BUYER BEWARE! Raising Your Indirect Taxes
Published July 11, 2010 | 
By Mark Morris, American Thinker, July 11, 2010
There are currently two pieces of tax legislation that have been introduced into Congress that will affect virtually every person in the United States. These new bills are very deceptive, since they tax the chemical and petroleum industry; however, what EPA and the sponsors of the bill do not mention is that these taxes will be passed back down to the consumer level.
The sponsors of the bill also claim that this tax will create or save jobs and “punish the polluters” (the petroleum and chemical industries) — especially in light of the BP oil spill. The original Superfund taxes expired on January 1, 1996. Since the tax expired, the Superfund trust fund balance has dwindled to virtually zero. The trust fund is currently funded by appropriation bills from Congress.
[b]y renewing the tax, the industries that had a hand in creating the problem — not taxpayers — will once again be held accountable for cleaning it up. … More importantly, we can put tens of thousands of people to work by investing in the restoration of these polluted sites.
In light of the lackluster condition that the economy is in right now, Congress should be considering ways to help the petroleum and chemical industries become more competitive in the global marketplace. This will not occur until legislators with environmentalist sympathies think more about the economy instead of the progression of their green agendas.
Mark Morris works in the chemical industry.
Ten Ways To Make Atheists Cry
Published July 11, 2010 | Ten surefire ways to really get under the skin of your favorite Atheist!
2. Join Mensa. Atheists are obsessed with their IQs and they love to flaunt their membership in an organization of people dedicated to self-congratulation. The atheist assumption is that religion is a sure sign of evolutionary atavism. A devout believer whipping out his Mensa card is entirely incomprehensible and ultimately indigestible.
3. Bait and Switch # 1. Atheists love to talk about the Spanish Inquisition. Get them, ever so casually, to talk about persecution by zealous believers in general, and then the persecution by zealous Marxists in particular. Finally, since atheists like math, have them compare the number killed by the Inquisition over several centuries (2,000-6,000) with the number killed by devout Marxists in one century (100,000,000).
4. Bait and Switch # 2. Despite their pretence to moral relativity, atheists will still grant that Adolf Hitler was epically evil. Having gotten them to admit this point, offer to read aloud some of the most offending passages from Mein Kamp (a special copy of which you just happened to be carrying). After about a half-hour, suddenly strike a quizzical look and say, “Wait a minute,” removing the dust jacket, “How did that happen? This is my copy of Margaret Sanger’s The Pivot of Civilization! Say, wasn’t she the founder of Planned Parenthood?”
5. Learn to talk like William F. Buckley. A comfortable prejudice for American atheists is that religious believers all speak with a heavy Southern accent and use small words.
6. Have Lots of Children. Atheists love humanity as long as there is less of it. They are especially grieved by biologically prodigious believers who seem to be taking Darwin at his word, but for all the wrong reasons. Nothing is more irksome than to behold their own future self-imposed extinction amidst the swelling tide of the God-fearing.
7. Host a Darwin Read-a-loud. Invite some atheist friends to read and discuss Darwin, and then read some purple passages from his Descent of Man where he waxes eloquently on the importance of eugenics, the biologically based moral and intellectual inferiority of “lesser races,” and the inevitable evolutionary extermination of the “negro” and the “Australian.”
8. Talk about the Impending Crash of the World Economy. Ideas have consequences, and some of the worst economic ideas were hatched by John Maynard Keynes. Make clear to your atheist interlocutor that the wide-scale adoption of Keynes’ conception of government as the grand fiddler micromanaging the economy through narcotic stimulation with freshly printed money is the single most important cause of the current American and European financial implosion. Then mention ever-so-casually, “Wasn’t Keynes an atheist?”
9. Stage a Nietzsche Practicum. Atheists love the nihilistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who famously declared “God is dead.” More exactly, they love it in theory, but invariably cringe at the practical implications Nietzsche quite logically drew out: without God, there is no moral order and the strong should devour the weak, for “life itself is will to power.” Invite your favorite atheist to meet you for lunch to discuss Nietzsche. Order the most expensive meal on the menu, steal his iPhone while he’s in the bathroom, and then at the end, stick him with the check. Then on the way out snatch the keys to his Saab and speed away in it singing at full lung, “I love Nietzsche! He’s really rather peachy. A world devoid of moral qualms is far more fuuunnnn…than one that’s preachy teachy!”
