Brown Pelican Society of Louisiana

Michael Ramirez Cartoon

UPDATE, 4:37p: The House Republican’s #3, Mike Pence, has now issued a statement condemning Obamacare’s PA abortion funding.

UPDATE, 4:03p: I’m told on high authority from someone who saw it that the Obama administration issued a statement last night stating the $160 mil wouldn’t cover abortions and then pulled it back. I’m told a new or revised statement is in the works.

UPDATE, 3p: This dispersement of Obamacare funding to PA is likely the last thing pro-life Democrat Congressperson Kathy Dahlkemper needed to hear. Dahlkemper voted for Obamacare after Obama signed the EO and has become a target of a couple pro-life groups. One in particular, the Susan B. Anthony List, is slamming her this afternoon in a press release:

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the SBA [said].. “So-called ‘pro-life’ Democrats pushed politics over principle when they supported a sham executive order that wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.”

“Prior to the healthcare vote, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3) said she would represent the pro-life majority in her district. But it was clear she was playing politics. Pennsylvanians now know they are being forced to pay for abortions with their own money. Rep. Dahlkemper and the Obama administration said the executive order would prevent taxpayers from having to pay for abortion, but this PA insurance pool program proves that that was a false promise.”…

Continue reading “Obamacare to fund abortions in Pennsylvania; heat on Dahlkemper”

http://www.jillstanek.com/

…The past eighteen months have seen a brutal assault on liberty. As government grows, personal freedoms shrink. The private industry buy-offs and bailouts, cap-and-trade, the government takeover of health care. The price tags are bad enough. But what’s truly frightening is how they diminish freedom…..

Prof. Robert George is a vast improvement on James Carville.

By Ken Blackwell, The American Spectator, 7.15.10

James Carville, Bill Clinton’s political strategist supposedly coined the now infamous: “It’s the economy, stupid.” This admittedly smart strategy, widely attributed to have won Clinton the Presidency, is now being chanted, mantra-like, by the mainstream media and the Washington political elite as they fundamentally misunderstand the brewing anger and frustration amongst everyday Americans.

They think this is all about dollars and cents. They think that it’s all about a $13-trillion debt and trillion-dollar annual deficits far into the future. Washington, in its arrogance, thinks this is all about spending the people’s money.

But that’s a somewhat superficial reading of the people’s discontent. The grassroots grumbling is not just about money. It’s about freedom. The people are justifiably annoyed that their pockets are being picked; however, they know that the loss of their God-given, constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms is as grave a concern.

The past eighteen months have seen a brutal assault on liberty. As government grows, personal freedoms shrink. The private industry buy-offs and bailouts, cap-and-trade, the government takeover of health care. The price tags are bad enough. But what’s truly frightening is how they diminish freedom.

Take religious liberty, the first among equals, so to speak. As Thomas Jefferson once defined it, “a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.”

When it comes to religious liberty, this Administration has vacillated between indifference and contempt — both of which are equally dangerous to this important and fundamental human right. For instance, only a few weeks after Obama moved into the White House, his Administration filed a rescission proposal to undo a Bush-era regulation protecting the conscience rights of health care workers. And the sweeping changes to American health care delivery just signed into law similarly include no real conscience protections.

The Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reversed a previous EEOC ruling, accusing a small Catholic college in North Carolina — Belmont Abbey — of sex discrimination because it doesn’t cover contraceptives in its faculty health insurance plan. By this reasoning, what religious institution — be it hospitals, colleges, nursing homes — will not be forced to choose between upholding the doctrines of its faith and meeting its secular mission?

Some could argue that this is just as much an aversion to all things George W. Bush as it is the stereotypical liberal distaste for all things religious. But the Obama Administration has been equally disdainful of religious liberty activities championed by the Clinton Administration.

President Bill Clinton and his State Department signed the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act into law and aggressively executed its protections. However, President Obama did not nominate an Ambassador to fulfill that role for a year and a half, signaling that senior envoys for HIV/AIDS and Guantanamo took precedence over worldwide promotion of religious freedom.

But the American people are not contemptuous of or indifferent to religious liberty. Perhaps that is why Professor Robert P. George is emerging as a leader in today’s movement for freedom.

