As Bill O’Reilly would say, I am a simple person.   I have never studied economics.  But I have studied people for a long time and I have studied the teachings of Jesus for a long time.  At the most basic level, we are told we should love our neighbor as ourselves.  This means that if our neighbor is without the basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, and we can provide these things, he has a right to them.  We are also told that we, as well as our neighbor, have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  These words are not exactly Biblical, but it has been written that we are endowed by our Creator with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  (The Rescue Movement. for example, rests on protecting the life of our unborn brother, even in the womb, when we know he is scheduled to be killed.)

Much has been written of late about the redistribution of wealth  not just so all will have the basic necessities but so that it will be “fair.”   Some even think it is the role of government to arrange  this, so the rich will not be so rich and the poor not so poor.  To get back to the teachings of Jesus, he says we are to keep his commandments, and these include the Ten Commandments given by Moses.  First among  these are loving God and neighbor, and honoring our parents.  We are not to lie or steal,  We are not to covet our neighbors goods.  It does, then, seems that we have a basic right to “goods” which are not to be stolen, i.e., a basic right to property.  It seems to me it is not the role of government, especially federal government, to take it upon itself to decide that my property should go to some else.

What is nowadays called “charity” is best done at a local level.  People who live near each other are better acquainted with each other.  Christians from the time of Christ have ministered  to each other one on one.  In small groups they have provided food pantries, clothing, care for the aged, ill, and abandoned.  On a local level towns pooled funds for “safety nets” to provide for various needs, which were distributed by people in touch with the situation.   We know that when caring for others is attempted at the federal level, even at the state level, the large amounts of monies available seem to sometimes  tempt the distributors  who keep too much for  “salaries” and take little care of the “little” person.

On the other hand, the little people learn how to “work the system”  when it is not carefully administered.  And politicians are well aware that they can “buy” votes by spreading money around, not as much  out of love as a from quest for power.

it is well documented that Christians do more charitable giving than the average Joe.  Christian charitable organizations seem to be more trustworthy.   Why then would a federal government that has shown little organizational competence seek to shut down Christian charities, which are more hands-on, and try minister to the little guy at the ground level from its perch on high?  Often they are coming from greed, living lavishly, not coming from love.

Throughout the ages Christians have been known not only for their beautiful churches but for their hospitals, schools, elderly housing, missions to foreign countries,  They really believe that God is love, and Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Many wealthy peoples regardless of religion, have a heart for the poor and devote millions to their care, willingly, gladly. Let us appeal to their hearts, not take from their pockets.

Who would you rather have care for your mother, the Little Sisters of the Poor, or the federal government?

IMHO, the world needs more Christians!  Love cannot be mandated.  It must come from the heart.

Postscript – a timely email:

THIS IS EYE OPENING…

When the Catholic Church was founded, there were no hospitals. Today, one out of five people in this country receive their medical care at a Catholic hospital.

When the Catholic Church was founded, there were no schools. Today, the Catholic Church teaches 3 million students a day, in its more than 250 Catholic Colleges and Universities, in its more than 1200 Catholic High Schools and its more than 5000 Catholic grade schools.

Every day, the Catholic Church feeds, clothes, shelters and educates more people than any other organization in the world.

The new Obama Health Mandate could end all this and the tax payers would have to make up the loss.

Also, all Catholic adoption services would come to an end; a human disaster.

There are more than 77 million Catholics in this country. It takes an estimated 50 million Catholic votes to elect a president. I am asking all of you to go to the polls in 2014 and be united in replacing all Senators and Reps with someone who will respect the Catholic Church, all Christians, and all Religions.

Matthew 25:31-45:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Not really.   I don’t actually have the faintest idea of how God feels– if God feels at all.   We tend to think of feelings as things that come and go.  We are sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes anxious, sometimes peaceful.  We are depressed or joyful, sick or well.  On the other hand, God is constant, unchanging.  Nothing we do surprises him because he knew the end from the beginning.  He is not one day glad, one day sad.  Or so I understand.   We may feel love but God IS love.  I have trouble understanding how Love can be a person and not just a feeling.

