Georgia sent this to me.  There’s a lot of truth in it.

Senior citizens are constantly being criticized for every conceivable deficiency of the modern world, real or imaginary. We know we take responsibility for all we have done and do not blame others.

HOWEVER, upon reflection, we
would like to point out that it was NOT the senior citizens who took:

The melody out of music,

The pride out of appearance,

The courtesy out of driving,

The romance out of love,

The commitment out of marriage,

The responsibility out of parenthood,

The togetherness out of the family,

The learning out of education,

The service out of patriotism,

The Golden Rule from rulers,

The nativity scene out of cities,

The civility out of behavior,

The refinement out of language,

The dedication out of employment,

The prudence out of spending,

The ambition out of achievement or
God out of government and school.

And we certainly are NOT the ones who eliminated patience and tolerance from personal relationships and interactions with others!!

And, we do understand the meaning of patriotism, and remember those who have fought and died for our country.

Just look at the Seniors with tears in their eyes and pride in their hearts as they stand at attention with their hand over their hearts!

YES, I’M A SENIOR CITIZEN!

I’m the life of the party…… even if it lasts until 8 p.m.

I’m very good at opening childproof caps…. with a hammer.

I’m awake many hours before my body allows me to get up.

I’m smiling all the time because I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.

I’m sure everything I can’t find is in a safe secure place, somewhere.

I’m wrinkled, saggy, lumpy, and that’s just my left leg.

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

Yes, I’m a SENIOR CITIZEN and I think I am having the time of my life!

Now if I could only remember who sent this to me, I wouldn’t send it back to them, but I would send it to many more too!

I certainly couldn’t have said it better myself.

~~~

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. — 92 year old

For more than 40 years, Lyle  Rossiter, MD.  has diagnosed and treated over 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases, both state and federal, as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist retained by numerous public offices, courts and private attorneys. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.

In his 2006 book, The Liberal Mind:  The Psychological Causes of Political Madness,  Rossiter explains with great clarity why the kind of liberalism being displayed by Barack Obama can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

A reviewer of the book writes:
“I could see that the liberal agenda was economically unsound and even against the basic facts of human nature. Just when I was giving up any possibility of ever understanding the liberal mind and its irrational assaults on reason and human nature, I came across Dr. Rossiter’s book.”

~~~

There are none so blind as those who will not see. — Proverb

Ever since they appeared on the scene, human beings have been of two sexes. God created Eve, brought her to Adam, and told them to be fruitful and multiply. The man said “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh..”     Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become two in one flesh. Genesis 2:23,24.

He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them “human.” — Genesis 5:2

It was all very simple then. Marriage was for mating. Male and female. Mating was for fruitfulness.    What happened?

Babette Francis of MercatorNet writes about  the Australian eagerness not to discriminate on the basis of gender:

In the beginning there was male and female. Soon there was homosexuality. Later there were lesbians, and much later gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers. But anyone who thinks LGBTQ is the full count of contemporary sexualities is sadly out of date. For example, the transgendered have for some time been divided into those who are awaiting treatment, those who have had hormone treatment, those who have had hormones and surgery, and those who have had hormones and surgery but are not happy and want it all reversed.

Enter the Australian Human Rights Commission with some exciting new developments. In an extraordinary document entitled Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity, the AHRC has come up with a further list of “genders” which they require us to recognize, and on whose behalf they want our federal government to pass anti-discrimination legislation. To date (by the time you read this, the AHRC’s family of sexualities may have increased and multiplied) these are: transgender, trans, transsexual, intersex, androgynous, agender, cross dresser, drag king, drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, third gender, third sex, sistergirl and brotherboy. (No, I don’t know what “neutrois” means).

So if we add these genders to the LGBTQ list we get 23 in all, not to mention the divisions within the transgendered group. For PR purposes, however, the “gendered” community now identifies itself as LGBTQI (the “I” stands for “intersex”.)

Eugene Delgaudio writes of the upcoming vote in our own United States  on the Student Non-Discrimination Act which is  ostensibly to prevent bullying or harassment of queer students.  (If such a law should ever be passed, it should be done  to prevent  harassment OF ANY KIND FOR ANY REASON — red hair, stuttering, nationality, whatever, — not just for one particular trait.)    In actuality, Delgaudio says:

Their ultimate dream is to create a new America based on sexual promiscuity in which the values you and I cherish are long forgotten.

I hate to admit it, but if they pass the deceptively named “Student Non-Discrimination Act,” that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Better named the “Homosexual Classrooms Act,” its chief advocate in Congress is Rep. Jared Polis, himself an open homosexual and radical activist.

