church. And let them know that we, the Catholic church, know we are sinners and we are always striving to become a more Holy Church.

Won’t that shock them! And wont that do a great deal to help us all heal and strive to achieve the standard that was set for us, not by the media, but by Jesus himself.

 

Paul

HANDY LITTLE CHART – GOD HAS A POSITIVE ANSWER:

YOU SAY GOD SAYS BIBLE VERSES

You say:  ‘It’s impossible’

God says: All things are possible

(Luke 18:27)  

You say:  ‘I’m too tired’

God says:  I will give you rest

(Matthew 11:28-30)  

You say:  ‘Nobody really loves me’

God says:  I love you

(John 3:1   6 & John 3:34 )

You say:  ‘I can’t go on’

God says:  My grace is sufficient

(II Corinthians 12:9 & Psalm 91:15)  

You say:  ‘I can’t figure things out’  

God says:  I will direct your steps

(Proverbs 3:5-   6)

You say:  ‘I can’t do it’

God says:  You can do all things

( Phil ippians 4:13)  

You say:  ‘I’m not able’

God says:  I am able

(II Corinthians 9:8)  

You say: ‘It’s not worth it’

God says:  It will be worth it

(Roman 8:28 )  

You say:  ‘I can’t forgive my self’

God says:  I Forgive you

(I John 1:9 & Romans 8:1)  

You say:  ‘I can’t manage’

God says:  I will supply all your needs

( Philippians 4:19)  

You say:  ‘I’m afraid’

God says:  I have not given you a spirit of fear

(II Timothy 1:7)  

You say:  ‘I’m always worried and frustrated’

God says:  Cast all your cares on ME

(I Peter 5:7)  

You say:  ‘I’m not smart enough’

God says:  I give you wisdom

(I Corinthians 1:30)  

You say:  ‘I feel all alone’

God says:  I will never leave you or forsake you

(Hebrews 13:5)

The Church and the Public Square

The past month or so I have been asked or confronted with the statements about the Catholic faith. Most often from Catholics themselves. The questions range from the very basic to the very deep and for the most part the statements have almost always been anti-conservatism or pro-liberalism if you like. Me I look at them differently, I see most of the statements as anti-Catholic. But the liberals would tell me that I ma being closed minded and pre-Vatican 2 in my thinking. IT’s interesting how some can get such a different perspective on the documents of Vatican 2 than others (most others that is). Liberals are a small minority of our faith yet they seem to have such a strong hold on the faith.

Much like the political life, conservatives out number liberals, yet they [the liberals] seem to be able to convince the public that they are a majority. Interesting sociology study, if your into that sort of thing. I am, but have no interest in research, me I like to shoot from the hip, use my innate ability to always be right… It’s a gift and I am proud of it…. (For those that don’t know it, I am joking)

But back to the interesting part of all this, how can liberals do this, what power do they have that allows them to dupe the whole country in to thinking they have a majority. Obama was able to do it to win an election, but the funny thing is, I can’t find one person who said they voted for him. Yet the democratic party is able to claim they represent the majority, but the polls in the paper tell a different story.

The public square and the Church are really not all the different in a lot of ways. Both need human interaction to function in this physical world and both rely on humanity to run them. In the case of the Church we have priest, deacons and the laity to do the bidding and in the public square we have the peoples and politicians. Although lately it seems as if it is more often then not the special interest groups running the country. The few have replace the many in the name of “diversity” “fairness” and “political correctness”. The public square and the Church are suffering the same fate.

A fate of losing it’s identity, the fate of becoming bland and flavorless. We have created a generation of youth who are afraid to give opinions, for fear of offending someone. We have created a society that would rather live in the lie of “political correctness” than in the truth of reality.

