I really like this lovely meditation from St. Gregory the Great (died 604) and wanted to share it with you. Via, once again, the invaluable Magnificat Magazine, which I cannot recommend to you more whole-heartedly.
…The question also rises as to why, after his resurrection, the Lord stood on the [...]
So, last night I hit that wall all of us mothers hit, from time-to-time, and just could not think of a single thing I actually wanted to cook or to eat for supper.
My Elder Son wondered what I had in mind, and if anything I was planning could be well-served [...]
We all know the story of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine who prayed for him, for years, to finally be turned to Christ.
Last weekend I picked this CD up from church - Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea talking about how the prayers of his own mother [...]
A few readers had already seen the announcement in the magazine, and a few more picked up on it here, but it’s time to spell it out, as First Things editor, Joseph Bottum - touching on changes to the magazine - does here, in his broad-ranged and interesting [...]
So, from 2006 onward, President George W. Bush tried to push a free trade agreement through Congress, and Mrs. Pelosi and her crew resisted and obstructed and vowed “no way” would it be allowed to happen. And Candidate Obama decried it. Mostly because Bush wanted it, you understand.
Thankfully, President [...]
Reader misogynist - who is a libertarian sort - sends this along with the note, “this is some scary stuff, right here…”
Misdemeanor crimes such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.
District Attorney [...]
Ann Althouse is looking at the “Susan Boyle needs a make-over” crowd, and writes:
The idea of keeping her in her original state is sentimental and selfish. Is she supposed to bolster your self esteem? One of her attributes is that she’s never been kissed. (She’s 47.) Should she [...]
Deacon Greg has found a monk who has got you beat:
The story:
70 year-old Buddhist monk Hua Chi has been praying in the same spot at his temple in Tongren, China for over 20 years. His footprints, which are up to 1.2 inches deep in some [...]
Whoa, I should look into this blogging gig, it sounds lucrative, doesn’t it?
I don’t know where the WSJ is getting its numbers from, or which bloggers it’s talking to, but I clearly ain’t one of them.
The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 [...]
Yesterday I wrote about a conversation with a cabbie from Afghanistan who loves America but who feels “less free” here than he used to.
We were talking about small laws and the encroachment of the state into our personal lives.
In response I got an interesting email from an Aussie gent [...]
So, I was over at the Crescat where I like to pop in every coupla days, and I saw this photo of Barack Obama:
And - as has happened every time I have ever seen that picture - my brain started nagging, “who does he look like in [...]
Got an update on Heather, the young pregnant woman who was diagnosed with cancer after learning of her pregnancy. On April 1 we learned that Heather had experienced something of a miraculous healing:
The technicians opened her mouth to position the equipment relative to the tumor. Only…this time…there was nothing [...]
So, basically the last four days have been dedicated to family, and the weather was terrific and I paid zero attention to the news.
I highly recommend taking a few days off from news. It’s good for the heart.
However, I am a little behind on email and must do some catching [...]
You know, I’ve been unusually busy and out of touch, but I happened to be in front of a TV this evening and saw a CNN report with Blitzer on Susan Boyle. Her hair was shiny and coifed and she looked lovely and sweet. I couldn’t hear much, but from [...]
I’ve had lots of emails asking me if I had seen the Obama/Georgetown University story. I had. Actually, I’d seen it the night before and passed it on to many friends, because I knew I would not have a chance to write about it. Family events taking a great deal [...]
A few days ago I mentioned that my latest piece at Pajamas Media seemed to raise a lot of Christian hackles. My intention had never been to offend or to - as some commented over there - be a “progressive in disguise - (what silliness!). I have been, particularly [...]
It’s not because of her magnificent voice, although that gift from God is happily now in our awareness.
It’s because it should not have taken that exposition for people to think well of her.
Got this from Deacon Greg and just loved it; it really speaks to our materialism [...]
Today Pope Benedict XVI celebrates his 82nd birthday. Time flies so quickly; it seems like yesterday he was visiting Ground Zero and greeting the youth of New York!
In honor of his birthday, I am reposting this from last April:
BENEDICT XVI; THE LAST 20th CENTURY MAN
It [...]
Yes, he is larger-than-life; gregarious, accessible, open, friendly, warm, charming, engaging…Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan is all those things.
Dolan kisses his crosier, signaling his acceptance of the Shepherd’s burden
But as he showed us in his barnburner of a homily just now, Dolan is afire with the love [...]
UPDATE: Please note, I had a copy of the projected deficit chart which you can see here included with this piece, but it apparently violated my photohost’s terms of use.
