The Story of Baby Gianna

...is very important to read. Sometimes we can be overwhelmed by the sheer number of abortions that occur every day and even pro-lifers can fail to grasp the humanity of each and every individual baby. The story of baby Gianna reminds us of the love and care every baby deserves.

(Since I'm not free to link everyday to the multi-part series at CMR, click on the sonogram on my sidebar to follow the whole story.)

God bless.

Exultet joins onto CatholicVoteAction.org

Well, I'm no Thomas Peters, but I do get to be in the same room with him (and Josh Mercer, Brian Burch, and a number of other great Catholic bloggers). Check out my first post at CatholicVoteAction.org.

It's my first post there, so go easy on me in the combox? Merci!

Kid theology, part deux

Fric (almost 6) is obsessed with heroes. Just the other day, he complained to me that when he and his younger brothers watch DVD episodes of The Justice League, they don't take it seriously: after the show, they just want to run off and play, whereas he wants to watch the episode again as a training video to become a superhero. (No, I'm not kidding, and neither was he.) I completely expect him to become a cop, firefighter, soldier or priest.

The other day, Fric was at the table coloring with Wifey and he made this picture. What appears below is dictation taken by Mom, verbatim.

This is a map about bad guys, and Moses and Jesus fighting off the bad guys.

I said Jesus tells Moses, "I want you to go in our world and fight off the bad guys who are attacking my people and world, and I want you to command the bad guys to turn their minds into good guys." Jesus tells me to do that so that you stop fighting my people and God tells me to tell you so you can turn your minds into good guys so you can stop doing that. Do things that people do when you're attacking them because that is the reason God sent me here to tell you that and I just want you to be turning your minds so you can turn yourself into good guys and become part of the heroes, but the King of the bad guys says, "Give me a good look" but he meant a bad look and he gave him a stare at Moses and said "Attack Moses!"

But Jesus froze down to the ground and killed all the evil men who were trying to kill Moses.

The End.

It's all there. Old Testament, New Testament, Kingdom of God, conversion, repentance, betrayal, Just War Theory, grace and rejection, divine intervention.

Kid theology, part 1

The theological points my kids make often cause me to stop and wonder if we're doing a good job as Catholic parents or if we're on our way to really screwing them up. Take, for instance, the recent exchange between Fred and myself. (Fred is three)

My wife just started a cantor job for the Saturday vigil Mass at a parish not far from us. We've never gone there as a family, so the munchkins and I sat together while Mom sang. It's a beautiful, very old church built in the 1800's that fortunately never went through the post V2-era recovations, so the original windows and murals are all still intact. Behind the altar are murals of Christ's birth, crucifixion and resurrection. Pointing to the scene of the resurrection, Fred said, "Dad, the soldiers are dead!" No, says I, they're sleeping. "No, Dad, no! They're dead! Jesus killed them!" Sigh.

Champions for Life

Tim Tebow isn't the first football player to speak out about the atrocity of the abortion holocaust in the U.S. Players from the 1986 Suberbowl champion NY Giants speak out here: (I'm sorry, am I allowed to say Superbowl?)



H/T Newsbusters via CMR

Cheezy church signboards

I'll see Crescat's church marketing billboard, and raise you a Bud!, well, uh, a blood...

(this sign is on my way to work.)

Fulton Sheen on the marks of the Church and the Mystical Body

Before I hand off the copy of "Servant of God" Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ to my nephew (who, by the way, is a fine young man, but I suspect is starting to buy into some of the Dan Brown-isms of the day), I thought I would share a few passages from the end:

Christ is living now! He is teaching now, governing now, sanctifying now--as He did in Judea and Galilee. His Mystical Body or the Church existed throughout the Roman Empire before a single one of the Gospels had been written. It was the New Testament that came out of the Church, not the Church which came out of the New Testament. This Body had the four distinctive marks of life; it had unity, because vivified by one Soul, one Spirit, the gift of Pentecost. As unity in doctrine and authority is the centripetal force which keeps the life of the Church one, catholicity is the centrifugal force which enables her to expand and absorb redeemed humanity without distinction of race or color. The third note of the Church is holiness, which means that it endures on condition that it keep itself healthy, pure, and free from the disease of heresy and schism. This holiness is not in each member but rather in the whole Church. And because the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, it can be the Divine instrument for the sanctification of souls. The sunlight is not polluted because its rays pass through a dirty window; neither do the sacraments lose their power to sanctify because the human instruments of those sacraments may be stained. Finally, there is the work of apostolicity. In biology, Omne vivum ex vivo or "All life comes from life." So too the Mystical Body of Christ is apostolic, because historically it took its roots in Christ and not from a man separated by centuries from Him. That is why the infant Church met to choose a successor of Judas who had to be a witness of the Resurrection and a companion of the Apostles.
...
Many think they would have believed in Him if they had lived in His day. But actually there would have been no great advantage. Those who do not see Him as Divine living in His Mystical Body today would not have seen Him as Divine living in His physical Body. If there are scandals in some cells of His Mystical Body, there were scandals too in His physical Body; both put forward a human appearance which in moments of weakness of Crucifixion require moral strength to see Divinity. In the Galilean days, it required faith supported by motives of credibility to believe in the Kingdom He came to establish or His Mystical Body through which He would sanctify men through His Spirit, after His Crucifixion. In these days, it requires faith supported by the same motives of credibility to believe in the Head, or the Invisible Christ, governing, teaching, and sanctifying through His visible head and His Body the Church. In each case a "lifting-up" was required. To redeem men, Our Lord told Nicodemus that He had to be "lifted up" on the Cross; to sanctify men in the Spirit, He had to be "lifted up" to heaven in the Ascension.

New Blog Template

...because good videos like this shouldn't get cut off or interfere with the pics of Jesus.

Plus I think this is a cleaner look. And like President Obama, I don't want to hear any attitude about it. The deliberation for the template change was on C-Span, after all. You must have missed it.

Help out a Regular Guy

Fellow blogger and Catholic Dad Paul Mitchell is taking a stand to change things for the better. He's a strong pro-life conservative running for State Representative in the 62nd district in Illinois. Please help him out any way you can, either by prayer, money, or real estate on your blog. Thanks, Paul!

March for Life video

Well, as of yet, The Day hasn't printed my letter. They usually hold my pro-life submission off until Saturday, when fewer people read the paper. And I do have some videos and interviews that my wife and I did with a few people we met on the March. This video below, however, is a great indication of the magnitude of the March for Life, both in numbers and its importance. I've gotta say, the line at the end is especially significant.



Thanks to Leticia for posting it.

Heard on Rush today...

by author unknown:

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."

Here here!

Presidential halo sighting!

We've seen these before. Or is this Kabuki?

Non Nobis Network

I join with the guys at Creative Minority Report and the other members of the Non Nobis Network, giving thanks to God for HIS victory in stopping an anti-life, anti-freedom health care bill that would enslave Americans for years to come.

Non nobis, non nobis, Domine
Sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Not to us, not to us, o Lord,
But to your name give glory.

My favorite version of the Non Nobis is recorded on John Flynn's song titled "Holy Is Our King," on the album Kissing the Heart of God, which can be purchased here.

Note to Newsweek:

We are not here to make the President's job any harder or easier. We're not here for his sake at all.

The job of the President is to serve the American people in ways consistent with the Constitution.

And dismantling the American economy against the will of the people via overreaching legislation propped up with outright bribes and unfair deals is not consistent with the Constitution.

And they wonder why the Tea Parties have become so popular these days.

Letter to Editor, March for Life 2010

With no ill will toward Elissa Bass or the Algiere family, I find it interesting that the Day ran a 500 word, front-page article with large pictures about a missing goat, yet this story doesn't even get mentioned:

Hundreds of area residents joined hundreds of thousands of Americans from across the country to join the largest, longest-running grassroots march on Washington to stand in defiance of the Roe v. Wade decision which enabled approximately 50 million state-sanctioned deaths since 1973.

This is an especially shocking journalistic oversight considering: 1. Current health care legislation dominating news this year has been effectively derailed in part by objections over abortion and other right-to-life issues. 2. Recent polls show that the majority of Americans for the first time since 1973 consider themselves "pro-life" and 3. A federal study released in the April 2009 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention confirmed a strong link between breast cancer and both abortion and oral contraceptives.

Is there a reason for the Day's oversight? If staff funding is a problem, I would be happy to give a reporter a ride to next year's March for Life. Until then, wait for the call when my cat goes missing.

George Soros met with his advisors this morning...

