Shocking

And Indefensible

That Tomfoolery like that Tom Punkiedoodle Papist is blasting the truth-tellers for saying Tone it Down because the rhetoric, of which he has in past been wildly responsible contributes to the bully mentality tone that sets the Zeitgeist fabric that sends people off like this.

Even the Head of Fox News is telling hosts to tone it down. Quite clearly the only responsible course. So where does "Catholic Vote" get off telling people to not act responsibly?


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/10/fox-news-head-tells-hosts-shut-up-tone-it-down-after-giffords/?icid=main%7Chtmlws-sb-n%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk2%7C194667

The image above is of Tomas de Torquemada- Dominican Cardinal and Chief Inquisitioner during the Spanish Inquisition, said to define "Dominican Fanaticism" and responsible for

mass murdering many many people who called themselves Christians but weren't good enough for him not to call them 'heretics.' Many were converts from other faiths-Jewish or Muslim. He is responsible for expelling Jews from Spain. Dominicans like to do that sort of thing.

Power trippy.

Philosophical

Fabrications and Other Things that Serve Our Institutional Purposes

Sometimes when those little faith snippets appear in some parish bulletins on their educational feature I laugh out loud because they are so obviously just made up. You just made that up! But how well it serves the conclusion.
It's hysterical how much of the extra-biblical doctrine makes its way as assumed truth.
The entire construct of priests 'dying to themselves' as celibates when this was the furthest
thing from Jesus' thought or words is hysterical. It would be laugh out loud more hysterical were there not such a strong prohibition IN SCRIPTURE against doing that. Do not add a word. It is a firm admonition. Half of the Vatican library has to be added words on conjectural commentary of what they want it to mean. And it is often meant in the most demeaning way to women you could invent.
Sometimes the church is just wrong. Persecution of people for reading the bible in the vernacular, which it did for centuries because they wanted to give priests more control over the people, is just wrong. Now after the Gutenberg Press, everyone gets their own bible and now after public financed education in the western world we all can read it.
So these little educational blurbs, meant to indoctrinate in their world are often silly creations that serve their mindset- and no, it's not that we don't know our faith- we reject your interpretation of our faith.
Sometimes I am just shocked at how dumb sheep can be. Can't you read?
Not that some of the institutional purposes aren't worthy or noble- it's great to give free social services to people, free medical and legal help. But wrong, deceptive and contrary to scripture to enforce rules that are contra-deo.
Clearly, the church is in need of serious reform. Clearly. Or do you always walk around with your neck in the quicksand?

Good Title

WANTED

HATE SPEECH CRIMINALS AND NUTJOB FIREARMS POLITICOS Imagine this person in charge of ATF. Arrest Palin before someone else gets caught in her cross-hairs.

EVE

The Fall Guy

In the biblical allegory of Eve and Adam, it is Eve who is tempted and she has Adam take a bite of the forbidden fruit. Wasn't Adam also then responsible for eating of the tree of good and evil? Eve has historically been viewed as the temptress rather than the reporter of what the snake told her and the forbidden fruit of temptation all too easily construed as her being a sexual seductress. The knowledge of good and evil is something rather different meaning a loss of innocent trust in the creator. Adam could have said with the authority of the male of the house- go tell that devil we don't eat the fruit from that tree and she may have throw it in the snakes face. Here historically the male church lets Adam take no responsibility for eating the fruit. It's all her fault. And it has been ever since.

This twisted interpretation is but one expression of what has become of the women demeaning misogyny of the catholic world, and Neanderthal Christian world in some parts.
It has inspired violence against women. It has inspired sexism deeply in corners and rooftops. It has castrated its clergy for fear it gets too close to womankind, it has quashed the voice of the Holy Spirit through women preachers, it has killed off potential progeny in the biggest prophylactic more effective than condoms- just lock up all threatening women for something or other who threaten the order. They are not good enough to consecrate a Eucharist, they are not good enough to preach, they are not good enough to marry any preacher. According to Doctrine-and if you disagree and try to do anything otherwise, apparently you are worse than a child rapist. SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK.

You blame 'feminazi liberals' --you want to criminalize only women in abortion criminal statutes (as if they got pregnant by themselves!) you blame women for all the abortions as if men didn't coerce them or insist upon them to avoid two decades of child support after fraudulently professing commitment then committing violence against their vows.

Now some nutjob assassin inspired by our overly militant culture that glorifies war has attempted to murder and nearly fatally did, a Jewish congresswoman and killed a sitting Federal Judge in the process and several other people including a child.

If you don't think your doctrine is insanely evil I don't have any words for you any more.
You are in for a rude awakening when your time comes.


.............................
If they are good enough to be the Mother of God- they are good enough to be anything. Preacher or President.

Holy Holy Holy

Was the Lamb Who Was Slain

Holiness doesn't mean chastity. Married conjugally sexual even sensual people can be and are Holy. Saint Peter. Holy. Married.
Holiness connotes a Wholeness- a completion, such as is found in married life.
Like the HOLY FAMILY. Holy. A Family.

There may be a thrill in Chastity. There is Profound deep Joy in Holiness.

Chastity can be cheap when it is selfish and self-aggrandizing. Cheap Thrills. More ego vanity.
Cheap Chastity can be as self-centered as sexual exploitation.

Holiness entails self-less LOVE. And God is Love.

Who came that your JOY may be Complete?

Holy Holy Holy is the Lamb that was slain.

Defendant's Answer Filed

IN THE SUPREME COURT
OF THE STATE OF GRACE

____________________
Satan, Lucifer, the Devil,
Plaintiff/Complainant
vs.
CHRISTIAN,
Defendant
___________________) before Judge: God

ANSWER AND AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES

I generally deny all condemnation charges.


1. The Blood of the Lamb
2. The Resurrection.
3. The Lordship of Jesus the Savior.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Case disposition: Dismissed. You are Free to Go to Heaven.
Get your papers at Peter the clerk's desk.

///
///
///

The Catholic

"Standard"

Praise be to God I don't go to a Catholic Standard church- I go to a Jesuit one. They are really smart guys.

In today's homily I had an Epiphany- perhaps part of the Clerical world does get it.

The Wedding of Cana is part of the tripartite Epiphany which ties the Christmas season into then Easter. First we have a baby born- fast forward- now we are at the Baptism of the Lord then a wedding. Why is not much there in between? Because a man was not a man fully until married in Jewish Tradition and before any man could get married he underwent a water purification ritual.
So we don't have in scripture recorded much of what Jesus did before his wedding at Cana. You heard me right, his wedding at Cana. He pops up at John the Baptist's Mikvah, then he is at a Wedding. His wedding.
Your 'ministry' publicly if you hoped to be a Rabbi listened to by anyone significant did not really start until you were married. If you were one of those exceedingly rare creatures that had a ministry as such and were not married you were like a Jeremiah, or an Elijah prophet-John the Baptist-someone a bit touched- someone wearing camel skins literally crying in the wilderness hailing something to come- You are not the "IT" man, you are the crazyman in the desert that people hear, half think are mad and the others are so intrigued they will listen. You don't get the respect of Pharisees and higher authorities as a spiritual superior unless you are a married man.
No Pharisee is going to go to a kid for spiritual advice. Nicodemus is not going to sit at the feet of some kid who hasn't been married even to learn about what he means when he says a man must be born again to enter into the kingdom of spirit- because Nicodemus is not going to listen to a kid to tell him anything about being a superior man when he isn't even one yet himself.

But the masses of Jews are not going to follow in the hundreds or thousands or five thousand some self proclaimed Rabbi who is not married-because he is a child if he is not yet married. That is how significant marriage is considered was considered in the first century Jewish world. Marriage was a sacred part of fulfilling the covenant plan and commandment to be fruitful and multiply. This is the world that Jesus came into. He chose it-at that time. The top ten commandment against adultery and the capital punishment for adultery speak to the serious significance that marriage held in the law of that world at that time.
[Let the marriage bed be undefiled]

And so from the three wise men visiting a baby we fast forward-to the ritual cleansing of Jesus where his father from heaven says "this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased" then the wedding at Cana. Jesus' wedding.

And what is Myrrh. That third gift we always associate with the burial anointing herbs and oils. Myrrh is an exotic herb also given at Jewish weddings- as a love enhancing aid. It is used as a burial herb so God will find the dead body appealing enough to embrace it.
So it had two symbolic and useful meanings when the wise men-the Magi gave it as a wedding gift.

And this is not some fanciful deluded speculation. This is scripturally, historically sound interpretation-because it is true.

Jesus did not need a baptism because he needed spiritually cleansing from original sin. He had no original sin. That was the point-blemishless atoning lamb. He needed one as a man under the law to take a bride.

