England, the epicenter of the culture of death?

that's what this ZENIT article suggests.

True, a lot of the culture of death was invented by the British elites at the turn of the 20th century...when their Eugenics movement would have liked to kill all those dirty Irish. But few folks bother to bring it up, since the ordinary Brit opposed their imposition of the culture of death for years.

Orthodox allowed to visit their century old monastery

ah yes. Americans who oppose rich saudi money making an "islamic" center near Ground zero, where saudis funded by Saudi money and under orders by a saudi killed 3000 people are bigots.

But we are supposed to rejoice when the Turks "allow" the Orthodox celebrate prayers at an ancient monastery where they were thrown out of in the 1920's, even though the monks lived there for over 1500 years.

Bible study on line

Ignatius press put out a new Catholic bible study, and has some material on line.

personally, I use Barclay's new testament: brought a few with me to the PHilippines and the rest I have via a CDRom I bought. Alas, I haven't seen him on line for free.

Anyone want me to email them a Word version of one book let me know.

Why Barclay, a Protestant? Well, many years ago, after Vatican II, someone asked Bishop Sheen what bible study was best. At that time, a lot of the Catholic bible studies were...politically correct to say the least.

He advised Barclay: most of his writing on the New Testament did not go against the Catholic teachings, and those parts that did (example on Mary) most Catholics would be able to know he was preaching the Protestant version (although often he does give all versions for you to judge).

Here is an excerpt of Barclay: Ephesians 1: 3-4

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us with all the spiritual blessings which are only to be found in heaven, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless before him."

In the Greek the long passage from verse 3 to verse 14 is one sentence. It is so long and complicated because it represents not so much a reasoned statement as a lyrical song of praise. Paul's mind goes on and on, not because he is thinking in logical stages, but because gift after gift and wonder after wonder from God pass before his eyes. To understand it we must break it up and take it in short sections.

In this section Paul is thinking of the Christians as the chosen people of God, and his mind runs along three lines.

(i) He thinks of the fact of God's choice. Paul never thought of himself as having chosen to do God's work. He always thought of God as having chosen him. Jesus said to his disciples: "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (Jn.15:16). Here precisely lies the wonder. It would not be so wonderful that man should choose God; the wonder is that God should choose man.

(ii) Paul thinks of the bounty of God's choice. God chose us to bless us with the blessings which are to be found only in heaven. There are certain things which a man can discover for himself; but there are others which are beyond his obtaining. A man by himself can acquire a certain skill, can achieve a certain position, can amass a certain amount of this world's goods; but by himself he can never attain to goodness or to peace of mind. God chose us to give us those things which he alone can give.

(iii) Paul thinks of the purpose of God's choice. God chose us that we should be holy and blameless. Here are two great words. "Holy" is the Greek word "hagios," which always has in it the idea of difference and of separation. A temple is holy because it is different from other buildings; a priest is holy because he is different from ordinary men; a victim is holy because it is different from other animals; God is supremely holy because he is different from men; the Sabbath is holy because it is different from other days. So, then, God chose the Christian that he should be different from other men.

Here is the challenge that the modern Church has been very slow to face. In the early Church the Christian never had any doubt that he must be different from the world; he, in fact, knew that he must be so different that the probability was that the world would kill him and the certainty was that the world would hate him. But the tendency in the modern Church has been to play down the difference between the Church and the world. We have, in effect, often said to people: "So long as you live a decent, respectable life, it is quite all right to become a Church member and to call yourself a Christian. You don't need to be so very different from other people." In fact a Christian should be identifiable in the world.

It must always be remembered that this difference on which Christ insists is not one which takes a man out of the world; it makes him different within the world. It should be possible to identify the Christian in the school, the shop, the factory, the office, the hospital ward, everywhere. And the difference is that the Christian behaves not as any human laws compel him to do but as the law of Christ compels him to do. A Christian teacher is out to satisfy the regulations not of an education authority or a headmaster but of Christ; and that will almost certainly mean a very different attitude to the pupils under his charge. A Christian workman is out to satisfy the regulations not of a Trades Union but of Jesus Christ; and that will certainly make him a very different kind of workman, which may well end in him being so different that he is expelled from his union. A Christian doctor will never regard a sick person as a case, but always as a person. A Christian employer will be concerned with far more than the payment of minimum wages or the creation of minimum working conditions. It is the simple fact of the matter that if enough Christians became "hagios," different, they would revolutionize society.

