Boże, który dusze świętego Kamila ozdobiłeś szczególnem miłosierdziem, aby był pomocą duszom walczącym w ostatnich choroby zapasach, wzbudź w nas przez jego zasługi ducha miłości, abyśmy w godzinę śmierci zwalczyć mogli nieprzyjaciela duszy naszej, i uzyskać koronę niebieską. Amen.
Boże, któryś szczególniejszą opieką najświętszej Panny Rodzicielki Twojej Marji, bractwo szkaplerza św. otoczyć raczył, spraw łaskawie, abyśmy bezpieczni obroną Jej, czcząc dziś uroczystem nabożeństwem Jej pamiątkę, do wiecznych radości dojść zasłużyli sobie. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
| You Are a Little Scary |
 You’ve got a nice edge to you. Use it. |
Samer al-Batal has been writing from Beirut at A Conservative Blog for Peace. In More from Beirut he writes:
This has long grown out of all proportion and especially now to beyond the point where the most duplicitous liar can attempt to summon a rationale to explain how military operations are solely aimed at eradicating Hizbullah. This entire country is under threat. They’ve destroyed the lighthouse in Beirut and struck its port, along with the ports of other areas, including the city of Tripoli! This is no area that hosts either Shi’ites or elements of Hizbullah. They’ve reached all the way to the north! They’ve hit both wheat and water reserves, attacked the Lebanese army, and have committed atrocious murders in particular the devastating attack on a truck of refugees fleeing from one of the southern villages.
Offer your prayers tonight and your Holy Mass tomorrow for peace in Lebanon and for the repose of all the innocent who have been murdered.
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two
So they went off and preached repentance.
In one of the tracks from Juana Molina’s album Son, titled Las Culpas, she sings —I want to see everybody’s faults on the table but my own—.
That resonates with you doesn’t it. It certainly hit home with me. We love it, rubbernecking at the accidents in someone’s life, gawking at the carnage in a relationship, dwelling on the faults of others as a sort of buffer against dealing with our own issues.
It all comes down to how you view Jesus doesn’t it. Do you view Jesus as what He said He is, the way —“ the way to eternal life, a path to be followed throughout life? Do you view Him as the truth and the life —“ a life that is unlike our everyday existence? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This is something we have to adopt. It is a choice we all must make.
As you sit in those pews, as I stand here, have we made a conscious choice to throw off the worldly life and adopt Jesus’ life as our own?
Tough choice isn’t it? It is a choice between comfort and hardship, a choice between what I want and what I have been asked to do. It is giving up your self will for complete freedom. The freedom found not in today’s world or tomorrow’s world, but in the Kingdom of God. It is the choice the apostles made when they took up their walking sticks and sandals and went out without purse or food.
Repentance is the key. Repentance is the road. We have to get on that road and work hard everyday to achieve the Kingdom.
It starts with prayer when you wake, and a firm resolve to change your life, to be renewed each day, and to look on the new day as God’s gift for your conversion and repentance. You have received what you need to begin as Paul tells us:
In Him you also, who have heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in Him,
were sealed with the promised holy Spirit,
which is the first installment of our inheritance
toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.
As you pass that morning routine and go out into the world you must take on the mantle of Amos who told Amaziah:
“The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me,
Go, prophesy to my people Israel.—
You are sent out as a disciple and prophet. You are to live your life in a state of conversion, repentance, and a resolve to follow the way, truth, and life. You are sent out like Amos and the apostles, to teach the Lord’s way. You are sent out to do this by your words, example, and by the change people will see in your heart.
In writing about spiritual rebirth Bishop Hodur said:
The reborn man also knows different joys and different sorrows.
The worldly man considers himself successful when he is able, in some degree, to satisfy his sensual drives and desires; when his ambitions are realized; when he acquires wealth; when he defeats his adversaries; when he enjoys good health; when his fellow men hold him in respect, even though this may have been gained by falsehood and hypocrisy. He grieves if he is deprived of one or more of these essentials of his existence.
How differently the truly religious, reborn man finds his happiness!
The basis of his happiness does not lie in the conditions and elements of his worldly life. It comes, rather, from within himself, from his soul, and especially. from his relationship with God, the first and final source of true and untroubled contentment.
At the end of your day consider those things. How did you treat the day, the people around you, and the world? Do a daily examination of conscience and resolve to begin the next day back on the road to God.
Prayer, resolve, action, and reflection.
It comes down to how you view Jesus: Jesus as the whip and battering ram, the foil with which you will enumerate the faults of others, or Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life by whom you will be changed, destroying your sins so that you may attain everlasting life.
Live by Jesus and you will be free. Live in Jesus and you will live forever.
[dels]homilies, sermons[/dels]
I’ve made a few changes to my primary blogroll. I’ve broken the sites down into three sections. They are:
- Blogroll – Daily: These are my daily reads. I find something in common with these writers and admire them. I just love reading what they write.
- Blogroll – Deacons: This is one I’m looking to expand. We deacons are a unique breed with special gifts of the Spirit. I’ll try to highlight deacons and deacons’ wives who write about spirituality and the everyday life of a deacon.
