"Hopey Changemas"

...Steynism of the day!

Mark Steyn :

....General Motors now has a market valuation about a third of Bed, Bath & Beyond, and no one says your Swash 700 Elongated Biscuit Toilet Seat Bidet is too big to fail. GM has a market capitalization of about $2.4 billion. For purposes of comparison, Toyota's market cap is $100 billion and change (the change being bigger than the whole of GM). General Motors, like the other two geezers of the Old Three, is a vast retirement home with a small money-losing auto subsidiary. The UAW is AARP in an Edsel: It has three times as many retirees and widows as "workers" (I use the term loosely). GM has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to a million people.

How do you make that math add up? Not by selling cars: Honda and Nissan make a pretax operating profit per vehicle of around $1,600; Ford, Chrysler and GM make a loss of $500 to $1,500. That's to say, they lose money on every vehicle they sell. Like Henry Ford said, you can get it in any color as long as it's red....

(h/t rightgirl)

"Grown-Up Christmas List"

(via FB 'Priests For Life')

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life

One of the Christmas songs you'll hear on the radio during these days is called "Grown-up Christmas List." It speaks of the fact that age does not stop us from dreaming, and that as life goes on, our wishes at Christmas are not for ourselves, "but for a world in need." The list begins, "No more lives torn apart, that wars would never start…that right would always win."

Do we dare to hope for these things, just because the calendar says December 25 is approaching?

Indeed, the question for a Christian is, "How we can dare not to hope for these things?" Christmas lists, after all, spring from Christmas hope, and Christmas hope is based on an historical fact: God has already given us everything in His Son. St. Paul asks, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32).

We look for good things in life, and good things are all around us. Yet the best of good things does not satisfy us completely. The best relationships leave something to be desired, and the best vacations always end and leave us looking forward to the next one. This is because every good thing is just a reflection of goodness itself.

In the birth of Christ, we find that total, infinite goodness. "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Col. 2:9). "The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being" (Heb. 1:3). In the birth of Jesus Christ, almighty God has given to the human family His last, best offer of hope.

The wonder of Christmas, in fact, is that the promised coming of the Messiah of the Lord was fulfilled in a surprising way that surpassed the hopes and dreams of the people of old. On the first Christmas night, angels announced Christ's birth to the shepherds. But instead of saying that Jesus was the Messiah of the Lord, they said that He is "Messiah and Lord" (Lk. 2:11). God, in other words, did not simply send someone to represent Him. He came Himself!

Christmas is not about the birth of a child who became a great man. It is about a God who created the human family, and then decided to become a member of that family. Christmas is not when Jesus began; it is when Jesus began existing as one of us, and thereby joined all of us to Himself. He joins to His Divinity all who share human nature: the weak and strong, the small and big, the born and unborn. Christmas is universal, and is about the exaltation of the human person.

That's why our "grown-up Christmas list" can say "no more lives torn apart" -- whether by abortion or anything else. Christmas lists spring from Christmas hope, and Christmas is all about the victory of life!

Cdn Physicians For Life

The Fall/Winter edition of 'Vital Signs' (here), features an article on how well the Gov't has served the Canadian public by not bothering to create an abortion policy, and the negative impact this lack of policy has had on the health of women. Also featured is an article by Andrea Mrozec (ProWomanProLife) reporting on the 'Morgentaler Symposium' celebrating this same 20 years of lawlessness (ironically co-hosted by the Univ.Toronto Law Faculty).

Canadian Heroes

.... at Canadian Heroes we aim to memorialize those who have fallen in Afghanistan and to offer respect and sympathy to their families. After all, it is their loved ones who must continue to bear the burden for the rest of their days ... so in a very real way, they sacrifice for this country as well.

We see how willing our soldiers are to go into harm's way ... how dependable they are, how courageous. We marvel at their dedication not only to their peers and country, but to the mission they've been sent to perform....