The prayers at Church have been affected much in the same way public life has, Wal-Mart refused to wish shoppers a “Merry Christmas” for fear of offending some but not concerned about the others who may be offended by being wished “Happy Holidays”. The same is true in our prayers, each week we recite the creed as Mass, and each week about 1/2 the parishioners refuse to acknowledge that Jesus was a man, for fear of offending any woman that may be in attendance. “Born of the Virgin Mary and became man [human]”. Yes Jesus is human, and yes he did come down for all, and yes Jesus is God and yes God is neither male of female. But Jesus was born into a human body, and that body happened to be male. By overlooking his maleness you are overlooking in personhood. Jesus was man, Mary was woman…. Adam was man, Eve was woman…. It’s the way it works… Male and Female he made them both…

The political correctness has cheapened and diluted the sexuality of humanity! Not only in the Church but also in the public square! As Americans and as Catholics we must take back our  faith and public squares from the liberals who’s only goal is to strip all sense of uniqueness from them.

The very people who claim to want to “free” us are truly binding us. It is the liberal mindset that is imposing morality (or lack of it) upon us all. With in the Church the liberals will insist that the prayers be changed and that gender neutral terms be used. Yet it is only the male terms that are changed, never the female form. Example: “The fall of man” is acceptable because it degrades man, yet it was Eve who first ate from the tree, so why are there no cries for it to be changed to “The fall of woman”? The liberals are willing to except the term, when it degrade the others, the non-protected group, in this case males. Yet Jesus, who is male, should not be referred to as such for fear of offending a female. Nor should God be referred to as the Father, for fear that someone may dislike the image. Yet God himself (of should I say he/she self) uses the father image to describe himself. I have heard the argument that what if someone had an abusive father, so therefore calling God the Father may make them feel bad. Truly I feel for anyone who has been abused, but using the same logic, what about Jesus as a brother, what if someone’s brother hurt them or died and they can’t deal with calling Jesus a brother, or how about a youths who’s mother ran out on them, should we than stop calling Mary the mother of Jesus because it may offend? Or better yet Mary can’t be called a Mother because some kids don’t have one, so maybe Mary is a caregiver and God is just the “sperm donor” this way we can make all feel welcomed.

In the public square I am called a races if I disagree with our President. The liberals have forced me into a corner in the hopes that I will abandon my convictions in favor of their liberal agenda. I must conform to the liberal ways, they must force me out of my conservativeness for my own good. And they will stop at nothing to achieve this goal. They will even enact laws to force my conservatism. Social healthcare is the first of many laws designed to make me dependent upon the liberal system. Yet they accuse the conservative of forcing our ideals unto others, of trying to legislate morality, yet it is the liberal judges that legislate form the bench, it is the liberal politicians that enact laws to prevent freedoms and liberties, yet the conservatives get the blame. The liberals wish to kill talk radio (fairness doctrine), force the faithful to choose between faith and the government (forced abortions) yet it is the conservatives who get the blame.

The public square and the Church share a fate, one of historic proportions, we, the conservatives, take back our places in the square and the Church.  We must stand tall and fight the good fight. Too much is a stake, our country and our souls…

Paul

Hmm, That’s interesting

You ever read a book or an article and say to yourself, “Hmm, that’s an interesting quote or comment, I think I will write about that”. Most likely you haven’t unless your are a write or blogger, over the last few days I have been saying that a lot, I would read an article here and say, hmm, or read a passage from one of the many books I am reading as think, that’s my next blog. But as you can see, they never made in here. Shame too, they were great comments or quotes.

But such is life, we all to often have the best of intentions but all to often fail to follow through. Sad really if you think about it, so many opportunities to brighten someone’s day missed, so many chances to change your life around, missed.

Now you would think that I would learn to high light the passage or to keep a pad of paper and pen near by, so when I read I can jot a note or two. But I don’t, I do have Microsoft’s OneNote loaded up on my laptop and use that to save information to, but all to often I forget about that. But I was reminded about it the other day, so I am starting to use it once again, so who knows, maybe I will be posting here a tad bit more… We will see.

