A Catholic Notebook

Advent Calendar from USCCB

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Click on the date to take you inside!

I found this wonderful interactive Advent calendar at the USCCB's site.

Advent (ad-venio in Latin or "to come to")

Beginning the Church's liturgical year, Advent is the season leading up to the celebration of Christmas. The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas.

Advent devotions remind us of the meaning of the season. Special Advent Devotions: the lighting of the Advent wreath; the Advent calendar helps remind us of the season with daily thoughts and activities; Advent prayers prepare us spiritually for the birth of Jesus Christ.

as.

Last Things, Beauty and Perspective

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:33:00 +0000

Today we heard a bit about the end times in Mass . . .
I started thinking about how each of us will face our own end times, whether it is because of Jesus' second coming or our own individual death. Death and taxes, right? We are sure of it.

So, WHY do we waste so much precious time on other superfluous things? Like . . . worry, sticking to a schedule, clothes, tv, gossip, parties, keeping up with the Joneses, being embarrassed, rushing, petty differences, "beauty," aging.

Ahhhh, two biggies -- "beauty" and aging!

Aging . . . . as a society we are obsessed with denying it.
Anti aging cremes. hair dye, plastic surgery. We revere youth. We revere outward beauty (note: "beauty" as the culture defines it).
I recently had an acquaintance tell me something - in all seriousness - that she believed adamantly. I didn't know how to respond without insulting her.
OK, this is a paraphrase, but as closely as I can remember her exact words. She said,

"You know, if you want your children to be beautiful you have to marry an attractive partner. That is a serious consideration. You need to think about these things, I mean, if you want ugly children then it doesn't matter. But I'm just saying . . . . "

I remember staring at her in utter disbelief. Then, I think I responded with something like, didn't she think it was love that should be the determining factor. It probably sounded quite trite.

This hunger for conventional beauty ignores life's very path . . . . to death.
That all of us must die is modern society’s most inconvenient truth. In our culture few acknowledge this truth. If we did, all of this other craziness would subsist.
Fr Corapi said, "There is no real failure in this life except eternal damnation."
Quest for beauty, popularity, greedy material success, carnal pleasure . . . . it all takes us in the wrong direction.
Every choice we make either takes us closer to God or farther away from God.

I need to remind myself (constantly) of what we say in Our Profession of Faith.
I believe in life everlasting.
All my choices should direct me -- and I should direct others -- towards choices that lead to everlasting life with God in heaven.

Between Peanut Butter and Lulabies

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:43:00 +0000

Has anyone read this or used it in class?

1000 Years of Catholic Scientists

Did someone say that good Catholics can't be good scientists? Never have been, never will be?
Have they heard of Pasteur? Of Lavoisier? Of the Ampere whose name is abbreviated on most of the electrical appliances in your house?

Using the Catholic Encyclopedia, now on line, along with her personal background in science and a network of other resources, Jane Meyerhofer has composed this list of nearly 200 eminent Catholic scientists since the tenth century. Find them in every century, in every field of endeavor.
In the new edition, scientists are listed chronologically, with an alphabetic index. This is much easier to use, and -- though it is intended as a reference book, the list actually makes a very interesting read, straight through.
Mrs. Meyerhofer is a homeschooling Mother of four (so far) and did all this between the peanut butter and lullabies. (Note from Soutenus: "between peanut butter and lullabies" I LOVE this vivid description & it is almost enough to make me buy the book. I am a sucker, I know!)
It is a great work of intelligent love.

106 pages $12 new edition

Go to order page

Shipping is only $4.00 for up to two books. The source is The Hedge School
Anyone ever heard of the Hedge School?

What Will You Do?

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:48:00 +0000

What Can You Do?

1) Get informed and Join us! Visit the CCHD Web site so you know both sides of the story. Sign up for updates on the campaign via the form on the right side of this page. For more information on the investigations that led to this campaign, click here.

2) Support organizations that serve the poor in a way that faithful Catholics can trust. Some CCHD money has certainly gone to good groups in your diocese, so learn where the money goes and if the organization is sound, politically neutral, and in compliance with Church teaching, give to the group directly. Also, send us links to faithful Catholic and other Christian organizations that support Catholic Social Justice teaching and all teachings on Catholic life and family issues.

3) Help us to Investigate local CCHD grantees to ensure that they are sound, non-political organizations which in no way oppose the Church or her teachings. View lists of recent CCHD grantees here and do your own web and, if necessary, personal investigations, and contact us to share what you’ve learned. We will follow up and verify findings before publishing them on the site.

4) Pray that the CCHD will return to a truly Catholic understanding of social justice work and service to the poor. Much needs to be done, and we welcome a return to all of good will who take up this essential work in communion with the Catholic Church.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6

Can a 15 Year Old Change the World?

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:42:00 +0000

I have to say, "Yes!"

A 15 year old member of our homeschool group recently shared some wonderful information.

He had just won a scholarship and was asked to speak to our LifeTeen group.

Javier told the group about a project that he has worked on to provide an efficient way of refrigerating food and cleaning water for those in third world countries.

Please pray for safe travels for Javier, his mother and his father. They will be presenting his project, his thoughts, how he developed the ideas, and how his parents have encouraged him through the years to a company in San Sebastian, Spain. The company contacted the family and asked them to fly over and present a few talks.

I ask you to keep them wrapped in prayer. Would you also pray for the mission that Javier has set for himself of helping the poor throughout the third world countries. He will be visiting India in February to work also.

Remember Javier is a homeschooled 15 year old who has been nurtured to follow his interests, his strengths and his passions. He is literally changing the world.

Safe travels and thank you, Javier for doing God's work and letting us support you in prayer.

source:

My home school group (thanks Shannon!)
All This And Heaven - Family Site: http://allthisandhe aven.blogspot. com/
Bread of Life - Prayer Request Site: http://breadoflifep rayerlist. blogspot. com/

Preparing for the Mass - November 22, 2009

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:22:00 +0000

The Solemnity of Christ the King

please be aware of the 2nd collection @ this Mass

Reading 1
Dn 7:13-14    . . . . . His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not be taken away,
his kingship shall not be destroyed.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 93:1, 1-2, 5     R. The LORD is king; he is robed in majesty.

Reading II
Rv 1:5-8     . . . . "I am the Alpha and the Omega, " says the Lord God,

Gospel
Jn 18:33b-37      . . . . . . "For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

First - for the children.

Now for us big kids:
Get to know the readings.

Reflections for this Sunday can be found at The Center for Liturgy Sunday.
Here is an excerpt of what you can find there (author Reginald H. Fuller, Scripture in Depth):

The feast of Christ the King, coming as it does at the end of the Church year, has acquired thereby an eschatological significance. Christ’s enthronement at the ascension is the opening act of his final eschatological reign, and his continued heavenly rule between the ascension and his return marks the progressive defeat of the powers of evil.

Collection for CCHD in Your Parish -- Be Informed

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:25:00 +0000

Rob Gasper, from BellarmineVeritasMinistry.org, and Michael Hitchborne, from American Life League, were guests of Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s “The World Over Live”.

They were discussing the misguided funding, from Catholics in the USA, of non-Catholic groups, who support abortion, homosexual “marriage”, contraception, and more, by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

For more information on the effort check out ReformCCHDnow.com.

Here is a copy of the email that brought my attention to this matter:

www.reformcchdnow.com

Please take a moment to view the short video with some information regarding the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and some new developments and information that is already publically available but thanks in large part to our very own homeschooling Dad, Rob Gasper (www.bellarmineveritasministry.org) and others such as American Life League who are working very hard in this most important matter. These matters extend well beyond ACORN. Please Be Informed!

It is great that there is a call and that there are folks who are working behind this call for a reform in the granting process so as to ensure our money DOES NOT go to organizations that work AGAINST the Church. On www.reformcchdnow.com you will also find a very tastefully put together coupon that you may print out and place in the CCHD collection envelope rather than money this month.

Please also visit www.bellarmineveritasministry.org for some well organized information and factual responses that WILL answer many questions.

Also, you can visit my husband's website where he has posted a link to the interview on EWTN's "The World Over Live" with guest- our very own BOL homeschooling dad Rob Gasper (www.bellarmineveritasministry.org) and Michael Hitchborne of American Life League. I've posted a link for your convenience. http://bit.ly/ XAQnS

Remember friends that we should also remain in prayer regarding this matter so there will peace in healing for those who will feel divided or even scandalized over this matter and for a reform on the granting process so as to ensure the Lord's money does not go to any organization that works against His Church.

Lord please also keep and protect those (and their families) who are working on the front lines on this battle field, Amen.

Young Man with a Horn

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:16:00 +0000

A Little Off Topic - But Oh So Cool!

Found this article @ NYI Photo World . . . and the PICTURE OF THE MONTH is my friend! Maybe he should give up his music and teaching career and focus on modeling? Here is part of the article. If you are a photography buff you can find the rest here. I could not resist adding some of my comments in RED.

Portrait skills are an important part of any professional photographer’s bag of tricks. But photographing people, whether in a formal setup or in an informal candid image, requires considerable knowledge and skill to be successful.

I have also photographed musicians and this photo, by NYI Complete Course in Professional Photography Student Gwen Juarez, is similar to that work, though most of the images I did were of performances, not studio set-ups. But is there any doubt that the subject of this photo is a trumpet player? We don’t need a caption to tell us that. The trumpet really focuses our attention and tells us something important about the person. Hello! He is not only an amazing trumpet player he can handle just about any other brass instrument plus the sax and drums and, oh, of course, the recorder!