Now the Catholic Church hierarchy would have the world believe-a billion people believe- that marriage is some lesser sacrament than "orders" or "consecrated life" or celibate clerical state. Some in the catholic world reject that- but that appears to be the party line. Because anyone who takes a wife as a man is out of a job. It is called Matrimonial Discrimination in some Human Rights statutes. They literally fire you from your post if you 'scandalize' them for falling in love with a woman and marrying her. The catholic world starts a vicious rumor mill in some cases-they demonize Love.

There are few things more perniciously of the devil than this infested in the church. Don't think that all these pederasty scandals are anything other than purely demonic. From the pit of hell itself. In the center of the authority structure over a billion people.
There are few things that inspire more perversity, more twisting of the heart of Jesus than to demonize Love. It is so profoundly missing the message you wonder why they are even there.
It is such a misplaced prioritization.
BECAUSE GOD IS LOVE

The hierarchy cannot exist for itself or it exists for it's own ego and empire and not for Jesus. It is claptrap lip service to the Lord rather than manifesting his Kingdom. In persecuting women who are in Love with priests they are nothing more than spiritual wife-beaters, drunk on their own empire and ego. It is demonic at its core of the church.

The Catholic Standard, which is the Washington DC Archdiocese paper ran a 'special' this issue in which 50 photographs of the Cardinal are in a paper of thirty-some pages. I counted no less than four photos of the Archbishop -now Cardinal - of Washington, DC essentially his paper on one page alone. It is his 25 year being ordained I believe so it is all about him as a 'special.' My question is- is he running for Pope or something? It is the saddest piece of self-aggrandisement for a "servant-leader" if ever there was one. It makes it clear that the church views its hierarchy as political people rather than spiritual religious ones.

The Jesuit paper on the other hand ran a beautiful long central piece on the mission trip to Haiti quoting the spiritual benefits of the parishioners in going and what blessings they hoped to impart to such an impoverished place.

You could see the White House doing -putting out such an issue if Obama had 25 years of practicing law yet maybe. Naawww- he wouldn't even do that. It's a service profession.

Jesus never wrote an autobiography. There is not one "Gospel of Jesus according to Jesus" in the entire Bible. He was self effacing- didn't operate like a politician- hid in the hills to pray often. And he was a rock star- THE ROCK STAR of all ages. He didn't make one scribe an Apostle. We don't know of "the Apostle Simon the Scribe"- no we know of a bunch of fishermen, a tax collector and a doctor named Luke. He didn't have a journalist follow him around to catch his quote. No, sometimes we hear of him saying things like- don't tell anyone yet I did that.

Click your heels three times and say...

There is no male nor female in Christ Jesus
There is no male nor female in Christ Jesus.
There is no male nor female in Christ Jesus.

You are not in Pittsburgh anymore.

The church is at a cross-roads and has a choice. It can continue to operate like spiritual wife-beaters. Or it can follow Jesus the Lord, giver of all Life.

More thoughts

You know who his wife is. There was one woman standing next to his mother at the foot of the cross who was also at his Tomb with burial herbs and oils. Only a family member can touch a dead body without being ritually unclean under Jewish law. Jesus after the resurrection came to life on earth again and the FIRST person we are told he spoke to was this same woman whose instinct was immediately to run and hug him-and he has to tell her to stop because he hasn't yet ascended-his body wasn't huggable apparently in that stage-it was a body that could and did walk through walls-such as at the room where the last supper was held when he later met the apostles there.
You know who his wife was.
You also know why her identity was so obscured - because they would have killed her too, just like the wife of Peter. He would have wanted to save his wife. He battled seven demons to get her (you know that the devil goes full force after people who are really significant in the Kingdom) so he wasn't going to lose her to a bunch of Romans.
If your husband were killed in that manner, hung out to dry for all the town to see in such a humiliating way- how do you think that they looked at her? What vicious gossip mill hung around Jerusalem everywhere she stepped thereafter? Can you imagine the wives of the Pharisees- ?? She thought she was something didn't she. We showed her!
She would have left town for good after that- because she would have been told that his body wasn't in Jerusalem any more- by him. And he was going to be with her wherever she went.
She went Far Far away- all the way to France.

Bishops must be the husband of one wife.
Because if you are going to represent something-represent it.

A Wake Up

PUNCH IN THE FACE

A FEDERAL JUDGE WAS ASSASSINATED. What is it going to take for you Republican
Neo-Fascist mukraking spite-stirring demagogue creating wingnuts to tone down the rhetoric?
Hate Speech is Hate Speech. It incites murder. It is evil. Get a grip. And Shut Up in the Blessed Name of Jesus. That means YOU Beck, Palin and anyone else of your ilk.

Moore Wisdom

Can't Say We Didn't Warn You

Michael Moore who has been keeping a vigilant watchful eye over the wingnut hatemongers with lots of other groups warned that the overtly militaristic vigilanteeism inspired by irresponsible rhetoric of people like Palin was a tinderbox waiting to explode. And here it is:


Dem Rep Giffords shot in head in Az. Sarah Palin had put CROSSHAIRS/ BULLSEYE on Giffords on her website! OUTRAGE! http://mmflint.me/fcHmJf When Rep Giffords voted in favor of health care bill, her office in Tucson was attacked & vandalized. http://mmflint.me/hKYtR7 Palin "set gun sights on 20 Dems (including Giffords)." http://mmflint.me/fcHmJf Palin site now seems 2 b 2 taking down crosshairs map! In 2009, another gun nut showed up where Rep Giffords was speaking (at another Safeway) & dropped his gun http://mmflint.me/gPnApk Giffords opponent held June event 2 "Shoot a Fully Automatic M16" to "Get on Target" & "Remove Gabrielle Giffords" http://mmflint.me/hF1BN5 When Palin put crosshairs on a map w/ Rep. Giffords & 19 other Dem congressmen/women, she urged followers to "reload" & "aim" for Democrats. RT @RichardKimNYC Giffords was impt brave ally in fight to defeat 2006 AZ anti-gay marriage initiative. i covered in brief http://tinyurl.com/285hk92 Past photo of alleged Tucson shooter (in background) http://yfrog.com/h5oq9gj Stunning admission by Tucson sheriff: Arizona "a mecca" of hate & bigotry which unhinges the unbalanced http://mmflint.me/hOlRG8 Wow. Thanks, Keith, 4 ur powerful Special Comment just now & 4 mentioning Glenn Beck's violent fantasies: http://mmflint.me/eTc1LC Christina Green was the 9yr old killed. She was born on 9/11. Was on student council & only girl on baseball team. http://mmflint.me/dOs1oY If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking.
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Ask Anything in My Name

This is a great picture. It looks like an elderly woman with age spots and/or freckles wearing a Navajo turquoise bracelet praying at the Western Wall. An American woman at the Western Wailing Wall.

Prayer works. Rabbi Eckstein at the Fellowship of Christians and Jews will take your prayers to the Western Wall and pray for you and with you there.

ASK ANYTHING.

Go Sister

Soul Sister

Aretha on the Mend. Prayers Answered.

http://www.bvnewswire.com/2011/01/07/aretha-franklin-health-problems-resolved/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec2_lnk1%7C35155

Trade- Ya

Obleisk for Pyramids

This article appeared after Egypt failed to protect a bunch of Christian martyr Egyptian citizens then acted like it was a big WHOOPS!!! http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110107/sc_livescience/egyptthreatensremovalofancientcentralparkobelisk

To which I offer to write Mayor Bloombie's retort:

Dear Egyptian Antiquities Dude:
We have been taking marvelous care of your Obelisk but if you really want it back I propose that you give us something we built in return. New York has the largest population of Jewish people outside Israel and we built the Pyramids -with our bare hands in back-breaking heat. Our Ancestors actually formed the bricks with sand and straw, with our bare hands. You guys were apparently not too nice to us in the process, hence we bolted out when a pillar of fire appeared by night and a cloud in the day and an old guy named Moses convinced us all we could walk through water. If you think that is strange, wait till we tell you about the guy who hid out in your country for a time as a child, could actually walk on water, and later was raised from the dead that about two billion people now follow.
I am sure that we can suitably accommodate a spot for all the pyramids that we made. I am thinking the Adirondacks. They would make nice ski slopes if we pound some artificial snow in them. Or- we could use them to ground bridges in our next infrastructure project. Or- we could put one in ground Zero just to remind us of how much you love us.

