Sometimes life surprises us

What a wonderful story. Thank God he was given the chance to live and spread his wonderful message.



I wonder if Barack Obama could look him in the eye and say that him mother had the right to murder before he was born. In Obama's eyes Nick Vujicic would have been a punishment not a blessing to his mother ("I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.")

Last Rites on a Wintry Night

A Halloween tale from Fr Joe (not from Opus Dei :p)

A Catholic Ghost Story from Southern Maryland

The priest was happy to have a fire burning. It was a cold winter night and it felt good to be settled in for the evening. His small parish in Charles County, Maryland, was a good one with simple but hardworking and faithful people. True, the area was a bit remote from the power center of the Archdiocese, but that had a positive side as well. However, such sentiments were best left unexplored and never expressed. The wind howled outside like a woman’s cry, and it was ever so dark. Peaceful— that was nature of this assignment; it was like a perpetual retreat. Counting himself fortunate, the Catholic cleric opened his breviary to say his prayers; hopefully he would finish them before falling asleep. He had barely begun when there was a knock at the door. Perhaps it was just the branch of a tree? Knock, knock!— no, there it was again— who could it be at this late hour of the night?

Throwing on his cassock he went to the door and opened it. “Yes, can I help you?” said the pastor, somewhat irritated at the interruption.

“Father, you have to come quickly, my daddy is dying!” cried a young teenage boy. “You have to come as fast as you can; he needs the last sacraments!”

The priest became immediately alert. He grabbed his coat and sick kit and ran out the door with the boy. Journeying to the house, he noted that the boy was only dressed in a flimsy shirt and shorts. He was even barefoot. No doubt the boy had run out to get him at a moment’s notice, thinking only of his father. He put his coat over the pale cold skin of the child. “Goodness, boy, if you’re not careful you’ll catch pneumonia yourself!”

“I’ll be okay, Father. The main thing is that you take care of my old man. He meant to contact you before this, but, well, he never thought his health would go down so quickly. We don’t have a phone so I ran to get you.”

“You’re telling me that you ran all this way to get me? You’re quite some boy. But rest and warm yourself now,” replied the concerned priest. The boy pointed the way and the priest made good time driving to their home.

Upon arriving, the priest jumped out and ran into the house. If the fellow was as bad as the boy made out, there was no time to lose. Sure enough, there he was, lying in bed and quite sick. The priest heard his Confession, anointed him, and gave him Holy Communion— it would be his last.

Sitting alongside the old man, for that was assuredly what he was, the priest began to chat with him. “Ah, I see you have a picture here of your son,” said the priest picking up a photograph near the man’s bedside.

“Oh yes, Father, that’s my boy,” returned the old man.

The priest added, “You must be proud to have a son like that, running all the way from here to the rectory for the priest on a night like this.”

“What Father? What do you mean?” he asked.

“Your boy,” explained the priest, “rushing half-naked to get me to insure you would receive the Last Rites— that was quite a selfless feat of love.”

“But Father,” stammered the old man pointing to the picture, “my boy has been dead these eighteen years, it was summer and he drowned.”

This story was told and retold to me many times by my father. It is a wonderful testimony of the value of the sacraments and the bond of love which transcends the grave.

Awww...

I want my Papal hug, too.

Don't worry! Be happy!

From The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Some years ago, I remember a "hit" song that my youth group liked called "Don't worry! Be happy!" The fun and lilting caribbean voice made it a popular and amusing invitation to "chill out".

The atheist bus adverts promise people a worry-free existence if they will only accept that there is "probably" no God. This is not very reassuring in itself - to be free of worry, you would really need to be certain that there is no God - but let that pass.

Who can have a worry-free existence? This was essentially the problem that exercised the Stoics and other ancient philosophers in search of the "Beata vita", the blessed, or calm and contented life. Seneca and others got close when saying that freedom from fear and desire was the key. An ascetical life would free you from the desire that nags and worries. Acceptance of whatever happens will free you from fear.