The agenda of the homosexual lobby:

*** Require schools to teach appalling homosexual acts so “homosexual students” don’t feel “singled out” during already explicit sex-ed classes;

*** Spin impressionable students in a whirlwind of sexual confusion and misinformation, even peer pressure to “experiment” with the homosexual “lifestyle;”

*** Exempt homosexual students from punishment for propositioning, harassing, or even sexually assaulting their classmates, as part of their specially-protected right to “freedom of self-expression;”

*** Force private and even religious schools to teach a pro-homosexual curriculum and purge any reference to religion if a student claims it creates a “hostile learning environment” for homosexual students.

No matter how much the LGBTQI’s clamor for a right to marry, people with common sense know that marriage is for mating, which is something impossible for LGBTQI’s to achieve. However much they may diddle around and try to “normalize” homosexual activity, their so-called sex is, let’s face it, fruitless and aberrant. When they call themselves queer, they’ve got it right. Queer = aberrant.

Next thing you know we’ll be going to jail for stating a fact.  No one will be allowed to express an opinion not approved by the PC police.    It will be labeled “hate speech.” Goodbye, freedom of speech!

And even if you take God out of the whole mix, mating STILL requires an egg and a sperm!

~~~

Focus on Same-Sex Marriage

I knew I was going to miss The View when I gave up TV for Lent!  It has freed up considerable time and I’m focusing on other things more.   When I heard today that Donald Trump had appeared on The View yesterday  — who is seriously contemplating running for President in 2012 — I knew there had to be sparks flying and I had missed them.   Thank God for the internet, and YouTube.  You don’t really have to miss anything of note anymore.

And so we have here a clip of the appearance of  The Trumpster on the couch with those Far Left ladies (except for Elisabeth who is weakly Right).   Trump has the chutzpah to lay it all out there, to say the things the ladies want to sweep under the rug.  It looks like  we have  a high profile “birther” in Donald.   Whoopi apparently  thinks the issue is that Obama claims to have been born in Hawaii.  “Isn’t  Hawaii still a  part of the United States?” she asks.   That is not the issue at all.  True birthers think Obama was actually born in Kenya which is why he won’t  show his real birth certificate.  Which would mean he is  not a native-born United States citizen and was not a legitimate candidate  for the presidency.

I am going to have to hang in for a few more years just to witness the 2012 election.  IF Donald Trump decides to run, and with pro-life activist Randall Terry having already announced that he WILL RUN in 2012 as a DEMOCRAT(!!), it should be a rowdy time.   I just pray our country survives the next two years.

~~~

What you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops. — Luke 12:3

We who love our priests are sorely grieved at the tales of  sexual abuses  on their part. If we Catholic lay people feel so bad, how much worse it must be to be a good priest and to feel the eyes of others looking askance at you, wondering how many boys you’ve toyed with. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who has already made himself dear to my heart since his appointment in 2009, suffers along with his fellow priests. His report of a recent airport encounter is just so sad, and was handled so well, with so much truth along with the pain, that it must be shared.

An Airport Encounter

It was only the third time it had happened to me in my nearly thirty-five happy years as a priest, all three times over the last nine-and-a-half years.

Other priests tell me it has happened to them a lot more.

Three is enough. Each time has left me so shaken I was near nausea.

It happened last Friday . . .

I had just arrived at the Denver Airport, there to speak at their popular annual “Living Our Catholic Faith” conference,

As I was waiting with the others for the electronic train to take me to the terminal, a man, maybe in his mid-forties, waiting as well, came closer to me.

“Are you a Catholic priest?” he kindly asked.

“Sure am. Nice to meet you,” says I, as I offered my hand.

He ignored it. “I was raised a Catholic,” he replied, almost always a hint of a cut to come, but I was not prepared for the razor sharpness of the stiletto, as he went on, “and now, as a father of two boys, I can’t look at you or any other priest without thinking of a sexual abuser.

What to respond? Yell at him? Cuss him out? Apologize? Deck him? Express understanding? I must admit all such reactions came to mind as I staggered with shame and anger from the damage of the wound he had inflicted with those stinging words.

“Well,” I recovered enough to remark, “I’m sure sorry you feel that way. But, let me ask you, do you automatically presume a sexual abuser when you see a Rabbi or Protestant minister?”

“Not at all,” he came back through gritted teeth as we both boarded the train.

“How about when you see a coach, or a boy scout leader, or a foster parent, or a counsellor, or physician?” I continued.

“Of course not!” he came back. “What’s all that got to do with it.”

“A lot,” I stayed with him, “because each of those professions have as high a percentage of sexual abuse, if not even higher, than that of priests.”

“Well, that may be,” he retorted. “But the Church is the only group that knew it was going on, did nothing about it, and kept transferring the perverts around.”