As the McCormick Chair of Jurisprudence at Princeton University; founder of the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative think tank; and founder of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, which is being emulated on college campuses from NYU to Williams, Professor George is best known in academic circles as a constitutional and legal scholar.

But George is equally respected amongst policy-makers and commentators, having pursued the practical application of his ideas as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics.

Hailed as “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker,” George was recently featured in a long profile in the New York Times. He is considered a bridge between academia, policy, and religion. Politicians, including several presidential contenders, seek his scholarly insight and religious leaders seek his political acumen. As Rev. John Myers, Archbishop of Newark, has put it, “Whenever I venture out into the public square, I would almost invariably check it out with Robby first.”

George does not shy away from the culture wars. In fact, he seems to relish confronting the “secularist orthodoxy” of today’s liberals. He sits squarely on the side of the so-called Religious Right, though that would be a far too simplistic characterization of his dogma.

At the center of George’s philosophy is the premise that the principles of morality are not necessarily divined through faithful revelation; they are born of right reason and natural law. In spite of this seeming dissociation with faith — or perhaps because of it — George passionately defends the right of every person to pursue his relationship with his Creator in the way that suits his conscience.

I was recently a vice chairman of the dinner when George was honored by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty for his work promoting this fundamental right. He received the fund’s Canterbury Medal, joining a prestigious group of defenders of religious freedom, including Elie Wiesel, Chuck Colson, and Archbishop Chaput. In a tribute to George and recognition of the importance of religious liberty, the Four Seasons stately dining room where the award was presented was filled to capacity with religious, intellectual, and political leaders.

The Becket Fund and Family Research Council, on whose boards George sits, are dedicated to defending religious liberty. For more than a decade, the Becket Fund has pursued freedom of faithful expression in all its forms — from defense of the words “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to defense of the conscientious objections of faithful pharmacists to pursuit of international religious freedom. The Becket Fund and FRC are taking Washington ‘s assault on religious liberty head on.

And Washington better start listening. As George recently said: “The moral foundations of economic conservatism are precisely those of social conservatism, namely, respect for the human person, which grounds our commitment to individual liberty and the right to economic freedom and other essential civil liberties….”

The mainstream media and the political elites may not have made the connection yet, but freedom is at the heart of this grassroots insurrection. And they are ignoring this at their own peril.

Ken Blackwell is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/15/its-not-only-about-the-economy

GAUDIUM DE VERITATE, July 14, 2010

I was thrilled when Glenn Beck quoted Pope Benedict yesterday, but I was even more impressed to see him do it for a second time, today.  Certainly, Glenn is given to hyperbole, and that may be the understatement of the century, but more often than not, I feel that what lies underneath all the emotion and drama is a pretty hard layer of truth.  No matter what others may think about the guy, at the very least I admire his bare-boned, gut-checked honesty and witness to Jesus Christ (on a cable news network of all places).  Though Glenn Beck is a Mormon, everything I have ever heard him say about Christ – and he mentions Him often enough – is spot on.  Back to the topic at hand… quoting the Pope.  While Glenn and his staff are usually a few months ahead of the curve when it comes to foreseeing political events and trends, this time a dear friend of mine over at Roma Locuta Est beat him to it.  You see, my friend posted a thought well over a year ago when the country, and the whole world for that matter, were swooning over the newly inaugurated President of the United States.  What follows are two of the quotes he used from the Holy Father which served as food for thought.  The second of these is the very quote Glenn Beck has used twice this week.  Ponder anew, friends.

Ratzinger on Faith and Politics

From Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (1987), page 6-7

Quoted in Joseph Ratzinger, Life in the Church and Living Theology, by M. Heim, page 253

“The man of today looks towards the future. His slogan is ‘Progress,’ not ‘Tradition’; ‘Hope,’ not ‘Faith.’ He is moved, it is true, by a certain romanticism about the past…. For that to which he looks forward is not, as in the early Church, the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of man. ”

Question – Can you think of a man who is “progressive,” whose slogan is “hope,” and who looks, along with his radical counterparts, to the government (ie. the kingdom of man) to solve our problems?