"Why Canada Needs An Abortion Policy"

In this timely essay, Joseph C. Ben-Ami shows how out of step Canada is with the international community on the subject of abortion and explains how, moral and ethical issues aside, the lack of a coherent policy in Canada is seriously undermining practical efforts to control a re-emerging eugenics industry and end discriminatory practices such as gender-selection abortion.

Byzantine Hymn of the Nativity

A voice from the unheard voices of the Christians of the Middle East who have been witnessing to faith in the Saviour since His incarnation in their midst.

"Stop The Abortion Bailout!"

Susan B. Anthony :

Abortion groups have submitted their 50 page proposal to the Obama-Biden transition team. At the top of the list? More taxpayer dollars for abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. How much more? Over 1.5 billion dollars more!

The Abortion Bailout Package:

$1 BILLION dollars in taxpayer funding for International Abortion Groups
$700 million in taxpayer funding for “Title X” Health Clinics (aka your local Planned Parenthood affiliate)
$65 million for the UNFPA, an international aid organization connected to coercive abortion as part of China’s coercive one-child policy
Repeal the Hyde Amendment – Vastly expanding federal taxpayer funding for abortions
Include Abortion coverage in any taxpayer-subsidized national health care program
Expand taxpayer-funded abortions on military bases
Expand taxpayer-funded abortions through the Peace Corps program
Expand taxpayer-funded abortions for federal prisoners

Send a letter to your Senators today demanding that they keep your tax dollars out of the pockets of abortion providers.

(easy action )

Thanks Again Mr. Charest

Well, Quebeckers like to keep things interesting, non?

NP:

A new religion course taught in schools across Quebec was intended to improve inter-cultural understanding, but so far it is generating deep division as hundreds of parents pull their children out of class....

....Stéphanie Tremblay, a spokeswoman for Quebec's Education Department, said school boards across the province have received and rejected more than 1,400 requests from public-school parents seeking to have their children exempted from taking the course. The dissenters represent a small minority of the one million children enrolled in public schools.....

"The course was designed with an eye to respecting the freedom of conscience and religion of all students," she said. "It is not a religious instruction course. It is religious culture. We introduce young people to religious culture like we introduce them to musical culture. The goal is to better know and understand others."....

Meanwhile...

The new course is also mandatory in private schools, and Montreal's Loyola High School has initiated its own court challenge. Parents of more than 600 of the Jesuit school's students asked to have their children exempted from the course, and all were refused by the province.

Paul Donovan, the school's principal, said much of the curriculum is already taught at Loyola, but not in the "relativistic" way favoured by the Education Department.

He said the course does not ask children to distinguish between right and wrong. "What it essentially says is that religion is just, ‘You like tomato soup and I like pea soup, so don't be all offended because someone likes tomato soup. It's really just a matter of preference,' " he said. "Religion could be Wiccan or Raelian or any of the new movements or atheism or agnosticism."

So far Loyola has refused to teach the Ethics and Religious Culture class. "I can't tell my teachers to teach that course in conscience. I can't," Mr. Donovan said.

I don't think Ms. Stephanie really understands the concepts of 'parental perogative' and 'freedom of religion' - or for that matter, 'culture'!

How many more self immolating 'reforms' will Quebec endure under the rule of Monsieur Charest?

(see also)

ProLife Leader Paul Weyrich Leaves Legacy of Good Works

LifeSiteNews:Washington, D.C., December 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com):

Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old.

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins made the following comments in his daily radio commentary Washington Watch Daily:

"My good friend Paul Weyrich is gone. He was just sixty-six years old. Many people will be surprised at that. That's because we've watched Paul for decades as he battled diabetes, as he suffered amputations, but never, never any loss of his fighting spirit. Paul Weyrich has been a fixture in Washington, D.C. for more than thirty years. He fathered the religious conservative movement in American politics. He didn't over-intellectualize about Christians ‘jumping into the fray.’ He recognized early that the fray had jumped onto us. Liberal bureaucrats were coming after us-in our churches, in our schools, and in our families. Wherever a Planned Parenthood worker is breaking parents' hearts by leading their children into sin, we have a grievance against our government. Paul Weyrich was the first to show us how we could effectively petition our government for redress of our grievances. May our Lord keep His servant, Paul. And I pray our Lord will also comfort the loving Weyrich family."