“You obviously never heard the stats on public school teachers,” I observed. “In my home town of New York City alone, experts say the rate of sexual abuse among public school teachers is ten times higher than that of priests, and these abusers just get transferred around.” (Had I known at that time the news in in last Sunday’s New York Times about the high rate of abuse of the most helpless in state supervised homes, with reported abusers simply transferred to another home, I would have mentioned that, too.)

To that he said nothing, so I went in for a further charge.

“Pardon me for being so blunt, but you sure were with me, so, let me ask: when you look at yourself in a mirror, do you see a sex abuser?”

Now he was as taken aback as I had been two-minutes before. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sadly,” I answered, “studies tell us that most children sexually abused are victims of their own fathers or other family members.”

Enough of the debate, I concluded, as I saw him dazed. So I tried to calm it down.

“So, I tell you what: when I look at you, I won’t see a sex abuser, and I would appreciate the same consideration from you.”

The train had arrived at baggage claim, and we both exited together.

“Well then, why do we only hear this garbage about you priests,” he inquired, as he got a bit more pensive.

“We priests wonder the same thing. I’ve got a few reasons if you’re interested.”He nodded his head as we slowly walked to the carousel.

“For one,” I continued, “we priests deserve the more intense scrutiny, because people trust us more as we dare claim to represent God, so, when one of us do it – even if only a tiny minority of us ever have — it is more disgusting.”

“Two, I’m afraid there are many out there who have no love for the Church, and are itching to ruin us. This is the issue they love to endlessly scourge us with.”

“And, three, I hate to say it,” as I wrapped it up, “there’s a lot of money to be made in suing the Catholic Church, while it’s hardly worth suing any of the other groups I mentioned before.”

We both by then had our luggage, and headed for the door. He then put his hand out, the hand he had not extended five minutes earlier when I had put mine out to him. We shook.

“Thanks. Glad I met you.”

He halted a minute. “You know, I think of the great priests I knew when I was a kid. And now, because I work in IT at Regis University, I know some devoted Jesuits. Shouldn’t judge all you guys because of the horrible sins of a few.”

“Thanks!,” I smiled.

I guess things were patched-up, because, as he walked away, he added, “At least I owe you a joke: What happens when you can’t pay your exorcist?”

“Got me,” I answered.

“You get ‘re-possessed’!”

We both laughed and separated.

Notwithstanding the happy ending, I was still trembling . . . and almost felt like I needed an exorcism to expel my shattered soul, as I had to confront again the horror this whole mess has been to victims and their families, our Catholic people like the man I had just met . . . and to us priests.