Life is a tad bit complicated at the moment, several ghost from my past are revisiting my current life. Bringing up some happy and not so happy memories. The days that have past leave a shadow of what they once were, and as we all know shadows are not as sharp and clear as the real image. So the ghost that haunt me are just the shadows of my memories of days gone by. But they leave an unsettling feeling with in me, a feeling that soon something is going to happen. Good, bad or indifferent, I am not sure, just the tingle in my spine that tells me to keep my guard up.

The past is a funny thing, each of us lives our past in a void, no two past are the same. That is different from the now, the now we all share, but the past is ours and ours alone. The shadows I carry with me are of my creation, they are my ghost that haunt the corners of existence. They are the dark spots in my mind, the spots where even the wind is afraid to go. They swell up and bellow out there hunting tail into the vastness of my humanity, leaving me to wither and shutter under it’s supremacy. It is the shadows of yesterdays that seem to haunt me the most, the what if and should have’s. The questions of regret and sorrow that flutter in and out of the shadows. Diving deep into the crevasses of memories, prying loss the fragments of despair and doubt, mingled with melancholy and forged with anguish.

The melodrama above is not a cry for help, nor a sign of depression, but rather an astute reading of my present state of mind. Funny how it just happened to come out of me. By no means was this blog to goo in this direct, it was to be about not writing down what I read or heard. But what it did turn into was a blog about my mood. And I must say a rather good reading of my mood, in fact it was so good that I myself did not know the state of my mood until I read what I had written. The power of the written word, not only for the reader, but more so for the writer.

Paul

Forgiveness

Yesterday I was able to enjoy one of my favorite pastimes, debating my faith. I love to challenge people, be challenged and to talk my Catholic Faith, with anyone willing to listen. Yesterdays debate was lively yet no harsh words or bad feelings followed.

This friend was not my normal debate partner, normally when I talk about one of my debates it is with a friend of mine named Theresa, who is herself a Catholic, but this time I was having the debate with an old friend of mine, who is not Catholic he is a born again Christian. To tell the truth he was, when I first meet him, a Lutheran than he converted to Judaism and now a born again… I don’t add this to belittle him but to lay the groundwork. I think it is important that we understand where he is coming from.

I should also add that at one time this person was like a brother to me and was considered part of our family, but as sometimes happens our friendship fell in to disrepair, and for the last year or so, after a 11 year time period of not talking to each other, we have been trying to piece back some sort of friendship. And to tell the truth the hold up has been me, I am unable to truly let it all go, to forgive him and to look past what happened and look forward to what once again could be. So in a way this debate was a huge step for me, I had to call him and keep my feelings in check, and truth be told, it was not that hard to do, so that is a good thing.

The debate was over the Catholic teaching that Peter is the rock, meaning that he (Peter) is the first Pope and all other Popes come from him. It actually start out as a different question, but that was the majority of the debate. We talked about “Bible alone”  “Once Saved always saved” and a few others tossed in for good measure. So we covered the basics, all we needed to add in was Mary…

The debate was fun and as I said not one harsh word was spoken, but to me what really mattered was the fact that I was able to enjoy the conversation with out any bad feelings. That I was able to remember how it use to be with remembering why we stopped being friends. (A little back ground is needed here for clarification, when my father passed away my friend failed to attend the services, not because he was sick or out of town, but because he did not have the strength to stand up for himself to his wife (he now has a new wife) as I stated before he was considered family not only by me, but also by my mother and father). So to me it was a great step towards forgiveness, he has offered his sincere apologies to me, and I have yet been able to full except them.

This is one of my main issues, I love to hold grudges… Well not really love to hold the, but It seems I am unable to let them go, it takes me a very, very, very, very long time. So yesterday was a major set for me, who knows I may be able to let this one go…

I knew I was going to blog about this conversation, but in truth I did not know the direction I wanted to take it in. At first I figured I would just use it as a starting point to teach what the Catholic faith teaches about the Popes, you know give the biblical proofs and all that, but as you can see that didn’t happen. That was my intent when I started typing, I was just going to give the back ground and than launch in to the teachings… But some how God has changed my mind… Now this blog is more about my inability to let go than it is about the Pope. And to me that is just perfect!