So why did I title this post “I know how God feels?”  Because I am a parent.  I have brought children into this world and tried to do right by them.  I loved them with such love as I am capable of and gave them what I thought they needed as best I could.  Maybe parenthood gives me a glimpse into God’s thinking.   God wanted to spread his overflowing love around and decided to create people  who  could enjoy happiness with him forever in a loving relationship.  Male and female he created them and placed them in a paradise with all they could possibly need, a beautiful world with sunrises and sunsets,  flowers and trees, animals galore, all under man’s dominion.   But because love that is not voluntary is not love at all he also gave them free will.   He did not want to make robots that had no choice but to execute a program.   The people he made could choose to trust in the goodness of God and go along with his plan or reject his loving plan and do their own thing.  But some of them were prideful and wanted to be like God which makes about as much sense as a watch telling the watchmaker “I will not keep time.”  Such a watch would be good for nothing but the junkyard.

My kids are so like God’s kids!  All I want of them is that they love each other and behave themselves.  And love me, of course, who have been good to them and sacrificed for them, and without whom they would not exist.  I rejoice when they do well and it breaks my heart when they squabble.  Maybe I do understand, just a little bit how God feels — IF he feels!   How must God feel when he sees his children at war, hurting each other, grabbng and accumulating while others do without, wasting resources, seeking power for themselves without regard to the suffering of others?   Like many others I am again attributing to God the feelings of men.

God is so “other,” so un-understandable, that we run a risk when we anthropomorphize. On the other hand,  If we are made in the image of God, we must somehow reflect him.  We may never know what, or if, God feels. We do know, however, what God wants. because he said he wants us to love each other.  If it grieves us when our children don’t obey or don’t get along, it makes sense to think that God is likewise grieved.