Anything we could remove from the image to simplify it? No, nothing at all. Take away the trumpet and it becomes an altogether different photo. What about the wrist watch and the ring? Are they distracting? I don’t think so. In fact, both the watch and the ring appear to be the same color as the trumpet, making all three, “color coordinated” accessories. They almost “go with” the trumpet and reinforce its tonality. Anyway, people do routinely wear watches and rings, including musicians who are performing. I have photographed musicians who were literally festooned with jewelry, decked out with giant gold necklaces and rings on every finger. That was part of their self-image and I never messed with it. The jewelry in this photo is not like that and in fact is quite tasteful. I don’t know what the trumpet player’s musical skills are but he has a nice fashion sense.
LOL, top notch musician and person -- you have no idea, Mr. Whoever Wrote This! :-)

What about the pose? After all, how we position our portrait subjects is extremely important and carelessness or lack of knowledge on the part of the photographer about how the camera “renders” the human anatomy can result in disaster. In this photo I like the placement of the left forearm and hand under the chin, drawing our eye toward the face and those very expressive eyes. However, I do think this particular arrangement, as executed, results in a slightly cramped look to the body. The head thus looks larger than it really is, relative to the rest of the body. I probably would have had him lean a little less forward toward the camera while at the same time retaining the basic arrangement.
I also like the expression on the face and what it conveys. This guy is serious about his “ax”. He’s almost daring us to disagree. I think it would have been a mistake to pressure him to smile.
He smiles quite easily and he has a killer sense of humor that can be sarcastic and dry. But he never seems to take it to an offensive level. In fact, this guy kept me sane at my school for a solid year. Might not have lasted so long there without him sharing my classroom. He probably has no idea.

Anything else? Well, there is a small white spec in the far corner of the right eye that I find a little annoying.
Other than that, the lighting here has produced two nice catch-lights in the pupils of the eyes, adding necessary sparkle to them. (the sparkle was already there...the camera just caught it!) And the illuminated background provides good separation between it and the subject, with no distracting shadows back there.
All in all, I think Gwen Juarez did a really great job and the result is a near perfect portrait. Kudos!
Wanna know something kinda neat? There are two guys in the world that look like this . . . this young man has an identical twin brother!

The New North and South?

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:14:00 +0000

H/T Adam's Ale

Post copied in full for my this blog, my personal Catholic Notebook

I heard a news program on NPR yesterday that is bothering me tremendously. The great temptation was there to turn off the radio and not think about it but that seemed irresponsible. So because it is still a bur under my saddle you will be saddled with it today.

It was a political program and the topic was abortion. The person on the program was radically pro-abortion. But more on that in a moment. What became clear to me for the first time was how divided we are as a nation on the topic. Of course you already knew that and so did I, but it became clear to me yesterday how difficult it will be to be a united nation in this great debate.

Trying to see the issue from the pro-abortion side I can see why they would want to call the issue pro-choice. In their eyes there is only one person involved – the woman. There is only one body involved: the woman’s. Passing legislation concerning limiting or abolishing abortion to them is a state violation of the woman’s bodily integrity. It would be a kin to forced operation – or better yet the refusal of an operation because the state wants a say in how a woman would look or what kind of operation she wants concerning her body. Viewed in this light abortion limiting laws must seem like an abomination and explains the harshness of the words of the person on the air yesterday.

She is a politician and was stating that she was going to work hard at bringing down any politician that voted for any legislation that would in any way impede a woman’s right to an abortion. Any politician that voted in this manner is “against the women of this county” and they will make sure that they will be opposed wherever they are running for office. To be “anti-choice” is to automatically be opposed to women.

That is mighty strong language but again, if you have the mentality above it makes sense. The problem is that pro-choice people recognize that more than one person involved. There are two human beings present and the strong feelings that the pro-abortion side has toward the bodily integrity of the woman is extended on the pro-life side to the life in her womb – the child. If you see the life within the womb of the mother to be a person, then the above paragraph stated by the politician no longer sounds like a champion for the underdog but a terrifying speech of a powerful person who wants control to do with as they wish to a powerless person. This may sound a bit strong so brace yourself: But if you see two people involved here and one has absolute power – even to put to death the other – it sounds like the horrors of our human history being played out once again – in most recent times acts against the Jewish people and slavery.

Can it be that we could exist as a country where one’s conscience can be the determining factor? The question becomes can a people live in unity where one sees a soul-less life to be treated as the “host” wills and the other who sees a person with legal and God given rights of peace, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? At question is a deep anthropology: “What is man? When does life become man? When does he deserve rights? Who has the right to decide?” We do not agree on these things as a nation and the answers will have extreme consequences in every area and stage of our lives (who should receive health care and how much for example.)

In the end it is a question of who we are – how much power we have – and who has the right to decide. It is much more than about abortion. It is much greater and much, much more is at stake.

H/T Adam's Ale

Post copied in full for my personal Catholic Notebook

Same-Sex Marraige Law Repealed in Maine

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:59:00 +0000

This caught my eye, "Bigotry trumps compassion".

Read on and you will find that was said in reference to the repealing of the law that authorized same-sex marriage in Maine. The man who said it goes on to say that it was "a shameful display of ignorance, bigotry, and hate."

From my Christian perspective I feel such sadness for this man and those who share his opinion.
He calls it bigotry. I call it love for God's law. It is TRUE compassion.
____________________________________________________________________________

Boston Globe 11-11-09
by Jeff Jacoby

ON ELECTION DAY, voters in Maine repealed a six-month-old state law authorizing same-sex marriage. Maine was the 31st state in which the legal definition of marriage was put to a vote, and the 31st in which voters rejected gay marriage. And once again, the response from many on the losing side was bitter.

“Bigotry trumps compassion,’’ wrote commentator Michael Stone, calling the vote “a shameful display of ignorance, bigotry, and hate.’’ In the Maine Campus, the newspaper of the University of Maine, columnist Samantha Hansen denounced the voters who “let hatred, confusion, misinformation, and ignorance emerge victorious over liberty.’’ When will it occur to supporters of same-sex marriage that they do their cause no good by characterizing those who disagree with them as haters, bigots, and ignorant homophobes?

It may be emotionally satisfying to despise as moral cripples the majorities who oppose gay marriage. But after going 0 for 31 - after failing to make the case for same-sex marriage even in such liberal and largely gay-friendly states as California, Wisconsin, Oregon, and now Maine - isn’t it time to stop caricaturing their opponents as the equivalent of Jim Crow-era segregationists?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to concede that thoughtful voters can have reasonable concerns about gay marriage, concerns that will not be allayed by describing those voters as contemptible troglodytes?

I oppose same-sex marriage for reasons previous columns have explored. I think it would be reckless to jettison the understanding, as old as civilization itself, that society has a deep interest in promoting families anchored by a married man and woman. It seems to me nonsensical to claim that men and women are utterly interchangeable, or to deny that children are likeliest to thrive when they are raised by both a mother and a father. I believe that timeless moral standards must not be casually overturned and that doing so is apt to have unintended and unfortunate consequences. And I am sure that legalizing same-sex wedlock would fuel demands for further radical change - legalizing plural marriage, for example.

But strongly opposing gay marriage doesn’t mean I don’t understand why many people just as strongly favor it. I can sympathize with committed gay and lesbian couples who feel demeaned by the law’s rejection of same-sex marriage or who crave the proof of societal acceptance, the cloak of normalcy, that a marriage license would provide. I don’t regard the redefinition of marriage as a civil rights issue; nor do I buy the argument that laws barring same-sex marriage are comparable to the laws that once barred interracial marriage. But I recognize that many people - sincere and decent people - do. By my lights they are mistaken, not evil.

Why do so many same-sex marriage advocates find it so hard to see marriage traditionalists in the same light?

In a recent paper for the Heritage Foundation, Thomas Messner surveys the “naked animus’’ that was directed against supporters of Proposition 8, the California marriage amendment that voters approved last year. His meticulously footnoted study makes chilling reading, with example after example of the blacklisting, vandalism, intimidation, loss of employment, anti-religious hostility, and even death threats to which backers of Prop. 8 were subjected.

Of course not all proponents of gay marriage display such vehement intolerance. But far too many do to shrug it off as insignificant. And voters don’t have to be paranoid to wonder: If this is the kind of abuse that opponents of gay marriage can be subjected to now, how much more intolerance will dissenters face if gay marriage becomes the law?

After 31 losses in 31 states, it’s time for same-sex marriage activists to seriously consider a piece of advice Barney Frank offered a few years ago.
“There’s something to be said for cultural respect,’’ the nation’s most prominent gay political figure said in 2004. “Showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree is not a bad thing. Don’t call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them.’’

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.

Gator Update

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:56:00 +0000

A follow up on the gator . . . . My daughter posted this on her FB page

fyi) Tony is her beau and "Zeus" is his little dachshund. And, I am sure you would agree that a cute little dachshund would be a tasty morsel, indeed, for a gator or a croc!

Here is my daughter's post:

"delighted to report that Tony and Zeus went "croc hunting" today (despite the advice of several sane competent people) and couldn't find any.
So he has either vacated the complex or someone brought him in for tea. I think I should take suggestions for names..."

OK, that made me chuckle.

But this had me laughing out loud . . . .

Here is Tony's Mom's comment . . . I don't think she was kidding . . . they are from Louisiana:

"Watch out Tony. You know how Dad always has those dreams about ya'll getting eaten by alligators!"

You Know You Are in Texas When . . . .

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:42:00 +0000

An email from my daughter's apartment complex the other night:

"Earlier today, there was an alligator spotted on the property near buildings 14 and 8. Residents near the northwest side of the property need to use caution when walking your dogs."

It begs the question,

"Why did I leave the northeast again . . .

and, uhhm, has anyone seen the dog?"

Holy Heros Advent Adventures

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:54:00 +0000

We are signing up for the Holy Heroes Advent Program. I just found out about it . . . has anyone experienced this program yet?

Fr Juan Diego Brunetta, OP, provides the theological review of Holy Heroes. He’s the Director of the Catholic Information Service of the Knights of Columbus.

Please let me know if you have heard of Glory Stories (a weekly radio series heard on the Ave Maria Satellite Radionetwork and EWTN’s radio network, WEWN).
I have not heard any of the stories but one of the writers for Holy Heros worked with Glory Stories so, I am curious.