I've seen a few different versions of this video, but this is the best one yet.



h/t Patrick Madrid

One more thing the Brown win in MA means...

...people like David Marciniak have one less over-reaching incompetent statist nitwit to worry about in Washington.

There are still Minutemen in Massachusetts

Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. The first Republican Senator in 47 years from that state. This is huge.

Living in Connecticut, I get to listen to a sports station out of Boston that gets rebroadcast from Providence. (Caveat: I'm not a big sports fan, but their commentary is really funny nonetheless and the morning guys also tackle politics on a regular basis. Dennis and Callahan, the hosts of WEEI's morning show, have been huge supporters of Scott Brown, as have most of their callers. The energy that Massachusetts residents have been voicing in support of Brown has been unbelievable, and their excitement this morning is palpable. And well it should be.

Coakley's unacceptable positions aside (like disregarding conscience protections for Catholics and others who reject abortion), as well as her arrogance, (like disdaining shaking hands with constituents out in the cold and joining with Obama in mocking Brown's Government Motors truck) and her sheer stupidity (such as claiming Curt Shilling is a Yankees fan, as if that would help her even if it were true), this election was a referendum on Obamacare. Both Brown and Martha Coakley--I'll refrain from the Marcia jabs for now-- made it clear that the outcome of this election would effect the Senate vote on the Obamacare monolith. Obama, in his emergency visit to Massachusetts last week, also hammered home the point that his agenda on health care hinged on the special election.

And the people don't want it! Poll after poll across the country shows that the citizens of this country do not want either the legislation in its current form nor the manner in which the powers that be in government are ramming it through, citizens-be-damned. The people of Massachusetts saw correctly that this was their chance to immediately affect the end result that so many have wanted, despite the deaf ears of their elected representatives in Washington.

Heads exploding!
From time to time I lurk over at Change.org because it's the strongest concentration of moonbat leftist anti-Catholic opinion that I can handle. Scott Brown wins in the deep blue state of Mass and their immediate response is silence on the event and to headline an article about how Meghan McCain will reshape the Republican party into a more gay-friendly, Democratic Republican party.

Here's my response to that... Meghan, we have a big tent over here. You're welcome to be under the tent, but don't expect to have a place of honor on the stage.

Conservatives are sick of getting pushed around, both by liberals and weak-kneed Republicans.

Oh, and by the way, how appropriate is this? Today's Old Testament reading was the story of David slaying Goliath:

The Philistine then moved to meet David at close quarters,
while David ran quickly toward the battle line
in the direction of the Philistine.
David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone,
hurled it with the sling,
and struck the Philistine on the forehead.
The stone embedded itself in his brow,
and he fell prostrate on the ground.
Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone;
he struck the Philistine mortally, and did it without a sword.
Then David ran and stood over him;
with the Philistine’s own sword which he drew from its sheath
he dispatched him and cut off his head.

I'm in love with my son's Kindergarten teacher...

...and she has her own new blog! She's really smart, really wonderful, really beautiful, and, well, I could go on. But instead of letting me blather on about her, you should check her out yourself.

Alright, this is awkward...

A friend whose daughter is at the Franciscan University of Steubenville sent this to me. If you have had no ties with the school, you'll probably think this is an anti-recruitment video. If you have any friends who have gone there, you'll get the joke. It's an exaggeration, but not much of one.



Thanks, Mary!

Live Action has a new publication...

... called The Advocate.

you can read it here.

Local ties to the tragedy in Haiti and some ways you can help

Our hearts go out to the people most affected by the tragic earthquake in Haiti. In a country that has suffered so much, more suffering. While the pictures reveal a level of devastation to people and property that is unreal, the real pain and sorrow this has caused is unimaginable. Like so many others, I have offered my prayers for the souls lost, the people trapped in the rubble and for the survivors who must now dig out, already having lost loved ones.

I urge anyone to continue to pray and offer sacrifices for the people of Haiti and to contribute to relief efforts.