10. Assault Them with Charity (cont’d. from No. 9). Drive around the block to the restaurant again, and pull up to your fuming atheist friend. After returning the keys to his Saab and his iPhone, and shelling out your share of the tab, say “I just can’t bring myself to act as if God doesn’t exist.” Then, forever after treat him with unfailing kindness, as if he were Indian Untouchable and you were Mother Teresa.
Benjamin Wiker is the author of 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read: Plus Four Not to Miss and One Impostor (one of the books being C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man), and 10 Books that Screwed Up the World. His website is www.ameaningfulworldaudio.com
Gingrich: Obama Doesn’t Understand America
Published July 11, 2010 | Newt Gingrich makes a similar argument to Charles Krauthammer’s in yesterday’s Washington Post, which is that Barack Obama really doesn’t get America. That’s not to argue over origins, because as Gingrich also points out, a cadre of American elitists fall into the same trap. While the majority of the country opposes the federal lawsuit against Arizona, the ivory-tower academics are really the only group enthusiastically cheering it on. It speaks to a fundamental disconnect from the American mainstream, and that spells trouble for Obama that goes far beyond this lawsuit:
An apocryphal quote had New Yorker magazine film critic Pauline Kael claim to be surprised by Richard Nixon’s landslide re-election, saying that no one she knew voted for him. That quote gets pulled out on occasion to demonstrate the cluelessness of media and academic elites about the nature of the American mainstream. The actual quote was somewhat more damning:
“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”
In other words, it’s not an accidental cluelessness, but deliberate snobbery. That seems to be the case for this administration as well. The lawsuit against Arizona appears to be an attempt to lecture the American mainstream about how Obama and his circle demand us to think, not an attempt to right some egregious wrong. If that were the case, then Obama would have filed suit against Rhode Island last year for doing the same thing, and would have ended the BIET program that encourages state and local law enforcement to enforce immigration law and refer violators to ICE.
Barack Obama seems to have a bad case of Kael Syndrome, in one sense or the other, and the American mainstream has begun to discover it.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/10/gingrich-obama-doesnt-understand-america/
Rep. Maloney and Sen. Menendez Introduce Bill to Restrict Speech of Pro-Life Crisis Pregnancy Centers by Controlling Their Advertising
Published July 11, 2010 | By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer, CNSNews, July 09, 2010
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have reintroduced legislation to restrict the speech of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers by regulating the advertising they do.
The bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to restrict advertising by the pregnancy resource centers, specifically ads that “create the impression that such person is a provider of abortion services if such person does not provide abortion services.”
But critics claim the “Stop Deceptive Advertising in Women’s Services Act,” first introduced in 2007, is itself deceptive and is designed to limit the access women have to organizations that provide alternatives to abortion, including adoption services and free parenting support, such as housing, job training, and parenting classes.
“This bill is not at all what it sounds like,” said Joe Young, vice president of Heartbeat International, an association of 1,100 pregnancy-help centers, maternity homes, non-profit adoption agencies, medical clinics and abortion recovery programs in 50 countries.
“Pregnancy centers are reducing the number of abortion sales, and this aggravates the abortion industry,” said Young. “A more accurate name for this bill might be ‘Stop Alternatives to Abortion Advertising to Pay Back the Abortion Industry Act.’”
“Without any financial gain, Heartbeat International affiliates offer alternatives to abortion, providing the emotional support and practical help needed to sustain a healthy pregnancy,” Young said in a statement about the proposed law. “The pregnancy help movement is dedicated to protecting women, protecting maternal health and protecting child well-being.” Continue reading
Obama Bypasses Senate to Install Controversial “Rationing Czar” at Medicare Center
Published July 11, 2010 |
Mark Shea: Seek the Things Above!
Published July 11, 2010 | By Mark Shea, Catholic News Agency, July 11th, 2010
Colossians 3:1
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
The Christian’s search is always for something beyond this world. That doesn’t mean we ignore the world. But it does mean that we never expect the world to satisfy us completely. Our Long Home is Heaven, not earth. Our task here is to try to make earth conform a bit to Heaven while never demanding that it become Heaven. Those who forget this often end up making earth look like hell. Those who remember it find that, in the sacraments, the things of earth point naturally to Christ, who is “seated at the right hand of God” in Heaven. Today, seek the things above.