He has told us what he wants through his prophets, his Ten Commandments, and he sent his Son, Jesus, (Emmanuel, which means “God with us”) to teach us. We can choose to do His will, follow Jesus, and love each other, and live happily ever after, or we can say “I will not serve” and consign ourselves to misery.

~~~

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.” –John Greenleaf Whittier

My friend and I sometimes talk about life and religion after mass. I asked him recently if he had ever had a mystical moment. His instant reply was, “Yes. And it changed me.” The way was open for him to tell me all about it but he didn’t and I didn’t press him. Actually, I thought I had been a bit forward in just asking the question. I have written before about my one and only mystical moment, when I was flooded with a overwhelming feeling of sweetness one night as I was saying a rosary.  I don’t know how I immediately identified it as sweetness (as, I suppose, in “taste and see that the Lord is sweet”). The first thing I did was to look in the mirror to see if I might possibly glow–it was that amazing. My friend, Dolores, tells me of a one-time-only experience of incredible joy as she was taking a shower! I recall another story of an attendee at a Christian conference, listening to a lackluster speaker, when he, too, experienced incredible joy. Many people tell of experiencing God’s love when someone prays with them. I love hearing about such anecdotal experiences which are multiplied thousands of times in the lives of sincere Christians.

I recently read Nowhere But Up by Justin Bieber’s mother, Pattie Mallette. As a lost, addicted, single Mom she had an such an experience of God  that she went around telling everyone “God is real!” whether they wanted to hear it or not. It changed her. Such experiences seem to have a profound effect. Somewhere in my past I read something to the effect that one will not lay down one’s life because of a theory but one may be willing to die because of an experience. We know that all of the apostles but one died a martyr. They had experienced Jesus and knew he was real.  Nothing could shake their faith.

Everyone knows of Mother Teresa, that she was a nun in Calcutta who received a “call within a call” as she was riding on a train going to a retreat.  It seems that she had an experience on that train in which Jesus told her she was to leave her convent and go about Calcutta ministering to the needy herself.  Eventually others gathered about her and her Missionaries of Charity still care for the abandoned, homeless, sick, orphaned, AIDS patients, and the like all over the world.  What was never known until her private writings were revealed after her death was that she had no further  experience of God for FIFTY YEARS after her profound life-changing experience on that train.   Yet she never doubted she was doing God’s will.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI tells us he made his very unusual decision to resign as Pope because God told him to in a “mystical” way. Not a voice, not a vision, but mystically. “Asked why he resigned, the pope emeritus said, ‘God told me to,’ but added that he had not received any kind of apparition or similar phenomenon. Rather, it was a “mystical experience” in which the Lord planted a seed of “absolute desire” in his heart “to remain alone with him, secluded in prayer.”

With these two praying for us, how can our church go wrong?

Pope Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Everyone who has been around for awhile knows the name of Orson Bean.  As a child he did magic tricks, became a stand-up comic, and he has been an entertainer in clubs, movies, and on TV for the past 70 years.  Now 85, he was interviewed yesterday by an early morning radio talk show host where he enthusiastically proclaimed his love for Yeshua (Jesus).  He had also come out with a new book  Safe at Home.  Intrigued, I looked it up on Amazon where I found this quote from Bean:  “When I take communion (ritualized cannibalism) tears come to my eyes. This happens because during that rite I remember that the two thousand year old man (sorry Mel Brooks) whom I believe (in some way I can’t explain) to be the Son of God (Whom I also can’t explain) instructed His followers (one of whom I have become) to symbolically drink His blood (sorry Bela Lugosi) and eat His body (sorry Jeffrey Daumer) and by doing so to become a part of Him. I find that deeply moving.”

Thinking that there were reasons behind this rather odd statement of Orson Bean’s faith I wanted to read his book.  The quickest, cheapest way to do so was to download it to my Kindle, and he did not disappoint me.   I find the true story of anyone’s life fascinating, but Orson Bean’s was especially so since he describes the long-ago America we old folks remember and does a lot of famous name dropping along the way.  I read the whole thing in one day, lickety-split, looking for his religious “experiences.”  As a child he would go to the coal bin and put a smudge on his forehead so he would look like the Catholic boys in the neighborhood but he never had  much religious education.   He was pretty much adrift after his mother’s suicide when he was 16 and while the ups and downs of his life make for fascinating reading, his experiences during the war years, for example,  they just led up to the time when “I should have been on top of the world, but I wasn’t. I would go to my shrink, lie on his couch, and tell him that life was “just OK.” There was a hole in me that just never got filled.”