+  +  +  +  +  +  +  +

From A Turning Point for Europe? The Church in the Modern World (1991), page 89 — Quoted in Joseph Ratzinger, Life in the Church and Living Theology, by M. Heim, page 220 (footnote 63)

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.”

This second quote says quite enough on its own.  May God save us from political radicals and allow natural common sense, elevated by grace and guided by His Wisdom, to prevail!

GAUDIUM DE VERITATE!!!

http://joyfromtruth.blogspot.com/2010/07/glenn-beck-quotes-pope.html

Rectories and priests used to get these kinds of calls. Now the laity gets them. What’s up with that?

If you cannot see the video below go to: http://www.realcatholictv.com/free/index.php?vidID=vort-2010-07-14


This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

God I Love Megyn Kelly – Town Hall Meeting

…It does not matter whether all or some of these (tax) proposals are merely trial balloons. They still have a depressing effect in reminding the productive classes that the government is going to take a much larger percentage of their rewards and spend it for purposes that might just make things worse still. That notion kills rather than spurs investment…..

Victor Davis Hansen, National Review, July 14, 2010

Obama and his team speak the language of redistribution and entitlements — not the language of opportunity and prosperity. And Main Street is listening.

I asked a businessman two weeks ago why he said that he was neither hiring nor buying new equipment. He started in on “rising taxes.”

“But wait,” I interrupted. I pointed out that income-tax hikes haven’t taken effect. The old FICA income caps are also still applicable. Health-care surcharges haven’t hit us yet.

He countered with “regulations” and “bailouts.” I said, “Come on, get specific.” He offered up “cap and trade” and “the Chrysler creditors.” I parried with more demands that he tell me exactly how the federal government has suddenly curbed his profit margins, or how his electric bill had gone up since January 2009, or whether he had lost money on any investment because the government had violated a contract.

Exasperated, he talked now instead of more cosmic issues — the astronomical borrowing, the staggering national debt, and the new protectionism. I pressed again, “But aren’t interest rates historically low? Inflation is almost non-existent, isn’t it? New products are still comparatively cheap? Rents and new business property are at bargain-basement prices?”

This give-and-take went on for ten minutes; but you get the picture. Private enterprise is wary, hesitant, even frightened, but nevertheless hard pressed to demonstrate in concrete fashion how Obama has quite ruined them in just 18 months.

So why are a lot of cash-solvent financial firms, banks, and manufacturing companies not hiring, not expanding, and not buying new operating equipment as they did in past bottoming-out recessions?

In a word, fear. Remember that capitalism is in large part psychologically driven. Confidence, optimism, and a sense of calm about the future foster risk and investment, while worry, pessimism, and a sense of foreboding ensure timidity and stasis.

Barack Obama — who is mostly a creature of the university and the dependable government payroll — does not seem to grasp that fact. If one were to deconstruct any one speech, any particular piece of proposed legislation, or any single executive order, one might not necessarily conclude that Obama’s agenda bodes poorly for the creation of capital. But after 18 months, put the pieces together, and the once jumbled-up jigsaw puzzle starts to form a disturbingly coherent picture.

First, there are the appointees and their various public statements — again, insignificant in isolation, but telling in their totality. Why would any executive hire the self-avowed Communist gadfly Van Jones as his adviser for “green” jobs? Regulation is one thing, but an interior secretary promising a “boot on the neck” of a company is quite another. Why does a labor secretary reassure, gratuitously, illegal aliens that they are not really subject to lawful enforcement of the laws?

What is California agribusiness to make of the energy secretary’s prediction that Golden State farms will soon dry up and blow away? Is that a promise or a prediction? If the latter, is it lamented or welcomed?

Was not Mao the world’s most lethal Communist? Why then would a White House communications director see him as an inspirational figure?

NASA historically marries private enterprise and government purpose to study and explore space; why then would President Obama direct its head to put “foremost” the use of our resources to make Muslims feel good about their scientific past?

Why ram through on a recess appointment a new health-care czar who has repeatedly warned that good health care is synonymous with redistribution of resources and wealth?