I have often prayed for counsel in my grudge holding abilities, I would venture that I would win any contest when it comes to holding grudges, the heaver they are the more I hold on to them. But we all know that is not very biblical or Christ like, yet I find it hard to move past them.  I have asked for the prayers of St. Francis and Mother Mary I have looked to Father Solans Casey and others for guidance. I have read books and studied theology yet am unable to do it.

My sin is my pride and I know this, yet anyone who reads my blogs also know that I understand the power of EGO and it’s evil ways, yet I sill succumb to it. Like a little child tempted by the cookie jar, I to will get caught with my hand in the Jar of Temptation.

So yesterdays conversation gave me hope. Hope that I can overcome this hurtle that I can forgive my friend. The power of forgiveness is overpowering… It is truly the grace of God, yet I seem to never be able to find that grace, I know God has offered it to me, I just choose not to accept it, and for that I am a sinner…. And I am sorry, I need to learn humility and forgiveness….

So please pray for me my brothers and sisters that I may, by the grace of God, forgive my friend.

 

Paul

I’ll Pray for you…

As Catholics we often times use the stock response of I’ll pray for you, but what we really mean is, that’s nice… leave me alone.

So what brings on this statement of condemnation, why so judgmental? Well, I am an owner of a Catholic business and was partners in a Catholic Book/Gift shop in the past (notice I said past, that’s because it no longer is). The years of hear this phrase has now gotten to me. Lets start with the Gift shop…

 

A few years back my sister a mutual friend and I opened up a Catholic Gift shop (STATIC Gift’s) in Plymouth Michigan, a nice little town with an upscale downtown area. We opened up just off of the main drag. We sold books gifts and other Catholic/Christian goods. We offered free coffee and tea and exceptional customer service. What few regulars we had (who am I kidding, what few customers we had) always commented on our friendly at home feeling we had, we even has a fire place (electric) and comfy seating to just relax a-spell. It was a perfect place to come and just enjoy and hopeful purchase gifts and books. The problem was, most Catholics spent little but offered to pray lots.

At first we said thank you and took that as a good sign, that they too would return. But they never did return, and one can only hope that they did offer up their prayers. Towards the end when we would be offered their prayers as opposed to money we would shoot back (either out loud or in our minds), “Thanks, we need prayers, but we also need money to pay the rent, we tried to send the prayers to the land lord, but he didn’t want them” .

The day came that we had to close down the store, the prayers just weren’t paying the bills.

Now I am the owner of STATIC Solutions, LLC, a educational programming company  that has created a one-of-a-kind faith based program for Middle School youth. (Yes I like the name STATIC, it stands for Students Tacking Action Together In Christ). This past July I started my marketing campaign for sell the program, and as of yet have only sold it to one parish (the parish were it has been in use for the last 4 years). I have many friends that work in parishes and some who even work with youth, yet all i hear from them is “I’ll pray for you” “It looks great, love it, I’ll Pray for you”. Once again Thanks for the prayers but I need money to keep this going, prayers will not pay for the website nor for new development with in the program or more marketing to get it known.

Now I am not asking anyone to purchase the program just because they know me or are friends with me, but I am asking for a little more help than I will pray for you….

To me it seems the we Catholics do not support Catholics, I have seen this over and over, nit just individuals but also other Catholic based companies. We tried to forge relationships with other Catholic companies when we had our store and all to often ran in to brick walls, mainly with companies that could help us grow or help us promote our shop. We even had local parishes shun us… It was a very sad commentary on the Catholic community.

We all should be supporting our faith in and out of the church building, this means donating to your local Catholic radio or shopping at a Catholic Book store or finding catholic businesses on-line and using there services.

The faith is not just what we do on Sunday, but what we do all week. Now I am not saying that to be a good Catholic you have to buy only Catholic books or videos, but I do think we have an obligation to help support them, to offer more than just our prayers… How easy is that, I’ll pray for you…. Thanks I need all I can get, but I could also use a little help in the money department….