After ten years of analysis Bean  tried a number of other new age type therapies.  He even, actually, walked on burning coals!  This man was really seeking!

After his divorce, at a time of despair, he writes:

I’m sitting on my couch, trying to decide whether it’s too early to go to bed. I glance up and whom do I see, standing in the hall between the kitchen and the living room but our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He doesn’t say anything to me, just stands there in my hall, with the slightest trace of a smile on his face, radiating unconditional love. I recognize him at once . The experience is as real as any I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t question it for an instant. I know the difference between real and imaginary. I’m a magician . Christ graces me with his presence for twenty minutes. Then I look away and when I turn back, he’s gone. The next night, he comes again, standing in a different part of the room, visits for fifteen minutes or so, and then leaves. Oddly enough, I don’t feel particularly changed by the experience . I just think to myself, “So, He’s real and alive and living in New York.”

Another time when he had a problem with alcohol he was advised  to turn to a higher power and say a little prayer of gratitude morning and night, which he did.   Still later, still questioning the existence of a higher power, he got some religion books from the library, including C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Slowly he began to believe there was a God who made the universe, who cared about him and, thirty years after his visions, he was baptized. He wrote: “There was never any doubt in my mind that on the two evenings in question, I had been in the physical presence of the living Christ; and if He was there then, He is surely here now, standing beside me.”   This is truly a fascinating tale.

When I started writing this post I had no idea I would have so much to say about Orson Bean. but things do not always go as planned.  Indeed, everyone who finds Christ has a fascinating story. I will not multiply stories about mystical moments — surely there are millions. But I’d love to hear yours — why do YOU believe?

Email from Orson Bean:
Hello babydot. I thought it was because I’m 85 that computers confuse me. My grandkids of course, even the littlest ones, can do anything. But if at 90 you’re such a pro I guess it’s not an age thing. Thanks so much for the note and your kind words. I’m not doing much of anything to promote the book, just leaving it in the hands of Himself for it to reach anyone who might be influenced by it. I’ve already heard from a couple of non-believers that they are getting down on their knees and asking if there’s anyone there. A guy named Frank Sontag who does a broadcast on a Christian network asked me to come on his show and I’ll do so next Monday. I enjoyed your blog. Again, thanks. O.

We were singing “The Cry of the Poor” at Mass but the words in the new songbook weren’t the words I had learned.  The first verse used to be

“I will bless the Lord at all times.  His praise ever in my mouth.  Let my soul glory in the Lord, For he hears the cry of the poor.”

Now it went

“I will bless the Lord at all times.  With praise ever in my mouth.  Let my soul glory in the Lord, Who will hear the cry of the poor.”

Who are the people who have changed the words in this song and in other songs that I once knew and enjoyed?  Is this always done with the permission of the author?  Some of the changes are awkward, with little regard to grammatical antecedents.  Why is somebody so determined not to call the Lord “He?”

Then came the homily that was the final straw prompting this article.  The priest referred to “our forefathers and foremothers!”  What next?  Will they change the Gettysburg Address (never mind what Lincoln actually said) to “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers and mothers brought forth on this continent….”?

Who are they who have decided that our language does not mean what it has always meant?  Linguistics experts report that the use of “man” to refer to a member of the human race predates the use of “man” to refer to an adult male.  “Man does not live by bread alone.”  “No man is an island.”  “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world…..”  “Time and tide wait for no man.”  “Unless a man be born again…..”  “Man’s inhumanity to man.”  “Friends, Romans, countrymen!”  “Man overboard!”  All of these sayings have suddenly become incomprehensible or unacceptable because they do not include women?

Of course they include women!  They always have.  “Man” is a generic term meaning “humankind.”  Women have always had a word of their own.  Most animals have separate words for the male and female of the species–stallion/mare, buck/doe, billy goat/nanny goat, rooster/hen, and so forth.  But the human male actually has no word of his own; he has to share.

From whence comes this urge to get the “men” out of “women?”  California State University has a course in “Wymyn’s Studies!”  Others spell it “wimmin.”

Fifty years ago New York’s Museum of Modern Art had a photography exhibit titled “The Family of Man” and the subsequent book of photographs with the same title met with great critical acclaim for its depiction of men, women, and children the world over.  Everyone understood the title and no one complained about it.  Now it apparently would be insensitive and politically incorrect.