So, let me know if you are game and we can do a swap.
Peace Out.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/01/07/egypts-muslims-serve-as-human-shields-for-coptic-christmas-mass/

The Banality

of Evil

If you scan the news you can sometimes get a sense of the 'so what'- what are the big stories? John Edwards was excluded from his not quite-x but definately late wife's will and is engaged to his bimbette, yawn (jerk), Cza Cza Gabor may have an amputation on a blood clot at age 90-something, yawn, some homeless guy found his voice and his mother in the process, thaaat's niiice, 87 thousand abortions in New York. Wait-What?????
You heard me, 87 THOUSAND last year abortions in New York, the CITY ALONE PEOPLE!

Unless your brain is permenantly anesthetized on dental drugs, that should shock your conscience.
Something really really perverse about that. Really Really Really.
About almost half as many times as women are conceiving children they are dumping them- where?? What happened to motherhood?

When I was hanging out with my married sister's married friends, one charming woman watched me in my love of cooking Martha Stewart mode and kept complimenting me in her gracious british accent saying things like 'smells grand Mrs!' I was the only unmarried one at the party I think and she kept calling me Missus. It struck me that I found it so unusual because it is a briticism we seldom ever now hear here. I never hear it. And I found it oddly nice.

Have we totally demeaned motherhood to a place where women are not happy or proud to be pregnant at all?
That is just a ridiculous statistic-and as Dolan says, we have to do more than shiver at it.

Frightening!

Nearly every other kid conceived in New York is Nuked. I don't care what religion you are, if you are an American that is FRIGHTENING.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/07/41-percent-of-pregnancies-in-nyc-are-aborted/

Where did all the dead fetal matter go?? Dead kids. Dead babies. Tissue. Check the pharma labs in New Jersey. You don't see any graveyards for aborted fetuses anywhere in Manhattan do you? That is A LOT of dead fetal matter floating around somewhere people. SCARY STUFF.

Writing on the Wall

And Why It's Going to Be ABO- Anybody But Obama in 2012-unless serious counter measures are taken soon.

Which is a frightening thought - Trump is likely going to run and polls have him winning.
The confluence of disgust and disgruntlement is going to overtake him I predict unless something RADICALLY different happens.

The stuff that looked too strange to palate inciting not just tea party ire, but the 10-15% conservative catholic vote, the tax reformist guys, the keep government off our backs libertarians guys, the fiscal conservative deficit watchers are all going on the ranting rampage.

Here is an email going around now about the abortion double -speak and this one I can't fathom because it's so obviously the majority wish of Americans that no abortions are paid for by taxpayers. If ever there were a case looking like the government bailing out sexual irresponsibility or personal irresponsible behavior it looks like this to a lot of people- while the cases of huge deformities and the like are not put at the forefront of the numbers in a clearly analytic way. This makes Joe Biden look like a better Presidential candidate than Obama because he favors no federal funding of abortions- but is overruled by the planned non-parenthood types.
Republicans are going to get a lot of steam flowing over this one.

As the new Congress begins, pro-life champions on Capitol Hill are already moving to protect families in unprecedented ways. In keeping with the backlash against President Obama's health care law, Republican Congressman Joe Pitts (R-Penn.) has joined with Democrat Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) to draft legislation to remove any taxpayer funding of abortion within the law. This legislation is the "Protect Life Act."
However, getting abortion out of any and all government-sponsored health care is only the beginning. That is why Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.), also working with Rep. Lipinski, is reintroducing the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" which seeks to get taxpayers completely out of the abortion business and why Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) reintroduced the "Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act."
From 2002-2008, Planned Parenthood received $657,100,000 from federal taxpayers alone. Probably hoping to avoid further scrutiny during tough economic times, Planned Parenthood never released their 2008-2009 annual report until just before Christmas -- months later than usual. What were they trying to hide? For one, the abortion giant received $363,200,000 in government grants and contracts during that time period, a $13,600,000 increase from the prior year. At the same time they were making a killing off of taxpayers, they were busy killing future ones by performing an unprecedented 324,800 abortions.
Of course, Planned Parenthood is not the only abortion company that receives government funds, but they are certainly the largest and growing.
Given that we have the most pro-life Congress in recent history, now is the time to act on stopping government subsidies to kill innocent life
It is long past time for taxpayers to get out of the abortion business.


Now let me tell you why it is such a big deal- because all the lipservice and executive order and discussion surrounding the health care debate make clear that Obama believed federal funding
of abortion was not permitted-and in fact it isn't-it's against the Hyde Amendments .So it makes Obama and the democrats look like liars bought and sold by the abortion industry on this one.

Of all the things that the government needs money for to spend on why is anyone spending a penny so any man can sexually exploit a woman or giving women $300 a pop birth control by fetocide? It's really objectively shocking. Off the rails. Unacceptable.

I don't want to have to say I told you so, but NOTHING
VISIBLE has been concretely done to lower abortion rates- What have you done to
finance responsible sex ed (we don't hear of it if you did) or developing ultra-sound centers or doling out free prenatal vitamins or not encouraging teen pregnancies? What are you doing to hold males who coerce abortions responsible? Or males engaging in reckless sexual promiscuity responsible with no marriage commitment? What are you revising in the teaching curriculum that speaks to this? We see nothing concrete. All we learn of that Planned Parenthood is getting federal grants. Why? It's shocking. We are borrowing from China to pay an unwieldly debt so we can give grants to abortion mills? INSANE.

There is no accountability on this because the party is leveraged, bought and sold by the adherents to Emily's List, Planned Parenthood and other pro women's groups who think abortion is a woman's constitutional right because it's her body her business.

Constitutional scholars disagree. Respectfully. For sound reasons.

EVERY Republican RNC chair contender has pledged to federally defund Planned Parenthood. And that is reason enough for people I know to vote ABO.

More More More More

DC / MD Metro Police Please

Uniformed and in plain clothes. Double the Force. http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/dc/metro-passenger-attacked-by-group-of-kids-speaks-out-010611
Flash mobs of malicious teens are not unique to Philadelphia. As I was visiting a client around Silver Spring I took the metro to what is still part of Montgomery County but not anything like
the Bethesda side of gentility. A flash mob of kids who looked to be in high school were walking down a path where the 7-11 and post office are, heading towards McDonalds near the Metro chanting loud taunting cursing like noises echoed by guys from the other side of the street yelling back at them. This was after school let out as dusk approached.
They were deliberately trying to be menacing to everyone and everything standing in earshot on the sidewalks. It was a bully bravado sort of menacing militancy. Normally fearless, I felt my own 'fright flee' adrenalin mechanism kick in and my heartbeat race. I hoped these kids were not headed toward the Metro with that. And if they were-what would anyone do-tell them to shut up? Calm their little derriere's down? Who would confront such a mob of malicious malcontents? Teens can kick the sunshine out of anyone in a mob like that.

Two packages went off near State buildings in and around Annapolis yesterday causing quite a furor. Clearly there are malicious people out there. DC and surrounding Maryland suburbs are a target because lots of the rest of the country is suffering and believes that the fat cats sitting in Washington and surrounding affluent Maryland suburbs don't deserve to be so well off and insulated from the pain in the rest of the country. Nutjobs abound and they seem to gravitate toward DC.
There is a lot for Metro police to do- stop eaters, smokers, loud louts and bullies and perhaps catch a few rats in the process. Not to mention the guys peeing on the tracks.
DOUBLE THE FORCE- and lets see a few catch a few thieves.

Christians in the Middle East Under Fire


January 6, 2011 (reprint)

Several minutes into New Year's Day, a bomb exploded at a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt. Twenty-three people were killed and scores more were injured. The attack — timed to take place during a service when the church was full of worshipers — was the worst terrorist incident in Egypt in five years.Far from being an isolated event, this vicious, cowardly attack was part of a growing trend of radical Islamist violence against Christians in the Middle East. (Though no group claimed credit for the bombing, the terrorist group al-Qaeda is widely suspected). Throughout the region, Christians are increasingly threatened by radical Islamists. The Christian population of the Middle East is shrinking — Christians now make up approximately 5 percent of the region's population, down from 20 percent a century ago.Few people are more keenly aware of this tragic situation than Canon Andrew White, an Anglican priest who heads St. George's Church in Baghdad, Iraq. White has seen many of his congregants and personal friends in Iraq killed because of their faith. "Just yesterday two elderly people in my congregation were shot dead in their homes, their only 'crime' being that they were Christians," he told the U.K. newspaper the Evening Standard in a December 15, 2010 article.Canon White fears that Christians in Iraq may go the way of another oppressed population in the country. "My worry is that after Saturday comes Sunday — first the Jews, then the Christians. Today there are 300,000 Christians in Iraq, compared with 1.4 million 20 years ago, and thousands more leave every week."Indeed, with radical Islamist hostility toward Christians in the region reaching a fever pitch, it seems likely that many countries in the Middle East will soon be free of the "Sunday people" (Christians) — just as they are now free of the "Saturday people" (Jews). The exception, of course, will be Israel, a country where religious freedom for all — Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike — is written into law and respected in practice.Today, please pray for beleaguered Christians throughout the Middle East. May God protect them from those who mean them harm, and allow them to worship as they see fit, free from the threat of violence. May He comfort all those who have lost loved ones in attacks. And may He bless them with His most precious of gifts — the gift of shalom, peace.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein-

PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS.