There are those who love neither truth nor holiness and want to tear down goodness wherever they find it. We should not be surprised. John 15:18 tells us “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.”   There is evil abroad.

~~~

Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. — 1 John 3

What a happy find! The grotto at Lourdes, 24/7, has a webcam so you can visit anytime of the day or night — for mass, for the rosary, just to watch the people, just to hear the bells, just to pray.   You can even place a petition!

Visit LOURDES — LIVE! Be aware that 3:30 our time is 8:30 in France and the grotto is quite dark at night except for the candle lights in the shape of a Christmas tree!

Here is a short history of Lourdes.

t night

“Yup, there’s a baby in there, all right,” writes Bobbie Siegle, commenting in her newspaper column on the ultrasound picture of her daughter-in-law’s unborn baby.

Now, on the whole, I like Bobbie Siegle’s columns. She seems to be a down-to-earth, common-sense, real-life lady with foibles and idiosyncrasies like the rest of us. But on this point I have to say, “Bobbie, get real. That ain’t no baby in there. That’s a fetus. It is not a person. And it has no rights. Your grandchild has value only if the mother wants it. She can say, “It’s my baby, to keep or to kill. You don’t count. Grandpa doesn’t count. Daddy doesn’t count.”

YUP, IT’S A BABY! WATCH IT GROW.

Sure, you have a picture of it and they say it has all its parts and is living and growing just fine, but don’t count your babies before they are born. “Babies” such as this are quite literally down the tube in an instant. They may be beautiful and healthy, but they can be legally exterminated for no other reason than that they are still inside the mother and that’s what she chooses.

They may be strong and viable and four-fifths born but they are legally having their brains sucked out so they can be delivered dead in these United States, with the approval of our President.

It seems we now have a world where nothing is more important than choice and it matters not one whit what is chosen. There are no longer right or wrong choices, just my choice which is right for ME.

Actually, Ms. Siegle, I am happy for you. Of course it’s a baby! A baby by any other name is still a baby. I, too, think it is “so cool” that you have a picture of your unborn grandchild in your album. That’s a good sign that this is a baby that will be welcomed. It is an exciting and miraculous happening.

But there are grandmothers out there who have no idea why there are no grandchildren in the offing. I grieve for them, and for the babies that were, and now are not, and for the parents who will miss them acutely some one of these days.

I wish someone would explain to me why my local newspaper refused to print the following letter??

TO THE EDITOR:

Until just a few years ago homosexuality was recognized by society at large as a perversion and by the psychiatric establishment as a disease.  In recent years public opinion seems to have done a 180 such that now homosexuality is an acceptable alternative lifestyle to be protected by law, taught in schools, and welcomed in the armed services.

Think about it.  Remember jigsaw puzzles?  In jigsaw puzzles pieces with protrusions are fitted into pieces with indentations (plumbers call such complementary parts male and female).  Not only must the pieces fit perfectly but the colors must match and the designed be completed.  Now consider the human mouth.  If you put food into the mouth there are teeth to bite and chew it, salivary enzymes to digest it, and a swallowing mechanism to send it to the stomach where it can be digested and nourish the body.  It’s all beautifully arranged; the mouth serves its purpose.  If you knew someone who got a charge out of putting food into ears, nose, vagina or rectum you’d recognize this as a perversion.  Food in inappropriate places could cause disease and defeat the purpose of food, i.e., nourishment.

Similarly, in “old fashioned” sexual intercourse the parts accommodate each other, pleasure is mutual, and if the sperm strikes out in its search for an ovum, at least it is in the right ball park.  The plan for the propagation of the race is furthered.  By contrast, in sodomy the anal sphincter protests and may be damaged, the rectal lining which is designed for absorption of materials into the bloodstream is open to welcome infection.  (This is in marked contrast to the thick layers of squamous epithelium which line and protect the vagina.)   Sodomy, in fact, is a make-shift arrangement which can only lead to disease — ask any proctologist!

It’s time we re-recognized that homosexuality is intrinsically aberrant, is bodily abuse, and is potentially harmful.  95% of the cases of AIDS are the result of physically abusive behavior — introducing dirty needles into veins or ignoring bodily designs and forcing, as it were, round pegs into square holes.

Let’s tell it like it is.

Click for the health hazards of gay sex. It seems that political correctness has nothing in common with common sense.

~~~

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. — Romans 1:27

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

That’s right, they didn’t have the green thing in her day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.

But she’s right. They didn’t have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because they didn’t have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house – not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from
satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But they didn’t have the green thing back then!

HT: Bob,via email.

The shrine of Our Lady of Akita is getting just a little bit more attention lately since the megaquake of March 11 in Japan.

Sister Agnes Sasagawa was in a convent in Akita, in northern Japan, in 1973, when she reported hearing the three-foot-high wooden carving of Our Lady of Akita calling to her.  That year she received three messages from “the statue.”  (There was no apparition).

Two years later on January 4, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions.

On March 11 a magnitude 8.9 earthquake and consequent tsunami  hit Sendai Japan near the northern  coast of Honshu; it was the  worst quake since 1923.

Japanese church officials have confirmed that the Diocese of Sendai, in the north of the country, was hit hardest by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake – the worst in Japanese history – and the resulting 23-foot waves.

Hundreds of people have already been confirmed dead in the city of Sendai, located less than 90 miles away from the apparition site of Our Lady of Akita in the town of Yuzawa.

The city of Akita, which experienced fire damage and flooding along with many parts of northern Japan, is a place of veneration for Catholics.

Here is Mary’s last message:

As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one has never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.
The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres…churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.

The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them.

According to the testimony of more than 500 Christians (and non-Christians including the Buddhist mayor of the town) the statue of Our Lady has shed blood, sweat, and tears.  Sr. Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa has received the stigmata and has received messages from Our Lady.  On April 22, 1984, after eight years of investigations, after consultation with the Holy See, the Bishop of the diocese approved the messages of Our Lady of Akita.

The Catholic diocese of Sendai was the first victim of Japan’s tsunami following the earthquake. Covering a land area of 27864 square miles, the diocesan territory includes the cities of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. Initial reports suggest that Miyagi and Fukushima were the first to fall victim to the 33 ft tsunami caused by the megaquake. In Sendai, where a major oil terminal exploded when its cooling system failed, Catholics form 0.15% of the total population of 7,207,624. In Tokyo Catholics are 0.51% of a total population of 18,552,995 people. In both cities, the predominant religions are Shinto and Buddhism.

~~~

Buckle up; it’s going to be a rough ride.  – Glenn Beck

You have still something to ask? Today is the last time that I will speak to you in living voice. From now on you will obey the one sent to you and your superior.
Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.  — last words of our Lady of Akita to Sister Sasagawa