Here is the web page of sample clips from some of the CDs this organization produces.
And, here is a YouTube clip that gives a bit of information about the Advent Adventure Program -

Planned Parenthood Pushes Abortion for Profit

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:10:00 +0000

Ex-Abortion Facility Director Says, "They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income." LifeSiteNews.comBy James Tillman
BRYAN, TX, November 5, 2009

Abby Johnson, the ex-director of a Planned Parenthood abortion facility who recently made national headlines after converting to the pro-life position, has revealed that Planned Parenthood pushes employees to strive for more abortions to boost profits.
"There are definitely client goals," Johnson told WorldNetDaily. "We'd have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients."
Abby Johnson had worked at Bryan's Planned Parenthood facility for eight years and been its director for two when she resigned on October 6th, near the beginning of Bryan's sixth annual 40 Days for Life Campaign.
She said that she grew uncomfortable with Planned Parenthood when they told her to try to bring more abortions through the door because of the economic downturn.
"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money - we've got to keep these abortions coming,' " Johnson said in an interview with Fox News. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."
The latest financial report Planned Parenthood, for the year 2006-2007, shows that the abortion behemoth increased the number of abortions it committed from 264,943 in 2005 to 289,650 in 2006. Total revenue amounted to over $1 billion dollars, with the organization's profit margin - "excess of revenue over expenses" - soaring from $55.7 million in 2005 to $112 million in 2006. The organization typically receives over $300 million in taxpayer funds every year.
Johnson said she became involved with the clinic "to help women and ... [do] the right thing." The idea of increasing abortion numbers to increase revenue was repugnant to her. She said that ideally the facility's director would provide "so much family planning and so much education that there is not a demand for abortion."
But this ideal was not shared by the rest of Planned Parenthood, she said, because "abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood's operations."
"With the family planning corporation really suffering," Johnson said, "they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company."
She continued, "They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income."
Johnson said that the Planned Parenthood facility performed surgical abortions every other Saturday, but also began expanding access to abortion by other means.
"One of the ways they were able to up the number of patients that they saw was they started doing the RU-486 chemical abortions all throughout the week," she said.
Although Planned Parenthood's policies of pushing for abortion made her uncomfortable, Johnson said that at first she just kept "pushing down the guilt."
"I struggled with it for a long time," she told CBN.com. "But you learn to justify it somehow and I've learned over the years and through this conversion that if you're doing the right thing, you shouldn't have to justify it."
She said that she reached her "breaking point after witnessing a particular kind of abortion on an ultrasound," according to 40 Days for Life.
"I could actually see it was a 13 week old baby and I could actually see the side profile of the baby on the ultrasound," she said. "And I could see the cannula going into the uterus. And I could see the baby moving away from the cannula, trying to get away from the probe."
"I saw the baby crumple during the procedure, and that was just life-changing for me. I'd never seen that done before."
Since Abby's resignation, Planned Parenthood has retaliated by filing a restraining order against her. The injunction temporarily prevents her from releasing information until after a hearing scheduled for November 10th in the 85th district court.
Johnson has said that she is not sure why Planned Parenthood is concerned.
"Planned Parenthood is an organization that really runs on fear. If somebody crosses them, they are quick to threaten that person. I've worked for them for a long time and seen them threaten lawsuits multiple times," she said.
"I'm not sure what they're scared of. When I first got the restraining order, I was so surprised. My initial response was, what do they think I know? What are they feeling guilty about?"
Johnson is one of eight abortion industry workers who left their jobs during the 40 Days for Life campaign that concluded on November 1st; she was the highest ranking of the eight. 40 Days for Life has also received at least 534 reports of mothers who turned away from abortion appointments.

See related stories on LifeSiteNews.com:
Director of Planned Parenthood at 40 Days for Life Birthplace Resigns after Watching Abortion Ultrasound
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09110204.html

Hulu, O. Henry, Steinbeck & God

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:23:00 +0000

A couple of days ago, my 4th grade son and I were poking around on hulu.com. He loves to watch Modern Marvels and I'm a vintage movie gal.

I found an old show called, O. Henry's Full House. It is a film version of the some of the best stories of O. Henry.

We watched the first vignette and both of us decided to settle in for the whole show.

The surprise element was that it was hosted by John Steinbeck! John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors! I had never seen film footage of him, I had only seen pictures. The O. Henry stories were fairly well interpreted and the acting was vintage 1950s with some 1950s star to boot! I think it was waaaaay cool to find this classic but! it was the host, John Steinbeck, that had me glued to the screen.

I told my son how I loved Grapes of Wrath and Tortilla Flat. I assured him that he would love the stories when he was a little older. I think he was a bit put off because I did not want him to read the stories just yet. And, I understood his frustration. . . his Mom just raved about an author and then tells him, "Oh, but you can read the stories in a couple of years."

Well, today I was unpacking (yes, still unpacking - and we will be "still unpacking" until we get every room painted so we can then secure shelves to the walls) . . . . where was I?

Oh yes . . . .

Today while unpacking I found a Prose and Poetry anthology published in 1965.

A little side note here . . . I have a weak spot for 3 types of books:

Classic classroom readers - primers and anthologies
Unique Alphabet Books
Good Catholic publications - from picture books to Papal encyclicals and everything in between.

I had planned to use the 1965 Prose and Poetry anthology (and many more I have packed away) in our homeschooling. I just hadn't planned on the fire, moving and living out of a suitcase with all our things in storage for two and a half months. So, I am, very randomly, discovering things here, there and everywhere.

Where was I?

Oh yes, the anthology that I found.

I flipped it open to a random page and viola! -- a story by John Steinbeck! A story appropriate for my 10 year old! The Red Pony.

God is so good! He is just so good! I keep smiling at the way He puts things in our paths. Puts 'em there so we sometimes stumble over them!

We started the story today . . . . I know there will be tears at the end, I am getting the tissues ready.

O. Henry's Full House

Feature Film |1:57:36

A dozen top stars (including Charles Laughton, Marilyn Monroe and Anne Baxter) and five famed directors (including Howard Hawks and Henry Koster) join forces to present filmed versions of the best stories of O. Henry, all narrated by John Steinbeck.

cross posted at The Best Nest

St. Martin de Porres - November 3

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:08:00 +0000

The Feast of St. Martin de Porres is On November 3.

May I suggest two picture books to bring simple smiles to the day?

Saint Martin de Porres and the Mice & The Pied Piper of Peru.

I found a recipe over @ Catholic Cuisine that I would like to pass along. Please visit the website - you will enjoy it, I'm sure!
I understand that this recipe was inspired by Let's Eat! Recipes for Every Meal... All you add is fun!

If you'd like to make these MICE CUPCAKES, here is the ingredient list:

1 package Chocolate Cake Mix (plus ingredients to make cupcakes)
Vanilla Frosting
Vanilla Wafer Cookies
Candy-Coated Chocolate Pieces (ie: M&M's)
Chocolate Kisses
Shoestring Licorice

Directions:
Bake cupcakes according to directions on box.
Spread the tops of the cupcakes with frosting.

To make each mouse, put 2 vanilla wafer cookies for the "ears," 2 candy-coated chocolate pieces for the "eyes," 1 chocolate kiss for the the "nose," and pieces of shoestring licorice for the "whiskers."
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St. Martin de Porres was born at Lima, Peru, in 1579. He was the illegitimate child of a Spanish gentleman and a coloured freed-woman from Panama. He grew up in poverty.At age 11 he became a servant in the Dominican priory. At fifteen, he became a lay brother at the Dominican Friary at Lima and spent his whole life there-as a barber, farm laborer, almoner, and infirmarian among other things.

He was put in charge of the Dominican's infirmary; and was known for his care of the sick and for his spectacular cures. His superiors dropped the stipulation that "no black person may be received to the holy habit or profession of our order." De Porres also took vows as a Dominican brother; established an orphanage and children's hospital for the poor children of the areas slums. He even set up a shelter for the stray cats and dogs and nursed them back to health. Martin de Porres lived in self-imposed austerity, never ate meat, fasted continuously, and spent much time in prayer and meditation.

Martin had a great desire to go off to some foreign mission and thus earn the palm of martyrdom. However, since this was not possible, he made a martyr out of his body, devoting himself to ceaseless and severe penances. In turn, God endowed him with many graces and wondrous gifts, such as, aerial flights and bilocation.

When an epidemic struck Lima, there were in this single Convent of the Rosary sixty religious who were sick, many of them novices in a distant and locked section of the convent, separated from the professed. Saint Martin is said to have passed through the locked doors to care for them, a phenomenon which was reported in the residence more than once. The professed, too, saw him suddenly beside them without the doors having been opened; and these facts were duly verified by the surprised superiors.

As stated before, this lay brother had always wanted to be a missionary, but never left his native city; yet even during his lifetime he was seen elsewhere, in regions as far distant as Africa, China, Algeria, and Japan.

An African slave who had been in irons said he had known Martin when he came to relieve and console many like himself, telling them of heaven. When later the same slave saw him in Peru, he was very happy to meet him again and asked him if he had had a good voyage; only later did he learn that Saint Martin had never left Lima.
A merchant from Lima was in Mexico and fell ill; he said aloud: “Oh, Brother Martin, if only you were here to care for me!” and immediately saw him enter his room. And again, this man did not know until later that he had never been in Mexico.

St. Martin's love was all-embracing, shown equally to humans and to animals, including vermin, and he maintained a cats and dogs hospital at his sister's house. He also possessed spiritual wisdom, resolving theological problems for the learned of his Order and for bishops. A close friend of St. Rose of Lima, this saintly man died on November 3, 1639 and was canonized on May 6, 1962. His feast day is November 3.

Prayer to Saint Martin de Porres

To you Saint Martin de Porres we prayerfully lift up our hearts filled with serene confidence and devotion. Mindful of your unbounded and helpful charity to all levels of society and also of your meekness and humility of heart, we offer our petitions to you. Pour out upon our families the precious gifts of your solicitous and generous intercession; show to the people of every race and every color the paths of unity and of justice; implore from our Father in heaven the coming of his kingdom, so that through mutual benevolence in God men may increase the fruits of grace and merit the rewards of eternal life. Amen.

Want to do more reading?
St. Martin de Porres website and image

"St. Martin de Porres, the first black saint in the Americas!" African American Registry
Prayer for the intercession of St. Martin de Porres
St. Martin de Porres Shrine & Institute • Memphis, Tennessee

& Are We There Yet has a wonderful post about this Saint!

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Catholic Mosaic – Living the Liturgical Year with Literature: An Illustrated Book Study for Catholic Children.
The title says it all.
The author, Cay Gibson has created a mosaic of Catholic culture and beautiful literature. Catholic Mosaic is organized by the months of the year and corresponding liturgical celebrations. Then she wove picture books of substance that correspond to the liturgical year.
I had the pleasure of meeting Cay at our homeschool conference at The University of St. Thomas a few months ago. What a gracious and down to earth woman!