Language is an organic thing that grows with roots and branches.  They are uprooting it and retrofitting it with artificial glosses to correct a perceived but non-existent slight and we do not withhold our “Amen.”   (We’d better get the “men” out of that, too!)

Next they will be correcting Shakespeare!  There goes the iambic pentameter; here comes the bastardization of the product of genius!

Dr. Helen Dietz, in a protest to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on proposed inclusive changes in our English liturgy wrote, “Jesus said, ‘Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ not ‘be ye perfect as your Heavenly Supreme Being is perfect.’  Today when there are so many fatherless households is not the time to be promoting a fatherless universe.”  She also noted that adopting inclusive language “introduces awkward circumlocutions…which do not reflect the way people ordinarily speak.”

We all know that God is not a man or a woman but a Spirit.  Jesus said to call him “Father.”  “Our Father who art in heaven.”  Or “Abba”  (Daddy).  Jesus called Mary “mother” and that makes sense to me.  God has the best of both masculine and feminine characteristics.   Genesis says that God created man in his image.  I especially like the RSV version of Genesis 5:2 which clearly illustrates the generic use of “man.”  “Male and female he created them and he blessed them and called them Man when they were created.”  Yet there are those who do not want to say “Father, Son,and Holy Spirit,” but rather “the Parent, the Child, and the Power!”

According to Webster, the second meaning of “he” refers to one whose sex is unknown or immaterial.  Webster should know.  “He who hesitates is lost.”  “Blessed be he who is poor in spirit..”  But lately I am seeing more and more writings peppered with him/her or s/he.  I have also seen (I kid you not) “history” transformed into “herstory.”

Scripture says quite clearly that the first woman came from man, but ever since men have been coming from women!  (1 Cor. 11,12)  God has given women plenty of status.

As for me, God is my Father, Jesus is my brother, and Mary is my mother.   And I do not feel that the “brotherhood of man” leaves me out.

“God has visited his people.”  Let’s see them fix that!

I was well into my sixties before I ever gave even a passing thought to prophecy. Why would I? It was nothing that came up in every day conversation. Sure, I knew the word. It reminded me of the Delphic oracle and prophets in the Bible, people of long ago, akin to Greek gods or Socrates, maybe real, maybe not, who cares?   I knew that the Creed in the mass said that God “spoke through the prophets.”  That, too, meant little to me.  All the stuff in the Old Testament was just prelude to the New Testament when God actually appeared on earth and gave us the low down.

Once I got into a prayer group in the 1970s I soon became acquainted with the chapter in Joel in which God promises to send his Spirit:

“Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit -“

This promise is repeated in Acts 2:17.  I wouldn’t have paid much attention to this, either, except some people in the prayer group started getting prophecies.  They would speak, as God, in the first person.  We weren’t supposed to accept it as “from God” unless it agreed with what the Bible said and was confirmed by someone or something else.

It was Father Joe’s idea that we gather as small groups in people’s homes.  There were four in my group, Betty, MaryEllen, (both now deceased), and I’m vague about the fourth.  It was all new to us, this gathering and praying stuff, but we gave it a try.   We were not to chat until after the hour of prayer.  With a little soft music in the background, we tried to center on God.  It was during one of the earliest of such gatherings that MaryEllen shook a little and came out with something that God had to say about “oil.”  It was just a couple of sentences but it turned out to be the first of many prophecies that she was to receive. Nobody wrote it down.

I took it all with a grain of salt.  During that time period, however, one morning in my bedroom I heard a male voice which said, “My people, I love you, do not be afraid.”   Well, of course it agreed with scripture.  God says practically nothing else.  Nobody was impressed when I reported this message at a prayer meeting.  Soon after that came my second (and last) prophecy.  No voice this time; words just dropped into my head.  They were:  “Repent.  The Lord is nigh.” When I went to mass that morning the lector read, “Reform your lives. The kingdom of God is at hand.”   Mind you, that was thirty years ago!  I considered it confirmed then but I’m still waiting for His coming.

The thing about believing in prophecy is that I knew the people who were prophesying. It just didn’t seem likely that they were making these messages up out of whole cloth. Eventually MaryEllen came up with a prophecy I’ve written about before which resulted in a vigil held every night in someone’s home to seek the Lord. I have a loose-leaf book full of prophecies received in those meetings. The day came just a couple of years ago when MaryEllen was in the nursing home and I brought her a copy of her 1982 prophecy. Her only comment after we read it aloud was, “Where did the words come from?”