Second, there is Obama’s own history, which suggests that his subordinates are competing in parroting the world view of the man at the top. On the campaign trail, Obama touched upon the need for “redistributive change,” a desire for “skyrocketing” energy prices, and the imperative of “spreading the wealth” in a fashion that sounded like a refined version of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s crude liberationist socialism. But the reversal of the payout to Chrysler creditors, the absorption of large insolvent private companies, and the promises for intrusive cap-and-trade energy legislation only seem to confirm that the president has no understanding of the historical role of entrepreneurship and businesses in creating the sort of wealth that he takes for granted can be redistributed. Obama, past and present, seems always to talk of how someone else’s money should be spent, dispersed, and redistributed, but never to worry about how it can be made in the first place.

So, fairly or not, when the president talks, business people do not gain confidence that he knows, or cares, much about them or what they do. If he thinks even surgeons are greedy profiteers, who then escapes presidential disdain?

Third, the real worry is not for 2010 — after all, few revolutionaries create their utopias in a mere 18 months — but for the years to come, for which business people must right now schedule purchases, hire, and in general gamble that their investments will pay off when the boom returns. Yet at one time or another some administration official has talked of new inheritance taxes, new FICA tax schedules, new income-tax rates, new health-care surcharges, or a possible VAT or federal excise tax — all at a time when state income and sales taxes are climbing.

It does not matter whether all or some of these proposals are merely trial balloons. They still have a depressing effect in reminding the productive classes that the government is going to take a much larger percentage of their rewards and spend it for purposes that might just make things worse still. That notion kills rather than spurs investment.

And climbing taxation is not the only reason why business is now worried about fiscal policy. There is also a depressing realization that any additional revenue will hardly balance the budget, given the astronomical spending. Do not underestimate the psychology of deficits. The owner of a tire store or a pool-cleaning company may not like handing over more hard-earned money to government, but he hates the notion that it is all in vain anyway — already pledged away as interest on the rising debt before it is collected.

Out-of-control government spending depresses small businesses in other ways beyond leaving them with less cash. Growing government entitlements and redistribution are seen as undermining personal initiative. The more we provide subsidies for housing, health, education, food, and entertainment, the more the individual seems to want more compensation for less work — and the more the employer feels he has been had, as he works while others do not.

Finally, business operates best under the assumption that the law is applied equally and that there are no insider cronies who are favored by government because of their contacts, cash, or politics. The problem with socialism as we see it practiced abroad is not just that it hates private business in general, but that it hates some private businesses far less than others. Crony capitalism is the statist habit of farming out government concessions to friends and fellow travelers who spout the same revolutionary slogans, or who promise bribes or jobs to their particular government overseers. We would have more readily believed Barack Obama’s Wall Street populism had he not been the largest recipient of Wall Street cash in presidential history, and Goldman Sachs’s largest political beneficiary. Continue reading →

By Kathleen Gilbert, July 14, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In addition to altering testimony on partial-birth abortion by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, documents suggest U.S. Supreme Court candidate Elena Kagan acted similarly with a policy statement by the American Medical Association, Americans United for Life (AUL) has reported.

LifeSiteNews.com reported June 30 that memos from Kagan’s service in the Clinton administration reveal that she authored language that twisted ACOG’s original statement, which declared that the group “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure … would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.”

Kagan later added a sentence to the ACOG testimony stating that partial-birth abortion “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” Last month in Senate Judiciary Committee hearings Kagan admitted her role in adding that language.

In a separate memo, Kagan had admitted that the ACOG’s original wording “would be a disaster” for the administration’s fight against the ban. AUL notes that Kagan, writing to Bruce Reed, Clinton’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, later said that the statement “turned out a ton better than expected.” Kagan also told Clinton in a 1997 memo that the ACOG statement was the “most reliable opinion” – one that became key testimony in delaying the partial-birth abortion ban for over a decade.

AUL revealed that Kagan also became involved when the American Medical Association issued a policy that stated there were no identified situations in which partial-birth abortion was the only appropriate method of abortion. Kagan indicated in a June 1, 1997 White House email, that she had just come from a meeting which focused “in particular” on “whether the AMA policy can be reversed at its convention on June 23.”

“We agreed to do a bit of thinking about whether we (in truth HHS) could contribute to that effort,” Kagan concluded.

AUL is urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate discrepancies between Kagan’s testimony before Congress and written documents pertaining to her “undue influence” on medical organizations while a Clinton advisor.

“[Kagan] was such a devoted pro-abortion advocate that she was willing to deceive the American public and the federal courts about the medical science related to the procedure. She was willing to bend scientific fact to fit her pro-abortion ideology,” said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

“The pieces that make up Kagan’s abortion record reveal a staunchly pro-abortion ideologue who has devoted her life to serving pro-abortion political candidates, judges, and office-holders,” said Yoest.

…Why is it that so many people who were raised Catholic feel that they never had a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ until they met the Lord through Protestant witness? . . . Why are so many Protestant mega-churches overflowing with former Catholics?….

By Harold Fickett, July 15th, 2010, Catholic Exchange

OBAMA ADMIN APPROVES SECOND SET OF ABORTION FUNDING UNDER HEALTH CARE LAW
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – The day after revelations that the Obama administration allowed federal taxpayer funding of abortions under the new national health care law that was supposed to prevent it, new information shows President Barack Obama has authorized abortion funding in a second state.

REPUBLICAN LEADER, PRO-LIFE GROUPS SLAM OBAMA FOR HCR ABORTION FUNDING
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – The leader of the Republican party in the House and pro-life organizations are wasting little time in slamming the Obama administration over revelations that it has approved the first set of taxpayer-funded abortions under the new health care law President Barack Obama signed.

AMERICANS SPLIT ON KAGAN NOMINATION, OPPOSE HER MORE THAN SOTOMAYOR
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – A new national survey finds Americans are split on the nomination of pro-abortion activist Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, but they oppose her more than they did President Barack Obama’s last pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.

DEMOCRATS LOBBIED TO OPPOSE PRO-ABORTION ELENA KAGAN AS GOP OPPOSES HER
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Democrats who face tough re-election campaigns are might be inclined to oppose the nomination of pro-abortion Solicitor general Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court are facing more pressure to oppose her confirmation. This comes as more Republican senators announce they will oppose her bid.

CONGRESSMAN: OBAMA ADMIN ILLEGALLY FUNDING PRO-ABORTION KENYA CONSTITUTION
Washignton, DC (LifeNews.com) – Despite denials by the office of Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. embassy in Kenya, the leading pro-life congressman says the Obama administration is absolutely enraging in illegal funding of a campaign to get voters in Kenya to adopt a pro-abortion constitution.

STUPAK DENIES OBAMA FUNDING ABORTION IN HEALTH CARE, SAYS PRO-LIFERS LIE
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Congressman Bart Stupak, the lynchpin of the abortion funding in the national health care law, says in a new statement that he doesn’t believe the Obama administration will be funding abortions in Pennsylvania and New Mexico. He also accuses pro-life organizations of lying about the funding.

FDA MISLEADS WOMEN ON NEW ABORTION DRUG ELLA, BILLED AS MORNING AFTER PILL
by Wendy Wright and Kristan Hawkins
The abortion debate is shifting. Americans are uncomfortable with abortion. They definitely do not want tax dollars paying for abortions. Most doctors aren’t willing to participate. So abortion advocates have a new plan: mislead and mislabel. They are steering the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to mislead women by mislabeling the new drug Ella to avoid mentioning that it can cause an abortion.

“[T]he importance of piety and religion; of industry and frugality; of prudence, economy, regularity and an even government; all … are essential to the well-being of a family.”

–Samuel Adams, letter to Thomas Wells, 1780

By James Tillman, July 14, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Republican Congressman Todd Akin and Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor have sent a letter signed by 180 members of Congress to House and Senate leadership urging them to eliminate language from the FY2011 Defense Authorization bill that would permit abortions on military bases.

“DoD medical facilities should remain focused on providing the best possible care for our military service members and their families, not providing abortion on demand,” said Akin and Taylor.

The Blagojevich-appointed Democratic Senator Roland Burris offered an amendment to the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act on May 27 that would permit abortions in domestic and overseas military facilities.  It passed the Senate Armed Service Committee by a vote of 15-12.

The amendment would strike Section 1093(b) of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which states that no facility of the department of defense may be used for an abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and risk to the life of the mother. The law has been in place since 1996.

Akin said that “at a time when we are engaged in two wars, it is unfortunate that Senator Burris has decided to insert this contentious issue into the DOD Authorization.”