But back to the book itself!
It is definitely more than an annotated book list, although that is included, too. It includes

suggested discussion starters/questions for digging deeper with your children
quotes for memorization or use for handwriting practice
ideas for activities that will reinforce the meaning of the particular book.

Catholic Mosaic is a beautiful way to help both young and old celebrate our liturgical year. Cay Gibson really helps families live and relish Catholic traditions. There are connections to feast days, liturgical celebrations and other things Catholic.

Some of the books described and linked in this book are Catholic illustrated classics – books like

Weight of a Mass by Josephine Nobisso
Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi and
St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges

These are examples of books that are already extremely popular with many Catholic parents and children. But Gibson goes beyond the “Catholic classics” and mentions books like

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen (illustrated by Rachel Isadora) and
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and
I added, I Love You Forever by Robert Munsch (illustrated by Sheila McGraw)

Think of the many ways you can apply Catholic teachings to these books, giving your children a rich and lasting understanding of our Catholic culture!!

In a review by Mary C. Gildersleeve she says,

In total, Gibson integrates FIFTY-TWO illustrated childrens' books with the Catholic calendar and Catholic living. Books that cover the Mass, First Communion, various saints and important liturgical seasons are included. In addition, she suggests other books which may also work (but omits questions and activities linked to these “second-string” books some of which unfortunately are out-of-print or hard-to-find).

All the primary books are easily attainable from booksellers; in addition, books by popular authors like Tomie dePaola are usually available at public libraries so as not to strain your book budget too much. However, after seeing these books, you might want to have good copies for your home library. Gibson has selected books not only for the meaning in their words, but also for the beauty of their illustrations. These books could easily be used as an art study in conjunction with the literature, religion and other subjects covered in these books.

Further resources that Gibson gives the reader are suggestions for creating and maintaining a “Liturgical Notebook” throughout the year – a memory scrapbook of this literature-based journey – as well as incorporating some of the traditional Catholic homeschool resources (for example, CHC’s A Year with God or Seton’s Art 1).

Run, don’t walk, to get a copy of this book. I know I sound effusive, but this book is remarkable in its ambitious objective which is stunningly successful. This is one of those homeschooling volumes that needs to be on every Catholic resource shelf – that is, when it’s not being used!

Hillside Education
475 Bidwell Hill Road
Lake Ariel, PA 18436
www.hillsideeducation.com

Here is a sample of just the booklist from CATHOLIC MOSAIC's NOVEMBER BOOK LIST

November 1
I Sing a Song of the Saints of God by Lesbia Scott/ Judith Gwyn Brown
Saints: Lives and Illuminations by Ruth Sanderson

November 2
The Spirit of Tio Fernando: A Day of the Dead Story by Janice Levy/ Morella
Fuenmayor

November 3
The Pied Piper of Peru by Ann Tompert/ Kestutis/ Kasparavicius

Brother Joseph, The Painter of Icons by Augustine Denoble

Saints and Feast Days November 2009

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:21:00 +0000

11/01
All Saints - Holy Day of Obligation

11/02 All Souls - (Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed)

11/03
St. Martin de Porres

11/04
St. Charles Borromeo

11/09
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

11/10
St. Leo the Great

11/11
St. Martin of Tours

11/12
ST. JOSAPHAT

11/13
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini

11/15
St. Albert the Great

11/16
St. Margaret of Scotland

11/16
St. Gertrude the Great

11/17
St. Elizabeth of Hungary

11/18
Dedication of the Basilicas of Peter & Paul in Rome

11/18
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne
Movable Christ the King -
Sunday between 11/20 & 11/26
Sunday before the 1st Sunday in Advent (Last Sunday in Ordinary Time)

11/21
Presentation of the Virgin Mary

11/22
ST. CECELIA

11/23
ST. CLEMENT I
11/23
St. Columban
11/23
BL. MIGUEL AGUSTIN PRO

11/24
ST. ANDREW DUNG-LAC & COMPANIONS

Litany of Saints

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:30:00 +0000

November 1 is All Saints Day

H/T to A Concord Pastor Comments for finding this and sharing it.

LITANY OF THE SAINTS
John D. Becker

Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

1.
Mary and Joseph, pray for us.
Michael and all angels, pray for us.
Anna, Joachim, Elizabeth, pray for us.
Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist, pray for us.
Isaac, Sarah, Abraham, pray for us.
Jacob, Joseph, Samuel, pray for us.
Ruth, David and Solomon, pray for us.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, pray for us.
All you holy men and women, pray for us.

2.
Peter, Paul, Andrew, pray for us.
James, John, and all apostles, pray for us.
Mary Magdalene, Veronica, pray for us.
Barnabas, Matthias, pray for us.
Stephen, Philip, and Cornelius, pray for us.
Prisca and Aquila, pray for us.
Timothy and Titus, pray for us.
Linus, Cletus, and Clement,pray for us.
All you holy men and women, pray for us.

3.
Lawrence and Chrysogonus, pray for us.
Innocent, and Boniface, pray for us.
Hippolytus and Origen, pray for us.
Athanasius and Basil, pray for us.
Felicity, Perpetua, pray for us.
Cosmos and Damien, pray for us.
John, Chrysostom, and Justin, pray for us.
Lucy, Agatha, and Agnes, pray for us.
All you holy men and women, pray for us.

4.
Jerome and Eusebius, pray for us.
Scholastica and Benedict, pray for us.
Ambrose, Monica, Augustine, pray for us.
Martin and Gregory, pray for us.
Clare, Francis, and Dominic, pray for us.
Francis Xavier, Ignatius, pray for us.
Elizabeth and Catherine, pray for us.
Louis and Wenceslaus*, pray for us.
All you holy men and women, pray for us.

5.
Lord, be merciful, save your people.
From all evil, save your people.
From every sin, save your people.
From everlasting death, save your people.
By your incarnation, save your people.
By your death and resurrection, save your people.
By your gift of the Spirit, save your people.
Have mercy on us sinners, save your people.

Christ, hear us. Lord Jesus, hear our prayer.

(The following section is not included in the video.)
6.
Lord, give new life, hear our prayer.
To these chosen, hear our prayer.
By the grace of baptism, hear our prayer.
O Jesus, Son of the living God, our prayer.
Send your Spirit, hear our prayer.
In its fullness, hear our prayer.
On your sons and daughters, hear our prayer.
Who believe and profess you, hear our prayer.

Christ, hear us. Lord Jesus, hear our prayer.

*In this recording, Wenceslaus is changed to Matthew.

Copyright © 1987 by OCP Publications, Portland, OR, 97213. All rights reserved.

Reformation Sunday ( Sermon by Protestant Stanley Hauerwas)

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:00:00 +0000

I, very certainly, do not fully endorse the theology of Stanley Hauerwas but I think (hope & pray) that the Holy Spirit is working on his full conversion and return home to Rome.
That being shared . . . . What an awesome "sermon" to read preached by a Protestant.
Please note that bolding and paragraph breaks are my emphasis.
Soutenus

29 October 1995
by Stanley Hauerwas
Joel 2:23-32 – 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 – Luke 18:9-14

Wittenberg Door
I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do not understand why it is part of the church year.

Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.

Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema.

If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.
For example, note what the Reformation has done for our reading texts like that which we hear from Luke this morning. We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God’s free grace. And therefore we are better than the Catholics because we know they are sinners. What an odd irony that the Reformation made such readings possible. As Protestants we now take pride in the acknowledgment of our sinfulness in order to distinguish ourselves from Catholics who allegedly believe in works-righteousness.

Unfortunately, the Catholics are right. Christian salvation consists in works. To be saved is to be made holy. To be saved requires our being made part of a people separated from the world so that we can be united in spite of — or perhaps better, because of — the world’s fragmentation and divisions.

Unity, after all, is what God has given us through Christ’s death and resurrection. For in that death and resurrection we have been made part of God’s salvation for the world so that the world may know it has been freed from the powers that would compel us to kill one another in the name of false loyalties. All that is about the works necessary to save us.

For example, I often point out that at least Catholics have the magisterial office of the Bishop of Rome to remind them that disunity is a sin. You should not overlook the significance that in several important documents of late, John Paul II has confessed the Catholic sin for the Reformation. Where are the Protestants capable of doing likewise? We Protestants feel no sin for the disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to confess our sin for the continuing disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to do that because we have no experience of unity.

The magisterial office — we Protestants often forget — is not a matter of constraining or limiting diversity in the name of unity. The office of the Bishop of Rome is to ensure that when Christians move from Durham, North Carolina to Syracuse, New York, they have some confidence when they go to church that they will be worshiping the same God. Because Catholics have an office of unity, they do not need to restrain the gifts of the Spirit. As I oftentimes point out, it is extraordinary that Catholicism is able to keep the Irish and the Italians in the same church. What an achievement! Perhaps equally amazing is their ability to keep within the same church Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans.

I think Catholics are able to do that because they know that their unity does not depend upon everyone agreeing. Indeed, they can celebrate their disagreements because they understand that our unity is founded upon the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that makes the Eucharist possible. They do not presume, therefore, that unity requires that we all read Scripture the same way.

This creates a quite different attitude among Catholics about their relation to Christian tradition and the wider world. Protestants look over to Christian tradition and say, ‘How much of this do we have to believe in order to remain identifiably Christian?’ That’s the reason why Protestants are always tempted to rationalism: we think that Christianity is to be identified with sets of beliefs more than with the unity of the Spirit occasioned through sacrament.

Moreover, once Christianity becomes reduced to a matter of belief, as it clearly has for Protestants, we cannot resist questions of whether those beliefs are as true or useful as other beliefs we also entertain. Once such questions are raised, it does not matter what the answer turns out in a given case.

As James Edwards observes, “Once religious beliefs start to compete with other beliefs, then religious believers are — and will know themselves to be — mongerers of values. They too are denizens of the mall, selling and shopping and buying along with the rest of us.”

In contrast, Catholics do not begin with the question of “How much do we need to believe?” but with the attitude “Look at all the wonderful stuff we get to believe!” Isn’t it wonderful to know that Mary was immaculately conceived in order to be the faithful servant of God’s new creation in Jesus Christ! She therefore becomes the firstborn of God’s new creation, our mother, the first member of God’s new community we call church. Isn’t it wonderful that God continued to act in the world through the appearances of Mary at Guadalupe! Mary must know something because she seems to always appear to peasants and, in particular, to peasant women who have the ability to see her. Most of us would not have the ability to see Mary because we’d be far too embarrassed by our vision.