- Blogroll – Occasional: These are my sometime reads. I visit them less frequently and usually when I’m looking for something in particular. I visit some less regularly because they are not updated as often.
The Catholic World News reports on the Maronite Patriarch’s request for prayers for Lebanon.
Patriarch Nassrallah Pierre Sfeir, the head of the Maronite Catholic Church, asked for prayers for the people of Lebanon during a July 13 press conference in Massachusetts.
The Maronite patriarch, Lebanon’s most prominent Church leader, spoke to reporters as he concluded a trip to the US, during which he sought to increase awareness of his country’s problems. Thanking American leaders for their support, he said that “the Lebanese are determined to live far from terrorism, tyranny, corruption, and despair.”
Saying that he is “very concerned and anxious” for Lebanon in the light of this week’s new violence, Cardinal Sfeir condemned “all aggression, wherever it comes from.”
He continued: “”We condemn Israel’s recent retaliations against Lebanon’s people and infrastructure. We also hope that Hezbollah will finally lay down its arms and join the other citizens of Lebanon in reaching political solutions to all of the Lebanese problems.”
By the way, do not try to connect to the Maronite Patriarchate’s website, like all Lebanese websites it is down.
Wszechmogący Boże, który w dniu dzisiejszym św. Henryka trwalszą, bo wiekuistą ozdobiłeś koroną chwały w niebie, prosimy Cię pokornie, abyś nam dozwolił naśladować go w cnotach, grzechów unikać i przygotować się należycie na niepewną godzinę śmierci. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
Today’s Old Testament reading from Hosea:
Thus says the LORD:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.
Take with you words,
and return to the LORD;
Say to him, —Forgive all iniquity,
and receive what is good, that we may render
as offerings the bullocks from our stalls.
Assyria will not save us,
nor shall we have horses to mount;
We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;
for in you the orphan finds compassion.—
I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.
His splendor shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.
Again they shall dwell in his shade
and raise grain;
They shall blossom like the vine,
and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols?
I have humbled him, but I will prosper him.
—I am like a verdant cypress tree——”
because of me you bear fruit!Let him who is wise understand these things;
let him who is prudent know them.
Straight are the paths of the LORD,
in them the just walk,
but sinners stumble in them.
It’s too bad that the Lebanon cedar will be no more and that the wine of Lebanon is blood…
My old hometown, Buffalo, is bleeding people. The latest study published yesterday shows that upstate New York, and in particular Buffalo, is loosing people like crazy (See: Employers may have tough time replacing retiring boomers)
The reasons, as I see it, are threefold: taxes, lack of jobs, the public dole.
Donn Esmonde of the Buffalo News has been doing opinion pieces on these issues for some time. Today’s article: A few words from the expatriates places the blame pretty squarely where it lies. Check it out.
Now the only point of departure I would have with Mr. Esmonde is his constant harping on public employees. The public employees’ pay and benefits are generous in certain ways, but still lag behind the private sector, especially at the executive and managerial level.
When Erie County shut off all but basic safety and health services as a result of its budget crisis, Mr. Esmonde and others in the community were the first to decry the lack of services they were used to. Someone has to perform the services. You have to pay for what you get, although at the entry and journeyman levels of public employment pay and benefits far surpass the private sector. Public employees are not the problem —“ they are actually smart enough to go where the money and security are. It is rather their handlers (the unions) and the laws and policies that perpetuate the status quo.
I wish someone would be truthful in breaking out where the money goes. New Yorkers are taxed like crazy, the highest taxes in the nation. This certainly keeps jobs and people away. No one will bring their company to New York State so they can be taxed at far higher rates. It’s counterintuitive.
The CATO Institute does a good job of making policy recommendations to cut the biggest money wasters in New York. In Cleaning Up New York State’s Budget Mess, CATO points out that a luxury Medicaid program accounts for over 28% of the State’s budget. That coupled with disproportionate increases in education funding, debt service, welfare, and other ‘luxury’ programs, and further coupled with a needed restructuring in the State public employee workforce drive our taxes through the roof.
My recommendation is to cut and restructure, to think outside the box. How do we do what’s necessary in a leaner and smarter way?
- Dump the luxuries —“ people can do better on their own —“ keeping their own money.
- Pass Right to Work laws to cut the legs off powerful unions that are no longer necessary and are actually counterproductive.
- Maintain systems of public support for the poor and needy that are consistent with other states (it will eliminate benefit shopping) and that assure care for those who are most in need.
- Reform the insurance industry and litigation processes in New York driving down workers compensation, general business, and automobile insurance costs.
- Reform the State workforce and focus on a lean professional/para-professional team that is hard working and effective (do we still need file clerks and clerk typists?).
- Reform the Assembly and Senate into a once every two years citizens body eliminating the ‘professional politician’.
- Make sure that these reforms take place at every level of government.
New York has natural resources, an educated populace, and varied beauty that makes it a top notch place to live, work, and play. Now all we need is courage and thinking leaders.
By the way, this is my 500th post to my blog —“ hurray for my insight 😉