So the Journolist or whoever it is who co-ordinates the narratives for the Mainstream Media, seem to have [...]
Archbishop Dolan Knocks, as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton looks on
(shamelessly cribbed from Rocco)
“I was at the vespers when he was installed as bishop [of Milwaukee]. And there’s a part where the bishop knocks on the door. Most do it timidly. Tap, tap. Not him [...]
Boy, I don’t like that header, and hope it won’t come to that, but who knows anymore?
I really did not want to get back into politics so soon - I have other things on my mind - but I’ll just throw these out and you guys make your own [...]
You know what? I am just NOT READY to come up for air from Easter, and get all involved with the everyday muck.
I’m almost ready. Might be there by tonight. But for now - I like this meme and thought your answers would be fun, too. As Julie says: [...]
I rather think he’d like that header.
You’ll like this clip, wherein Colbert takes Bart Ehrman, the [atheist, of course] chair of the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina, to school on the subject of Christ, who is both a dead-raising duck and an elephant too large for [...]
More information on the remarkable Susan Boyle, who I linked to in the post below and the story just gets nicer and nicer, and one just wants all good things to happen for her.
It seems that Simon Cowell’s people are already pursuing Boyle, who got a standing ovation [...]
How are you, tired? Yeah, the Triduum, with the Vigil and then the houseful of company is kind of the Christian Olympics - tired here, too.
Will write later. Right now I am busy reading the 90 comments my piece at Pajamas Media elicited on Easter Sunday, of all days. In [...]
He is risen! Truly, He is risen!
The Morning of the Resurrection by Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Graces of the Resurrection
Jesus…says of his death: I go away, and I will come to you.” It is by going away that he comes. His going ushers in a completely new and [...]
A quiet day of sorrow; Christ has left us and descended into the netherworld. We remember this, and go about our preparations for tomorrow with hollow hearts.
Pirates take another vessel: I am trying to eschew politics, but as we pray today, let us offer - along with prayers for [...]
Christ of St. John of the Cross, Salvatore Dali (via Magnificat Magazine)
I have a little bit on Good Friday below, but here is a link-around.
In L’Aquila, the people who have survived the terrible earthquake are suffering through their own sort of Passion this Good Friday. [...]
So, this afternoon I had the pleasure of spending some one-on-one time with Buster, who came home from school asking if I wanted to take a drive to Montauk with him, revisit old haunts and eat some blueberry pie, as is our tradition.
I worried a little about it. Why would [...]
“The mystery of the greatness of God is seen precisely in the fact that he can be small…Only when power is changed from the inside, and we accept Jesus and his way of life, whose whole self is there in the action of foot-washing, only then can the world be [...]
The Lord is faithful. He comforts his spouse, the Church; he holds us with a firm hand, and leads us up to the way of death.
It is a reality: what happened once is always happening; not always again but always the one same event; not today as then, but then [...]
Passover begins at sundown this evening and concludes at nightfall on April 16.
Our friend and frequent commenter Hantchu, who resides in Israel, sends seasonal greetings, which I’ll accept on everyone’s behalf, and writes:
We just finished cleaning and checking for chametz (leaven) last night, and the countdown [...]
Some may have seen this already, but I was saving it for this week:
Have we found the site of the Garden of Eden?
David Lewis-Williams, professor of archaeology at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, says: ‘Gobekli Tepe is the most important archaeological site in the world.’
…
The site of Gobekli [...]
I recorded today’s readings from mass, the Isaiah, psalm and Gospel reading are all podcasted here, for any who are interested.
From Magnificat Magazine:
Judas
Judas is the symbol in the human world, as Satan is in the spirit world, of non-being, of self-destruction, of life-refusal. Moved (as seems [...]
“Judas is neither a master of evil nor the figure of a demoniacal power of darkness but rather a sycophant who bows down before the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashion. But it is precisely this anonymous power that crucified Jesus, fo ri was anonymous voices that cried, [...]
Tenebrae service at St. John Cantius. 3-19-08
I have mentioned Magnificat Magazine a few times in the past, and everyone who has ever subscribed to it via my recommendation has written to say how essential it has become to their prayer life.
I must praise it again, particularly as [...]
When Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Timothy Dolan to replace Cardinal Egan in NY I rejoiced and danced a virtual jig, writing:
Like an uncommunicative, nearly moribund patient who suddenly takes a huge cleansing breath and declares, “kindly don’t build the casket just yet, if you please, and do you [...]
Every time I turn around I have another press release or story in my email about another bishop boycotting another commencement ceremony at a Catholic college, because one of the speakers is pro-abortion.