Once again please do not take this as a “I only want money” statement, it is not, it is more of a statement of our (mean Catholics) lack of response to our faith outside of the 4 walls of the local parish.

So now I have ranted and raved, I feel a little better, and now I ask all of you Catholics reading this blog, please pray for me and my new adventure but also look at the STATIC site (www.staticplace.com) and if you home school see if it will work for you and please send the site you your local parish and let them know about the STATIC Program or if you know of other Catholic companies that may be able to help get the word out let me know (paul@staticplace.com) or send them to the site.

Thanks and God Bless

and I will pray for you…

Paul

The 3 Dots and much more…

It has been sometime between blogs as of late, it seems that I write with the intentions of getting back in to the daily routine of blogging everyday, but never seem to do it, something always seems to get in the way. For example, yester was I just had no ideas, the time before was no time before I start working…. All of them excuses to be lazy! That’s all it is, excuses… I can create a million of them if I choose too, and as of late it seems I have chosen too. I have used everyone in the book except  for “The Dog ate it” but I am sure that one will come up next.

The funny thing is, I really enjoy the process of blogging, at first I didn’t, I hated it.  I hate that my mistakes can be seen by all, and knowing how bad I am at spelling, I knew there would be tons of mistakes, not to mention the fact that I love run-on sentences, they pop up everywhere, it’s like I just keep talking and talking and never stop for a breath, in truth that’s the way I talk, so that’s how I write…

I also like to use … (three dots) a lot, to me it represents a pause to think, it’s like a computer that is booting up, the dots represent the process for me, this way I let you know that I am thinking of were to go next with this rambling… Do I continue on with it or do I chance course, and start a new paragraph?

I am sure an English teacher would have a field day with me and my odd ways with the English language. But such is life, in a world were we are politically correct concerning every aspect if life, I feel that I to deserve protection from the cruelty of others for my bad English. Were is the ACLU fighting for my cause, why hasn’t the congress passed laws to protect my right to miss-spell and us bad punctuation? Why do I have to suffer under the voices of correctness?

It seems to me that my blogging has improved my ability to spell and my over all English. This blog has nurtured my ability to write, has given me confidence that I never had before and has allowed me to process my views and thoughts in an open forum. What a truly marvelous thing it is!

The ability to blog has also allowed me to be a tad bit split in my personality, you see I write to blog’s, this one (STATIC Youth) my Catholic voice blog and my more touchy feely blog (You can be new). The You can be new blog allows me the ability to explore more of the mind more of the positive feelings and positive thought process. Allows me to dive in to the project your destiny point of view. Some would call it “New Age”, but in truth it is not, it is based in solid Christian teachings, but with a more secular voice behind it.

Blogs allow me to have several voices, I can be the conservative I am, or if I choose I can play the voice of a liberal, as I see them. Blogging allows me the freedom to be who I am and who I want to be all at the same time. I can cry with out shame and at the same time beat down my foe’s with out anyone the wiser to who I really am. Blogging is the freedom I long for and the responsibility I all to often run from…

In this blog as in my other blog I have often talked about freedom, or as I like to call it Authentic Freedom. To me there is a vast difference between Freedom and Authentic Freedom.  One is more or less what we chose it to be were as the other is our God given gift. Freedom all to often is defined as a human choice, I chose to be free, I choose to do this or that and be dammed with the consequences. That is freedom as humanity defines  her, not as God had intended her to be.

Authentic Freedom, the Freedom God intended for us is a freedom with responsibilities. We are free to love Him [God] or not, we are free to care for our neighbors or not we are free to pursue happiness in Him or to find sadness outside of Him. This is Authentic Freedom a Freedom that will last forever.

Here in the United States of America our founding Fathers understood that, they wrote that in to our Constitution, that all People are free to pursue Happiness (please note that they never guaranteed Happiness, just the ability to pursue it).

