Friday, November 20, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
What Every Catholic Mom Longs for . . . and Prays for
Lord, please give me:
3. Greater devotion to the Virgin Mary
4. The wisdom I need to raise my kids Catholic
5. Good Catholic books they will love.
Catholic homework help --- for all subjects
7. Kindness, no matter what happens,
or how bad things get
8. The ability to pray, even among the dishes
and dirty diapers
9. Gentle ways to draw those I love into
. . . or back into . . . the Church
10. Saintly solutions for all the other problems
my days bring me
11.
Just a few moments of rest.
(More would be better, but a few moments will do.)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
UN Rally for the Unborn Child...you can help gather 1 million signatures...
October 27, 2009
Dear Friend of the Unborn Child,
As I write this the UN Petition for the Unborn Child is up over 572,000 names with 87,000 new names in the last three weeks!
We intend to raise one million signatures by December 1 and present them to the UN a few days after that.
As you know the UN is the font of a great deal of anti-life propaganda. UN agencies and UN-related groups are at the forefront of making abortion a universally recognized human right. That’s right, UN radicals want to make killing babies in the womb a human right. Can there be anything more wrong, more evil that that?
The UN pro-life movement has banded together to fight this movement. UN pro-lifers are at the forefront of fighting this hideous movement of killing babies. The UN pro-life movement is outspent ten million to one and out-manned one thousand to one.
We need your help right now.
We have launched a petition in defense of the unborn child and the family. The petition is based on the very good language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognizes the “right to life.”
This petition will be presented to the UN in December at which time we want to present one million names. We are more than half way there but we need a huge effort on your part to get us all the way there.
Would you please forward this note to all of your friends and family, to everyone in your address book?
Ask everyone to go HERE, click on your language (the petition has been translated into 18 languages!), sign the petition and send this note to all of THEIR friends!
We can make a huge splash at UN headquarters in December and let them know that the world is really pro-life, that the world really supports the unborn child, and believes that abortion is a great moral evil, the great moral evil of our time.
So, if you have not signed the petition, go HERE and sign it. And then send this note to everyone you know.
If you have already signed it, forward this note to all of your friends and family.
One million names can make a difference in our UN fight for the unborn child and the family.
Yours sincerely,
Austin Ruse
President
C-FAM
www.c-fam.org
Petition Organizer
![Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute]()
Dear Friend of the Unborn Child,
As I write this the UN Petition for the Unborn Child is up over 572,000 names with 87,000 new names in the last three weeks!
We intend to raise one million signatures by December 1 and present them to the UN a few days after that.
As you know the UN is the font of a great deal of anti-life propaganda. UN agencies and UN-related groups are at the forefront of making abortion a universally recognized human right. That’s right, UN radicals want to make killing babies in the womb a human right. Can there be anything more wrong, more evil that that?
The UN pro-life movement has banded together to fight this movement. UN pro-lifers are at the forefront of fighting this hideous movement of killing babies. The UN pro-life movement is outspent ten million to one and out-manned one thousand to one.
We need your help right now.
We have launched a petition in defense of the unborn child and the family. The petition is based on the very good language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognizes the “right to life.”
This petition will be presented to the UN in December at which time we want to present one million names. We are more than half way there but we need a huge effort on your part to get us all the way there.
Would you please forward this note to all of your friends and family, to everyone in your address book?
Ask everyone to go HERE, click on your language (the petition has been translated into 18 languages!), sign the petition and send this note to all of THEIR friends!
We can make a huge splash at UN headquarters in December and let them know that the world is really pro-life, that the world really supports the unborn child, and believes that abortion is a great moral evil, the great moral evil of our time.
So, if you have not signed the petition, go HERE and sign it. And then send this note to everyone you know.
If you have already signed it, forward this note to all of your friends and family.
One million names can make a difference in our UN fight for the unborn child and the family.
Yours sincerely,
Austin Ruse
President
C-FAM
www.c-fam.org
Petition Organizer
© Copyright 2009 Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 495, New York, NY 10017
www.c-fam.org
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 495, New York, NY 10017
www.c-fam.org
Friday, October 16, 2009
America as the last man standing
Something we should all read, and be aware of...does not matter what our party affiliation is or what part of the world we are living in....PLEASE have patience to read to the end.....and pass on as you are led... America as the last man standing
'In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe ?'
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe . This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe .
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing..
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by?
Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean ment ioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.