This seems wrong to me. It seems unpastoral - unshephard-like - to either “not show up” or simply [...]
I have decided - after allowing myself to get aggravated by the press once again pretending that Barack Obama has especial greatness for essentially saying the same thing George W. Bush said, that I am going to declare a moratorium on political posts for Holy Week. Others cover politics [...]
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, 1901-1925
“Prayer is the noble supplication which we lift up to the throne of the Most High. It is the most efficient means to obtain from God the graces which we need.”
- Pier Giorgio Frassati
The weirdest thing happened to me last [...]
I am looking forward to reading Mark Levin’s Liberty & Tyranny, but I am a little embarrassed to hear how some Levin fans are treating my Elder Son’s Sweet Girlfriend, and her co-workers, when they cannot find the book.
Sweet Girlfriend works in a franchise bookstore, and she works very [...]
My hair is a mess and I did not get to say what I wanted to in response to Fr. Reese’s assertion that joshing about at the Al Smith Dinner is more prestigious than receiving an Honorary Degree from Notre Dame University and addressing the graduates (and the whole world) [...]
I am going to look around more before commenting further, but if this is correct then we’re looking at something very bad, indeed.
…the democratically lead Congress has proposed the “Pay for Performance Act” which passed Thursday with even some Republican Congressman voted for it.
…
The scariest part of [...]
A friend of mine just dropped a hint - a veiled one, as in, “maybe I’ll go to the church down the street and find out what it takes to become Catholic,” which made me happy, of course. I gave him the line from noted conservative Paul Johnson: “come on [...]
Pope John Paul II & Ignatius Cardinal Kung Pin Mei
Because it is something we can never hear enough these days, let’s revisit ideas of liberty put forth by two Englishmen, G.K. Chesteron and C.S. Lewis.
This morning I heard Mika Brzezinski, whom I rather like, telling [...]
For anyone who is interested, here is a podcast of morning prayer for Friday, April 3, as we near the end of Lent.
Insomniac night, so please pardon the scratchy voice. I was very tired when I put it together.
If you are looking for other podcasts, or the Rosaries, I [...]
You know, it’s so sick, I really didn’t want to write about it. I linked to Amy Welborn and figured I’d let you folks find this monstrosity on your own, but I want to make sure you read it.
These remarks were made before a NARAL audience, in 2007, [...]
Let me say right off the bat, I have never thought, as apparently many still do, that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Obama said he was a Christian, and - although it is difficult to believe he sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years and never heard him [...]
Taking a page from the left, Nice Deb is asking if anyone on the right is dreaming about President Obama (or, of course, Rush Limbaugh, his evil nemesis).
Apparently, I am not the only “conservative” woman dreaming of Limbaugh, but our dreams are very different than the [...]
Hmmmm…
Let’s see…it sounds - in this article - like the Bush administration treated the press more thoughtfully and professionally than the Obama administration does.
Unlike President Bush’s White House communications team, which usually timed press conferences abroad to coincide with the U.S. morning programs, the Obama operation kicked off the [...]
For the past few weeks I have occasionally mentioned a young woman named Heather who is battling a cancer diagnosed while she is pregnant. Some of you (including one seminarian) have kindly asked to be kept apprised of Heather’s situation (and the baby’s), and have kept her in your prayers.
Yesterday [...]
So, yesterday I was off in Brooklyn again, for another coupla episodes of In the Arena, and as usual the good folks at NET had arranged a car for the ten minute drive from mass transportation to studio.
Typically, the drivers are immigrants from the Middle East or India, [...]
Well, if I was behind in my email before, now I’m catastrophically behind. I don’t know what is going on with gmail but I haven’t been able to access it for most of the day.
I may never get the email answered. Sorry.
[...]Have been meaning to write about a book I am reading, but my time has been taken up with real life. Tomorrow I am out all day - perhaps tonight I will get to discuss the book w/ you. And yes, I am horribly backed up on my email, sorry. [...]
I told you about my amusing Sandra Bullock/Rush Limbaugh dream.
Another flashback - this time Sandra Bullock. It’s 10-12 years earlier and she is a smart reporter trying to get out of the shadow of a dumb-but-perky American Sweetheart NewsDitz. Gets a line on a way to [...]
You ever have one of those dreams that’s so delicious and fun that you hate to wake up, and when you do, you think to yourself, “wow, that was GREAT! I want to finish that dream! I want to videotape that dream, so I can dream it again!”
I had such [...]