My own diocese has local ties to Port-au-Prince. With many Haitian immigrants in our area, the Diocese of Norwich "twinned" itself with the Diocese of Port-au-Prince some years ago in an effort to strengthen cultural ties and lend support to the poor of that country. The Haitian Ministries of the Diocese of Norwich does great work there, as does their Hospice Saint Joseph, which welcomes international medical personnel to offer their services to the people of Haiti. The Haitian Ministries office is now collecting donations with a promise of matching funds up to $10,000, so help them out if you could. The two Connecticut residents who staff the mission house there are thankfully alive; the director was trapped in the rubble of the building for hours and was rescued by her husband, who drove six hours to reach her. The full story is here. The Norwich-based Haitian Health Foundation, which has offices in Jeremie, about 100 miles from Port-au-Prince, will also be helping both now and in the future.

Of course, in the aftermath of the earthquake, much tragic news is expected. One local woman, Roberthe Antoine, has already learned that five of her family members have died and is still awaiting news on the rest.

Please continue your prayerful support.

House offer was rejected

We bid on a house last week but I just heard from the seller. They're not accepting our offer, but are going to list it with a realtor and try to get their imaginary number. Good luck to them!

So now, we wait until our place sells and find another house that doesn't need half as much work. St. Joseph, pray for us.

A petty gripe and a lesson learned

I've never been good with confrontations. I'm the kind of guy who always tries to be nice, no matter what, who has no street smarts and always thinks of the right thing to do or say about ten minutes after I should have done or said it. Lee Marvin I am not. Case in point:

Wifey and I took the kids shopping the other day to a local discount store. You know, the kind with factory closeouts, store buyouts, crap from China, 5,000 two-cent pencils with "Revere Police Department" printed on them, last year's editions of the Rand-McNally road atlas for $1.00, and other such stuff. This particular retail cornucopia announces its presence with a 50-foot fiberglass cowboy in the parking lot holding an American flag. Let's just say that everyone around here has shopped there at least once and will refer to it while smirking or rolling their eyes. Or both.

Well, we needed some small household stuff and some homeschooling supplies, so we loaded up into the family bus and headed on down the road. Our time through the store was pretty normal: we found more stuff to put in the cart than was on our list. The boys were really helpful, if only because I gave them jobs to do to keep them occupied. I'd be at one end of the aisle and wifey was at the other with the baby and the cart. I'd pick a few items and hand them to the boys who dutifully marched them to Mom and came back for more. They stayed out of trouble, didn't scream or break anything and didn't knock anybody else over. So far, a success. They even got to pick out one small toy each.

When we decided we'd had enough, we gave the order. "OK, kids, go to the register." Wifey and I trailed about ten feet behind as Fric, Frac and Fred raced to the counter. I was pushing the cart, paying attention to what I was doing, so I didn't see what happened next, it all happened so fast. Fred, who is 3, found an entire cardboard rack of emergency whistles hanging there. Of course, he put one to his lips and blew. (You might be thinking that this story is about a busted eardrum or us getting kicked out of the store, but you'd be wrong. In fact, there was no audible noise at all from the whistle.) The cashier immediately left her perch, walked over to the whistles and announced to my wife that we had to buy that whistle. She pointed to the sign. "It says right there if you blow the whistle, you have to buy it." She proceeded to untangle the whistle in question. My wife, immediately replied "Fine, I'll pay for it, but you can throw it away. Why would I want that in my van?" Unfazed, the cashier continued to untangle the whistle. We explained to Fred that because he had to buy the whistle, we had to put his toy back. Fine, I think he forgot about it within five minutes. Wifey and I exchanged some looks and some hushed conversation, then she took the boys outside while I paid.

Here's what I did: I asked the lady if she thought 3 year olds could read. She didn't answer. I then explained to her that if that was their store policy, then the whistles should not be there at the register, unpackaged, unprotected, and at the eye level of a 3 year old. I took the whistle display and moved it to a more, um, appropriate spot. Then I paid and left. (I know, the word wuss comes to mind.)

Here's what I realized after I left the store I should have done: I should have handed the cashier the dollar, plus six cents for the tax, and told her to keep the whistle as well as all the $80.00 worth of items in my carriage.

Here's what I will do: send a note to the manager of the store bemoaning not the dollar lost, but the policy they have to set their customers up. According to sources close to me, they've been pulling that crap for years. Well, gripe done and lesson learned. But that's the last dollar they'll get from me. Next time, I'll go to Job Lot. I think I can pick up a copy of the Dirty Dozen there. I need to do some studying.

Continuing with the Darth Vader motif...

this commercial made me laugh my butt off.

Have a good day!