The three of us will be on Fausta's blog radio show (see above for Fausta and my photos) ... no Siggy isn't in that picture.
He heard we're going to talk about food and that I might mention Cinnamon Buns from Heaven so he's hurrying on over.[Mustafa, a radical Islamic terrorist, has been assigned by his sheik to write a book revealing the distortions of the Christian faith. To do this he has had to read the Bible.]Mustafa is just one of the people we travel with as we see various encounters with Christianity deep within the world of Islam. Some encounter Jesus (Isa as he is called in the Quran) through reading the Bible. Others find him in the stories told them by friends who are eager to share a new knowledge of God as a loving father, instead of the stern God as commonly communicated in Islam. These believers run the gamut of personalities, from a young girl who is cast off by her family for her Christianity to a Christian couple who return to their country following God's call to minister to native Christians to a highly influential government official who must keep his Christian faith hidden. We are shown just what it means to claim faith in Jesus in a place where religious ecumenism is given lip service but where hate crimes against Christians are given a blind eye by authorities.
For the last several days Mustafa had decided to concentrate on the prophecies in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and the Injil that referenced the Prophet Muhammad. Though he couldn't find the name Muhammad in the Holy Book, there were twenty-six texts that supposedly pointed to him. Eagerly he had read the first one, Genesis 49:10: "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to Shiloh." Al-Haqq had said that "Shiloh" was Muhammad, but when Mustafa had investigated to prove this linguistically and rhetorically and legally, he'd concluded that Isa the Christ clearly fulfilled the prophecy much more than Muhammad did.
He had turned to Deuteronomy 18:15: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to hm." Al-Haqq had explained that Isaac's sons and Ishmael's sons were brothers, and thus Muhammad was a brother of Isaac's sons. But when he'd referenced the Quran, it said that the prophet would be from the Arab people and speak Arabic. The Torah text spoke of a prophet form the Hebrews who spoke Hebrew. If this prophet was Muhammad, then I would distrust the Quran. That was a dangerous thought.
Mustafa had exhausted himself with study and concluded that none of the twenty-six texts spoke of Muhammad. And now he stared at this verse from sura "The Table" of the Quran: "People of the Book, you will attain nothing until you observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which is revealed from your Lord." The Quran affirmed the authority of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. He turned to sura 3:84 and read: "Say: 'We believe in God and what is revealed to us; in that which was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael, to Isaac and Jacob and the tribes; and in that which their Lord gave Moses and Jesus and the prophets. We discriminate against none of them. To Him we have surrendered ourselves.'" But how could the Christian God be the same as Allah? He'd read in the Gospels: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." Allah commanded exactly the opposite in the Quran. In the sura "Repentance," God commanded: "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them." It was impossible that the two Gods were one and the same. It was impossible that the two books, the Holy Bible and Quran, were both right. While the two books agreed on some things, the differences were startling. One of them had to be wrong.
The prayer time was over and the flow of activity on the street was back to normal. But now Mustafa knew what he had to do--pray. Allah, God, which is the real book? Show me which book is right?
A peace washed over him, and Mustafa felt confident that God would reveal the truth.
Although Muslims like to enumerate the 99 names of God, missing from the list, but central to the Jewish and even more so to the Christian concept of God, is "Father"--i.e. a personal God capable of a reciprocal and loving relationship with men. The one God of the Qur'an, the God Who demands submission, is a distant God; to call him "Father would be an anthropomorphic sacrilege. The Muslim God is utterly impassive; to ascribe loving feeling to Him would be suspect.
This is the question we were asking ourselves last night. It is nothing new for a young artist to make tragic mistakes and die young. We have countless examples from past years of that very thing. However, usually we are sorry to hear it, shrug our shoulders and move on to the next thing.
I can’t call her “the Dispenser.” People will think of Pez.Go to Jeffrey's to read the description of this villainous character and then see if you can name her and get a free copy of the book. We know its a book you'll enjoy because he wrote one of my favorite books of last year (Auralia's Colors ... my review here ... scroll down a bit).
She needs a name, or rather, a title.
In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. The Mass "For Peace and Justice" (no. 21 of the "Masses for Various Needs") should be celebrated with violet vestments as an appropriate liturgical observance for this day.