Akin has said that such a bill would demand that all taxpayers be co-conspirators in killing children through abortion.

Rep. Gene Taylor pointed out that in the past “military medical personnel firmly rejected previous efforts to turn our nation’s military medical facilities into abortion clinics.”

President Clinton signed a memorandum permitting abortions at military facilities in 1993.

Even before the current ban on abortion in military facilities was passed in response to the Clinton memorandum, military physicians commonly refused to perform or assist in elective abortions.

This led the administration to seek civilians who would do what military doctors would not.  “If the Burris Amendment were enacted,” the letter warns, “not only would taxpayer funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but resources could also be used to search for, hire, and transport new personnel simply so that abortions could be performed.”

More importantly, the letter states that “military treatment centers – which are dedicated to healing and caring for life – should not facilitate the taking of the most innocent human life: a child in the womb.”

A similar amendment was offered in the house in 2006, where it failed by a vote of 191-237.  This amendment offered abortion only on overseas bases; the Burris Amendment is more expansive in allowing abortion on both domestic and overseas military bases.

The Defense Authorization bill passed by the House does not contain the language of the Burris Amendment.  Senator Chris Smith has said that he does not expect the House to accept the bill if it returns from the Senate with the Burris Amendment.

“We will stand very firm,” Smith has said. “I believe there will be an overwhelming vote in the House to keep our military hospitals as nurturing centers, not abortion mills.”

A repeal of the military’s ban on openly homosexual service members has also been attached to the FY2011 defense bill.

See related stories on LifeSiteNews.com:

Rep. Smith Vows to Oppose Military Abortions in Defense Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10061108.html

U.S. Senate Committee Oks Amendment Ditching Military Abortion Ban
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10052811.html

July 15, 2010
Memorial of Saint Bonaventure, bishop and doctor of the Church
Father Shawn Aaron, LC

Matthew 11: 28-30

Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

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: Lord Jesus, meek and humble of heart, help me to take on your yoke.

1. Come to Me If you struggle daily to do what is morally right even when those around you take shortcuts, then come to Jesus. If the life of selfish pleasure and illicit gain seems exceedingly attractive, then come to Jesus. If you are burdened with your patterns of sin and weaknesses of character that affect your vocation as a spouse, a parent, a friend, a consecrated soul, a Christian…, then come to Jesus. If life seems unfair and God seems distant at best, then come to Jesus. He calls us not to a set of principles and noble ideals, but to his very person. We do not follow rules for the sake of rules; we follow Jesus. Only when we have first come to him will we understand the need for the rules which simply help protect the dignity of this relationship.

2. Learn from Me St. Paul admonishes the Galatians to live in the freedom of Christ: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Yet in his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul invites us to be “slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (6:5). To be a slave means that I submit to the will of another or am subordinated (unwillingly) to one stronger than I in some way. One who is a slave of passion, vanity, selfishness or any other vice is subject to that vice as something more powerful than oneself. But Jesus calls us friends and not slaves (cf. John 15:14-15). So to be a “slave” of Christ means to entrust my life to him freely with the intention of following where he leads. Experience shows that he always guides us down the path that leads to our happiness and fulfillment, even when it entails the cross.

3. Rest for Yourselves These words mean “rest,” not in the sense of cessation from work and struggle, but in the sense of peace of soul, joy and profound happiness. This is the rest that we all long for, the rest that will one day be uninterrupted in the bliss of heaven. We have each met individuals who experience this peace and joy despite their circumstances. Notice that Jesus does not promise to take away the burdens, the trials, the sufferings. But if we take his yoke upon ourselves, if we submit to his plan, his will, his love, he guarantees the joy. If you have never experienced it, then begin today; give him what you know in your heart he is asking of you. Although it may hurt at first, as does every yoke, this one brings the lightness of peace and the ease of joy.

Conversation with Christ: Blessed Lord, you lead me towards everlasting peace if I will simply follow, but following does not always seem simple. Give me the very things you ask of me: faith, generosity, courage, trust, love. With these gifts and your grace I will have the strength necessary for the journey.

Resolution: Today I will pray an extra decade of the rosary for the persons who are farthest away from Jesus.

http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302

CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY, JULY 15, 2010