I’ve asked a few people who have said “The Lord told me…..” whether they actually heard a voice. Usually the response is that the thought just came to them and they thought the thought was from God.

At this point in my life I have heard so many testimonies, read so many books, heard about so many saints that I have no doubt that God is involved in our day to day life and can and does communicate with us when he so pleases.   Just read about how God commissioned Saint Faustina to produce a painting depicting his Divine Mercy. Read about Juan Diego and how the tilma showing of Our Lady of Guadalupe came about.  Read the story of Padre Pio and his stigmata.

Compared with such marvelous events, it seems a small thing that God might now and then say a word to us ordinary mortals.  He has said, has he not, that those who seek the Lord will find him? He will not leave us orphans.

Just a few months ago my favorite word was “cherished.” Today it’s “welcome.” Please feel welcome to my blog. I pretty much let it all hang out.

God seems to be about relationships, as evidenced by that “love one another” thing. The Trinity might be considered the “family” of God, with an interrelationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Throughout the Class Mammalia (which includes us) we note that it requires a relationship between a male and a female for a species to continue. Once a female becomes pregnant, it seems that she is hard-wired to care for her young. In more primitive times, the young would have surely died were she not equipped with mammary glands to produce milk. The power of the mothering instinct was brought home to me when our Cocker Spaniel, Josephine, was locked out of the house one day, leaving her puppies inside. Josephine really made a wreck of the wooden screen door, apparently clawing at it or biting at it, in her frantic effort to reach her puppies. I did not replace or repair the door, keeping it as evidence of the strength of mothering instinct. (I did paint over the bare wood resulting from her efforts, but what a testimony!)

Nature and nature’s God have arranged it that we come into the world as part of a family unit. We belong somewhere, with someone. God could have dropped us, full-grown, into the midst of strangers. But, no, children arrive so cute and helpless and needy that caring arises in us and the next thing you know we have the basic unit of society, the family. We begin life being connected and grow up amid people we have always known. Home, it has been said, is the place where when you go there, they have to let you in. There is nothing, nothing, nothing as good for a child’s soul as knowing he is accepted and welcomed. All the research shows that children do best when they are raised with a mother and a father in the basic natural unit, the family.

Things happen. Sometimes things do not go according to “the plan.”  Some children are not raised with the ideal mother, father, and stable home.   Still we never outgrow the need to be welcomed somewhere, by someone. “Please love me” is the cry of every heart.  It seems to me that until we find ourselves welcomed, until we find the acceptance, the approval, the welcome that we all need, until we find a “home,” a place, a purpose, and a plan for ourselves, that we are not really free to welcome others.  We are too busy looking inward,  trying to fill the void in ourselves, to spend much time looking outward.

There comes a day when we realize that families may fail, people will disappoint, but we still have a place, a plan and a purpose.  The place is where we are at the moment, the plan is to be loving to the person at hand, and the purpose is to seek the will of God.  We then find that we do have a family.  “Our Father” is our father.  Jesus is our brother.  Jesus’ mother is our mother.  We look about and find members of  our family everywhere.  They all follow (pretty much) the same moral code.  Brotherhood abounds.

We realize we are just passing through, and our final home awaits us.  We look about and recognize fellow travelers.  They, like us, are still “works in progress,” but they are family and somewhat worthy of trust.  We are finally welcomed and are welcoming.

Years ago when I was afflicted by agoraphobia I knew that something had gone dreadfully wrong; the feeling that I might literally “disintegrate” was uncomfortable (to put it mildly) and I knew I needed help of some sort. The thought that made it easier for me to go to a doctor was the knowledge that he was a Christian and he “had to” love me, even if I was crazy! To this day, that doctor remains for me the paradigm of Christian love. (Click “about me” at the top of the right hand column for that story.)

Hi, welcome to my blog.  And welcome to the family of God.

Pope Francis talks about the church as the Family of God on the feast of Corpus Christi, 2013.

Twenty-five years ago my friend, Dolores, and I traveled to New York City to take part in our first Operation Rescue experience. We intended to sit down and pray in front of a abortion mill thereby stopping abortions for that day (“rescuing” those babies) and hopefully even leading to the closing of that abortuary permanently. When we looked out our window in the Times-Square Hotel we saw, down on the street, the noisy opposition chanting away. It was our first experience with the liberal left in a sizable group.