Blameless is the Greek word "amomos." Its interest lies in the fact that it is a sacrificial word. Under Jewish law before an animal could be offered as a sacrifice it must be inspected, and if any blemish was found it must be rejected as unfit for an offering to God. Only the best was fit to offer to God. "Amomos" thinks of the whole man as an offering to God. It thinks of taking every part of our life, work, pleasure, sport, home life, personal relationships, and making them all such that they can be offered to God. This word does not mean that the Christian must be respectable; it means that he must be perfect. To say that the Christian must be "amomos" is to banish contentment with second bests; it means that the Christian standard is nothing less than perfection.


THE PLAN OF GOD

Ephesians 1:5-6

"He determined in his love before time began to adopt us to himself through Jesus Christ, in the good purpose of his will, so that all might praise the glory of the generous gift which he freely gave us in the Beloved."

In this passage Paul speaks to us of the plan of God. One of the pictures that he more than once uses of what God does for men is that of adoption (compare Rom.8:23; Gal.4:5). God adopted us as sons into his family.

In the ancient world, where Roman law prevailed, this would be an even more meaningful picture than it is to us. For there the family was based on what was called the "patria potestas," the father's power. A father had absolute power over his children so long as he and they lived. He could sell his child as a slave or even kill him. Dion Cassius tells us that "the law of the Romans gives a father absolute authority over his son, and that for the son's whole life. It gives him authority, if he so chooses, to imprison him, to scourge him, to make him work on his estate as a slave in fetters, even to kill him. That right still continues to exist even if the son is old enough to play an active part in political affairs, even if he has been judged worthy to occupy the magistrate's office, and even if he is held in honour by all men." It is quite true that, when a father was judging his son, he was supposed to call the adult male members of the family into consultation, but it was not necessary that he should do so.

There are actual instances of a father condemning his son to death. Sallust (The Catiline Conspiracy, 39) tells how Aulus Fulvius joined the rebel Catiline. He was arrested on the journey and brought back. And his father ordered that he should be put to death. The father did this on his own private authority, giving as his reason that "he had begotten him, not for Catiline against his country, but for his country against Catiline."

Under Roman law a child could not possess anything; and any inheritance willed to him, or any gift given to him, became the property of his father. It did not matter how old the son was, or to what honours and responsibility he had risen, he was absolutely in his father's power.

In circumstances like that it is obvious that adoption was a very serious step. It was, however, not uncommon, for children were often adopted to ensure that some family should not become extinct. The ritual of adoption must have been very impressive. It was carried out by a symbolic sale in which copper and scales were used. Twice the real father sold his son, and twice he symbolically bought him back; finally he sold him a third time, and at the third sale he did not buy him back. After this the adopting father had to go to the "praetor," one of the principal Roman magistrates, and plead the case for the adoption. Only after all this had been gone through was the adoption complete.

When the adoption was complete it was complete indeed. The person who had been adopted had all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family and completely lost all rights in his old family. In the eyes of the law he was a new person. So new was he that even all debts and obligations connected with his previous family were abolished as if they had never existed.

That is what Paul says that God has done for us. We were absolutely in the power of sin and of the world; God, through Jesus, took us out of that power into his; and that adoption wipes out the past and makes us new.


Now, if they would only make Barclay's as an Audiobook...my eyes get tired...

The Nativity

Librivox has lots of classic books including religious classics.

But today they listed The Nativity by Catherine Emmerich.