[By the way my random capitalization of words is not as random as you may think, I use capitalization as a way of showing importance, so when I capitalize the work Happiness above I did so to inform you that I consider that an important word.]

Happiness is more than just doing as you please, or obtaining pleasure for the moment, Happiness is a life long journey. One that we embark upon as young men and women, in pursuit of the American Dream. But sadly what happens is people confuse Happiness with I’ve got everythingness, or I want everythingess to be happy. It truly is a sad thing to see so many people so truly unhappy. When in truth Happiness is not hidden from us, but rather it is in the wide open. We can see it from every corner and field, we can hear it in the songs of the birds and smell it in the memories of our minds. Happiness is not elusive, we are.

We, as a fallen race, find ways to evade Happiness, we look for ways to cheapen it, to dilute it. Take sex as an example, we have cheapened it to point were sex is nothing more than a way to gain instant gratification, yet we now wonder why our society has lost the ability to love. We have taken the value of humanity and cheapened it to the value of a cup of chemicals, yet we as sickened by all the abortions we see.

We seem to find ways to cheapen our humanity, ways to draw us further from Christ, yet we act surprised when our Happiness is still out of our grasp.

Authentic Happiness is there, we can achieve it, if we truly want to, the problem is most of us do not wish to. We do not want to give up what we perceive as our happiness, yet we want what is truly Happiness, but on our terms…

So what are your term, what are you willing to do to find Authentic Happiness? What are you willing to give up or give in to? It is the question of the ages… One that has been asked since the first human walked this earth, and we all know what Adam did, he too chose what he thought would “feel good” he too chose the instant gratification route.

Nope this isn’t a new question, but it is the pivotal question for all of humanity, and one that can only be answered one person at a time. A few have done it, to one degree or another, St. Francis or Mother Teresa, but most of us are not St. Francis or Mother Teresa, most of us are just plain and simple us.But come to think of it, so were they, St. Francis was just plain and simple Frances and Mother Teresa was just Teresa. So why can’t we to find that Authentic Happiness they did, what did they have that we have not…

Faith

Plane and simple faith, the uncomplicated kind the kind that doesn’t look for the loop holes or the kind that doesn’t try to pigeon hole us, the kind of faith the in-of-itself is Authentic, the faith that comes from God.

Most of us follow a faith that has been corrupted by humanity, mainly ourselves, we try to be over analytical or over educated or over achievers or over this or under that, yet we never try to just let it be, plane and simple faith, as it was meant to be. As Jesus himself said, the faith of a Child is what we need to enter heaven. Note that Jesus did not say the faith of an Doctorate was needed, nope just that of a Child. But all to often we over look this, or we look to deeply in to it, yet a Child is simplistic it it’s love and understanding, there is nothing complex about it. It is adulthood that muddies the water and makes the simplistic complex.

How Jesus must shake his head at us sometimes. I can hear Him talking to His mother “Mom, why are they making it so hard on themselves, can’t they see that it’s not that difficult!”  And Mary would respond with “They are only human, they can’t help it, not everyone was born both God and Man as you were my son, they are slow to learn and even slower to act.”

We are simple creatures that like to complicate the world we live in. It makes us feel superior to others, but mostly to ourselves.

… This to me seems like a good place to end this blog… So I will

 

 

Paul

Let us never forget….

Let us never forget the sacrifice of Americans in the fight for freedom. The firefighters and officers of the law, the office managers and the custodians alike. Let us never forget the lost of mom’s and dad’s in the fight for freedom, the aunts and uncles and the friends that never were.

Let us never forget the cries of pain from inside the planes and the cries of anguish with in our own hearts as we witnessed the attack on freedom. 

Freedom is to be cherished, it should be praised and protected, on all fronts and on all levels. Freedom is ours to hold on to and ours to waste away, ours to give freely to others and ours to nurture.

Let us never forget the cost of freedom, eight years ago 3000 people paid that price and today our brave men and woman of the US Armed Forces are continuing to pay that price.