Snowed in Again Friday-Sunday expected

Movies to Rent -quick before you are snowed in again.

Here are a few classics I watched from a classics DVD library I highly recommend.

The Philadelphia Story- now I know why my nickname in Law School was 'Red.'

Love the leading man's leading in that one. Remember when men took the lead and made things happen? Audrey Hepburn as headstrong critical diva bred on the Main Line lap of luxury discovers something true when her code is cracked. Lessons on cracking Diva codes.

Hope for everyone.

ANGELA's ASHES.

Irish. to it's core.

All the rotten and blessed things about it.

True story based on a Pulizer Prize winning memoire. This came out a few years ago but is worth renting again and its on Netflix.

Classic church scenes, where the deeply Catholic and quite unsaintly grandmother (who can't stop cursing the Prods) sends her grandson, the protagonist back to confession, literally the same day he got first confirmed, because he threw up her confirmation party food-and she didn't know what she should do if the body of Jesus were thrown up on her porch. The timid child goes to confession and the Priest gives him the sage advice to tell his grandmother to go mop up the porch for crying out loud. The grandchild reports it to the grandmother who sends the child back again to inquire in the confessional "with holy water or regular water."

The protagonist is named Francis after the great saint-who after a mess of a bit of downward spirol of anger and resentment spinning into a bit of bad behavior goes to the church but is unable to tell of all his sins to the Priest. The Priestly character in that scene is the best portrayal of a good priest next to the one in Boy's Town, and the scene is the most moving example of the value of confession. The priest then says- sit before the statue of Saint Francis and talk to him and the priest pulls up a chair not too near and listens to the young man talk to Saint Francis-

and absolves him with very special words that say it all really. It is a must see.

Nothing Leavened

Allowed on Passover-Pesach

So lets make Macaroons!!
It's almost Easter- Passover. OK, first we have to have Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day and Valentine's Day- who is taking me to the Fete at the French Embassy?
When it is Passover, which signifies the passing over of the angel of death, food is eaten symbolizing the Israelis on the rush out of Egypt to Freedom. No time to wait for levening of bread-we gotta go.
So here is the recipe for Macaroons- first heat in a bowl over simmering saucepan eggwhites, sugar and salt, and after creamy add vanilla, flour and coconut and refrigerate for three hours.
Then take out line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, put spoonfuls onto it, bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes and remove cooling for 15 minutes (http://www.joyofbaking.com/)
TOTAL APPROX TIME: 4 hours. excluding harvesting the wheat flour, milking the cow, extracting sea salt (and the trip to the seaside), climbing the nearest coconut tree and shredding the coconut (preshredded packages) and growing your vanilla bean pods. (total estimated time: 2 years). I think the Egyptians might have caught up with them eating Macaroon bon bons but enjoy!

Once Upon A Time

In A Land Not So Far Away



There was a preacher more than a bit annoyed at the seeming indifference of his flock who came late, left early, and seemed to pay less attention to what was going on than the urgent phone call that had them jumping up and running out to get.

So he proposed issuing an edict posted outside the door to the sanctuary:

The following are rules and prohibited conduct for the edification of all:

1. Please dress appropriately to the worship so you are not distracting

2. Please leave your cell phone at home.



Well, this seemed like a good proposal for keeping order (and to not have to look at why people were disinterested or bored with the sermons) until Mrs. McGillicuddy had a heart attack and her doctor was sitting in Mass while his pager and cell phone rang off the hook back home in his kitchen. He enjoyed the Mass, then the coffee social hour, then caught a movie. Mrs. McGillicuddy enjoyed the ER then the hereafter.



And the dress distraction earned him the following note:



Dear Pastor Perturbed:

I find your dress distracting. It is such a lovely piece of embroidery I wonder if it were machine woven or hand made. My late grandmother, may she rest in peace, taught me to embroider so everytime I see such a fine piece of embroidery I lose myself dreaming of her and copy in my mind the patterns for my next project rather than listening to your homily. I find particularly artful the dress you wear with Our Lady of Guateloupe taking over your entire backside as I had a table cloth that looked exactly like it and I wonder if your seemstress found the same bargain at Sears and turned it into your dress. I also am distracted by the fact that whether you wear a pink dress, one with doiley lace, a green one or one white with elaborate embroidery, you seem to always wear the same dark brown or black sox. My sister tells me that socks are supposed to match the pants not the shoes. Which has me wondering if you actually wear pants under your dress, or only on cold days and whether they are similarly embroidered-because embroidery is somehow holy. Also, this has me (forgive me Lord) wondering if you got a pair of those cute boxers with little Santa Clauses all over them for Christmas like my brother- in- law got in his stocking. You see, we don't usually see men in America wear dresses or robes like that unless they are in the hospital or a gay nightclub or somewhere in Vegas. This has me wondering whether Jesus dressed like a transvestite.

What were you saying?

TSA SCAN SUCCESS STATISTICS

Your Government Dollars at Work.


But will Sarkozy have to take off his shoes?
Year to date statistics on TSA airport screenings from the Department of Homeland Security (key areas):

Terrorist Plots Discovered 0
Transvestites Revealed 133
Hernias Located 1,485
Hemorrhoid Cases 3,172
Enlarged Prostates 8,249
Breast Implants 59,350
Natural Blondes 3


It's a joke-thanks Michael for sending.

Father Cutie-Pie

Rips the Hierarchy a New One-or an Old One. Stop persecuting normal heterosexually inclined people because you cannot control your lust-libido flesh-monster. Most normal people do know how to conduct honorable opposite-sex relations that are fruitful and glorifying God.
http://www.celestrellas.com/2011/01/05/father-alberto-cutie-book-interview/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl5%7Csec1_lnk5%7C34800

This is the church's Scandal- not Father Cutie's.

He is my hero this year. Time Mag should make him Man of the Year.

Look at Yourselves. there is nothing worshipful or holy about misogyny. An unloving Celibate is no closer to God even if he is a priest than a loving married man who supports his family.

And you with that vicious HAG-you have no more business being a priest than father Cutie. You know who you are!

We Three Kings Of Orient Are

NOT! Zoroastrian High Priest Magi Are We

Epiphany is celebratated around this time of year. Three mysterious characters arrive on camelback through desert and village following a blaring North Star to find what they think is the most significant birth in a lifetime- in fact so significant a God or something must be born according to the stars.

In Nativity scenes and plays everywhere these guys are the Three Kings-and one invariably is a black guy because Ethiopia has the lost tribe and Solomon was visited by the Queen of Egypt- which is about as silly a recreative piece of nonsense ever imagined.

What are MAGI? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi And why is it so important we all get it straight. Why Magi- not -the finance minister of Egypt or a South African Prince or something. Why MAGI?

The Magi followed Zoroaster- they were expert Astrologers and made charts and graphs of the skies believing that the stars revealed heavenly mysteries as disclosed by the Gods. They were likely Zoroasteran high priests from Medio-Persia [IRAN] likely as they carried with them the presents that a high priest would have accessible- notably Frankincense used for incensing the Temple in Jerusalem as well as used in other priestly rituals in other religions from a tree sap found near Babylon. They were wealthy- had gold to give away and myhrr- a fine herb used for burial rites priest would conduct.

They likely would have been plotting and following the trajectory of this star.
It is significant- much more highly significant than a bunch of random Kings- because these were high religious figures, highly trained astronomers who had some spiritual insight into the heavens as revealed by their lights- and even they recognize-NON Jews that they were, that the birth of the Jesus was a cataclysmic event- a coming down from Heaven of something directly from God as they knew him. They didn't care if it was in an obscure little village in the middle of what was a part of the Roman Empire then.

People of other religions recognize Jesus as something of God.
It is important for self-described christians to realize that.
When I lived in Israel for a brief time around the Galilee an Israeli woman of sephardic background whose family hailed originally from Syria said many many Jews believe in the biblical account of what Jesus did and was, they however culturally and ethnically still call themselves Jews. They acknowledge him. She took me to see the statue of the Jewish Fisherman Apostle Peter by the Sea of Gallilee, Lake Kinneret in 1990.