Without the teaching of Christ, however, this search for the beata vita will be doomed to frustration. At this time of the year, we reflect on the Four Last Things: death, judgement, hell and heaven; exactly those eternal truths that Richard Dawkins and his friends think condemn us all to worry and unhappiness. In fact, they liberate us to enjoy life and life more abundant. By seeing our present lives in the perspective of eternity, we do not solve all our present worries but we are freed from seeing them as final. We are open to a glorious future in which:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. (Rev 21.4)

In "The God Delusion", Dawkins taunted Christians with the challenge that they should not fear death. Two examples come to mind from England in the reign of Henry VIII. St Thomas More marvelled at how the Carthusian martyrs went to their gruesome deaths at Tyburn singing the psalms as though they were on their way to a wedding.

I also love the story of St John Fisher's final hours in the Tower. On 22 June 1535, when the Lieutenant of the Tower of London came to tell him that he was to be executed that morning, there was this exchange:

‘Well,’ quoth the Bishop, ‘if this be your errand hither, it is no news unto me; I have looked daily for it. I pray you, what is it a’clock?’

‘It is,’ quoth the Lieutenant, ‘about five.’

‘What time,’ quoth the bishop, ‘must be mine hour to go out hence?’

‘About ten of the clock,’ said the Lieutenant.

‘Well, then,’ quoth the bishop, ‘I pray you, let me sleep an hour or twain. For I may say to you, I slept not much this night, not for fear of death, I tell you, but by reason of my great sickness and weakness.’

In other words, "Although I am going to have my head chopped off in a couple of hours, I'm a bit tired and I'd just like to get a little more sleep."

Don't worry! Be happy!

And here's the song he refers to :)

St Gianna Beretta Molla

I found this video.. and it's very lovely and very moving..

On the mentally handicapped, 'eating food cooked by Buddhists" and holding hands during the Our Father

Ite, missa est...and funny Cardinal Arinze

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published an interview Oct. 17 with Cardinal Arinze, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

He said along with "Ite, missa est," the Latin phrase now translated as "The Mass is ended, go in peace," the new options are:

-- "Ite ad Evangelium Domini annuntiandum" (Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord).

-- "Ite in pace, glorificando vita vestra Dominum" (Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life).

-- "Ite in pace" (Go in peace).

The idea for alternative words at the end of Mass was raised at the 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. Many bishops wanted the final words to reflect a more explicit connection between Mass and the church's mission of evangelization in the world.

Now the next line is just classic:

Cardinal Arinze said the concern was that, for many Catholics, the present words of dismissal sounded like "The Mass is ended, go and rest."

Read the full article >>

Just look

In his column yesterday for the New York Catholic, Cardinal Egan tried something different:

The picture on this page is an untouched photograph of a being that has been within its mother for 20 weeks. Please do me the favor of looking at it carefully.

Have you any doubt that it is a human being?

If you do not have any such doubt, have you any doubt that it is an innocent human being?

If you have no doubt about this either, have you any doubt that the authorities in a civilized society are duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if anyone were to wish to kill it?

If your answer to this last query is negative, that is, if you have no doubt that the authorities in a civilized society would be duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if someone were to wish to kill it, I would suggest—even insist—that there is not a lot more to be said about the issue of abortion in our society. It is wrong, and it cannot—must not—be tolerated.

Farther in:

It is high time to stop pretending that we do not know what this nation of ours is allowing—and approving—with the killing each year of more than 1,600,000 innocent human beings within their mothers. We know full well that to kill what is clearly seen to be an innocent human being or what cannot be proved to be other than an innocent human being is as wrong as wrong gets.

Do me a favor. Look at the photograph again. Look and decide with honesty and decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of "legalized" abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation. Look, and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act.

Doctor Lloyd is on Wikipedia

Check it out!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrocene#cite_note-9

Citation 9:
L. F. N. Ah Qune, K. Tamada, M. Hara (2008). "Self-Assembling Properties of 11-Ferrocenyl-1-Undecanethiol on Highly Oriented Pyrolitic Graphite Characterized by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy". e-Journal of Surface Science and Nanotechnology 6: 119–123. doi:10.1380/ejssnt.2008.119

Voters' Guide

For those interested in ethics: