Thursday, August 30, 2012

Another good man in sports and in life:

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Kellen Clemens has been playing football as far back as he can remember. After learning the game from his father on their cattle ranch, he went on to set high-school records for the state of Oregon in passing yards and touchdowns. At the University of Oregon, he set single-season passing records and ended his collegiate career as the school’s No. 3 man in both passing yards and touchdowns.

After being chosen in the second round of the 2006 NFL draft, Clemens has served as a backup quarterback for the New York Jets, Washington Redskins and Houston Texans. He is heading into the 2012 preseason in that same position with the St. Louis Rams.

Despite his long connection with football, Clemens explained to Register correspondent Trent Beattie that the sport is something he does, while being Catholic is who he is.

I’m a cradle Catholic, with four sisters, and the faith was always an integral part of our lives. I went to confession, received holy Communion and was confirmed. We were taught the difference between right and wrong and enjoyed the stability that brings. We also benefited from being so close to nature on our family’s cattle ranch. That encourages you to be humble and also to respect and work with God’s creation.

I knew that my relationship with Jesus Christ was more important than anything else in college. I made a conscious effort to deepen that relationship, in part by attending daily Mass. I really started to take the faith as my own, rather than simply relying on others to keep it going. That was a key time in my life, and I look back with gratitude for the grace God gave me to make the right decision. Everything else flows from that decision of how you respond to God’s call.

I knew being Catholic was important, but what I’ve come to realize more deeply since college is that being Catholic means everything to me. It’s what I am in my very essence. Football is something I do, but being Catholic is who I am. I’m Catholic in my bones, in my blood — however you want to say it.


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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Saturday, August 25, 2012

The new Marine Aviation Memorial Tower

I ride my bike past this new Memorial almost every day.


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And then one day, I got this great idea:
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm !

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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Feast of the Assumption:


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"And who, I ask, could believe that the ark of holiness, the dwelling place of the Word of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin? My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought Him into the world, had nourished and carried Him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms." - St. Robert Bellarmine


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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Today is the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi: Aug. 11



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I have visited St. Clare's Convent in Assisi where her body is also on display, intact, even after all these centuries.

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The Fingerprint of God:


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Kinda speaks for itself, don't you think?
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The LCWR ... the other side


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Is Liberalism dead? Ross Douthat comments here on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the decline of liberal Christianity. It’s a speculative piece which highlights the chasm that now exists within all forms of liberal Christianity and historic Christianity. I’ve written on the subject a few months ago here. This divide yawns not only within the Catholic Church, but within most of the Protestant denominations as well.

It’s a divide between those who view Christianity as a human, historical construct which may (and must) adapt itself to the current trends within society, and those who believe the Christian religion is revealed by God for the salvation of the world through his Son Jesus Christ–and that this is an eternal and immutable gospel which only changes and adapts in minor and superficial ways.

In many ways the term ‘Liberal’ is a misnomer, for what we call ‘Liberalism’ is really better termed ‘Progressivism’ or ‘modernism’. These terms are more precise because the belief in the beatitude of progress is at the heart of liberal religion and the classic term for this many headed heresy is ‘modernism’.

We should be clear, the problem with the Catholic sisters who are in revolt is that they are modernist. Too many of them have abandoned what we might call ‘the old, old story’–the story of mankind’s creation by a loving God, his fall from grace, the curse of original sin and the redemption of the world by Our Lord Jesus Christ. They’ve substituted social work, causes for justice and peace and now a wacky new age spirituality which many of them wish would take them ‘beyond Church and beyond Jesus’. Their keynote speaker was Barbara Marx Hubbard–a new age thinker who promotes ‘conscious evolution.’

I have commented before on this sickness within Christianity. There are many theories about what the ‘smoke of Satan’ in the church might be. I believe it is this: the insidious fumes of modernism–which dilutes the supernatural, doubts Sacred Scripture, denies the efficacy of the sacraments and denigrates the authority of Christ in his Church. The paradox of the present situation, as Douthat points out, is that the very agenda of liberal Christianity would not be possible without the ‘old, old story’.
The trendy sisters of today were grounded in the old time religion of supernatural and saving Catholicism. Their spirituality and understanding of the faith was rooted in the need for salvation, the forgiveness of sins and Christ’s saving work. They were brought up on a diet of prayer and humility and sacrifice and service that grew out of a traditional Christian religion.

Like other protesters they have departed from the old way, but without the old way they would have no way. Like Protestants who’s identity is caught up with the fact that they are NOT Catholic, the modernist sisters only seem to have an identity when they are in protest against the ‘old patriarchal Catholic Church.’ Their protest gives them purpose. Once that rebellious rage diminishes their identity diminishes, and if they have nothing to live for other than that protest movement how will they attract new vocations?

The irony is that they now work hard for the poor and to promote peace and justice, and they do so from a background of real Christianity. However, can they continue their work without that real Christianity? Can their good work with the poor and their advocacy for peace and justice stand without religion? Of course it can. That’s why young women quite rightly look at them and say, “If I want to be a social worker or a care giver or a school teacher I can do that without being a nun thank you very much.” What the modernist sisters have done therefore, is to put themselves out of a job.
That’s why other young women (like the Nashville Dominicans, the Sisters of the Renewal, Poor Clares and Sisters of Life) who want to follow Christ through a religious calling are donning traditional habits and learning how to pray again and are returning to full blown, unapologetic Catholicism. They are saying, “You can teach and do social work without the Catholic faith–but not for long. We want to be fully Catholic, fully professed sisters and fully involved in Christ’s work with the poor, the uneducated and the needy.

A few years ago the Vatican launched an investigation into the seminaries in the United States. Very quietly and efficiently the powers that be went through and asked questions, got answers and tried to clean things up. They tried to root out theological modernism and the endemic croneyism and the ‘pink mafia’. Now the seminaries are starting to fill up again. Maybe, just maybe the present purification of the women’s orders will eventually have the same effect.
If it does not, then the women’s orders that have gone the way of modernism will either die out or cease to be Catholic.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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Friday, August 10, 2012

Today is the Feast of St. Lawrence


Above: St Lawrence is pictured with the Book of the Gospels and a Chalice, two of the responsibilities of a Deacon. Lawrence was a Deacon.
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Behind Lawrence you see the form of a "gridiron" on which it is said he was burned alive.

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What a witness (martyr) for the faith.

What an example for us.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Life is Good:

Just relaeased by the Tim Tebow Foundation. enjoy


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Faith. Believe.

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ps....the first boy in this video is from Pensacola!


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