Archbishop Burke Appointed to Congregation for Divine Worship: Has Pro-Life Significance
Published July 11, 2010 | By Patrick B. Craine, July 9, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com
VATICAN – Pope Benedict XVI has named Archbishop Raymond Burke as a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
The appointment of Archbishop Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican’s highest court), is significant due to the fact that it is this congregation that oversees the distribution of Holy Communion; Archbishop Burke is perhaps the most vocal figure in the Vatican on the need to deny Communion to obstinately pro-abortion politicians.
The Code of Canon Law, in canon 915, states that “those who have been … obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
While still a cardinal, the pope himself wrote to the United States bishops saying that a Catholic politician who votes for “permissive abortion and euthanasia laws,” after being duly instructed and warned, “must” be denied Communion.
The current prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Antonio Canizares, has also attested that canon 915 must be applied to pro-abortion politicians. Prefect emeritus, Cardinal Francis Arinze, balked at the notion that a cardinal was needed to answer the question, saying that even children at First Communion would insist that Communion should be denied to such individuals.
Many bishops ignore or even oppose this directive, affirmed repeatedly by numerous Vatican officials; but Archbishop Burke maintains that bishops have no choice in the matter.
“The Church’s law is very clear,” he told LifeSiteNews in January 2009. “The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn’t say that the bishop shall decide this. It’s an absolute.”
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
For the Vatican it’s Clear – Pro-Abortion Politicians ‘Must’ be Denied Communion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09112709.html
Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09020402.html
Panel Okays Military Abortions
Published July 11, 2010 | By Rich Daly, National Catholic Register Correspondent, Jun 28, 2010
WASHINGTON — Even as several states move to restrict abortions, the federal government is increasing its support of elective abortions. The latest effort in that vein came from a Senate committee that voted to reverse a 15-year ban on elective abortions on military bases.
The mandate on the military to provide elective abortions on military bases worldwide — as long as the service member paid for it — was narrowly adopted by the Senate Armed Services Committee as part of the annual defense authorization bill. The panel adopted the amendment by 15-12 in a closed-door session in late May.
The vote was criticized for requiring the use of taxpayer-funded personnel and facilities for elective abortions.
“Regardless of their views on whether abortion is ever justified, the vast majority of Americans agree that taxpayer dollars should not subsidize such controversial procedures,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., in a written statement. “Unfortunately, if the provisions of the defense authorization bill are allowed to stand, military treatment facilities will become abortion clinics built and operated at taxpayer expense.”
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said pro-life advocates, who plan to fight the measure as it moves through Congress this summer see it as a significant expansion by the federal government into abortion.
“If they succeed, military hospitals all over the world will become abortion facilities,” Johnson said. “We don’t think the federal government ought to be in the business of running abortion mills.”
The new measure would reverse a 1995 federal law that Republicans enacted when they took control of Congress. That ban on elective abortions at military bases reversed an executive order by President Bill Clinton to allow the practice.
The proposed expansion in federal support of elective abortion follows on the heels of a controversial decision by some pro-life Democrats to support the massive health-care overhaul enacted in the spring, despite the refusal of Democratic leaders to include a strong ban on the use of federal taxpayer funds for elective abortions. The defense-related abortion measure is viewed by prolife advocates as continuing the proabortion policies advocated by Democratic congressional leaders.
“This [amendment] is another example of the congressional leadership relentlessly pushing an expansion of abortion,” Johnson said.
The Senate committee’s vote came as several states moved to tighten elective abortion regulations, including the approval of bills in Florida and Louisiana to require ultrasounds before an abortion is allowed.
The fate of the Florida bill is uncertain, as Gov. Charlie Christ, an Independent, may veto it to appeal to liberal voters in his Senate bid after he left the Republican Party. Continue reading
John Paul II on Why Legalized Abortion Is a Cancer in the Heart of Democracy
Published July 11, 2010 | By Thomas Peters, CatholicVoteAction.org, July 8th, 2010
A priest friend of mine (and avid AmP reader) recently pointed out this startling passage from Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life).
Reading it reminded me of why fighting against the scourge of abortion in this country is so important not only because of the unborn babies who are at risk, but because abortion’s continue existence threatens the foundations of our free and democratic society.
I have underlined the parts I found most important:
“This is what is happening also at the level of politics and government: the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people-even if it is the majority.
This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the “right” ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism.
The State is no longer the “common home” where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part.
The appearance of the strictest respect for legality is maintained, at least when the laws permitting abortion and euthanasia are the result of a ballot in accordance with what are generally seen as the rules of democracy. Really, what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations: “How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?”
When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun.
To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8:34).”
I think this passage is useful to meditate on and recall when fellow Catholics challenge us over the importance and priority we give to the tragedy of legal abortion in America. I would challenge those who claim to follow the teaching of the pope (e.g., the teaching of the Church) to justify any other course of action except giving priority to eliminating abortion in our country as soon as possible.
As a Catholic, I do not see any other way to choose except to choose to fight for life.
UPDATE: On a related action note, this Saturday (July 10th) 30+ pro-life leaders/organizations will be hosting a one-day online webcast event called Ending Abortion. I’d urge you to check it out and help spread the word. It’s totally free.
http://www.catholicvoteaction.org/americanpapist/index.php?p=7809
THE MAN WHO ALMOST WASN’T! The Untold LeBron James Story: He Could Have Been a Victim of Abortion
Published July 11, 2010 | …How many basketball stars are missing from the court because of abortion? Is it possible that the next LeBron James is already here, but that his mother, pressured by those around her, has scheduled an abortion tomorrow?….
By Maria Vitale, LifeNews.com, July 9, 2010
It’s been one of the biggest sports stories of the season, becoming one of the dominant topics in cyberspace and on television: Where will basketball great LeBron James play ball? Even beloved television actress Betty White got into the act, making a plea for the NBA star to stay in Cleveland.
The speculation about his future whereabouts was so great that it was decided that the announcement of his next career move would be carried live on ESPN.
But the man who has been nicknamed the “Chosen One” did not have an easy path to sports superstardom.
His mother was in her mid-teens when she found out she was pregnant. High school graduation was still a while away. She was not a person of means.
About a decade before her pregnancy, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that the mere fact of being a teenager could be considered a health reason justifying abortion. She could have easily taken that route. In fact, chances are a Planned Parenthood counselor would have recommended it.
But she chose life, and her son became known as the Chosen One.
This much-sought-after basketball player is a fan’s dream. According to the website LeBronJamesWorld.com, he led his Akron high school to a 27-0 record in his freshman year. He later became the first sophomore to be named Ohio’s “Mr. Basketball.”
When he reached the NBA, he became the first Cleveland Cavalier and the youngest NBA player to ever receive the title “Rookie of the Year.” He would go on to play in the Olympics and, in the 2008 Summer games, he earned 31 points—the most by an American. He led his team to a gold medal.
And now, the sports world has been eagerly awaiting his decision on where he’ll play next.
Far away from the cameras, a quarter century ago, a bigger decision was made by a young woman that the world might have thought was incapable of parenthood. She was cheering for LeBron, long before the rest of us were.
How many basketball stars are missing from the court because of abortion? Is it possible that the next LeBron James is already here, but that his mother, pressured by those around her, has scheduled an abortion tomorrow?
Is abortion about to claim another Chosen One?
http://www.lifenews.com/nat6517.html
Obama Bypasses Senate to Install Controversial “Rationing Czar” at Medicare Center
Published July 11, 2010 | By Peter J. Smith, July 9, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Performing an “end-run” around the Senate confirmation process, President Barack Obama has installed Dr. Donald Berwick, an enthusiast for medical rationing and an unabashed admirer of the United Kingdom’s socialized health care system, as head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services via a recess appointment.
The move means Berwick may take charge of the Center for the next year, without first having to go through Senate approval. This will allow him to have an influence on the CMS’s $800 billion budget and the myriad regulations that must be drafted for the national health care reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known by its critics as “ObamaCare”), before it takes full effect in 2014.
Burke Balch, director of National Right to Life Committee’s (NRLC) Powell Center for Medical Ethics, called the appointment “disastrous news for the vulnerable, especially the elderly and the sickest of American patients.”
Republicans expressed outrage, saying that the president was avoiding a public debate on a man whose advocacy of rationing is way outside the mainstream.
“Democrats held no hearing, allowed no public testimony, and called no votes on this nomination,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), Chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “In short, they did everything to hide Dr. Berwick’s radical views and made absolutely no effort to follow the regular, established process for confirming a presidential nomination. Clearly, they did not want Berwick’s adamant support for rationing health care debated in the light of day.”
Obama justified the recess appointment of Berwick, alleging that Republicans were stonewalling the process “for political purposes” – even though the GOP with its 41 votes in the Senate is hardly in a position to delay confirmation hearings.
Reports have indicated that Democrat Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the Senate Finance Chairman, had not even scheduled hearings and lacked the nominee’s complete paperwork.
Berwick has made many glowing statements in favor of rationing, stressing repeatedly his belief that the collective interest of the state must trump the individual’s right to seek the kind of health care that he wants.
Berwick went on record with the journal Biotechnology Healthcare last year saying, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that Berwick co-authored a 1996 book entitled “New Rules,” in which he argued that government health regulations had a primary duty “to constrain decentralized, individual decision making” and “to weigh public welfare against the choices of private consumers.”
Berwick repeated this utilitarian attitude toward health care in the May/June 2008 issue of Health Affairs, saying that “rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest” is necessary to reduce per capita patient costs.
Berwick has also gone on record stating that government should “approach new technologies and capital investments with skepticism” and place heavy burdens of proof on those offering medical innovations.
“Donald Berwick is a one-man death panel,” said Dr. David O’Steen, NRLC’s executive director. “While Americans may not remember the agency he heads, he will quickly become known as Obama’s rationing czar.”
Obama’s new CMS chief has described his passion for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) – notorious for its rationing practices – in amorous detail.
In 2008, on the NHS’s 60th anniversary, Berwick gushed, “I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.”
The NHS’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), which determines what treatments and how much the NHS will pay per patient, Berwick has described as having “developed very good and very disciplined … models for the evaluation of medical treatment from which we ought to learn.”
He has additionally stated, “The N.H.S. is not just a national treasure; it is a global treasure” and has elsewhere praised the British people for having socialized medicine and rejecting “the darkness of private enterprise.”
However, critics of the U.K.’s socialized system have pointed out that the numbers don’t paint the system in a kindly light.
A study published in 2007 in Lancet Oncology showed that England’s 5-year cancer survival rate for men is only 45%, lagging far behind the 66% rate in the U.S; England’s survival rate for women stands at 53%, compared with 63% in the U.S. Both figures, say opponents of Berwick and socialized medicine, indicate that the “darkness of private enterprise” may not be so dark after all.
Additionally, in the U.K. patients are limited to a maximum of £30,000 per capita for their treatment each year by NICE, as a way to cut costs. This limit, however, poses a serious problem for the development of new treatments, which often take the form of extremely expensive experimental drugs.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Obama’s decision to appoint Berwick.
“As if shoving a trillion-dollar government takeover of healthcare down the throat of a disapproving American public wasn’t enough, apparently the Obama administration intends to arrogantly circumvent the American people yet again by recess-appointing one of the most prominent advocates of rationed healthcare to implement their national plan,” McConnell said.
Michael Voris: Sex and the Dissident 07-09
Published July 11, 2010 | If you want to know why the Church is full of dissidents, look no further than the issue of sexual morality.
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Michael Voris: Latin Mass 07-08
Published July 11, 2010 | What is all the ruckus over the Latin Mass?
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GOSPEL & MEDITATION: Love of Neighbor
Published July 11, 2010 | July 11, 2010
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Father Shawn Aaron, LC
Luke 10: 25-37
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ´Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.´ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers´ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Introductory Prayer: Almighty and ever-living God, I seek new strength from the courage of Christ our shepherd. I believe in you, I hope in you, and I seek to love you with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength. I want to be led one day to join the saints in heaven, where your Son Jesus Christ lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Petition: Jesus, may I love as you have loved me.