When you stand in front of an abortion mill, you see the culture wars from a different perspective. Two women walked in while we were there. Two. Suddenly, abortion is more tangible. The statistic evaporates, and you’re left with nothing but tragedy. You see the Sidewalk counselors approach someone that doesn’t want to listen, and it’s no longer a story on the news or something we talk about on the internet. Your heart pulls harder. From your lips comes, “…pray for us now and at the hour of our death,” while your head is saying in the background, “Please, oh please, Lord, let them hear.” But they walk on.Mark Windsor at Raft on the Tiber writes beautifully and movingly about praying the rosary in front of the Fairmount Women's Clinic this weekend. Read it all.
She'd been strangled with a rosary-not a run-of-the-mill rosary like you might get at a Catholic bookstore where Hail Marys are two for a quarter and indulgences are included on the back flap of the May issue of "Nuns and Roses" magazine, but a fancy heirloom rosary with pearls, rubies, and a solid gold cross, a rosary with attitude, the kind of rosary that said, "Get your Jehovah's Witness butt off my front porch."The runner up in the Detective category of 2007 entries in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. See all the winners here.Mark Schweizer, Hopkinsville, KY
Rose finally scored Helvetica at the movie store. (Not that she cares ... but Tom and I do!) That darned thing has been rented every time we've been there for the past month. Can you tell our neighborhood is full of advertising people and artists? Remember, "Friends don't let friends use Arial."
Tom's mom gave me a Borders gift certificate for Christmas and they've got a whole bunch of the Culinaria books on sale for $10 each. In a way this makes one think of an updating of the Time Life Foods of the World series (reviewed here) although these are done with less of each writer's personality and more continuity between volumes. These books look at the cuisines of countries in depth. When I say "in depth" think about 450 pages, oversized, covering every aspect of culture that relates to food. In short, a foodie's dream. Until now only the hardbacks have been available and they are huge. I mean to say, you don't want to fall asleep reading one because you'd be crushed to death when it fell on you. Sadly, I heard that the original company went out of business but that means the series was picked up by another printer and is being republished in paperback. It is still high quality printing on heavy paper and still huge but at least you can read it on bed without being injured.
We have our tickets to Ella ... 'nuff said.
We all know that I'm a huge fan of the unusual blend of horror and spirituality that are the Odd Thomas books, don't we? (Read my commentary on the series.) Anyone who joins me in that fandom will rejoice to see that Dean Koontz has been channeling Odd Thomas again.
What upset me more than anything is that for the first time in my life, I was actively hating someone. I’ve never hated anyone - not even people who have done me physical and spiritual harm. But I was hating this fellow. And hating him even more for “making me” hate him.The Anchoress tells a story that we all can relate to ... one of resenting the treatment of a loved one, struggling with hate, feeling powerless in its grip, and, finally, of having loved ones become God's prophets ... called not to make us comfortable with our wrongdoing but to set us straight, even if it makes us uncomfortable. A truthful and fantastic story, and one not to be missed.
Which, of course, he could not do. No one can “make” you hate; I simply allowed hate in; I welcomed it in, gave it an honored chair and fed it. And fed it. And it was incredibly destructive and oppressive - to me, mostly - but it did nothing good for anyone who had to be around me if the subject had my head. My whole family, and a few friends, have had to endure watching me give myself over to this resentment, allowing it to have its way with me, and to own me, body and soul.
While visiting my friend in Dallas this past week, she asked me if I would mind going over to the house of a friend of hers who was out of town and has been having some troubles, and praying there for him. Though my friend is an Evangelical, her friend is a Catholic, so I asked her if she would mind if we went by his parish first for some holy water to sprinkle around, and she said she wouldn’t, so we did.Now, go read the rest at Historical Christian.
When we got to the house, we went in, and I noticed that it seemed very dark and cold inside. I told my friend that I wanted to start by the front door, and gradually work my way through every room in the house, praying and sprinkling holy water as we went. We walked over to the door and turned to face the room, and I crossed myself in preparation to pray.
The moment I began praying, I felt a sense of very heavy, dark oppression come over me – and at the same moment, my friend sank down to her knees. I wondered if she felt it, too, but said nothing and continued to pray. We slowly worked our way through each room, praying and sprinkling holy water, but the heavy, dark oppressiveness remained. Finally we had gone through every room, so I returned to the front door and faced the room again. I had prayed everything I could think of, but the darkness and heaviness was still there.
For years, Richter observed with growing fascination how in his Gothic sanctuary, Japanese musicologist Keisuke Maruyama studied the influence of the weekday pericopes (prescribed readings) in the early 18th-century Lutheran lectionary cycle on Bach’s cantatas. When he had finished, he told the clergyman: “It is not enough to read Christian texts. I want to be a Christian myself. Please baptize me.”Fascinating ... read the whole story here. Via Brandywine Books.
But this scholar’s conversion could have been attributed to the impact of pericopes’ biblical texts on Maruyama. Why, though, would a fugue have such evangelistic powers as it did on the Japanese organist in Minnesota? Why would even listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which contain no lyrics, arouse someone’s interest in Christianity? This happened when Masashi Yasuda, a former agnostic, heard a CD with Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s rendering of this complex Clavier-Übung, or keyboard study. Still, Yasuda’s spiritual journey began precisely with these variations. He is now a Jesuit priest teaching systematic theology at Sophia University in Tokyo.
I've always kind of played a little game in my mind -- you know like those little parlor games you play where you ask people what books they would want on a deserted island, or where you ask "If you could invite five famous people to dinner living or dead, who would it be"? Well I always though it would be more telling to ask "If you could sit in first class next to anyone -- currently living -- who would that be? And what would you say to them?" This question has the advantage that it could really happen. You might realistically, in your lifetime, have that happen.He chose Kurt Vonnegut, by which you may surmise that I'm a bit behind in my listening as this was a tribute to Vonnegut's writing.
The table has been cleared, and the last of your dinner guests has been ushered out into the night. The previous days' tumult of planning, shopping, and cooking has yielded another evening to remember--and a sink full of sauce-smeared plates and grease-smudged stemware. In the prostprandial hush, you calmly take stock of the task at hand and begin your labor. Working unhurriedly from the top of the pile, your hands gripping the soapy sponge, you work rhythmically as your body warms to the task and your mind, stoked by food and conversation, quiets itself. Call us old-fashioned, ascetic, or even slightly masochistic, but there's something about hand-washing dishes that we find, well, cleansingThis struck a chord with me. Our dishwasher broke a couple of weeks ago and the cheapest way to go was to start washing everything by hand.#36 of Saveur's 10th Annual Top 100 list
--David Sax, January Saveur
Featuring Stacy, a contestant in Miss Mustang 2008 Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Stacey, Miss Arizona! Stacey’s favorite color is turquoise and she enjoys eating native grasses from her host family’s flower beds. If she wins the crown tonight, she hopes to use her exposure to further the cause of women’s rights, both in the equine kingdom and beyond. Welcome, Stacey!Do go see all the candidates. A lovelier group of ladies you will not encounter elsewhere.
Street Musicians at the Doorway of a HousePerhaps you say, Why are the wicked joyous? why do they live in luxury? why do they not toil with me? It is because they who have not put down their names to strive for the crown are not bound to undergo the labors of the contest. They who have not gone down into the race-course do not anoint themselves with oil nor get covered with dust. For those whom glory awaits trouble is at hand. The perfumed spectators are wont to look on, not to join in the struggle, nor to endure the sun, the heat, the dust, and the showers. ...As Tom points out, this turns the whole "gospel of prosperity" on its head. We are working for the bigger reward than ease in this life. Its nice if it comes along, but that's not the point at all. It is about our immortal souls.
Foolish as it would be to look for deep theological insight from "The View," Joy Behar's recent statements on Catholic saints (a) not existing any longer and (b) needing medication, was about as close as you could come to a nice Youtubable, public display of anti-Catholicism, for any who doubt it still exists.Martin, editor of America magazine, has a good article responding to Joy Behar of The View who recently went on a public anti-Catholic screed. Do go read his responses to each of Behar's embarrassing examples of ignorance of the faith she is attacking. I also like his points about why he's not worried and the implied charity of Mother Teresa probably already praying for Behar.
Rapture’s collapse is an object lesson in what happens when bioethics break down. The city is undone by genetic tampering, as people attempt to turn themselves into Gods with gene modifying drugs. God’s work is imperfect, people are told, so science must step in to improve it. At the top of the crumbling pyramid is Ryan, with his Godlike delusions and warped philosophy. He sees Rapture as a New Eden. Indeed, two of the gameplay elements are “ADAM”, a mutagen which allows people to modify their genetic structure to enhance certain powers, and “EVE,” the fuel for these genetic mutations. In order to get through Rapture, your character needs to become one of these mutants without sinking too far into madness. It’s a dangerous balance, and in the end only love is able to bring you back, if you choose the path of love.Guest blogger Thomas L. McDonald, Editor-at-Large of Games Magazine, delivers a fascinating review of Bioshock over at Catholic Media Review. It takes into account societal standards and concerns as reflected in this game ... really good stuff, y'all!
A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, 'Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.'
The Lord led the holy man to two doors.
He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.
The Lord said, 'You have seen Hell.'
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, 'I don't understand.'
It is simple,' said the Lord. 'It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.'
Life before modern technology was full of hard stops: the work day ended at sunset -- if you didn't finish laundry during the day there was no going back outside to the washboard at 9:00 at night; the work day began at dawn -- if you got breakfast on the table an hour late that was precious time cut out of you and your family's very finite workday; even finances had hard stops -- when you spent your last dollar there were no tempting "0% interest for six months!" credit card offers waiting in your mailbox. And with a life full of hard stops, even the most disorganized, scattered people must have been forced to have some kind of routine, and to limit their to-do lists. Even people as inept at time management as I am must have been gently reminded to get to a stopping point and wind down their projects each day as the sunlight began its slow retreat from the sky.Jen at Et Tu has a thoughful, insightful post about borrowing hours and merely making ourselves more frantic. Well worth a read whether you have resolved to change your time management for the New Year or not.
When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.How privileged we are to live here where the worst we usually have to complain about in practicing our faith is that a church isn't playing the sort of music we prefer. Yes, I know there can be worse abuses but let's be honest here. They occur on a very small scale compared to the struggles of those in other countries where they often do not know if anyone else knows of their plight.Mark 6:34
I didn't post this yesterday. I felt that surely everyone had had enough of my personal prayer life. Certainly I felt embarrassed about the mystical tinge I'd be exhibiting if I told it. I'd already let that particular bit of my life hang out there for all to see. No need to dwell on it again. I could just post the novena. We didn't need all that explanation.The Miraculous Novena of GraceMost amiable and most loving Saint Francis Xavier, in union with you I reverently adore the Divine Majesty. I rejoice exceedingly on account of the marvelous gifts which God bestowed upon you. I thank God for the special graces he gave you during your life on earth and for the great glory that came to you after your death. I implore you to obtain for me, through your powerful intercession, the greatest of all blessings, that of living and dying inthe state of grace. I also beg of you to secure for me the special favor I ask in this novena. In asking this favor, I am fully resigned to the Divine Will. I pray and desire only to obtain that which is most conducive to the greater glory of God and the greater good of my soul. amen(here you may mention the grace, spiritual or temporal, that you wish to obtain.)
For joy, peace, and support of oppressed Christians
in China, the Middle East, and Africa.
Also for their oppressors--forgiveness and opened eyes to the truth.
(Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, one Glory Be.)
The Lord is my light and my help;Now, granted, we all know that anyone with something on their mind will take special notice of those readings all together. However, I thought that I'd go ahead and heed what I was feeling here.
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
before whom shall I shrink? (Psalm 26:1)
Go upon to a high mountain,/ Zion, herald of glad tidings; Cry out at the top of your voice,/ Jerusalem, the herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God! (Isaiah 40:9-10)
Fear not, I am with you. (Is 41:10)
Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid! (Mk 6:50).
The spirit is burning within us only because the parishioners of St. Tomas Aquinas Catholic Church were willing to carry this flame of love and knowledge to our parish.Right between the eyes with the holy 2x4!
Bishop Schneider said that just as a baby opens his mouth to receive nourishment from his mother, so should Catholics open their mouths to receive nourishment from Jesus.Deacon Greg points to an article by a bishop in the Vatican newspaper who says, "The reverence and awe of Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Jesus in the Eucharist should lead them to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues."
"Christ truly nourishes us with his body and blood in holy Communion and, in the patristic era, it was compared to maternal breastfeeding," he said.
"The awareness of the greatness of the eucharistic mystery is demonstrated in a special way by the manner in which the body of the Lord is distributed and received," the bishop wrote.
