On wearing crash helmets to church

"Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.”

-Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

"...before it can be sacred or religious or devotional art, it must be beautiful and true."

Sacred art

"...before it can be sacred or religious or devotional art, it must be beautiful and true."


Sacred art


http://thesacredarts.org/

men

• Currently the US has 1.5 million men in the slammer, a 15 to 1 lead over the fairer sex.
• We guys are much more likely to be alcoholics and we are ahead in the obesity derby.
• No surprise, then, that on average women have a five-year lead in life span.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/boys_will_be_doofuses/

Children with married mothers and fathers do better on every single significant outcome. Cause marriage matters.

Caitlin Flanagan’s cover story for Time magazine titled “Is There Hope for the American Marriage?” 

The reason for these appeals to lasting unions is simple: on every single significant outcome related to short-term well-being and long-term success, children from intact, two-parent families outperform those from single-parent households. Longevity, drug abuse, school performance and dropout rates, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and incarceration — if you can measure it, a sociologist has; and in all cases, the kids living with both parents drastically outperform the others. - Time Magazine, 16 July 2009

Few things hamper a child as much as not having a father at home. ‘As a feminist, I didn’t want to believe it,’ says Maria Kefalas, a sociologist who studies marriage and family issues and co-authored a seminal book on low-income mothers called Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. ‘Women always tell me, “I can be a mother and a father to a child,” but it’s not true.’ Growing up without a father has a deep psychological effect on a child. ‘The mom may not need that man,’ Kefalas says, ‘but her children still do.’ 

ibid

LOL Saints

Not meaning any disrespect, but I find some of these pictures funny.

from http://www.lolsaints.com/saints/most-popular-all-time

Picture. Nice Grass, peoples, the Lamb that was slain.

Love this picture. Wish I had a bigger version.

The single largest supplier of healthcare on the planet

"Secularists might be surprised to learn that the Church is the largest single supplier of healthcare and education on the planet, the principle glue of civil society in Africa, the strongest bulwark of opposition to the caste system in India, and a leading player in global campaigns for sustainable living. It provides almost the only charitable presence in Chechnya, and other black spots often forgotten by the rest of the world."

Tier 1 Visa, trying to get back to London

Trying to get back to London on a visa for Tier 1 ( was Highly Skilled ). They are tough to work with, I sent my application in 9 weeks and didn't hear a single word.

To help out, there is a nice community on trackit - http://www.trackitt.com/uk-immigration-trackers/hsmp-application/, where you can see how long applications are taking.

no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates

‘We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”

So notes Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, in response to papal press comments en route to Africa this week.

Born toward dying.

When you're tired of London, you're tired of life, said Dr. Johnson. I had always thought that about New York, where there is more terror and tenderness per square foot than any place in the world.

Fr John Neuhaus
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. "Born toward dying." First Things 100 (February 2000)

The Athanasian Creed

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.

Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

And the Catholic Faith is this,

that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.
Neither confounding the Persons,
nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One, the Glory Equal, the Majesty Co-Eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father Uncreate, the Son Uncreate, and the Holy Ghost Uncreate.
The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible.
The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal and yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal. As also there are not Three Uncreated, nor Three Incomprehensibles, but One Uncreated, and One Uncomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not Three Almighties but One Almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not Three Lords but One Lord. For, like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, there be Three Gods or Three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is One Father, not Three Fathers; one Son, not Three Sons; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after Other, None is greater or less than Another, but the whole Three Persons are Co-eternal together, and Co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity is Trinity, and the Trinity is Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting Salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man.

God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the substance of His mother, born into the world. Perfect God and Perfect Man, of a reasonable Soul and human Flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood. Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but One Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into Flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by Unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Man, so God and Man is one Christ. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into Hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into Heaven, He sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

from http://www.karamazov.co.uk/atheism_religion.htm

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials?


Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number of people sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition — which was active over a period of 350 years — is estimated at 5,000.

This figure is tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, it is minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

This Christianity stuff better be true!

I just finished reading a post at the Conversion Diary. Jennifer and her husband got married 5 years ago. She recounts the story here - http://www.conversiondiary.com/2008/10/you-first.html

quoted from the Conversion Diary blog.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2008/10/you-first.html

O Jesus, lover of the young,

O Jesus, lover of the young,
the dearest Friend I have,
in all confidence I open my heart to You
to beg Your light and assistance
in the important task of planning my future.
Give me the light of Your grace,
that I may decide wisely concerning the person
who is to be my partner through life.
Dearest Jesus, send me such a one whom in Your Divine wisdom
You judge best suited to be united with me in marriage.
May her character reflect some of the traits of Your own Sacred Heart.
May she be upright, loyal, pure, sincere and noble,
so that with united efforts
and with pure and unselfish love
we both may strive to perfect ourselves in soul and body,
as well as the children it may please You to entrust to our care.
Bless our friendship before marriage,
that sin may have no part in it.
May our mutual love bind us so closely,
that our future home may ever be most like Your own at Nazareth.

O Mary Immaculate,
sweet Mother of the young,
to your special care I entrust the decision I am to make
as to my future wife.
You are my guiding Star!
Direct me to the person with whom I can best cooperate in doing God's Holy Will,
with whom I can live in peace,
love and harmony in this life,
and attain to eternal joys in the next.

Amen.

A Distance from Beauty

From some comments on the Conversion Diary site by someone named sibyl. Commenting about what she would take away from her christianity if she left it...

"What I'd take away from my desertion? That sinking horrible feeling that cowardice and fear always leaves with me. A knowledge that I'd departed from reality. A sense of distance from the world and from beauty."

Wow. A sense of distance from the world and from beauty. Wow.

Conversion Diary - A lovely little site

"How we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other" Ray Bradbuy, Something Wicked this way comes.

We mould each other, I my friends and they me. Which is why I want friends that are good. That I can look up to and learn from and be motivated to be more like.

Possibly one such person writes the site www.conversiondiary.com

I was caught especially by the beauty of these lines, the bolding emphasis is mine.

"But then, a funny thing happened on the way to becoming a Christian: ever so slowly, I stopped being so irritated with the people around me. In fact, I started to feel love for them. As I wrote about here, I never intended for this to happen."

I love that she never intended to love, but she does. ( As an aside -  I don't write that I love that she never intended to love, but it just happened, because it doesn't just happen, you must work at other things first. )

Snoring and Large Families?

"Being hospitalised for a respiratory infection before the age of two years, suffering from recurrent ear infections as a child, growing up in a large family and being exposed to a dog at home as a newborn were all independently related to snoring in later life. The authors speculate "These factors may enhance inflammatory processes and thereby alter upper airway anatomy early in life, causing an increased susceptibility for adult snoring".

 

[via http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/119161.php]

Ordinations at Le Barroux

 

[via http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2008/08/recent-ordinations-at-le-barroux-by.html ]

Limit Internet Browsing with firefox Leechblock

This progam allows you to limit your internet browsing to say 10 minutes per hour. Great stuff!

I would have loved you.

[ via Just a Regular Guy ]