Hillary Clinton sort of looking at Our Lady of Guadalupe
Okay, I admit I’m being a bit snarky with the headline. I’m not really calling Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama “snakes” - I’m just having a little fun with scripture, and the whole notion that the two biggest [...]
הַעִדֹתִי בָכֶם הַיּוֹם, אֶתהַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶתהָאָרֶץהַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ, הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה וּבָחַרְתָּ, בַּחַיִּיםלְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה, אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ
- Deuteronomy 30:19
I have argued many times that by welcoming new life into the world - regardless of how “perfect” that life is - we are allowing Love to come into the world, [...]
Comrades, it’s difficult to keep up, but the mandatory service requirement requires that you try. The oxymoronic thing passed in the Senate. It passed by a healthy margin.
Yesterday a thoughtful young 24 year old whom I have known since he was about 10 or [...]
Friend Shana, who can read the writing on the wall, is doing a bigger garden than usual, this year and she says she’ll be canning more fruits and vegetables, too.
And, (eventually) she’ll be taking care of the eggs. And the fried chicken, if they don’t produce, I’ll bet!
Her chicks arrived [...]
I had about 50 tabs open on different stories that I meant to link to or touch on in some way. Then my husband sat at my computer for something, decided everything was too slow, and closed them on me.
I may or may not be able to find all those [...]
Comrades, I am out today, but wanted to throw a few links up.
On the heels of the very interesting Mike Rowe, of “Dirty Jobs”, and his thoughts on work, dignity and AIG rage, some very disturbing reading, much of it thanks to Larwyn:
Every American a Volunteer: the incomprehensible [...]
Stopped over at American Digest (which is a good thing to do each day) and watched this 20 minute video of Discovery Channel’s Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) talking about how biting a lamb’s testicles off brought enlightenment. It’s well worth watching - jogs the brain out of the stuff [...]
As a Benedictine Oblate, it was with great joy that I read this article on the discovery of ancient relics, including one of our Holy Father, St. Benedict:
The new medieval gallery at the British Museum is full of beautiful images of saints in ivory, stone, gold and wood - [...]
This is awesome:
Came to it via the invaluable Gerald Warner.
Here in the United States, land of the First Amendment and free speech, it is right now unthinkable that anyone would stand up in a political chamber and speak so forthrightly.
I mean…can you imagine someone in our Congress or [...]
“The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary,”
R: And she conceived by the Holy Spirit
— The Angelus
A nearby parish rings the Angelus bells twice a day, and I love it. Sometimes in Manhattan, you can hear a church ringing the Angelus. People hurry by; possibly few of [...]
Now, now, I’m not calling President Obama the devil. Or, for that matter, “the devil’s own.” I’m just thinking of my Auntie Lillie, who would not be at all happy to hear that Obama will be speaking at the commencement for Notre Dame, where he will receive an honorary [...]
Funny…when I saw this headline at Drudge:
Obama Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms.
I misread it and thought it said:
Obama Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Arms.
That, of course, will come soon enough.
For now, he wants all the control over all the money.
We are in terrible trouble, you know.
As [...]
From Reader LF, this is pretty neat:
It is an unforgettable moment. As the sun traverses the sky its light is suddenly focused into an intense beam which illuminates a carving of Christ on the Cross.
This is not a scene from an Indiana Jones film, however, but a stirring [...]
Please pray for Heather, who is pregnant and now diagnosed with what seems to be an aggressive cancer. She is taking light radiation (with protection for the baby) and responding well to that, but she has a long way to go. Doctors hope to take the baby in April, provided [...]
I have written a few times about how socialistic, totalitarian governments tend to go after people of faith - to try to suppress them - and they specifically (and usually pretty quickly) also move to shut down the monastics and vowed religious, and leave them bereft of community.
I [...]
I’m adding two new blogs to the blogroll and wanted to introduce them to you.
First up, feed the body…I’m seriously thinking about making this Pasta Prima Vera recipe for tomorrow, even if it will kill me.
Reader Dick T. introduced me to the Pioneer Woman and I curse him for [...]
Regular readers know I never use these GOP Things that get sent my way, but I liked this one. Great music, even if the lyrics are deplorable.
The film is rolling, and some are starting to wonder if it is curtains for America?
As an aghast world — from China [...]
Here is the Podcast of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, which are ordinarily prayed on Thursdays in Ordinary Time, but as with any of the mysteries, you can pray whichever one the Spirit is leading you to pray.
Many Catholics have difficulty remembering the Luminous Mysteries as [...]