Therefore Catholics understand the church’s unity as grounded in reality more determinative than our good feelings for one another. The office of Rome matters. For at least that office is a judgment on the church for our disunity. Surely it is the clear indication of the sin of the Reformation that we Protestants have not been able to resist nationalistic identifications. So we become German Lutherans, American Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans. You are Dutch Calvinist, American Presbyterians, Church of Scotland. I am an American Methodist, which has precious little to do with my sisters and brothers in English Methodism. And so we Protestant Christians go to war killing one another in the name of being American, German, Japanese, and so on.

At least it becomes the sin of Rome when Italian Catholics think they can kill Irish Catholics in the name of being Italian. Such divisions distort the unity of the Gospel found in the Eucharist and, thus, become judgments against the church of Rome. Of course, the Papacy has often been unfaithful and corrupt, but at least Catholics preserved an office God can use to remind us that we have been and may yet prove unfaithful. In contrast, Protestants don’t even know we’re being judged for our disunity.

I realize that this perspective on Reformation Sunday is not the usual perspective. The usual perspective is to tell us what a wonderful thing happened at the Reformation. The Reformation struck a blow for freedom. No longer would we be held in medieval captivity to law and arbitrary authority. The Reformation was the beginning of enlightenment, of progressive civilizations, of democracy, that have come to fruition in this wonderful country called America. What a destructive story.

You can tell the destructive character of that narrative by what it has done to the Jews. The way we Protestants read history, and in particular our Bible, has been nothing but disastrous for the Jews. For we turned the Jews into Catholics by suggesting that the Jews had sunk into legalistic and sacramental religion after the prophets and had therefore become moribund and dead. In order to make Jesus explicable (in order to make Jesus look like Luther — at least the Luther of our democratic projections), we had to make Judaism look like our characterization of Catholicism. Yet Jesus did not free us from Israel; rather, he engrafted us into the promise of Israel so that we might be a people called to the same holiness of the law.

I realize that the suggestion that salvation is to be part of a holy people constituted by the law seems to deny the Reformation principle of justification by faith through grace. I do not believe that to be the case, particularly as Calvin understood that Reformation theme. After all, Calvin (and Luther) assumed that justification by faith through grace is a claim about God’s presence in Jesus of Nazareth. So justification by faith through grace is not some general truth about our need for acceptance; but rather justification by faith through grace is a claim about the salvation wrought by God through Jesus to make us a holy people capable of remembering that God’s salvation comes through the Jews. When the church loses that memory, we lose the source of our unity. For unity is finally a matter of memory, of how we tell the story of the Reformation. How can we tell this story of the church truthfully as Protestants and Catholics so that we might look forward to being in union with one another and thus share a common story of our mutual failure?

We know, after all, that the prophecy of Joel has been fulfilled. The portents of heaven, the blood and fire, the darkness of the sun, the bloody moon have come to pass in the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ. Now all who call on that name will be saved. We believe that we who stand in the Reformation churches are survivors. But to survive we need to recover the unity that God has given us as survivors. So on this Reformation Sunday long for, pray for, our ability to remember the Reformation – not as a celebratory moment, not as a blow for freedom, but as the sin of the church.

Pray for God to heal our disunity, not the disunity simply between Protestant and Catholic, but the disunity in our midst between classes, between races, between nations. Pray that on Reformation Sunday we may as tax collectors confess our sin and ask God to make us a new people joined together in one might prayer that the world may be saved from its divisions.
(Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School.)

Source: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/stanley-hauerwas-on-reformation-sunday/
H/T Journey to Rome author, Kevin Branson says:

Stanley Hauer was is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University. He makes some good points in the sermon reprinted here (there, and everywhere). Hauerwas comes out of the gate admitting that he doesn’t like the fact that the Protestant celebration of the Reformation is a perpetual event, because it is a celebration of failure on a cosmic scale. I’m not endorsing Hauerwas as a theologian, but I do believe he honestly, and bravely, steps out from the crowd in this sermon and boldly goes where not many Protestants are willing, or able, to go.

These are not his words, but it occurs to me that celebrating the Reformation annually (and I used to do so in a big way) is like celebrating the day you divorced your wife each year when the date rolls around. And no matter how lousy you might believe your wife was, wouldn’t it be twisted to annually whoop it up and celebrate the tragic event! Very strange. What was I thinking as a Protestant when I annually celebrated schism in the Body of Christ? Sometimes we have the opportunity to look back at ourselves and just shake our heads at our thoughtlessness. Thank you Lord!

What is so gloriously wonderful about division in the body of Christ? Really! Oh yeah, now I remember: Doctrinal purity (according to your own interpretation or that of your pet theologian) trumps Christian unity. Sorry, I forgot.

What Do You Think About Schools Teaching Affirmation of Homosexuality?

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:31:00 +0000

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s safe schools czar, Kevin Jennings, wrote a foreword to a book in 1999 that called for elementary school children to explore their sexual identities, for teachers to incorporate homosexual themes in grades K-5, for discarding a “hetero-normative” approach to education and for “acknowledging children as sexual beings.”

Kevin Jennings, now the assistant deputy secretary for education who heads the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, began the foreword to Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling (Rowan & Littlefield Publishers) by writing about the Columbine school shooting in Colorado and comparing it to the beating-death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and, from there, to the issue of intolerance in schools . . . . .

This info is quoted from CNSNews:
Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Advocated ‘Queering Elementary Education’
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, U.S. Department of Education. (AP Photo)

“We remain silent in the face of intolerance,” wrote Jennings, then president of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, an organization he founded. “We do little to teach the values of equality and justice. We simply fail to set any kind of expectation at all that these young people must respect each other even (especially?) when differences among them are vast and profound.”

“Nowhere is this failure more evident than when it comes to antigay prejudice, and nowhere is that particular failure more manifest than it is in our elementary schools,” wrote Jennings.

The book for which Jennings wrote the foreword includes essays from gay and lesbian educators that advocate teaching acceptance of homosexuality in elementary school and kindergarten. (The book is edited by William J. Letts IV and James T. Sears, who also wrote essays for the book.)

In his foreword, Jennings rejects the premise that sexuality should not be taught in elementary schools by arguing that it already is taught, but to instill and promote anti-gay hatred.

“I often find myself confronted with people who attack me for ‘bringing this issue into our schools,’” he wrote. “How laughable this statement is, I think. The reality is that this issue--anti-gay bigotry--is already in our schools. Little kids are learning to hate, and they’re learning it right now in elementary schools across America.”

“Face it: ‘That’s so gay’ has become a mantra of elementary-school children, a mantra invoked whenever a child encounters something or someone they do not like or understand or appreciate,” Jennings wrote. “But the hatred and attitudes they express are not the exception--they are the rule. And we shouldn’t be surprised when troubled people vent their rage in murderous fashions on those they learned it is okay to hate.”

Jennings also criticized conservative political figures in the foreword.

“I’ll admit that in a world populated by the likes of Jesse Helms and Gary Bauer and Pat Buchanan, we can’t blame our schools for all the prejudice we see visited upon queer people,” Jennings wrote. “After all, when the senate majority leader [Trent Lott] compares us to kleptomaniacs, it’s hard to blame bigotry entirely on one’s third grade teacher (although one wonders exactly who Mr. Lott had for his teachers given the profound level of ignorance that pours forth from his mouth).”

To accuse any individual who does not share Jennings’ opinion of hate is a means of silencing debate, said Gary Bauer, president of American Values, a pro-family advocacy group.

“I recall when Matthew Shepard was murdered and a number of people singled out James Dobson as being responsible,” Bauer told CNSNews.com. “Such charges are obscene. The only purpose is to try to silence debate and expression of traditional values.”

On page 9, one of the book’s editors, James T. Sears, states, “Acknowledging children as sexual beings or allowing males (particularly homosexuals) to teach in elementary grades dislodges the classroom from the ‘safe haven’ of heteronormativity.”

Sears, identified as an “independent scholar” living in South Carolina, continues, “Childhood innocence is a veneer that we as adults impress onto children, enabling us to deny desire comfortably and to silence sexuality.”

He also wrote, “Allowing children freedom to develop their sexual identities absent guilt or conditional love is an important attribute of queer households (and classrooms).”

"Heteronormative" is described in Chapter 9 as framing education in such a way that heterosexuality is normal while anything else is abnormal. On page 103, the chapter’s author William J. Letts IV, one of the other editors, denounces a text that explains the difference between boys and girls. He writes that schools push for boys to play with G.I. Joe action figures and girls to play with Barbie dolls as part of a larger social push.

“Boys don’t have to stand to urinate (nor do girls have to sit--they could squat),” wrote Letts, adding, “that’s just how they got conditioned.” Letts is a former elementary school science teacher.

In Chapter 3, Kathy Bickmore writes, “The first reason to discuss sexuality in elementary school is that it is already present in students’ lives. Assumptions about children’s ‘innocence’ regarding sexuality are outdated.”

On page 21, Bickmore, who taught education at the University of Toronto, wrote: “Sexuality and homosexuality in particular, is generally seen to be unsafe content for young children’s classrooms. This assumption misjudges what many children already know about themselves and their world, and also misses the point of what helps an ‘innocent’ develop into a self-sustaining ‘citizen.’”

President Barack Obama. (AP Pool Photo/Jason Reed)
This month, 53 House Republicans sent a letter to President Obama asking him to remove Jennings from the Department of Education.

“As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America's schools--an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children,” the letter said.

“As evidence of this, Mr. Jennings wrote the foreword for a book titled Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue About Sexualities and Schooling. Throughout his career, Mr. Jennings has made it his mission to establish special protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students to the exclusion of all other students,” the letter said.

“The totality of Mr. Jennings' career has been to advocate for public affirmation of homosexuality,” it said. “There is more to safe and drug-free schools than can be accomplished from the narrow view of Mr. Jennings who has, for more than 20 years, almost exclusively focused on promoting the homosexual agenda.”

Jennings’ foreword indicates what kind of agenda he brings to his government office, said Bauer.

“A person’s history tells us a lot about what they will do in a position of power,” Bauer told CNSNews.com. “Most parents, including millions of people that voted for Barack Obama, will not be and should not be comfortable with someone like Mr. Jennings’ agenda for elementary school children.”