Today, stop and say a prayer for America and the world, today pray for the conversion of the hearts of our attackers and for the families of all who were lost in the fight for our freedom. My God bless them….

Paul

Off My Chest….

Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the Pope does

– Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend

The above quote is from a feature article she wrote for Time.

As I sit here reading and enjoying my Labor day this quote jumped off the page of the latest issue of “Town Hall” magazine, a conservative political magazine. I have already read “Our Sunday Visitor” and “The Michigan Catholic” and just started in on “Town Hall”. The quote is a a page called The Word, just a few pages that include tid-bits and quotes from people over the last month of so.

Man what a scary thought, that anyone would say that Obama was more Catholic than the Pope, or that he [Obama] represents Catholics more. As a Catholic I am insulted! Not that it really matters what I [a white, male Catholic] think. My opinions don’t matter to the secular world, and to tell the truth it really don’t matter in the Catholic world also. I am. for all statistical purposes a non-entity, but that is for another blog.

What offends me is the audacity of Mrs. Kennedy-Towsend, for her to presume that a pro-abortion, socialistic president who is not even Catholic represents my faith. If truth be told, Mr. Obama is anti-Catholic, anti-life and anti-American. And Mrs. Kennedy-Towsend may have misspoken, maybe she meant to say that Mr. Obama represented her form of the Catholic Faith better than the Pope. Maybe that’s it…. That would make since, because the Kennedy’s are pro-choice (pro-killing babies). As we know Mr. Obama not only believes this but is also trying to make it the norm and forcing it upon all.

It sickens me and makes me very angry that people like her can get “coverage” to state her sick form of the Catholic Faith, yet you will be hard pressed to find a true Catholics writings in Time or any other national magazine or paper. It is almost as if they are scared to print the truth. Maybe that’s it, maybe they feel that is the truth of the faith is printed than they, the press and elite will seen as they are, for what they are and what they stand for.

Paul

(Just wanted to get this off my chest, maybe I will explore it more sometime this week or so)

Burn Baby Burn!

To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it. — Mother Teresa

Simple logic, add oil to keep the flame. Oil is the food that feeds the fire. Same basic principle for an electric light, we must have electrical current for a light bulb to glow. The electricity is the fuel that feeds the bulb.

So why am I spend time on such simple logic, we all understand this concept be it an oil lamp or even a human, we need food for our body’s to burn, to give us the energy we need to live. No big discovery there. But I would venture to guess that most people would not consider themselves an oil lamp. But that  is exactly what Mother Teresa was doing, she was calling each of us an oil lamp.

Each of us is a flame that burns in the darkness of the world. Yet a lot of us have the the oil run dry in our lamps, we have not provided the fuel it needs to keep burning. We have chosen to peruse other wants over our needs. We have chosen to make Sunday football our Holy Mass, we have chosen to study porn over our need to study Sacred Scripture. We have allowed the secular world to invade the sacred, to rape it and remove all aspects of what makes it sacred. We have deluded the Holy Oils that fills our lamps with the polluted waters of modernisms. We have allowed our faith to become a “If I have time” faith. A faith that has taken the back seat to the world.

We are called by the Church to be of this world, not to live in seclusion but to live in the world. And I whole hearty agree. We are to engage life, to participate in life and this world. We are to take our Catholic faith out in to the world to let our lamp light shine. Yet we fail to refill this lamp with new oil. We allow the world to overshadow our light.

How do we fill our lamp, were do we get this oil?

Catholics are afforded many opportunities to fill there lamps. We have:

• Daily Mass
• Sunday Mass
• Bible Study
• Catholic Radio
• Free or almost free Catholic Talks on CD’s
• Catholic Blogs
• Catholic Podcasts
• Catholic Web Sites
• Catholic Magazines
• Catholic Newspapers
• Classes at your local Catholic college or Seminary
• Catholic Seminars
• Catholic Books

The list is endless and the opportunities to fill your lamp with new oil is abundant. As Mother Teresa stated, “To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.” To keep your faith burning you must keep feeding it…

 

Paul