1. Search for the Fountain of Life Since the human soul is spiritual, its longings are infinite in scope, and so we naturally want to live an eternity of happiness, an eternity full of life. Yet this scholar of the law has keenly perceived that eternal life is more that just the next step after death. I must do something in order to inherit it. My existence and my redemption are totally unmerited gifts from God: I never asked him for the gift of life nor did I ask him to die for me, yet here I am, alive and redeemed. What is more, I can never earn either existence or God´s free love. Yet there is at least an aspect of eternal life that derives from my merit. The quality of my eternal life corresponds to the quality of my love and the goodness of my deeds on this side of eternity.
2. Laws and Lawyers The response of Jesus verifies a profoundly Catholic understanding of reality. The scholar´s question could be put in another way: “What must I do to be saved?” One would expect the response to be: “Believe, have faith!” Yet Jesus already knows that this man has faith. He confirms that faith is certainly necessary for salvation, but that faith must be translated into love if we are to have eternal life. When Jesus says, “What is written in the law,” he presupposes faith in God, the author of the moral law. But in addition, he is inviting him to apply his faith to living the law in love. Faith and works are inseparable. “Whoever says, ´I know him,´ but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever keeps his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection” (1 John 2:4-5).
3. Simple, Not Complicated With these words Jesus brings the lesson to a full conclusion. By loving as the Good Samaritan loves, we are on the path to a life that is never-ending, a life that we naturally long to experience and possess. We must always trust Jesus when we find that he places us in situations that stretch our love and generosity to limits that often hurt. He knows that we long for eternal life, but he also knows that the path to that life is a love that purifies, stretches, and demands our all. Therefore, Jesus invites us to follow him down the road of life-giving love. Every crucifix reminds us of this self-giving love that leads to life.
Conversation with Christ: Blessed Lord, increase my faith so that I may see you in every person I meet. Strengthen my hope that I may trust firmly that you will give me all I need to love as you ask. Deepen my love that I may experience the joy that comes from giving and not counting the cost. Mother Most Pure, make my heart only for Jesus.
Resolution: Today I will do three hidden acts of charity.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
Alinsky, Stalinsky, It’s Still the Same Old Agitprop
….We have a big jihad sympathizer in the White House….
By James Lewis, American Thinker, July 11, 2010
“Stalinism” is a useful term for the totalitarian left — even to the left itself. It’s one word they haven’t been able to chew up, gulp down, and transform into its opposite.
They still know what “Stalinist” means, even after generations of new names for the same community agitators: “The New Left,” “hippies,” “Black Panthers,” “youthful radicals,” “idealistic students,” “feminists,” “the workers,” “black nationalists,” “Third World socialists,” “the wretched of the earth,” “Green Party,” “Gay activists,” “LGBT,” “Global Warming,” “peace and freedom party,” “eco activists,” “civil rights campaigners,” “post-modernists,” “gender studies,” “J Street,” “Bolivarismo,” “ACORN,” “undocumented workers,” “Moveon.org,” “Liberation Theology” — there must be hundreds and hundreds of front labels for the Same-Old, Same-Old. They make up new ones all the time. This year’s fashionable lefty cult is called … “progressivism!”
But they do remember what “Stalinism” means, because that was the bad left. It’s what they call each other in their constant civil wars. Wasn’t Stalin somebody eighty years ago? It’s hard to remember. Don’t know much ’bout history, don’t know much ’bout nuthin, but Stalin still rings a bell.
I would be very surprised if Obama and his “anti-terror czar” John Brennan didn’t know all about the Gaza stunt. Their close friend Jodie Evans was right on the spot, after all, organizing the international “peaceful” demonstrators who instantly flew back home to drop identical headlines accusing Israel from Norway to Pakistan. Some of them weren’t even there, but they still gave on-the-spot reports. They knew the narrative.
We have a big jihad sympathizer in the White House, just like Obama and his buds from Chicago, just like Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, just like Obama’s hero Malcolm X, and just like Jodie Evans and Bill Ayers whipping up crowds for Hamas. These people are predictably on the side of medieval reactionaries who practice barbarities against women, gays, Jews, Christians, and especially any creed that advocates tolerance and open-mindedness. The left is enabling evil today, just as it enabled Mao Zedong’s evil in China, Pol Pot’s evil in Cambodia, and Stalin’s evil in Russia, Poland, and Ukraine.
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