CLC leader Jim Hughes was upset at the news. Speaking of Weyrich, a friend, Hughes said "he was one of the foremost conservative thinkers in the US and it's a tremendous loss to the life and family community."

Wifely Obedience

Quite an interesting article at Red Cardigan

:...Perhaps it's a spending issue--we want to buy something for the home, but our husbands think that the current item is perfectly good and doesn't need replacing. Perhaps it's a division of labor issue--we might believe that some particular task ought to be his responsibility, but he expects us to take care of it. Perhaps it's an educational issue--we want to switch to a different math textbook, but our husbands believe that the program already in use is superior and that we just need to work harder to make it appeal to the child. Or perhaps it has to do with dozens of other things, such as housework, family relationships, leisure time, involvement in parish groups or ministries, involvement in clubs or organizations, even the way we pray as a family; all of those are areas where a wife and husband may disagree, and a wife may eventually be called to obedience....

...How do we know when to obey our husbands, when to humor them out of love, and when to make a stand? Again, we look to the good of the family: if what they are asking is an important thing that is ordered toward the family's good, we ought to do it; if it's a less important thing or if it isn't really ordered toward the good of the family we may need to humor them, depending on the situation. But if what our husbands want is something disordered, or ordered against the good of the family, we must insist that this not be done, and not only owe no obedience, but could even be more in danger of sinning if we give it....

(h/t Creative Minority)

I agree in principle. In practice I sometimes lack the humility to put the good of my husband and my family before my emotional reaction to the situation at hand,(I believe the 'code' for that is LOVE!) but I keep improving. By the time we reach our 50th, I'll be a very good wife!

The Advent Antiphons

CHIESA:

...From (Dec.17) until the day before Christmas Eve, at the Magnificat during vespers in the Roman rite, seven antiphons are sung, one per day, all of them beginning with an invocation to Jesus, although he is never called by name.

The antiphons are very old, going back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great, around the year 600. They are in Latin, and are inspired by the texts of the Old Testament proclaiming the Messiah.

At the beginning of each antiphon, in order, Jesus is invoked as Wisdom, Lord, Root, Key, Star, King, Emmanuel. In Latin: Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, Emmanuel.

Read starting from the last, the Latin initials of these words form an acrostic: "Ero cras," meaning: "I will be [there] tomorrow." It is the proclamation of the Lord who comes. The last antiphon, which completes the acrostic, is sung on December 23, and the following day, with first vespers, the feast of the Nativity begins...

(h/t First Things)

Christmas Concert Lebanon (Dec./07)

The Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music
Choir: the Antonine University Choir, the NDU Choir and the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory Choir
Choir Direction: F. Khalil Rahme
Under the Direction of Dr. Walid Gholmieh
National Lebanese Orchestra

....and from Canada

SoCon posts on the real reasons behind the 'dismissal' of Dr.Larry Reynolds from the Univ. of Manitoba...you guessed it, he didn't 'fit in':

....the University of Manitoba has shown its intolerance and bigotry against a renowned and experienced professor and doctor because he did not tow the politically correct pro-abortion and pro-establishment line regarding family medicine..... the University of Manitoba - or any other government supported institution for that matter - should not be engaging in some kind of veiled political witchhunt against one its distinguished professors for having the audacity to hold contrary opinions to the University’s “Academic Authority”.

The Univ. of Manitoba has been known to FAIL, as in deny a degree, to medical students who refuse to perform or refer abortions. Dr. Larry Reynolds says this about refusing to refer for abortions :

“Some have argued that this means that we are imposing our beliefs on vulnerable women. Of course, this is not the case. We are maintaining our own moral conscience in refusing to become a mere instrument of someone else’s moral decisions. If we do anything less than this, we allow ourselves to become mere objects. That same argument also promotes the idea that women are helpless victims dependent on physicians to rescue them. Women are strong independent moral beings and deserve to be treated as such, as do physicians.”

