Non Tasarmi, Fratello!

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” Hillaire Belloc

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Need a Blessing?

Going camping, or getting ready to feast on bacon and lard? And looking for the perfect blessing to say before you do?

Got you covered!

Patron Saint for 2011

Elizabeth Scalia, creator of the blog The Anchoress, chooses a Patron Saint each year. I think that it would be hard to choose one but this year it was made simple. Click here, push the button, and voila! Your Patron Saint for the year! Your goal is to find out as much as you can about the saint and to pray for his (or her) intersession.

My Patron Saint for the year 2011 is...

St. John of Capistrano!

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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Bishop Olmsted Responds

As mentioned earlier, Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix has taken away the "Catholic" in St. Joseph's Catholic Hospital in Phoenix for performing abortions and distributing birth control devices. Here, he responds to bloggers who are critical of him...

OK, I changed some names and words...

Can you guess which ones?

"Juan Gonzales, a doctor in the city of Juarez, Mexico, was arrested Friday after a complaint was lodged with police alleging his actions had insulted the Son of God, said regional police chief Pedro Martinez.

The case began Friday when Jesus Calderon, a pharmaceutical company representative, visited Gonzalez's clinic and handed out his business card. He said when the doctor threw the card away, Calderon went to police and filed a complaint that noted his name was the same as The Christ's.

Shah said police were investigating whether Gonzalez should be charged with blasphemy."

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Monday, December 27, 2010

Catholic Hospital...or not?

Here's the story:

Woman enters St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. She's 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from pulmonary hypertension.

Hospital's Ethics Committee decides that aborting the baby will save the life of the woman (almost called her "mother").

Baby aborted.

Bishop Ohmert steps up to the plate, excommunicating Mercy Sister (snort!) Margaret Mary McBride (who sat on the Ethics Committee and agreed with the decision) and threatens to withdraw designation of St. Joseph's as "Catholic".

Here's a pretty fair news story about it.

This video, on the other hand, is GROSSLY unfair. If Call to Action is a Catholic organization I am an imam. Call to Action advocates for the ordination of women, the end to priestly celibacy, gay "rights"...in other words, they're Unitarians.

Feast of St. John the Apostle, December 27


St. John was the brother of St. James the Greater. John was the only apostle who did not abandon Christ at the Passion; Jesus made him guardian of Mary. John is also notable for being the only of the twelve to avoid martyrdom and lived to the ripe old age of 100. A basilica was built in Ephesus (now in Turkey) over the reported site of his burial by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. Side note - Justinian was the last Roman Emperor to speak Latin as his first language. The Basilica was turned into a mosque in the 14th century; the Mongols destroyed it not much later.

John wrote his Gospel, of course, but is also credited with three epistles; he also is believed to have written the Book of Revelations. In it, God's throne is flanked by "four living creatures" - an eagle, an ox, a lion, and an angel/human. Each of the four gospel writers is associated with one of these characters. John got the eagle, Matthew the angel, Mark the lion, and Luke the ox.

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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Feast of St. Steven, December 26

On this day in history, Good King Wenceslas looked out...

St. Steven was a deacon selected by the apostles. He is the protomartyr; that is, he was the first martyr for Christianity. He was stoned to death by a mob led by Saul of Tarsus - who got his comeuppance at a later date.

Not surprisingly, St. Steven is the Patron Saint of Casket makers.


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The School Sisters of Notre Dame


The School Sisters of Notre Dame are an offshoot of the Congregation of Notre Dame, founded in France by Saint Peter Fourier in 1597. One convent runs a boarding school in Baltimore. So what, you ask?

One of the sisters had a brother who died and bequeathed a Honus Wagner baseball card to the Order. The cards were produced by a tobacco company from 1909-1911. "The Flying Dutchman" EITHER didn't want his name to be affiliated with tobacco OR he wanted more money for the right to use his picture. Either way, only 50 - 200 of them were circulated.

The card is not in good condition - the brother owned the card since 1936 - but the good Sisters sold it to raise money. And received $220,000 for it.

Bonus - Honus Wagner had a brother who was supposedly even better than the Hall of Famer (Honus got elected to the HOF the same year as Babe Ruth, and with the same number of votes). Honus's brother's name was Albert, but everyone called him "Butts".

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Merry Christmas from the "Religion of Peace"!

In Nigeria

In the Philippines

In Iraq

In Afghanistan

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Saturday, December 25, 2010

What happened?

It seems all my old posts have disappeared, and October and November of this year are gone, too!

Update...the log is still there, but some recent posts are gone. Oh well...I will offer them up for the souls in purgatory.

A Christmas Gift to Myself

I'm getting back in the blogging game. Why is this a gift to me? Because when I blogged regularly, I learned something new about our Faith every day. ANd it was all good!

Speaking of good, check out this story...

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