Religious trivia: St. Dracula and the feast of the Transfiguration

From Scott's Catholicism blog:
Pope Callixtus III added the Feast of the Transfiguration to the calendar to celebrate the important victory of the Hungarian nobleman Janos Hunyadi and the elderly priest St. John of Capistrano at the Siege of Belgrade in July 1456. Breaking the siege, their troops reinforced the Christians at Belgrade, the Muslim Turks were routed, and Islam was stopped from advancing further into Europe.

With the exception of St. John of Capistrano, Hunyadi could find no significant allies to accompany him to Belgrade, but he did enlist the help of young prince Vlad, who agreed to guard the passes into Rumania, thus cutting off the Turk. Without his aid, the battle might not have been won. Vlad was a brutal man whose actions earned him immortality as the fictional vampire, but some Orthodox Christians venerate him as a saint for confronting the Islamic threat to Christian Europe. As we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, we might at least offer a prayer for his soul.

equal or the same.

Father Z is fisking a liberal nun who is spouting the same old Marxist line about equal rights for women.

Pertinent quote:
When we finished our meeting in Rome, I said to one of the sisters, find out what they thought about us being there, what they thought about the meeting, and let me know when you come home. Very faithfully, she came home and said, ‘Theresa, they’re saying over there that you sisters came over here as if you were equal.’ I said, ‘That’s a compliment. Please tell them we are equal!’ [She is using the word "equal" a lot. And she is using it in the context of things that happened in Rome. Italian "uguali" isn’t the same in its impact. I can hear it: "come fossero uguali"... as if they were the same" as men. This sort of thing happens all the time in a language. A non speak of English will get the nuance slightly wrong and the American hears something that wasn’t intended. What we have here is a failure to communicate. There is equality. There is not equivalence. Men and women are equal but not the same. Equal in dignity, but different in many other aspects. The differences, which God must have wanted, mean something. One of the things they mean is that women can never be ordained. Women are equal in dignity, but not equivalent in roles in the Church. So, not only is she spinning some idiot tale about Mary Magdalen, she is spinning a totally false reconstruction of something told third hand and filtered through a different language.]

Not noticing Third world Christians

over at Pajamasmedia, they note how the MSM (Mainstream media in the west) always calls Islam the world's "fastest growing religion" because the press doesn't notice African or Asian Christians.

but they don't see the importance of 100 million Chinese Christians, or that even in Islamic countries, some are changing religion.

trachoma

Happy happy incompetent idiots

the Anchoress has a long, sad story about a nun killed in a car accident, and how the community is coping.

Well, yes, it's sad, but as a doc, could I point out that she wasn't a teenager with a life before them(at least she is middle aged), has lived a comfortable (i.e not fighting poverty) and maybe useful life(i.e. not an addict or a cripple), and didn't leave a half dozen kids behind.

Sorry: I've seen too many worse tragedies to get overblown by this one.

But what set off this rant? Ah the happy little photo:


Yes. Sprituality of Jesus means "being the most loving person I can be".

Really?

In today's world, this means being "nice", not "good.

The problem? Often the idea of "niceness" means being passive in the face of incompetence, stupidity, and downright evil.

So when I see a diabetic whose blood sugar is 300 and they both overeat and forget to take their medicine, I am to be "loving", which in this modern world means being a push over.
Oh, don't worry, mrs. Smith. Your sugar is a tad high but everything is fine and you are a wonderful person.

So when a nurse who sweetly ignored my direct orders, or "accidentally" misread an order, (and possibly harmed the patient) can consider herself superior to me, because she is a "loving person", and I am just a bitch for telling her off in public for harming my patient (and will write me up and I'm the one who will end up being reprimanded).

So a sweet alcoholic who steals his grandmother's pension to buy booze or drugs will be greeted with love and told that Jesus loves him, instead of calling the cops.

The smiling politician who gives huge amounts to the church and is in the front for every fiesta, and who is friendly to all, while embezzling millions and looking the other way when someone pulls an "extrajudicial killing" is not told to repent, but approached by the local bishop who asks them to pledge saying that in THIS election he will not shoot anyone (as he did in the last election).

And, of course, the "lovely Christian woman" who manipulates her family through guilt, withholds sex from her husband and plays the martyr when he "cheats" on her, and who prefers to go to church and pray instead of cleaning her house, well of course, she is loving.

