Rise! And Live Friend, In the dark night That time of thunder Overcome You were led from us Lives knit with yours, Like leaves On a windy November night Scattered Raise your chin Like a newly born flower You have broken through to rich atmosphere Rise! And live. Michele Marie
So, where are we ten years after 9/11? It is comforting that we have been blessed with a near-unbroken decade without further mass-casualty attacks since those that killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, our government is pursuing policies that can only encourage those who aspire to do us harm to redouble their […]
How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling […]
Commentary on the riots inLondon and other British cities has frequently made the point that what happened there could be a forerunner of something that might happen inAmerica. And why not? After all, it already has — think of Watts, think of the eruptions inWashingtonand other American cities after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. […]
General George S. Patton, Jr., in his 1926 essay, “The Secret of Victory,” wrote, “The secret of victory lies not wholly in knowledge. It lurks invisible in that vitalizing spark, intangible, yet as evident as the lightning — the warrior soul. The fixed determination to acquire the warrior soul, and having acquired it to either […]
For America 2001 was annus mirabilis. And so it was for me in terms both personal and professional. The year brought a great honor in the form of my confirmation by the U.S. Senate to run the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency, pursuant to my nomination by President George W. Bush. The […]
The Entertainer I saw human suffering Who danced a funny step, Loose-limbed, slow and casual, Angular, adept An entertainer not a clown, He had a pleasant smile, Astonishing to see him so – I watched him for a while He danced inside a shopping mall As shoppers passed him by, Very thin and very tall, […]
If you watched President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, you didn’t see anything new. He did what he does best—campaign for re-election and pay lip service to private enterprise and fiscal responsibility while proposing more top-down economic planning that (despite his claims to the contrary) will surely plunge the government more deeply […]
I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry. Once I was a blasphemer and a persecutor of the Church, an arrogant man. But I have I have been treated mercifully because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. […]
So, you finally did the responsible thing: you executed a Last Will and Testament. If you consulted with an attorney, you probably got a Durable Power of Attorney for Financial Decisions and a Durable Power of Attorney for Medical Decisions, too. Good for you. But you’re not done yet. You see, estate planning is kind […]
Fresh off of what they hailed as a “historic” human rights victory, homosexual activists are expected to aggressively push their agenda in the UN General Assembly set to convene later this month. Last June a small number of Member States of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva passed a non-binding resolution calling for a […]
September’s Light The light is In the sun Of gold To warm you When your thoughts Grow cold. The light is In the wafered Moon Piercing pitch A glorious Boon. The light Reflects in Crystal snow Glittering Mantle Blanketing woe. The light is Stagnant In infants’ souls Glistening water Will deepen Their shoals. The light […]
A review of The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America & Grizzly Man Who among us has not, in a whimsical or polemical moment, deployed religious metaphors to criticize or belittle a professional or ideological adversary who does not quite see things the way one might wish? That economist at […]
While surveying the landscape for inroads to push the homosexual agenda into Poland, American embassy officials under the Obama administration complained that the Catholic Church teaching is a major source of “homophobia” in the heavily Catholic country, according to private cables recently published by Wikileaks. The cables from the American embassy in Warsaw, marked “sensitive […]
One of my friends at the University of Washington was Milt Gordon (God rest his soul). Milt was a real scientist, and Chairman of the University’s Department of Microbiology. After I had left academia, Milt did some successful work (not just theory or studies) in plant genetics. Trapping Milt Gordon One evening, as Milt and […]
The country has just passed through a long debate to reach a doubtful end. Indeed, it is not really an end at all, but a mere postponement of the fight, a fight that will last through the next elections at least. Hence, we will spend the next year and a half witnessing a debate over […]
Not Just Yet Where the roads you have known and walked on bend Come down this day to the river with me, Where the current runs so wide descend, A long boat waiting patiently Seats on deck, there’s room for more – Has someone used that seat before? You will not cross today but ride […]
One of the most famous stories from the Bible is that of “The Prodigal Son,” a tale that has resonated with parents across times and cultures. The basic plot of the story is straightforward: a rebellious youth sets off from home in search of worldly pleasures, and having wasted his father’s money and reputation, eventually […]
Backpack? Check. Transformers lunchbox? Check. Leftist political Kool-Aid? Check. Looks like the school year can begin. This week, millions of American children return to their classrooms. Unfortunately, the material some of them will be forced to study is controversial, to say the least. In keeping with their habit of using our educational system to impose […]
“We are a growing Church, and each year around 1000 people find their way to the Faith.” This was the report of a bishop from India during a visit to international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Bishop Cyprian Monis, from the Diocese of Asansol in West Bengal, on the eastern […]
Often I hear Christians complain about the protagonist in a movie because he or she made one or more immoral decisions, and is therefore a poor role model. Another oft heard criticism is that movies are filled with too much on-screen conflict or violence, thus giving audiences the wrong idea about how to resolve problems. […]
Mary’s Fiat The angel held his voice, Awaiting the child’s choice. Hoping to return with a good report. As other cherubim, In haste to hear her hymn, Descended fast from heavenly court. But could that child ever fair, Have know the gravity of this affair? Now Eve sat in suspense, To hear her eloquence. For, […]
Chapter 4 Mary’s Immaculate Conception In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pope Pius IX declared that the Blessed Virgin Mary “in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved […]
For more than a century baseball has been called America’s national pastime, and Major League Baseball is flourishing today. However, in recent decades, football—college and professional—has surpassed baseball in popularity and prominence. For many men and some women, fall weekends and football are synonymous. Both the National Football League and major colleges attract huge audiences […]