What they were saying confused me. They chanted – it stuck with me to this day – they chanted, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay – Born-again bigots, go away.”  I didn’t understand. We were there to protest abortion and they were protesting everything but. I knew I was not racist, sexist, or anti-gay. Born-again, maybe, but surely not a bigot. Don’t we Christians love one another, including the mothers we would like to help and the babies scheduled to die that day? Why didn’t they address the reason we were there?

I was new to the game then. I have since learned that it doesn’t matter what Christians up to or not up to, they are going to be accused of everything under the sun. Names will be hurled – hate-monger, bigot, liar, thief, homophobe, and on and on, with the idea that if you throw enough mud, something will stick. There is very little they can prove but they sure will try.

Remember Sarah Palin? What’s not to like? A good woman, good governor, well-spoken, sincere. Yet when she appeared on the political scene her home town,  Wasilla AK , was besieged with a platoon of dirt-diggers looking for something, anything, that they could pin on her. She was immediately hated by the left. Even after her campaign was over, they still went through 23,000 of her emails looking for something to take her down.

Remember Michele Bachmann? Another good woman. After I read her book I thought I would vote for her whatever she ran for. She still holds her position as a congresswoman, but has to fight for survival. Every strong conservative who looked like he/she has potential has someone dedicated to finding the dirt. Consider Anne Coulter, accused of voter fraud in 2006. She had addresses in two states and voted in the wrong one. Not twice, just once. If that is all the left can accuse her of, she must be a veritable saint. In her new book Coulter asserts that “anti-religious liberalism has actually become, in itself, a religion.” She “explains how “abortion is its sacrament; Roe v. Wade its holy writ; public school teachers its clergy; and Darwinism its liberal creation myth.” (from Media Matters)

Consider the 2013 March for Life in January. A record-breaking half a million good people gathered to protect life in all its stages. Not a word about it in the main-stream media. But if one of those half-million folks did the least thing egregious, it would have been front page news. Consider the bad rap given to the Tea Party by the left. They cause no trouble, leave no mess. Still they are labeled racist and anti-gay. The evidence? None. Andrew Breitbart wrote “I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him [Rep. John Lewis] not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once.” No takers, but Breitbart met an untimely death.

A quote from Coulter’s recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.

Liberalism is a comprehensive belief system denying the Christian belief in man’s immortal soul. Their religion holds that there is nothing sacred about human consciousness. It’s just an accident no more significant than our possession of opposible thumbs. They deny what we know about ourselves: that we are moral beings in God’s image. Without this fundamental understanding of man’s place in the world, we risk being lured into misguided pursuits, including bestiality, slavery, and PETA membership. Liberals swoon in pagan admiration of Mother Earth, mystified and overawed by her power. They deny the Biblical idea of dominion and progress, the most ringing affirmation of which is the United States of America. Although they are Druids, liberals masquerade as rationalists, adopting a sneering tone of scientific sophistication, which is a little like being condescended to by a tarot card reader.

Liberals hate science and react badly to it. They will literally run from the room, lightheaded and nauseated, when told of data that might suggest that the sexes have different abilities in math and science. They repudiate science when it contradicts their pagan beliefs—that the AIDS virus doesn’t discriminate, that there is no such thing as IQ, that nuclear power is dangerous and scary, or that breast implants cause disease. Liberals use the word science exactly as they use the word constitutional.

It has come to this. Coulter, among many others, sees it clearly. The lines are drawn – between those who have no God and those who do.  That’s why her book is called Godless.  It’s a battle between the people for death and the people for life. The people for abortion, infanticide, mercy killing, and euthaniasia, who seem to love any critter better than the child. Who love the turtle in the egg more than the unborn baby. Who fear there won’t be enough room for all of us in spite of the fact that all THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD can fit in the State of Texas — and not only have “elbow room” but a real room of their own. Go figure!

In closing, a quote from Blessed Pope John Paul II of happy memory:

We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the Gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the anti-christ. This confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God’s plan and it must be a trial which the Church must take up and face courageously.

It has come to this.

ROSARY OVER CHICAGO

 