A spokesman for the Department of Education could not be reached for comment Tuesday despite repeated inquiries.

Also, two pro-homosexual rights groups--the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation--did not respond to inquiries from CNSNews.com about Jennings and the book.

Another essay in Queering Elementary Education says, “Choosing literature for children with explicitly gay and lesbian themes, characters and situations is a direct approach to including part of many children’s’ home lives.”

This essay by James R. King and Jennifer J. Schneider, both of the University of South Florida, further states on page 131 that, “Teaching homosexuality is precisely about differences, learning from differences and broadening the ways we understand others. The combined fears of sexual taboo and job insecurity (either real or imagined) have proved sufficient to keep homosexuality in the classroom closet. We can no longer afford the heterosexist elitism. Our students already know better (and worse).”

An essay by Kevin P. Colleary, who was a doctoral student in education at Harvard University, asserts on page 157 that, “Whenever a discussion of family or community occurs--both topics of greater importance in almost all grades K-3 social-studies curriculum documents--there is an opportunity to talk about gay and lesbian families, and/or specific communities or neighborhoods where many gays and lesbians lives in almost every major city.”

The book’s fourth chapter begins with a scene of kindergarteners reenacting Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It goes on to ask why not envision another reenactment. “Children have made a banner that says ‘Stonewall Inn.’” The reference was to a June 1969 riot by homosexuals outside the Stonewall bar, a riot viewed as a civil rights watershed event among gay activists.

That chapter was written by Betsy J. Cahill of New Mexico State University and Rachel Theilheimer of Manhattan Community College. The two go on to write: “Teachers can tell children about the lesbian and gay people they know or know about. In the video, It’s Elementary, a teacher and children brainstorm ideas about gays and lesbians. They listen to music by musicians such as Elton John and Melissa Ethridge. In a discussion the teacher points out that the musicians are gay. This is one example of how a teacher might formally teach about gays and lesbians.”

In Chapter 8, Eric Rofes, who taught at Bowdoin College, writes about whether he influenced any of his elementary students to become gay. He was only able to locate eight former students from an elementary class he taught 20 years earlier. He found that these students were not gay.

But he said an openly homosexual teacher can encourage a new generation of activists. “Finally, the greatest influence of openly lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers may be on students’ relationships to political activism, and social movements,” he wrote. “By witnessing up close the importance of political advocacy on a teacher’s job security and social position, children’s understanding of the importance of activism and its relevance to their lives might be enhanced.”

In an essay addressing how universities can work with school districts, Kate Evans, a professional writer, wrote on page 245, “University administrators can place student teachers only in schools that include sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies. If university allies discover local districts without such policies, they can work toward change by speaking at school board meetings and talking with professional contacts.”

In the book’s final chapter, Margaret Mullehern and Gregory Martinez, both of Boise State University, write about the challenges of including homosexuality in school multicultural programs.

“As teacher educators, we feel responsible for educating pre-service elementary teachers about how they can help children understand the damaging effects of homophobia and the positive contributions of gays and lesbians,” they wrote on page 255. “Thus, the decision to include sexual orientation in our multicultural education courses was easy.”

“However, as this chapter details, teaching queerly required more than a conviction,” they continue on page 255. “Confronted with a lack of knowledge and remnants of the homophobia we had grown up with, we had to peel back layers of fear and discomfort and educate our selves.”

Little Johnny Mac

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:10:00 +0000

Friends of mine lost their baby this past week. I would like to share my friend's blog entry. Please keep Jack and Jessica in your prayers.
After you read this (if you are so inclined) you may also read on to learn how to help these young parents with hospital/medical bills.
I have read this entree 3 times and I cannot finish without sobbing . . . praising God and wanting to be a better Christian.

October 28, 2009 (morning)

You all probably think I’m nuts for being on here now... but this blog has been such a source of comfort and sense-making for us throughout this time in our lives that I hope in my heart it will continue to provide clarity to write and share our story with you.

While I’m not ready to share any “details,” just know LJ was safe in his parents’ arms when he went to be with the Lord. A great friend yesterday painted that sweet picture for us - that our son went right from our arms into the loving arms of Jesus. And what better, more amazing place to be raised than in the indescribable beauty of heaven?

I pray you will never know the loss of a child. It is so many emotions and questions and details and unthinkable decisions wrapped up into a tangled mess of thoughts. I wish someone could just scoop some of the yucky ones out of my brain to make room for the ones I want to keep - like the ritualistic “lobotomy” of a Halloween jack-o-lantern. Leave in there the images, memories, sounds, ideas I want to hold onto forever. That’s why I chose to write this morning.

I know there may be people out there that are confused - that we prayed as one body, we petitioned the Lord for LJ’s health and strength, and his little body gave out anyway. That is one way to live our faith... but what I’ve found is that this kind of faith is only half-hearted and misdirected. How can we in our limited human capacity place a limit on God? How can we place parameters on him? He is greater, more infinite, more expansive, more powerful than we could ever understand. In the midst of a heartbreak such as this, God is still God... even when we don’t understand Him.

My heart is broken today. I feel the most profound and indescribable sadness. But again I remember that God is still God and He loves me more than I could ever write or sing or say. His heart hurts when mine does, which means it’s ripped in two right now. After all, He knows first-hand what it is like to watch a child slip away. Just like ours, His child was blameless and pure. The only difference is that God’s son was sent to save the whole world.

I beg of you - if you have not experienced the life-changing power of the Lord in your heart, please know how much He loves you and cares for you and longs for you to walk with Him. He created you to love Him back. There is a void in our hearts where only our faith in Him can belong. We are not put on this earth to float along like a feather. We ar e put here to serve a purpose - to glorify God’s creation through our earthly hands and feet. I know we won’t ever know the full extent of LJ’s purpose, but what I do know is that every moment of his short sweet life was spent glorifying God through his strength and his story. I am more proud of my son than I could ever describe. His life is an inspiration to me to make mine count - to live my life in a way that God is glorified through my words, my actions, my relationships.

I hope you’ll continue to share in our story. There is something special happening here.

This is my prayer in the battle - when triumph is still on the way.

___________________________________________________________________

DONATIONS

We have heard from a lot of our friends and family about helping us with our medical expenses, funeral costs, and flowers and we are so thankful for the help and sup port.

We do not know what our medical expenses will be, but if you would like to donate, a very good friend of ours has set up an account at Bank of America for people that would like to help us out. Donations can be mailed to:

Joe Michels

24 Waterway Ave., Suite 500

The Woodlands, TX 77380

Please make checks payable to John Allen or Jessica Allen

We have also set up a site for our friends and family to donate to the March of Dimes. We would prefer that people donate in lieu of sending flowers for L.J.’s memorial service. The link to donate to the March of Dimes in L.J.’s name is:

http://www.marchofdimes.com/prematurity/b_new.asp?band_id=511 87

For all of those who choose to donate to our medical expense fund, when we are finished paying our medical expenses, we will donate all of the remaining money to the March of Dimes and the Ronald McDonald House at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Please read Jessica’s entry from today. I feel bad that this post was put at the top because her message is so beautiful.

Aborted Fetal Material Used in NEOCUTIS Anti-Wrinkle Creams

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:39:00 +0000

Children of God for Life announced today that Neocutis, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology and skin care is using aborted fetal cell lines to produce several of their
anti-aging skin creams.

H/T Catholic Fire for this info!!

"It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain," stated Executive Director Debi Vinnedge. "There is simply no moral justification for this."

For years Children of God for Life has been a watchdog on pharmaceutical companies using aborted fetal cell lines in medical products and they have received thousands of inquiries from the public on the use of aborted fetal material in cosmetics.

Until now, this was the first time they have encountered any company bold enough to put the information right on their own website and product literature. A quick investigation into the science behind the products revealed the shameless data.

(note from Soutenus: Unfortunately, I believe this is a sign of the times . . . how dare we question the "right" of women to do whatever she wants with her body - whether she has a baby in her wombs or not. Mark my words, someone will come forward espousing the wonderful "recycling" taking place here.)

Neocutis' key ingredient known as "Processed Skin Proteins" was developed at the University of Luasanne from the skin tissue of a 14-week gestation electively-aborted male baby donated by the University Hospital in Switzerland. (The photo at right is a baby at 14 weeks in the womb)

Subsequently, a working cell bank was established, containing several billion cultured skin cells to produce the human growth factor needed to restore aging skin. The list of products using the cell line include: Bio-Gel, Journee, Bio-Serum, Prevedem, Bio Restorative Skin Cream and Lumiere. But Vinnedge is calling for a full boycott of all Neocutis products, regardless of their source.

"There is absolutely no reason to use aborted babies for such selfish motives," Vinnedge said. "It is anti-life, anti-woman and counter-productive as Neocutis is about to find out!"

Children of God for Life is calling on rival cosmetic companies to take advantage of some free advertising by their company.

"We know there are companies using moral sources for collagen and skin proteins. We intend to publicly promote these other cosmetic companies competing with Neocutis that are willing to step forward and contact us."

Meanwhile Vinnedge advises women who are using Neocutis products to throw them in the garbage and to contact the company to express their concerns.

In addition she advised, "Contact some of these competing companies and ask them to verify their products are morally produced. If they are willing to commit to it in writing, they will get our endorsement."

Contact Neocutis:
Neocutis Inc.
3053 Fillmore Street # 140
San Francisco CA 94123
Phone: 1-866-636-2884

UPDATE!! From Children of Life for God

Dear Readers:
Below is the shocking response received from Neocutis President, Mark Lemko to one concerned woman who wrote to ask them about their use of aborted fetal material. My comments to correct his patently false statements follow the email but I am sure you will be able to figure out quickly as you read this that these people have no shame, no morals, no souls.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mark Lemko <Mark.Lemko@neocutis.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 4:36 PM
Subject: NEOCUTIS
Dear L. Hall:

Perhaps a simple response is the best.

We believe we are the victims of vicious and damaging misinformation.

We feel that we are in complete compliance with the laws of God and the laws of man.

We were not involved with the acquisition of the original sample of fetal tissue.

However, we know the sample was obtained in a legally, morally, ethically and medically correct manner.

None of our products contain any of the original fetal cells or tissue. None of our products contain aborted babies.
Our lysate is prepared from cultured fibroblasts that have never been part of a fetus.