Winnipeg also was recently the centre of a controversey when the the 'Grace' hospital tried to establish itself as the arbiter of 'human value', bullying a dying man's family in an attempt to speed his demise.

Any guesses where Dr. Reynolds stands on the issue of euthanizing elderly patients?

"Campus Abuse of Personal Freedoms"

(island school)

We’re talking about the right to free-speech and freedom of religion. Basic rights.

Washington Times has an article reminding us how much today’s universities are controlled by the ‘PC’ agenda :

…Young America’s Foundation once again compiled the “best of the worst” academic abuses for 2008. These stories are usually not reported in the “drive-by” media, no doubt to shield school officials from explaining their radical curricula. The Yuba incident tops the list, although it had plenty of competition, as you’ll see.

Transgendered Activists In, Pro-life Speakers Out:

Administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in Minnesota, inexplicably censored the appearance of prominent pro-life speaker Star Parker.

In April, Ms. Parker, the best-selling author of numerous books, was slated to speak on campus about the devastating impact abortion has on minority communities. Yet St. Thomas bureaucrats, under the helm of the Vice President of Student Affairs Jane Canney, forbade the lecture, claiming they felt “uncomfortable” and “disturbed” by previous conservative speakers at the University.

Speakers that passed Ms. Canney’s litmus test in 2008? Al Franken, the liberal U.S. Senate candidate in Minnesota, and Debra Davis, a transgendered activist who believes that God is a black lesbian….

When helping our young homeschoolers choose a university, we should keep in mind whether the school of choice will maintain the same standards of freedom and integrity we’ve been struggling to personally instill in our children. There still are some private colleges that understand what the ‘liberal’ in ‘liberal education’ means, but not that many!

(see also)


And being named 'in honour' of a saint, apparantly means NOTHING!

"The Angel Gabriel"

(Celtic Christmas)


"And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS." --Luke 1:31

Best New Blog! (Canadian Blog Awards)

Not ME! ProWoman ProLife! (see bios of blog team)

Significant, because at the very least, SOMEONE is reading pro-life blogs.

Follow The Money

Research shows that 'Catholic' politicians are not adverse to accepting campaign monies from abortion advocates.

Deal Hudson:

Lisa Correnti is a San Diego mother of seven children. But like many other Catholic mothers, she has engaged in politics in order to defend the basic values of her faith. For several years she has quietly built her Web site, www.onenationundergod.org, into a goldmine of up-to-date information on the performance of Catholic politicians.

In the midst of compiling information on political donations, Correnti noticed large amounts of money being regularly accepted by Catholic politicians from the pro-abortion lobby. She decided to uncover the total amount of campaign donations given to Catholic members of Congress by organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Emily's List, NOW, and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

In the end, Correnti found that a number of the 162 Catholics currently in Congress have taken money from pro-abortion groups -- to the tune of more than $9 million....

Can anyone spell 'h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e-s' ?

If you support abortion YOU ARE NOT CATHOLIC!!!

Catholic Carnival#203

"Waiting In Joyful Hope" is being hosted by Catholic Fire. A great variety of posts this week to help us prepare for the Big Event!


Gloucester Cathedral Choir - 'In A Bleak Mid-Winter'

Christmas On My Mind

Four days of homeschooling left before Christmas. No.5 son turns 12 today. No. 2 son arrives home on Wednesday night. Housework not done. Baking not done. Shopping - hahahaha. (Fortunately DH does most of that!) Thank goodness we live 2 blocks from the Church, because with three altar servers we have a busy schedule all month.

I may have a seasonally addled mind and molasses slow body but I am not panicking. My family has low expectations. I thank God for our Adoration Chapel and my regular hours of quiet time with Jesus. Nothing , not even my extreme unfitness for the tasks He has given me, can rattle me enough to shake my confidence in His love.
I love being Catholic!