Are You Hip Enough

If we are to make any headway in this culture war (during our life time) it is important to understand "the power of cool" as Victor Davis Hanson lays it down). This explains why some people can get away with certain misdeeds (sin) and others who commit the same deeds can not. Also how some are dismissed out of hand, shouted down, or bumper stickered blind because their views are not the cool MSM ones.

Now one would think the Pope is cool (I do) but the MSM thinks he's "cute" or 'adorable' but ultimately out of touch with the real world.

In a recent Facebook debate on Planned Parenthood one of my comments was responded to with a derisive "Next we will be talking about shooting moose from a helicopter". The 'cool kids' couldn't click Like fast enough.

Granted being a follower of Christ has never been cool, but being cool has never before been the trump card in public debate.

We do not need to be cool - we need to rise up and say "Enough already! Sit back down and let the adults talk."

The May Magnificat

May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season-

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?-
Growth in every thing-

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all-

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Good bye Maurice. Have a nice trip.

One of the up sides of the current resident’s hostile distain of the Catholic church is that the bishops have grown a pair. 

They are seeing the folly of 'go along to get along'. They have remembered that you cannot compromise with the devil.  So finally they are saying "no" to those Catholics who think it is ok to slice and dice babies from speaking at Catholic Schools. One such case is that Rep Bob Hagan has been uninvited to speak because of his pro child murder stance. The thing is that Hagan just can't understand it he said, “I have fought for social justice my entire life and today, I am one disappointed Catholic. After being invited to give the commencement speech at Mercy Nursing School here in Youngstown, I got a call telling me that the Bishop has overruled their invite and they have rescinded the invitation because of some of the political positions I have taken. I am saddened that the work that I have done to feed the poor, clothe the naked, help cure the sick, and to bring an end to the death penalty has fallen on deaf ears.”

So for him he believes that these goods outweigh the evil of his support of the wholesale slaughter of children which he calls a political position. He is not alone.

Interesting that we would vote for someone who does these goods but actively maintains the okedness of the slicing and dicing of babies for the health of the mother but we would never vote for someone who said it would be ok to slap your wife occasionally for the health of the marriage.

I pray for Rep Hagan that he may gain sight and I continue to pray for the bishops that they stay strong.

Is it too soon to say hurrah?

Although one might think boycotts work and that Pepsi has seen the light but I can not help remembering the Susan G. Komen fiasco. Then again Pepsi has the bottom line to guide its moral decisions.

Strange (wink. wink) that there was never any mention of this guy in the movie.

"In almost every line that has been written, and in every sentence that has been spoken, there stands boldly out above every other expression a picture of sublime heroism that will be copied into the pages of history. And well it may, for it is deserving of that honor.

But when it is, mention should be made of one whom pens and tongues have almost forgotten in their accounts of this awful sea tragedy. Among those who safely reached the land again no one seems to have been aware of his presence on the ship, but we may hope that many who meet him in a blissful eternity will praise God that Father Thomas Byles was there to administer absolution unto them."

you got to love this and this.

just keep swimming. just keep swimming.