(This one is personal. I once answered a phone call for my husband's "ex". The caller, a minister, praised me (thinking it was her) for my zeal for church work and for being a good Christian.
I answered: Oh, you want "X", the Christian lady. I'm "Y", the second wife who almost got her ass shot off for Jesus."

Not the way to make friends and influence people.

The problem is that "huggy feeling" Christianity results in passive aggressive behavior, the idea that being "nice" is better than being competent.

As CS Lewis once noted: Goodness is not the same as niceness.

And holiness doesn't mean pretending evil doesn't exist, and letting evil people get away with (sometimes) murder because one is too "loving" to intervene and be considered "judgemental" and "mean".

and then there is the part on the left about Jesus' "values".
In the good old days, we tried to be virtuous, but now we promote "values". Whatever that means.

Just let me know: Was Jesus acting "loving" when he beat the crooked dealers in the Temple and renounced the religious leaders for taking a cut of the scam?

Just wondering.

Hostility toward Evangelicals

getreligionblog notes that an NPR report denying any hostility toward Evangelicals interviews a man who wrote a book condemning Evangelicals.

That figures.

NYTimes loves abortion too

I refuse to read the article (which would give them advertising revenue) but here are quotes from the NAtional Review.

Kristof also argues that the widespread use of misoprostol may change the politics of abortion, on the grounds that those in the middle might be less squeamish about women taking pills at home rather than undergoing a surgical abortion. However, this seems unlikely. First, pro-life sentiment has increased in the United States since RU-486 received FDA approval in 2000. Secondly, since misoprostol only induces an abortion 80 to 85 percent of the time, it will probably get little use in industrialized countries, where RU-486 is available and a failed abortion will likely result in a more costly surgical abortion.

Not surprisingly, one thing that Kristof does not mention in this article is how widespread availability of misoprostol might affect people’s sexual activity. In a number of countries, including the United States, the availability of the birth control pill increased sexual activity, particularly outside of marriage. This led to both a higher demand and greater political support for legal abortion. A “revolution” caused by greater availability and use of misoprostol could have similar negative consequences. Pro-lifers would do well to be vigilant."

----------------------
I think that some of the pro abort types are giving this out in Manila, but sometimes the "miscarriage" is a larger baby, hence the "fetuses" left in Catholic churches.

What to do if detained in Arizona

you have to produce identification and car registration if you are driving, but otherwise you have the right to remain silent.

The pro death people are trying to get the Philippines to change their laws

There is a well documented story on the internet that the US is pressuring Kenya to okay a rewritten constitution that legalizes abortion, never mind that Christians, Muslims and those following traditional religion see this as murder.

well, we have another propaganda piece in today's Inquirer:

1000 women die each year from illegal abortion.
If true, that means abortion is rare here in the Philippines, since some "septic abortions" are due to incomplete miscarriages where part of the placenta is left behind and gets infected, or from miscarriages due an IUD being in place that causes it to get infected.

But you know they are lying when they "estimate" half a million women attempt to abort themselves. How do they know?

I suspect they made up the number, using statistics from the west that show one out of three to one out of four pregnancies are aborted.

In the Philippines, there are 2 million births a year.
So if you use western statistics and estimate 25% of that number, voila, instant half a million women "trying" to abort.

Then they get the numbers:

About 90,000 women suffer from abortion complications and an estimated 1,000 die each year

really? Where did that statistic come from?

Yes, my cousin was upset and told me about an illegal abortion where she fought to save the mom's life. But that incident was 2 years ago.

I have no doubts that some of these woman are aborting, but the ironic part is that even if abortion was legal, one doubts that the numbers would be much better, unless you command every nurse midwife to do abortions, there just is no way to get more "abortion providers". Heck, even in the US they have trouble recruiting folks to do abortions, so why do they think that pious Catholic or Muslim midwives, or doctors, will do them?

But never mind. This is from the Guttmacher people, the ones who back eugenics and praise population control in China

bless you

headsup the anchoress