When the Magi arrived, foreigners, bearing gifts full of belief, Mary did not lock them out of the barn because they were not Jews and in fact from an alien religion of polytheists against Judaism. Those who are not against me are for me, said Jesus later. She and her husband graciously accepted their kind gifts. Signs they were, of the special nature of their child.

More thoughts...
Recall the history of Kings Cyrus and Darius of the Persians and how Daniel of lion fame for a time lived there after the Babylonian exhile. Daniel it was believed was eventually so favored he was appointed a sort of state Minister. Some have surmised that Daniel who was full of prophesy, told Magi in Persia of the signs indicating the coming of the Messiah- so when they traveled to the Land of the Jews following the signs, notably the NORTH STAR over Bethlehem, they knew they were looking for the Jewish Messiah- who would spiritually one day rule the world as Savior/Messiah. http://ldolphin.org/magi.html
The gifts they brought were for a Jewish Messiah King-King of the Jews is what they are reported to have called him to Herod on the way.
When you visit someone your gifts are appropriate to them-not things you like. They didn't bring him telescopes and camels and fine rugs. They brought him things signalling they knew who he was; King (Gold) Priest (Frankincense) and Martyr Savior (Myhrr). Just as foretold by Daniel.
During the Babylonian exhile the Jews were protected and flourished under Persian kings until they were allowed to return. Persian high priests or magi would be well versed in Jewish liturgical practice as they guarded the vessels from the Temple and Jews were allowed to return with them.

Up To You

"Whether you Think You Can, or Think You Can't---
You are Right."
Henry Ford.

The Great Rebuke

I Know You Can find It.

Were you baptized into Paul or Cephas? [Peter in Aramaic] So why are you claiming discipleship in a disciple or Apostle?
This is a strong Apostolic Rebuke in scripture said in response to people forming factions, cliques if you will over which Apostle they most followed and adhered to with churches formed after the specific Apostle as they missionized lands East and North of Jerusalem.
Stop it- you weren't baptized in the name of any Apostle-goes this strong clear rebuke- you were Baptized in the name of Christ, the Lord. The Apostles are not the Lord. The Lord is the giver of ALL Life.
You see the same egoist manifestations with a veneance today. It is no less a form of idolotry. You were not baptized in the name of Peter. People steeped in pride of their denominations looking down their noses at other denominations, and they can tell you why forcefully. The other guys are wrong. We are right. Kick the other guys off the bus.
Armenia is a mystical magical tour of Christian lore. It is believed to be the oldest Christian country, not even now a country after a Turkish genocide, but Armenian people still have a fierce national pride in its origins-as it predated in it's Christianity even Constantinople after the visit by Judeus Thaddeus-the other Judas Apostle.
Peter may have the Keys but Judeus Thaddeus might have the Antibiotics and he cured the son of a King in a land now part of Turkey that earned him forever the miracle worker label. He converted Armenia it is said.
When Armenia's head prelates were invited into 'full fellowship' with Rome they said essentially
-you guys have Peter, we have Saint Jude. We are happy with it.

It is really important to realize that the hand cannot be jealous for what the foot is doing in the Kingdom. The Body of Christ has many members and parts. My house has many rooms and I have gone to prepare a place for you.
Half of the body is Roman Catholic. The other half is doing really important work for the Kingdom and mutual respect and admiration is in order. Awe even.

Many rooms.

Great Great Great Great Grandfather or Mother?

OBAMA's FRENCH ANCESTOR


According to one on-line geneology:
Louisiana Duvall, b. Nelson Co., Ky., 26 March 1826, d. Nelson Co., Ky., 18 Dec. 1855 [There is also a Mary Duvall previously extensively written about.]

I find this particularly fun because one of my cousins just married into a Southern Duvall family last year (now lives near SF). Megan Blasier Duvall. Find her on facebook-she's pregnant and almost due. I will suggest that she name him Barack Duvall.

Spiritual Dangers of Power

And What Really Matters.

Few people come to Washington to be insignificant or overlooked. Many come with what is called a "lust for power" or more innocuously just a desire for influence-to make a mark. The good try to make a difference that matters. And we know Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.
So there is a lot of posturing going on to prove oneupsmanships -doctrinally, and positionally. It's pure ego. The good can and do get drowned by the greed.
There is a very good reason why Pride is a deadly sin-because it eclipses an ability to Love. It is too self consumingly preoccupied with status, position and power. Washington can be a deadly place for that reason. Trumpetting Laurels abound all around. People demanding respect for their positions. Lookie Me Lookie Me Lookie Me everywhere you turn.
Narcism elevated to the highest art form.
Anything that eclipses an ability to love is a handicap-a disability- a counterproductive enterprise. A waste of time.
Because LOVE is the whole game. That is it. It is the bridge.
This is why I find it so hard to take watching clergy get off on wearing ridiculous looking embroidery and hats that went out with the turn of the Renaissance. OK colored yarmulkas are fine-I don't care if you want to embroider on them fun slogans like "LOOK UP!" but if you get wrapped around the axle around all the vestment colors for any other reason than it covers your wrinkled shirt, I am not particularly impressed by Roman Aristocratic Robes nor hats borrowed from a Saturday Night Live skit. Return to Wardrobe after Dress Rehearsal Please.

And all the religious commentary trashing the people who try to maintain a healthy distance in the "church-state" divide with the sanctimonious rhetoric of Head Pharisees should just pick up the whole pond and take it home with them so they can gaze endlessly into it at their own blog comments.

Love- it's the whole game.
There used to be a word said about such people: Get a Dog, Name it "Life" then you will have one.
I want to be more charitable. "Get a girlfriend, call it ''Wife" then you will have one.





It is the pettiest of people who fall headlong into this trap- the really truly powerful tend to be more discrete and not need the hooplah Lookie Me show.

The Greatest Danger to Christianity

Really Religious People

Calling themselves the most holy christians.- catholics even. Ever notice how full of themselves some of these power trippy pompous religious people are? Give a guy a cannonlaw degree and he thinks he's God and can start telling people how to run their love lives labeling 'live-in' situations 'concubines.' Note to file- divorce is permitted even by Jesus and the Vatican routinely anuls marriage, even ones with kids if the price is right.

The biggest offense and stumbling blocks to non-Christians ARE Christians. Those appaulingly self-rightous ones who want to take Jesus away from people they disagree with by withholding communion and obnoxiously demanding it of their bishops going so far as to stage Boycots.
This is just childish perversion of the message. Really missing the point.

Dear Cannon Lawyer: None of your Damn Business whether Mario Cuomo's son is engaged or not to his "live-in." Sorry, None of Your Damn Business. He's not a relative, you don't live near him, you don't know him, he's not your kid, you were not asked by him for your opinion, and no one cares what it is.

And ever notice how people quickest to call others "heretics" are the most small hearted, ungenerous, self-protective, mean-spirited jerks you ever met? Some of them never supported another person in their life. Yet they feel free to judge everyone. Sickening.

No, 'Secularism' is not the greatest threat to Christianity nor the spread of the Gospel- some Christians/Catholics are however.

Beating a Dead Horse

But I can't help reporting on the DC Metro
http://www.unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/


Because yesterday's paper ran a shocking article in which they noted that dead rats were found in the ticket vending machines. Ever feel like the machine just ate your money and didn't give you the appropriate credit on your smartcard? Maybe a rat inside did.
This article noted also that the bathroom breaks for the conductors were such that they felt they didn't have sufficient time to take them and keep trains on schedule so they went ON THE TRACKS in a few select spots they designated as waste dump sites in hidden corners where trains turned around, notable at Grosvenor/Stratford on the Red Line. Perhaps that is attracting rats more than anyone eating on the Metros. Ever hear of a Portapotty such as those used on boats? Excuse me, but that is just disgusting. That's what alcoholic homeless guys do-pee on the street.

And on Metro buses, which are usually quite efficiently run on schedule the operators apparently do not have training enough or cahoonas enough to tell people who walk on with a bag of McDonalds that they glibly open and nosh on to stop it. That happened yesterday as I watched some soul right under one of those signs saying-this is not a Diner don't treat it like one-unwrap a greasy Big Mac and inhale it wiping their mouth with their sleeve as the person smashed to their left tried to get a bit of distance from the smell. Like no one is watching. Because no one probably is.

Metro Police need to be out in full force in plain clothes ticketing people. The force should be doubled. Especially with the potential for homeland security threats. When a few of those ticketed McDo addicts get press, then people will start paying attention, and eating their McDonalds before they get on the bus, and not throwing sodacup trash under the seat.

I wouldn't think that this so comical except I actually was in the Moscow underground as a child, and it is spotless, and run with German efficiency. All the train systems in Europe are. Paris and London metro are lightyears better even if artistically strewn with a bit of graffitti. the London underground was so clean it served as bomb shelter for Londoners during WWII. When I say we have a third world Metro system, I mean we really have a third world Metro system in DC compared to Europe, and even compared to New York in terms of it's mechanical reliability. Imagine anywhere in Europe conductors peeing on the tracks. They would be locked up and sent to a mental asylum. In America we say- oh well- par for the course. I am not the only one who noticed apparently- there is a blog called "Unsuck DC Metro"-

PortaPotties People. Any Annapolis Boat Supply Store.

Postscript thought:
Oh, and let's talk, shall we about noise control. It is against the law to not have earphones when listening to all those fun devices that make people feel like they are in control- i-whatevers, radios, etc...Good Law. What about those half out of their mind or just supremely rude people who talk on cell phones in voices so loud you would think they were addressing half of Cameroon who needed to hear them. I love this (sarcasm) when it is in french because I actually understand them-people from Cameroon tend to think no one else does on a DC/Maryland bus- and it is not racist to note that the people who tend to not have been raised with the "this is your inside library voice, this is your outside voice" distinction seem to have all come from countries where they got thick African accents of some kind. In New York the entire bus would yell "SHUT UP!" Why are people so intimidated here.
Some people insist that the whole world wants to hear every bloody word of their profanity dotted phone conversation. There is a simple solution to this- Give the conductor a loudspeaker plug in so he can yell- "Lower Your Voice[s] or I have legal authority to confiscate your cell phone!" Now, that would be a good law wouldn't it. Then Metro can resell them and pay for portapotties. Seriously, some DC/Maryland bus rides are so exasperating the only thing missing is the chicken cages.

The Sin of Presumption

And the Sin of Self-Righteousness

You say Jesus is alive and well and living at the Right Hand of the Father-correct? So why do you presume him to be a deaf mute who cannot speak to anyone he has adopted as children?
Do you know a father on earth who has adopted children who chooses not to speak to them? Or speaks to only a few who consider themselves the most pious? No, Jesus speaks to all and anyone of his children, adopted or natural (Jewish) who chose to listen and can hear.

He who has ears to hear let him hear.

He who presumes he is the only favorite child is no greater than John or James, Jesus' cousins whom the wife of Zebedee, Jesus aunt tried to get commitment of Jesus to sit right next to him.
No, Jesus chooses to whom he speaks. Sometimes it is the little child sitting on his lap. Sometimes he mades a spit-puddle and cures the foresaken blind beggar. Sometimes he asks you "Who do you say that I am?"
Jesus is not bound by spiritual hierarchy. He doesn't care if your head covering is white, red or your natural curly hair. Jesus is the giver of all life, the Lord, and his creation is his garden. He walks where he chooses, he speaks to whom he wishes even if it is a fig tree, and anyone who listens can hear his voice.

The Prophetesses

Do you think Prophesy left the Earth After Christ?

Think again. Read the book by C. Bernard Ruffin. Four daughters of Luke-all recognized prophetisses (apparently all single also-they all prophetized and were allowed somehow to live), the four daughters of Bartholemew-all Prophetesses.

Yes, the Holy Spirit speaks through people now.
It's like someone reading wireless email. Anyone who is sent wireless email can read it aloud. And woe to them if they don't.

Take This seriously I Sure Am.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers about peace in the Middle East. I met with the Prime Minister of Palestine, Salam Fayyad, yesterday and with the power of our collective consciousness brought us one step closer to seeing an end to this conflict in our time. Today, we must keep the momentum going. If you or anyone you know can take us one more step closer, please email me at yb@kabbalah.com. They can be anywhere in the world - there are no boundaries or limits to where I will go to meet with the person who can move us further towards peace. Let's harness the power of our social networks to finish the work of the Rav and the Kabbalists before him, and bridge all differences.
Questions, comments? Email me at yb@kabbalah.com.

Please email me YBN[at]kabbalah.com. Did you know 'Allah' is in your name?

Butlerlawfirm[at]aol.com or Butlerlaw[at]gmail.com

Please Read this Book

The Twelve : The Lives of the Apostles After Calvary:
by C .Bernard Ruffin-a Yale Divinity grad, Catholic and noted author of several books including the seminal one on Padre Pio, the bilocutionist who bore the Stigmata.

It traces what became of the Apostles after the resurrection- how they were martyred in many cases. For instance, I bet you did not know who that creature is on the Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican who is holding his drooping skin under his left hand as he gazes toward Christ his redeemer?? It is the Apostle Saint Bartholemew who is believed to have been skinned alive for his beliefs and refusing to shut up by Indians from India after he traveled there.

It is not 'secular' states that are the biggest threat to Christendom. It is those militantly hostile to religious expression not their own. It is the theocracies adverse to the Gospel. Study a bit of history Donnie Boy.

Nomenclature Numb-Nuttery

And Mis-identification of the real problem.

Today it is really popular to hear railing against the 'secularism' that has defeated all good moral construct (and all beneficence to charitable causes.)

It is not Secularism that is doing that-it is demonic heathenisms. It is religiously intolerant societies that are run by Ayatollahs who think that the only Prophet was Muhammed since his day.

Saddam Hussein was a Secularist- he tolerated Christianity- in fact one of his famous Ministers was a Christian. Secularists allow toleration of all religions often- it is the militantly heathenistic that are demonic. It is those that believe blindly that they are the true voice of God militantly when God speaks through many voices and works through many hands.

That is why is it such a misguided effort to out all so called 'secularists' and seek to destroy them---Secularists FAVOR religious toleration in Muslim Majority countries. There was MUCH MUCH MORE persecution against Christians in Iraq under religious regimes than under secular governments and Saddam Hussain did not persecute Iraqi Christians. He protected them.

He didn't give Exxon Mobile such a good ride for its money however- nor halliburton which had all the joint ventures with Cheney with the stock options in his pension which bought his Saint Michaels Estate on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in one of the most corrupt obscene murderous administrations we have ever had my half a century lifetime in America, which is why it is so dangerous, and so deceptive to deride governments that are hostile to certain forms and specific forms of American Enterprise as against all of Christendom .It is nothing short of SCANDAL to conflate them all and call them all 'Secularist' to incite the ire and murderous
retribution of a society.

There really is a Santa

Where Love and Generosity and Devotion Exist

The NY newspaper article that captured hearts when an 8 year old wrote to inquire whether in fact Santa was real with the memorable retort "Yes, Virginia, etc..." is worth reading in full and readily googlable for its prosaic truth today.

In part I quote:
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe.

More on Frog Fondness

And Why it's the Next Best Thing to Being in Paris

Not just because my given middle name is that popular french name Louise, after the great King/Saint- 'Louis' or because my mother's ancestors are French on one side, ou parce que je suis moitie francaise dans ma coeur et ame, but because it's the next best thing to being in France outside La Maison, French Embassy in Washington, DC or immersing yourself in french movies if you are stuck in DC.

THE PARISH OF SAINT LOUIS DE FRANCE. (see entry below)

One Sunday a month they have a hospitality sunday at the parish of St. Louis de France featuring quiche, brioche, with white wine (where else?) at Epiphany in Georgetown.
Every year they feature a "Kermesse" which is more than a funky fun parisien flea market (great bargains for vintage coolness)- it had some lawn games for kiddies, and a station where they were making crepes, and another with boeuf bollonaise and another with croque monsieurs (fancy grilled ham and cheese) and another with the kind of sandwiches with brie cheese on french bread the vendors sell on the streets of Paris. I could have stayed all day.

Every time I land in Paris I go for my favorite vendors around MontMartre/Sacre Coeur who sell crepes with Grand Marnier. Where in America can you buy on the street crepes with Grand Marnier? (sans sucre svp.) Imagine such an application to the DC office that licenses street vendors. No offense to spicy Doritos, but the street vendors in DC are nothing compared to those in Paris. Someone try it- I dare you. Dear Mayor Gray-I would like to vend crepes with Gran Marnier or Nutella, and at Christmas roasted chestnuts like they do in Italy and New York. I also would like to vend french bread brie sandwhiches with tomato and Flan. The word 'vend' is actually a french word which means 'to sell.' Because of the Norman conquest where Guillome le Conqueror invaded Britain in 1066 and because several British kings thereafter inhabited and reigned over parts of France (notably the Aquitaine region) there is a dictionary full of what we think of as English words that originated in the Gaulist world. My sur-name for instance, a very common one throughout England and Ireland "Butler" is an occupational name which originated
in France as the 'Boutillier'- meaning the person in charge of the winery in the cave-the bottler- the person who poured the wine from the large barrels into the bottles and in charge of the wine cellar- which was a notably esteemed position in the King's household because people tried to poison the King with the wine. Thus the Boutilier became a trusted part of the King's cabinet as wine was used in the Coronation Mass (and if you didn't want that guy inheriting the Kingdom it was thought he would be poisoned at the Coronation Mass)- Anglicized Boutillier became Butler.
When Irish and English landowners moved to colonize America, some had slaveholdings, and when the slaves were freed they took on the names of their landowners in many cases-which is why there are now quite a few African Americans with the name Butler. They may be surprised to know that their names come from the heads of French wine cellars. The Irish Butler family crest has chalices on two corners for reason of its significance in guarding sacramental wine.