A giant 75-foot  rosary floated gracefully over Chicago ‘s busy tourism district on Friday as thousands looked on. The six-foot gold cross hanging from the rosary sparkled in the sunlight as it very slowly ascended between the Tribune tower and the Wrigley building. The rosary of helium-filled yellow balloons bearing the word LIFE then floated down Michigan Avenue over the Hancock Tower and past North Ave Beach . Cameras and cell phones flew into action as people responded to the unexpected sight.

“There was an excitement all around us and there were people in tears at the sight of the rosary.  I think we often take it for granted the power of a simple witness to the faith,” said a camp counsellor. A passerby tweeted, “A balloon rosary in the air. My faith confirmed :)”, while another surprised Chicagoan wrote, “what the… giant balloon rosary, with cross, just floated heavenward from the Michigan avenue bridge.” The rosary was the craft of 20 imaginative elementary school-aged girls and their counsellors participating in a summer camp at a Chicago Catholic Parish. The girls prayed the rosary in front of the Washington Blvd. Family Planning Associates asking Our Lady for an end to abortion.   Read more.

 

 

 

 

Marian devotion, particularly the holy Rosary, leads us closer to Christ. Blessed John Paul II’s favorite prayer was the Rosary, which astonished many people. He was a brilliant man with a double doctorate, had an exceptional IQ and could speak 27 languages. Yet his favorite prayer was the Rosary, which he called “the school of Mary.” –Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz

Timothy Cardinal Dolan gave the benediction at the end of the Democratic National Convention.  Dear Lord, hear it!

Let us Pray.

Almighty God, father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, revealed to us so powerfully in your Son, Jesus Christ, we thank you for showering your blessings upon this our beloved nation. Bless all here present, and all across this great land, who work hard for the day when a greater portion of your justice, and a more ample measure of your care for the poor and suffering, may prevail in these United States. Help us to see that a society’s greatness is found above all in the respect it shows for the weakest and neediest among us.

We beseech you, almighty God to shed your grace on this noble experiment in ordered liberty, which began with the confident assertion of inalienable rights bestowed upon us by you: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thus do we praise you for the gift of life. Grant us the courage to defend it, life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected. Strengthen our sick and our elders waiting to see your holy face at life’s end, that they may be accompanied by true compassion and cherished with the dignity due those who are infirm and fragile.

We praise and thank you for the gift of liberty. May this land of the free never lack those brave enough to defend our basic freedoms. Renew in all our people a profound respect for religious liberty: the first, most cherished freedom bequeathed upon us at our Founding. May our liberty be in harmony with truth; freedom ordered in goodness and justice. Help us live our freedom in faith, hope, and love. Make us ever-grateful for those who, for over two centuries, have given their lives in freedom’s defense; we commend their noble souls to your eternal care, as even now we beg the protection of your mighty arm upon our men and women in uniform.

We praise and thank you for granting us the life and the liberty by which we can pursue happiness. Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God. Empower us with your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community. May we welcome those who yearn to breathe free and to pursue happiness in this land of freedom, adding their gifts to those whose families have lived here for centuries.

We praise and thank you for the American genius of government of the people, by the people and for the people. Oh God of wisdom, justice, and might, we ask your guidance for those who govern us: President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden, Congress, the Supreme Court, and all those, including Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan, who seek to serve the common good by seeking public office. Make them all worthy to serve you by serving our country. Help them remember that the only just government is the government that serves its citizens rather than itself. With your grace, may all Americans choose wisely as we consider the future course of public policy.

And finally Lord, we beseech your benediction on all of us who depart from here this evening, and on all those, in every land, who yearn to conduct their lives in freedom and justice. We beg you to remember, as we pledge to remember, those who are not free; those who suffer for freedom’s cause; those who are poor, out of work, needy, sick, or alone; those who are persecuted for their religious convictions, those still ravaged by war.

And most of all, God Almighty, we thank you for the great gift of our beloved country.

For we are indeed “one nation under God,” and “in God we trust.”

So dear God, bless America. You who live and reign forever and ever.

Amen!

Glenn Beck says, “We are all Catholics now…..We must all hang together or we will all hang separately. At the highest political level, there is a battle between good and evil.