In England Sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. (Caliphate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term caliphate (from the Arabic خلا٠ة or khilÄ fa) refers to a form of government inspired by interpretations of the religion of Islam. The term is also used to refer to a state which implements such a government. Historically there have been many states claiming to be led by caliphates)
Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept Sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored. I
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is Sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a danger, greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for Am erica - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept Sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored. I
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is Sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a danger, greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for Am erica - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
Friday, September 18, 2009
How can I pray better?
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How can I How can I |
Such were the questions that perplexed a young North African man, Augustine Aurelius (354-430), whose intense yearning for God led him into a profound and lifelong encounter with Christ in prayer. There Augustine found answers to these questions and to countless more --- answers not grounded in his own brilliance, but in prayer itself. * |
| In time, Augustine became a bishop and a Father of the Church, and has long been numbered among her saints. Yet, of all the Church's saints, not one expresses the longing for God more beautifully, or explores the nature of prayer more helpfully, than St. Augustine. His words speak to us today as freshly as they did to his contemporaries. |
St. Augustine wrote many books, but never one devoted to prayer alone. Indeed, his teachings on prayer are scattered in many places. So from over 200 works, Fr. Cliff Ermatinger has gathered and translated Augustine's teachings on prayer, and now presents them here in a simple question-and-answer format. What emerges is nothing less than a rich new "catechism on prayer" by one of the Church's greatest saints.
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Plus, Augustine will explain for you | ||||
* Prayer is essential for salvation, In these pages St. Augustine,
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St. Augustine Answers Sophia Institute Press | ||||
More Fine Books on Prayer | |
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Prayer and Prayer is our lifeline to heaven, but most of us find prayer easy to neglect and even to forget. We tend to avoid it, and sometimes even resist it. Our fitful efforts at regular prayer frustrate and disappoint us. Dom Hubert van Zeller knows why. "Prayer," says this beloved Benedictine monk who taught scores of souls to pray, "comes from God, is kept going by God, and finds its way back to God by its own power." Prayer is not something we do, but something God does in us. Which means that all these years, most of us have approached the problem of prayer backward: we've struggled to pray instead of working to remove obstacles to prayer from our hearts --- obstacles that prevent God from praying in us and through us. Sound mystical? Perhaps. But living in accordance with this single truth, elaborated in these pages, not only will make regular prayer possible for you; it will transform your prayers into a source of joy. Here you'll discover the true meaning and the proper ways of prayer. You'll learn the secret of prayer from the example of Christ in the Gospels and from the prayers of the saints. You'll find out how to overcome distractions in prayer and how to deal with disappointment when your prayers seem not to have been answered. Finally, you'll learn how to accept God's will, no matter how puzzling it may seem; and even --- yes --- to love it. Never forget that prayer is your lifeline to heaven. These pages will help you grasp it firmly and never let go. What more could you ask of any book? | The Prayer of A thousand years' silence has enabled the Carthusian monks to perfect a way of praying suited for the cloister, but it's also right for those of us whose obligations force us to work and pray in the rush and hurry of the world. In these pages, the monk Augustin Guillerand reveals the secret of the Carthusian's remarkable prayer of the presence of God. Obviously, this way of praying excludes quick Our Father's and hasty Hail Mary's, but it also requires that we do more than pause and say our prayers slowly. In fact, the Carthusians know that the prayer of the presence of God isn't primarily a question of speed . . . or even of speech. Like love, it's not so much a deed as an attitude--- a habit of tranquil listening that allows God to enter our souls by all paths and to establish His presence there. Failure to listen poisons love in marriages; and failure to listen poisons love of God. That's why the prayer of the presence of God is essential not just for monks, but for all of us, no matter what our circumstances may be. Yet how can we listen in a way that allows God to enter our souls? How can we even hear Him in the noise of our days and ways? A thousand years of Carthusian experience provide sure answers to these questions. Though this is no step-by-step manual (listening can't be reduced to steps), you'll learn where you must begin and how to proceed if you're finally to bring to maturity in your own soul the habit of tranquil listening that's essential for all those who would know God and love Him as they ought. |
| Prayer and the Will of God Dom Hubert Van Zeller 176 pages $12.95 | The Prayer of
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
True Love
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It a...lways protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)
Monday, September 14, 2009
Philippians 2:9-11
Therefore God has highly exalted Him!
and bestowed on Him the Name that is above all names.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
and bestowed on Him the Name that is above all names.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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