There is no better music to my ear than French liturgical music. Any given day of the week you can go to Sacre Coeur and catch the Benedictine Sisters in white sitting in the choir stalls chanting the most hauntingly beautiful music. They even let you stay overnight to do an adoration round the clock signing up at 2 or 3 am. Last I was there I got to do a bit of on the spot translation for the sisters who couldn't tell what the pilgrims from Florida wanted.

France is a place of miracles and mysteries. It's only pure envy (and, dare I say, a touch of ignorance) that has Americans trashing it.
We wouldn't even know how to make yogurt. The French sold us (Napolean) a third of our country. You cannot hit one State in the midwest without running into handfulls of french city names. If you came from the midwest you probably have french ancestors you don't know about from a time when the Louisiana Purchase covered everything west of the Mississippi to the Dakotas.

I want to see this little parish of hearty souls get more funding. How can you help? They need a bit of work on the parish house for basic maintenance, and they need a paid permenant organist and choir director. They could bring the riches of French liturgical music to DC if they had a better organized music department which requires a serious professional paid staff of at least two: an organist and a choir director. The volunteer crowd are sparce but enthusiastic (the organist brilliant but not always on duty and not paid I understand) -

Perhaps they can get a DC Government Grant? ?? Roland, j'espere que tu peux conspirer avec Pere Jean-Marie Vincent pour lui donne une donne grande. Bisous.

Le Pape Vert

Every Day is Earth Day for the Green Pope

He asks the faithful to pray for preservation of God's great creation.
http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/FR1/Articolo.asp?c=451593

A Jewel in the City

Another 'Best Hidden Secret' in Washington, DC.

Like the Son of Man who had nowhere to lay his head seemingly, the Archdiocese of Paris is taking hold in Washington in a rather nomadic fashion with a Mass schedule in which the gentle tireless French Priest or 'Cure' traverses through Bethesda to Georgetown and Friendship Heights in between holding Masses for his flock.
He just got his drivers' license which had everyone clapping at the Sunday Mass.
The beautiful thing about this 'church' is that it clearly is the People not the building because they don't have one here-they borrow a few in select spots; it is under the Archdiocese of the Paris Archbishop (Cardinal?) Vingt-Trois. Is he so named because he just didn't want the notoriety of a real name and he is actually the 23rd Archbishop of that diocese? Doubt it- Paris is a bit older than that I should think. We are on something like 5 or 6 in DC but DC just got carved out of the Baltimore Archdioce less than a hundred years ago. Anyway- Bonjour, Felicitations Vingt-Trois.

This Cure writes beautiful homilies which you can find on their website. http://daboville.com/paroisse-catholique-stlouis-washingtondc/Saint_Louis_de_France_of_Washington/Le_mot_du_cure.html

I don't know anything about his seminary education but he is one of the most movingly eloquent homilists I have heard in America.

Epiphany in Georgetown is still decorated with a beautiful cresche and has that magnificent round stained glass window above the altar.

I am particularly fond of this little parish- Koreans celebrate Mass-lots and lots of Catholic Koreans (who no doubt could serve as emissary peacemakers) earlier, followed by an English Mass, then the French Mass. The English Mass is attended sparsely by locals in walking distance for the most part, one gets the sense, and the community feeling is palpable as one of the hospitality minister ladies slices the banana bread for the coffee hour downstairs.
This is a sight when doubled with the music from the Korean choir practice in the next room.

This church is special. It is a tiny holy little gem of an internatonal communion of souls.
I highly recommend checking out Pere Jean-Marie Vincent. He prints the entire readings in french in the program so it is easy to follow.

The french music is beautiful -especially when he sings the Psalms (he has a truly gifted beautiful voice)- the choir is a bit sketchy but we are working on it I am assured.

This church should get a grant from the French Embassy (I know that they are not big on funding churches) but it could be viewed as a cultural outreach could it not? At least the Ambasador might like to pop in for a meet and greet once in a while.

A tres bientot. Dieu Soit Avec Toi.

Happy 12th Day of Christmas!

The Temple

Of The Holy Spirit

There is a puzzling piece of New Testament scripture in which there is a dialogue between Jesus and the high religious authorities of his day in Jerusalem. He was getting himself into confrontations now and again (the biggest being flipping out and over the money changer tables).
In this dialogue he makes a statement that "If you tear down this Temple I will rebuild it in three days" - The religious authorities look at him like he is crazy no doubt and say "How are you going to rebuild this in three days- it took 47 years to build the place!"
To understand this you have to understand how magnificently grand was the Temple in Jerusalem that everyone went to for Feast days, most especially the Passover-Pesach.
It was enormous and enormously elaborate with internal walls and porticos, several gates or entrances. The 'wailing wall' is the only remaining standing part of it today- and even that fragment is imposingly large. Obviously it took enormous work, and if they paid the sort of attention to detail that Solomon's First Temple perscribed in terms of dot and jittle of dimension, placement and composition, it would have taken care, attention and lots of time- over 47 years!

So what does Jesus mean. "If you destroy this Temple I will raise it up in 3 days."

He, his body is 'The Temple of the Holy Spirit."
What does he mean by that ? He rose in three days from the dead from the date of his crucifixion.
He meant, if you, with the defiling practices of the day, defile the Temple with your perversion of God's love and message, perversion of corruption, perversion of misplaced controlling petty legalism, perversion with the money changer graft system buying sacrifices for closeness to God, if you destroy My House of Prayer and Worship, I will rebuild it in three days-
I will rebuild the Temple of the Holy Spirit- which is my Body, meant the Lord.

This is My Body which is broken for You, for the Salvation of Souls, for the Forgiveness of Your Sins. The only acceptable atoning sacrifical blemishless lamb. My Body, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. When you ingest it, now Your Body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Because my Body is within you. The Kingdom of God is within you.

That is why it is such a profound desecration of holiness to comit an abortion, either on yourself or someone else. You are a vandal in a Temple of the Holy Spirit. It is like spray painting the Holy of Holies with vulgarity. Profane. Obscene. The most Unholy Act one can commit.

And if the devil is going to destroy a people, this is where he would start waging war most ferociously. He would desecrate the Temples of the Holy Spirit so it became a vile place of vulgarity, profanity and desecration, mocking its maker.

A nation that doesn't understand the Spiritual significance of Abortion, is a silly nation. A nation that is not asking to be under the Grace of God, but is blinded by it's own arrogance. It's a nation asking to be destroyed from within by its profane corruptions.

If you destroy this Temple, I will rebuild it in Three Days said the Lord.
And when he rebuilt it, woe to the one who tears at it again.
Because the protector of the Christian has the strength of the Wind and Waves and Earthquake and Volcano. Their protector can throw a Mountain into the Sea. So a political party doesn't have a prayer of a chance if against it.

Worth Reprinting in Full-Thank You Zenit

Pontiff Affirms Mystery of Childbirth
Stresses Child's Need for Parental Love

(Zenit reprint; see right)

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 1, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is highlighting the mystery of childbirth, in which parents are offered a chance to experience the action of their Creator.
The Pope stated this Dec. 26, the Feast of the Holy Family, before praying the midday Angelus with the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.
He reflected on the "profound mystery" that surrounded the birth of Jesus.
"The birth of any child brings with it something of this mystery," the Pontiff said.
He affirmed that "human beings experience procreation not merely as reproductive act; they perceive its richness; they are intuitively aware that every human creature who enters into the world is a 'sign' par excellence of the Creator and Father in heaven."
The Holy Father underlined the need "for each child coming into the world to be welcomed into the warmth of a family."
He continued: "Exterior comforts are not important. Jesus was born in a stable and his first cradle was a manger, but the love of Mary and Joseph made him feel the tenderness and beauty of being loved."
"This is what children need: the love of a father and mother," Benedict XVI stated.
He added, "This is what gives them a sense of security and, as they grow, enables them to discover the meaning of life."
The Pontiff acknowledged that the Holy Family went through many trials such as "the massacre of the innocents, which forced Joseph and Mary to flee to Egypt."
"But, trusting in Divine Providence, they found their stability and ensured Jesus had a serene infancy and a solid education," he added.
The Holy Father entrusted "all families to Mary and Joseph, that they may not be discouraged in the face of trials and difficulties but always cultivate conjugal love and dedicate themselves faithfully to the service of life and education."