We are not abortionists nor do we condone voluntary or procured abortion and as such have a clear mind that we have not committed or are complicit in an evil act.

Mark J. Lemko

The Facts

1) The only ones here who are victims are the aborted babies and the women who have been shamelessly exploited and duped! The information we have provided is straight from Neocutis' own words, from the NIH, PubMed and Science publications.
2) No one who exploits and uses another human being for profit is within any laws of God or man. Are we to believe that God condones using the remains of butchered children to make some woman look more youthful? He can't be serious.
3) They most certainly were involved with the acquisition of the original sample of fetal tissue. You see, Neocutis is - again in their own words: "a spin-off from the Medical School of the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland" - where the original abortion was done.
4) There is nothing in the harvesting of aborted baby body parts that is moral or ethical. Legal, perhaps. Medically correct? You mean of course that the abortion was done in a manner that would ensure the fetus was delivered intact for research purposes. Can't do that with a saline abortion or a D&E method. But prostaglandin abortions cause the woman to go into mini-labor and pass the intact baby. So yes, they did their abortion in a manner that was medically correct for what they needed.
5) How stupid does this person think we are? Does he truly believe we are going to open a jar of one of their skin creams and find fetal tissue and aborted babies in there? Their lysates he mentions, however, are most certainly part of the aborted baby. Here is how the product was developed - again - in their own words:
A cell bank was established starting with a single skin biopsy of fetal skin tissue. The cell bank is stored frozen in liquid nitrogen and can be kept for many years, thereby providing a sustained supply of cells for PSP® production over decades. PSP® (Processed Skin Cell Proteins) is obtained after cell lysis of cultured skin cells originating from this cell bank
Neocutis Bio-restorative Skin Cream with PSP™ (a proprietary cosmetic ingredient developed at the University of Lausanne) is the only product containing the specific natural human growth factors and cytokines associated with natural bio-restoration of the skin. The unique formulation of PSP™ provides skin with the optimal balance of skin nutrients helping to preserve or restore skin when stressed.
In order to produce PSP®, frozen cells from one or several ampoules of the Working Cell Bank are thawed, transferred into appropriate cell culture vessels and then expanded under standard cell culture condition respecting stringent manufacturing procedures. Thereby, cells from one Working Cell Bank ampoule are multiplied to yield several billion cells (Figure 2). These cells are then harvested, carefully washed and prepared for cell disruption. Cell disruption or lysis is realized by several freeze-thaw cycles and allows obtaining a mixture comprising skin cell proteins, called PSP® or ‘Processed Skin Cell Proteins’. Freeze-thawing is a relatively gentle process [22] and allows the production of a naturally balanced mixture of skin cell proteins present in the cells at the moment of cell disruption. (end of quote)

If the lysates did not contain those original intact human fetal skin cell qualities and proteins, they would be worthless!

6) They may not believe that they are guilty of complicity in an immoral act, but the Vatican most certainly does:

From Dignitas Personae (Pope Benedict XVI December 2008)
The use of human “biological material” of illicit origin

34. For scientific research and for the production of vaccines or other products, cell lines are at times used which are the result of an illicit intervention against the life or physical integrity of a human being. The connection to the unjust act may be either mediate or immediate, since it is generally a question of cells which reproduce easily and abundantly.

This “material” is sometimes made available commercially or distributed freely to research centers by governmental agencies having this function under the law. All of this gives rise to various ethical problems with regard to cooperation in evil and with regard to scandal. It is fitting therefore to formulate general principles on the basis of which people of good conscience can evaluate and resolve situations in which they may possibly be involved on account of their professional activity.

It needs to be remembered above all that the category of abortion “is to be applied also to the recent forms of intervention on human embryos which, although carried out for purposes legitimate in themselves, inevitably involve the killing of those embryos. This is the case with experimentation on embryos, which is becoming increasingly widespread in the field of biomedical research and is legally permitted in some countries… [T]he use of human embryos or fetuses as an object of experimentation constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings who have a right to the same respect owed to a child once born, just as to every person”.54 These forms of experimentation always constitute a grave moral disorder.55

35. A different situation is created when researchers use “biological material” of illicit origin which has been produced apart from their research center or which has been obtained commercially. The Instruction Donum vitae formulated the general principle which must be observed in these cases: “The corpses of human embryos and fetuses, whether they have been deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the remains of other human beings. In particular, they cannot be subjected to mutilation or to autopsies if their death has not yet been verified and without the consent of the parents or of the mother. Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided”.56

In this regard, the criterion of independence as it has been formulated by some ethics committees is not sufficient. According to this criterion, the use of “biological material” of illicit origin would be ethically permissible provided there is a clear separation between those who, on the one hand, produce, freeze and cause the death of embryos and, on the other, the researchers involved in scientific experimentation. The criterion of independence is not sufficient to avoid a contradiction in the attitude of the person who says that he does not approve of the injustice perpetrated by others, but at the same time accepts for his own work the “biological material” which the others have obtained by means of that injustice. When the illicit action is endorsed by the laws which regulate healthcare and scientific research, it is necessary to distance oneself from the evil aspects of that system in order not to give the impression of a certain toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust.57 Any appearance of acceptance would in fact contribute to the growing indifference to, if not the approval of, such actions in certain medical and political circles.

At times, the objection is raised that the above-mentioned considerations would mean that people of good conscience involved in research would have the duty to oppose actively all the illicit actions that take place in the field of medicine, thus excessively broadening their ethical responsibility. In reality, the duty to avoid cooperation in evil and scandal relates to their ordinary professional activities, which they must pursue in a just manner and by means of which they must give witness to the value of life by their opposition to gravely unjust laws.

Therefore, it needs to be stated that there is a duty to refuse to use such “biological material” even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial fertilization took place. This duty springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one’s own research, from a gravely unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life.

You see Mr. Lemko -There is no "simple response"
when it involves profiteering from the destruction of another human being!

Reiki and Yoga - Are they Compatible with Catholicism?

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:21:00 +0000

Reiki and Yoga

copy of an article from http://www.michaeljournal.org/reiki.htm

Former Hindu guru Rabi Maharaj, "No part of Yoga can be separated from the philosophy behind it."

Note from Soutenus: H/T to Esther for leading me to this article! Thank you.
See, also my 2007 posts on this subject.

If you listen to the gurus and yogis; the practices of yoga, Reiki, centering prayer, transcendental meditation and all similar methods lead to experiences of self-fulfilment or enlightenment.

Unfortunately, many people today think yoga and Reiki are something that is compatible with Christian doctrine. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even though in many communities, "Christian" yoga and Reiki may be used, it is contrary to what the First Commandment teaches us. They instruct us to go down to the level of human realizations that are man-made and not from God. This is very dangerous.

The Catechism teaches us that "all practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others – even if this were for the sake of restoring their health – are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion." No. 2117

Also, the Church cites idolatry as being against the First Commandment, saying: "Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons." The New Age ideology promotes self-divinization in many forms.

An explanation of centering prayer

Here’s a quote from Rev. Dreher describing the ideology of "centering prayer" which follows the same principles as yoga…

"Centering prayer (or yoga), differs from Christian prayer in that the intent of the technique is to bring the practitioner to the center of his own being. There he is, supposedly, to experience the presence of the God who indwells him. Christian prayer, on the contrary, centers upon God in a relational way, as someone apart from oneself. The Christian knows a God who is personal, yet who, as Creator, infinitely transcends his creature. God is wholly other than man. It is also crucial to Christian prayer that God engages man’s whole being in response, not just his interior life. In the view of centering prayer, the immanence of God somehow makes the transcendence of God available to human techniques and experience.
"Centering prayer is essentially a form of self-hypnosis. It makes use of a "mantra," a word repeated over and over to focus the mind while striving by ones will to go deep within oneself. The effects are a hypnotic-like state: concentration upon one thing, disengagement from other stimuli, a high degree of openness to suggestion, a psychological and physiological condition that externally resembles sleep but in which consciousness is interiorized and the mind subject to suggestion."

This type of "prayer" or meditation is a form of hypnosis; this has been proven by various studies by professional psychologists. They did tests to confirm that people under the hypnotic state of meditation used in yoga experienced a drop in blood pressure, respiratory rate, lactic acid level in the blood, and the galvanic conductivity of the skin.

The difference between Christianity and Eastern ideologies

Since we want to find what the difference is between meditation used in Yoga and Christian meditation, why don’t we look at the differences between the Christian and Eastern spiritualities first?

According to what the Catholic faith teaches, all men are creatures who are called out of nothing, to serve and know God. A Christian is someone who knows his life is linked with Christ; that without Him, he cannot survive. The Christian’s whole life has been reconstructed in Christ because essentially, he lives in Christ if he is in the state of grace. (i.e. not in the state of mortal sin). Of course, this has to be his choice, since God always respects the free will of the human person.

Eastern religions, on the other hand, look for God as if He was a part of the universe, instead of having created it. They believe all reality is one, so God is just a part of a reality, just as man is. They believe they have to go beyond the "real" world in order to get to the spiritual world that is under it. They believe that God is only a state of being, a "state of mind" if you will.

For Christians, however, God is indeed REAL and all of creation only exists to serve Him, because He willed it so. In Christian thinking, it (the world and all that is in it) need not even exist but for the benevolence of God’s love, of His Fatherly love for us.

So in the East, human means are "necessary" in order to go towards God, with the goal of achieving an altered state of consciousness, whereas a Christian seeks to speak and interact with God. In this interaction with God, a Christian aspires to attain a certain "participation in the divine nature" (2 Peter 4:4). The Eastern religions on the other hand, seek to find God within and find an escape from the realities and distractions of the outer world. This is always attempted by different psychological and/or physiological techniques rather than by an encounter with the Divine Personhood of God.

The Eastern religions confuse technique with encounter. They do not believe in God as supreme Person, but as a part of themselves and of the universe. We are not identical with Him, as He is Creator of the universe. We cannot manipulate this fact with techniques of any sort. We can use the way that children speak with their parents as an example, because in reality we speak to God in the same way, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

When a Catholic speaks about sanctifying grace for example, he means the grace of union with God. By the means of this grace, we are given a share of the holiness of God Himself, it is His way of giving Himself to man. By applying this grace in our daily lives, we travel on the journey of conversion, which is complete union with Him. Our goal as Catholic Christians is not only the inner peace so much sought after by the Eastern religions, but the sanctification of body, mind and heart, not only personally, but including the entire world. The Eastern world instead claims inner peace for oneself, without taking into account the "otherness" of God, and even other realities of ones’ life.