“Loving God is the work of a lifetime: spending time in prayer and meditation; listening for the still small voice; learning to live as God wills, by justice and charity; contemplating the gifts we receive, the gifts that we take easily for granted. Only then do we grow near to [...]
Over at Inside Catholic, Brian Saint-Paul talks the Federal Reserve, Inflation and Duck Tales.
No, really. Start with this video:
Then go read his “Money Meltdown” interview with Tom Woods.
We’re in big trouble - on all sides, politically, socially, spiritually - pick a battle and start working. Support it all [...]
According to Jake Tapper, Obama and Leno talked bowling.
Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he’s gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.
He bowled a 129, the president said.
“That’s very good, Mr. President,” Leno said sarcastically.
It’s [...]
What happens when you put Welsh Shepherds, Samsung and LED’s together?
It’s…unimaginable. But someone imagined it. Watch it to the end.
H/T Pianogirl.
[...]My son Buster has dabbled in poetry here and there, mostly in writing lyrics for his pop-tunes. When he writes seriously, though, he sometimes reminds me a little of Stephen Crane - not in terms of technical proficiency, of course, but in terms of imagery that can make you wince.
He [...]
Podcast of Second Vespers of the Feastday here.
The other day I sang the praises of the Irish as we feasted St. Patrick. Today is actually a much bigger feast day - the solemn feast day of St. Joseph, the Husband of Mary. Just as St. Patrick [...]
Do you remember a while back, CNN and other outlets were remarking on the clever ad campaign put out by the Diocese of Brooklyn at the launch of their new offering, New Evangelization Television?
The little devil in red was urging us to Stop Good TV; the ad got [...]
Okay, so…60 days into this new presidency, it looks to me like we’re going to spend the next four years watching a non-stop play of infinite acts. With none of the wit or wisdom of Pride & Prejudice, Obama and Company are going to treat us to Chaos & Cajolery.
Basically, [...]
We gave you the Irish Soda Bread, we gave you Joyce, Yeats and Oscar Wilde.
We gave you U2. Sorry that Bono can be such a blowhard sometimes, but you know…he’s Irish.
We gave you Errol Flynn.
And Tom Selleck.
And John Wayne & Maureen O’ Hara.
And Gene Kelly.
And the foundation upon [...]
Well, Bookworm may have found .
Researching for another post she came across this prophetic bit of writing by economist Utpal Bhattacharya, of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana U:
As no rational agent would be willing to take part in the last round in a finite economy, [...]
PJ O’Rourke is dealing with cancer, right now, so if he wanted to, he could defend the president’s recent executive order promoting (with his typical strawmen and ungenerously snide references to his predecessor) the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. He could wail and weep “poor me, I might [...]
From inside I heard [his wife] calling, “Fwed, Fwed, come quickly!…There’s aperfectly dwedful man at the door without a shirt…he says he knows your sister and has a letter from a bookie called Gwaves.”
From these unpromising beginnings, a friendship grew which perhaps meant more to me than [...]
Don’t take it the wrong way - she was a literary genius, and I am only a grubber - but there are times when I read or re-read Flannery O’ Connor and just think, “honey, I so identify…”
Re-reading an old Paul Greenberg column wondering when a Symbol becomes a [...]
Sorry so quiet. The flu that hammered my husband a bit ago finally found and hammered me. I’m slowly on the mend, over here.
At supper tonight we were talking about whether my reminders to my husband and sons about abstaining from meat during Lenten Fridays actually helps them to remember, [...]
Sorry so quiet - had a very strange day over here, which included a minor but important “emergency” issue for a family member.
Please allow me to say Thank You - a huge, Thank you with a grateful heart. The tons of incredibly lovely responses and emails I have been reading [...]
Right after Obama got told to get his act together in a crisis:
The economic crisis is downgraded. No longer a catastrophe. Let’s dance!
Drudge says: “Dire Emergency Canceled.” You betcha! [...]
Still have a cold, the mic is still problematic (I think it’s time to bite the bullet and pick up a new one) but here is the podcast of Vespers for March 12.
I’m sorry that it sounds a bit tiny. I had to speak up over the cold and [...]
The Recent Mrs. Chins
Two of my brothers are gay, and both of them found that coming out afforded them great peace and freedom. No longer needing to hide a portion of themselves, unconstricted by fear and having escaped the deceptive “safety” of their hiding place, they became [...]
In yesterday’s link-filled post, I added this astounding technological demonstration.
And because my kids do not read my blog - who is more boring than mother? - I sent the link to each of them. I got into a conversation with someone, later, about how the technology shows us [...]