JOY

In the Morning

The devil isn't after your job, he's after your JOY, said one profound evangelist.

Who came 'That Your Joy May Be Complete?"
JOY. What is it? It is that profound deep sense of wholeness, completion, satisfaction, happiness, all rolled into one. The feeling you are where you are supposed to be and it feels deep down gut good. You know it when you have it, you long for it when it is missing. Stolen Joy. Worse than stolen jewels.
If the devil can steal your Joy he has you where he wants you. If the devil can start you cursing your existence, or worse, cursing the Holy Spirit (once called the 'unforgiveable sin') then
he can steal your soul without your noticing.
What was Job's situation? He lost everything and was a point where even his wife was saying "just curse God and die moron" basically. His wife cursed him and told him to curse God. Can there be a more Joy-less place in one's psyche? The devil was trying to get Job to curse God-that 'unforgiveable sin.' But he wouldn't - the devil didn't win and when he figured out he could not win, he fled. And Job sent him packing refusing to curse God and instead devoting himself to praying for his taunting friends.

When the devil is trying to steal your stuff and steal your Joy, send him packing by praying for your friends. Hard. And refuse to curse God. Even when it looks pretty hopeless out there.
The more you pray , the more the Devil Flees. Like a candle chasing out the darkness when lit.

JOY to the World. The SAVIOR has come. Let Earth Receive Their King.
Let Every Heart, Prepare Him Room
And HEAVEN and NATURE SING.

Best Film

And the Academy Award Goes To...


THE KING'S SPEECH

Go see it. The older brother (uncle to current Queen Elizabeth) who couldn't stop himself from the clever seductions of a Mrs. Wallace Simpson from Baltimore (twice divorced) in his
foppish dandy tomfoolery-- "fool for love" if ever there was a case that looked so sadly foolish,
gives up his crown to his younger brother who has a terrible stammer from childhood trauma.

His ego nearly gets the better of him when he insults his credential-less speech therapist who works out of a cheap rent Harley Street location that had the walls stripped without walllpaper in an ode to bohemian chic that looked perfectly appropriate against the tea kettle boiling in the
open fireplace. Not one for backing away from a challenge, this Royal Prince with a devoted wife and two adorable kiddies in scottish kilts with huggable corgies (later Queen Elizabeth as a child is adorable), stands by her man and finds even his stammering adorable, but correctable, she insists.
While he beats himself up declaring "I am not a King" he proves himself wrong, and more courageous than The Lionhearted in overcoming his personal defects. He overcomes with that something else--the fear of the British People in their imminent battle against the German Nazi invasion in a classic speech that would put to shame any Presidential speech-writer in America (plus the accent will make you melt.)

Charming, Sublime, Eloquent, Inspiring, and Academy Award material. Best Film of this year and next.

Let There Be PEACE

REALLY, Let It Be.

Stop fighting. Stop the war, Stop blowing up churches in Egypt and Iraq. Stop It. It proves nothing but that you are a nutjob- a really bad one.

Christians have no right to fight because Jesus took the sword out of Peter's hand when he was trying to decapitate a roman solider arresting him. Violence is not approved conduct. Not acceptable. Put away your knives. And guns, and assault rifles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

And why are you attacking houses of worship?
Religious tolerance is enshrined in our statutes and Constitution. We have something called Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and 'religious discrimination' is actionable- meaning you can sue for it here and get monetary damages if you, for example lost a job due over insubordination for adhering to your religious days off for example or engaging in your preferred worship.
You cannot fire an orthodox Jewish person for not working on Saturday if they prefer being in Shul. You cannot fire a Christian for needing to take off Christmas Day. (note to Congress/Sentate- no one should have to work through Christmas Eve if they don't want to- that's when they have to bake cookies for Santa and his reindeer and clear out the chimney!)

This violence against Christians is obviously really bizarre to us in the US where we enjoy freedom of worship as a predominantly Christian country (sorry to those self-annointed atheists but we are hugely majority Christian of all denominations, with respectable Jewish numbers as a strong minority religion). Around other parts of the world however the persecution of Christians seems something of a national sport reminiscent along pogrom lines. Why? Wierd? What did we do?

One suggestion I offer is that we try to be examples here of not persecuting Christians by other Christians, and not persecuting Muslims by demonizing them and demeaning them.
If we lead by example, we don't persecute doctrinal differences (within and without the catholic church) and we certainly don't demean or trivialize the devotion of Muslims here. A lot of damage is already done by the Bush pre-emptive crusades to justify the oil wars for the basest of motivations. We will be paying for that for milenia. But we can try to put it all aright now, can't we? We should at least try.

What did we do? We should at least look at that question and hear them. What did we do?

We are just a little country not even 300 years old yet. What did we do? Lets look at that. And look at how we can stop it. Start with Afghanistan. Soon. Really Soon.

WORLD DAY OF PEACE

And Benedict Starts the Day Off Right

By inviting Global religious leaders of all religions to that place of profound spiritual significance, Assisi, Italy, where the tomb of Saint Francis, the prophet and missionary of Peace lies buried.
http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/EN2/Articolo.asp?c=451040

In one of the most holy sacred spaces one can circle the Tomb of Saint Francis, amidst lit candles and incense and say prayers for World Peace to the Saint who traveled and met with a Sultan to stop religiously inspired and/or justified wars of his time.

PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM AND OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
Amen.

Salvation

One Way To Paradise

There may be a few heavens-in who knows, layers? atmospheric dimensions? past the stars and asteroids?
There is biblical reference to seventh heavens. There is a reference to someone going up into the Third Heaven, etc...

But the one nearest God is where he hangs out with his his only son. You would expect as much wouldn't you? That's one where you want to end up.

Perhaps the lower ones recycle you back here to deal with the situations you left quite a mess-
perhaps you are recycled back here in soul to make amends with someone you screwed who doesn't know it's you. Perhaps you don't even know its you.

When John the Baptist came back he might not have known himself to be Elijiah.

But if you wish to get to the place where God hangs out with his Son, there is only one way to get there. The Son lets you in. He opens the door. He gives you your comp ticket to get in.
He is real, he is alive, he exists in the part of heaven closest to God as "one in being with the Father" and he has ability to communicate with earthlings through wireless prayer.

There is verse after verse after verse about those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, anyone who believes Jesus was/is the son of God and that God raised him from the dead will be saved. Jesus himself told people that "go, your faith has saved you." Faith in what? In him. Google it, search a biblical concordance, do some research. There is reference after reference to the deep significance of Jesus in terms of where you as soul will go once it leaves earth.

He is the Messiah. Let me repeat it. He is the Messiah.

Now, sometimes one might think that all those verses you just looked up replaced Mary for Jesus. Unless you call on the name of Mary you will be saved, unless you believe and confess with your mouth that Mary is Lord you will be saved.

This is, and I cannot say it strongly enough, pure HERESY. False Doctrine. Off its rocker false. Mary was a hu-woman, a mortal like everyone else, although quite unique and special, and served as the surrogate mother to Jesus of God. Because she was immaculately conceived and herself gave virginal birth and went to heaven assumed fully in body like Elijah, there is a temptation to believe that she is divine like the son she bore as though divinity was genetic in the sense we know it. She would be greatly dismayed at the thought. She exists to present her son as Lord. She exists to point one to her son. She is there in the heavens no doubt with him, and has his ear. But she is not Divine.

Anyone who confesses with their mouth (because Words have creative force and become things and situations by their proclamation) that Jesus is Lord, and God raised him from the dead, and does his commandments will be saved. Now you know why Mary said- Do whatever he tells you to. She didn't say "Do as I say" now did she?

Once the Catholic hierarchy, particularly that house of near apostates of Dominicans gets that straight, we will be much much closer to understanding why God has allowed the Protestant World to exist without being wiped out by the powerful forces of Catholicism which stop at nothing to persecute dissent to death.

Mary, Mother of God, is blessed among women, blessed is the fruit of her womb JESUS. She is not The Lord.

Only Jesus can give you your comp. ticket into that heaven. You can't ride in on Mary's apron.

Because Jesus is Lord, and anyone who calls on his name will be saved, and believes God raised him from the dead and does his commandments will be saved, and confesses with their mouth believing Jesus is Lord will be saved, the part of the body of Christ that isn't as nice to their mother is still going to be saved.
She may give them a bit of a scolding once they get home, but they know where their home is. Because ALL his sheep know his voice and follow Him.

Now what do you think you can learn by talking to Reformastant clergy?