Archimandrite Sophrony of Mount Athos, who is an authority in Orthodox spirituality, speaks from his own personal story. He was involved in Eastern religions for years, before he returned to the Orthodox faith of his youth. We quote him at length, for he speaks with clarity on these subjects:

"In advising against being carried away by artificial practices such as Transcendental Meditation I am but repeating the age-old message of the Church... The way of the Fathers requires firm faith and long patience, whereas our contemporaries want to seize every spiritual gift, including even direct contemplation of the Absolute God, by force and speedily, and will often draw a parallel between prayer in the Name of Jesus and yoga or Transcendental Meditation and the like. I must stress the danger of such errors...

"He is deluded who endeavours to divest himself mentally of all that is transitory and relative in order to cross some invisible threshold, to realize his eternal origin, his identity with the Source of all that exists, in order to return and merge with him, the nameless transpersonal Absolute. Such exercises have enabled many to rise to supra-rational contemplation of being, to experience a certain mystical trepidation, to know the state of silence of mind, when mind goes beyond the boundaries of time and space. In such like states man may feel the peacefulness of being withdrawn from the continually changing phenomena of the visible world, may even have a certain experience of eternity. But the God of Truth, the Living God, is not in all this.

"It is man’s own beauty, created in the image of God, that is contemplated and seen as divinity, whereas he himself still continues within the confines of his creatureliness. This is a vastly important concern. The tragedy of the matter lies in the fact that man sees a mirage which, in his longing for eternal life, he mistakes for a genuine oasis. This impersonal form of ascetics leads finally to an assertion of the divine principle in the very nature of man. Man is then drawn to the idea of self-deification, the cause of the original Fall. The man who is blinded by the imaginary majesty of what he contemplates has in fact set his foot on the path to self-destruction. He has discarded the revelation of a personal God... The movement into the depths of his own being is nothing else but attraction towards the non-being from which we were called by the will of the Creator." (His Life is Mine, 115-116)

To put it simply, authentic prayer goes to God from our soul, and not in the soul itself. Our souls are brought closer to God Himself, and not brought into some distant space in our mind, as what happens in Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, etc. Incidentally, these practices not only distance us from God, but also give us the idea that we can escape from our lives and reality. Christian teaching is just the opposite, because it teaches us to first put our faith in God, and then allow Him to help us to carry our cross.

Yoga and gurus

The yogi instructors speak freely about the techniques they use, and why they use them. Kundalini Yoga Master Gurmukh admits in a video that yoga evokes energy through the postures, breathing techniques, chanting, and meditation. She says that it is necessary to: "Clear and empty the mind, awake the snake within you and go into a larger world."

People think they can separate the exercises that Yoga uses, from their spiritual roots, but this cannot be done. Ignoring something does not make it cease to exist. Occultism expert and ex-New Age practitioner Caryl Matrisciana says: "Most people have no idea what they’re doing when they practice the rituals of Yoga and think that they’re only basic physical exercises. They have no clue that all the ‘asanas’ (postures) are designed to prepare the Hindu practitioner for his belief in the ‘cycle of death’ known as reincarnation."

Any Hindu will tell you that yoga is not purely physical – it was not designed for physical fitness, but to realign the serpent force within the body to achieve Godhood, which is yoga. Anyone doing exercise for fitness ought to look for exercises designed for that.

Reiki – A history

A Reiki website describes it in a very interesting way. "Reiki transcends the man-made divisions of religion, economics, location, gender, and race."

In Reiki, they call the teachers "master." Master also means that the student has come far enough along in his or her development that troublesome lifestyle habits and limiting belief systems (such as Catholicism) are taking less and less time and energy away from living a "fully conscious life."

A German Reiki channeler makes this comment: "It frequently happens that patients will come into contact with new ideas after a few Reiki treatments. Some will start doing yoga or autogenous training or start to meditate or practise [sic] some other kind of spiritual method... Fundamental changes will set in and new things will start to develop. You will find it easier to cast off old, outlived structures and you will notice that you are being led and guided more and more..."

William Lee Rand, a New Age advocate for Reiki states: "Reiki can be defined as a non-physical healing energy made up of life force energy that is guided by the Higher Intelligence, or spiritually guided life force energy. We believe this "Higher intelligence" reached during Reiki sessions is not a source of good universal energy as is stated by Reiki masters but rather is of a demonic nature.

The occult is like a wolf
in sheep's clothing

Unfortunately, entire religious communities are giving precedence to the ideologies of the Hindu religion. These practices were introduced by such men as Thomas Merton (who was influenced heavily by the Hindu ideologies), and who have done enormous harm to the Church because of the ignorance of the people on the danger of these practices.
Note from Soutenus: Did not know this -- must do more research on this. I have enjoyed Merton's work) Many people do not realize that it was gurus and other experts in Hinduism who were consulted for these particular meditation techniques.

Reiki is incompatible with Catholicism because it does not acknowledge Jesus as a divine Person and Saviour of mankind. Pantheism is a belief system that really resembles what the followers of Reiki are talking about. They believe in a universal energy – that has nothing to do with Jesus – something that gives life to human beings, and also rules the entire Reiki practice. The users of Reiki believe that they can use this energy to heal, but in reality they are practicing divination and a form of magic when they utilize these powers. (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2111, 2116-17).

Reiki then, uses forces that are not Christian at all, because they rely on these "powers" or spiritual agents. The Catholic Church says that all living creatures were created through Jesus and that every human being has a soul, making him a "living, human body." Reiki says that while the principle of man’s life should be spiritual, they do not agree that each man has a soul. They put all their emphasis on what they call energy or "Ki."

"Any energy used as part of the body’s operations – such as the electricity in our nervous systems – is material in nature, not spiritual," counters This Rock Magazine in their October-December 2001 issue, confirming the Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject. "The various forms of Hinduism and Buddhism that posit the existence of a life energy (ki or kundalini) interpret that energy as spiritual," the magazine continues. "Since this is contrary to Christian theology, it is inappropriate for Christians to participate in activities based on this belief."

The difference between Reiki’s "spiritual consciousness" and Christianity is that Jesus is indeed a divine Person. Also, we have to understand that a Catholic may not call upon God besides in the name of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit (in other words, the Holy Trinity). Interceding to other entities can call evil spirits, especially when the person is calling upon an impersonal "God Consciousness" which of course, is not the Holy Trinity!

A Claretian priest named Fr. John Hampsch, who has been a spiritual director for many years, states that there are many spiritual dangers with Rieki. In fact, during an interview he stated that a woman he knew once said that she heard a Reiki master calling spiritual "beings" by name during a Reiki treatment. Apparently, this Reiki master thought he was helping this woman become healed, but instead he was exposing her to the threat of "spirits" of whom he knows really nothing about.

Fr. Hampsch states that Reiki, "Is dangerous stuff, it is very subtle but there is undoubted danger, as with other occult practices, because one opens up to the influence of evil spirits. He affirms that there are always "devil’s compensation" in occult use and practice. In other words, you may experience an improvement in your health for a time, but the ultimate "payment" will always be much more dangerous and harmful. It may include addictions, morbidity, uncontrolled anger, or even thoughts of suicide. He concluded that he has talked to many people who have experienced troubles after being "treated" by a Reiki master.

In Vatican II’s Ad Gentes, the Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity, Catholics are told to look "attentively on how Christian religious life may be able to assimilate the ascetic and contemplative traditions whose seeds were sometimes already planted by God in ancient cultures prior to the preaching of the Gospel" (no. 18).

Notice that this Church document relates that we are to "assimilate" and not "accommodate." We are not, in other words, to entertain practices that allow us to receive ideas that may encourage us to religious relativism. Any retreat center that wants or is promoting Reiki needs to really study this point, if they wish to remain Catholic.

New Age spirituality is not even medically plausible, and can never be linked to Christianity because of the dangers involved for the people who become tangled up in it. Only Jesus Christ is the divine Healer, he is the "Way, the Truth, and the Life" (Jn. 14:6), only in Him is there salvation.

Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life

In a document written by the Pontifical Council for Culture entitled: "Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life," the Catholic Church gives a reflection on the "New Age" ideologies.

"It should be recognized that the attraction that New Age religiosity has for some Christians may be due in part to the lack of serious attention in their own communities for themes which are actually part of the Catholic synthesis such as the importance of man’s spiritual dimension and its integration with the whole of life, the search for life’s meaning, the link between human beings and the rest of creation, the desire for personal and social transformation, and the rejection of a rationalistic and materialistic view of humanity.

"When one examines many New Age traditions, it soon becomes clear that there is, in fact, little in the New Age that is new. The name seems to have gained currency through Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, at the time of the French and American Revolutions, but the reality it denotes is a contemporary variant of Western esotericism.

"It has involved a progressive rejection of a personal God and a focus on other entities which would often figure as intermediaries between God and humanity in traditional Christianity, with more and more original adaptations of these or additional ones. A powerful trend in modern Western culture which has given space to New Age ideas is the general acceptance of Darwinist evolutionary theory; this, alongside a focus on hidden spiritual powers or forces in nature, has been the backbone of much of what is now recognized as New Age theory.

"Even if it can be admitted that New Age religiosity in some way responds to the legitimate spiritual longing of human nature, it must be acknowledged that its attempts to do so run counter to Christian revelation. In Western culture in particular, the appeal of "alternative" approaches to spirituality is very strong. On the one hand, new forms of psychological affirmation of the individual have become very popular among Catholics, even in retreat-houses, seminaries and institutes of formation for religious.

"John Paul II warns with regard to the ‘return of ancient gnostic ideas under the guise of the so-called New Age: We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion. It is only a new way of practising gnosticism – that attitude of the spirit that, in the name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting His Word and replacing it with purely human words. Gnosticism never completely abandoned the realm of Christianity. Instead, it has always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of a philosophical movement, but more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or a para-religion in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian.’ "

Marie Anne Jacques

Just for Fun - Techie's Secrets Revealed

PeggyCortez@yahoo.com (Soutenus) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:43:00 +0000

source: xkcd.com