Catholic blogger and poet read on The Writer's Almanac

Just too awesome for words. Jonathan Potter, one of the regulars at Korrektiv, just had one of his recently published poems read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac. Read/hear it here, and congrats, Jonathan!

Caption Contest #97

Photo credit.

UPDATE! We have a winner!

Beez: I am the way and the truth and the Lite beer.

Fun Friday: Baby Eats Banana While Sleeping

Yes, that's m'boy (chic #4) in the video. To be clear: he was really fussy and resisting his nap, so my husband decided to put in the high chair and feed him a banana. He turned around and chic #4 was falling asleep. He started to take video, and then lo, he began reaching for the banana. Competing desires ensue....

He also fished the banana out of his mouth right after this video ended, which made chic throw a fit again. Toddlerhood, gotta love it.

Friday's QOTD

For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance.

--Annie Savoy in Bull Durham

The Catholic Pickup Line Song

OK, it made me laugh. The song starts one minute in. HT Aggie Catholics.

Remember Tori?

New picture of Tori, February 2011!

Remember when I was being a royal pain in the tuckus all October blegging for Tori, the five year old with CP in an institution in Eastern Europe? Remember she got fully funded ($23000!) in 16 days? Remember her adoptive parents stepped up the hour before the fully funded figure was announced?

Her (new!) parents, a couple from Texas with five other children, just adopted her (and another little girl with Down Syndrome!). They had their court date in the Eastern European country yesterday and after a 10 day wait, Tori--to be renamed Reagan Faith--will go to her new home in Texas.

We won! The culture of life won! Reagan's parents won! and Reagan won!

Thank you for helping this happen. Money is the only thing standing between these special needs children and a family. Unfortunately, the alternative for many of them is either an early death or a living death in understaffed institutions for orphans with special needs.

Old pic of Anthony, from 2009

I bleg again to ask you to help Anthony, who has a substantial grant for an adoptive family, and for whom time is running short. Yes, he needs money, but mostly, he needs a family to step up right now. Andrea at the amazing Reece's Rainbow sent me a new picture of Anthony yesterday, and the poor child does not look happy--but then again, I'm not sure he has a lot to be happy about. He deserves a family who loves him just the way he is. We are still trying to advocate for Anthony at this website.

FYI--the inevitable question--some of you know we are trying to adopt. We're still trying to get financial pieces in order and may not be able to get that in place in time to help Anthony. And we're still discerning if we're the family for Anthony as well--Anthony has significant CP and we have a house that is not built for that at all, so that is part of our financial equation as well. But I am sure God wants Anthony to be in a family--somebody's family.

Regular people like you and me do make a difference. Please spread the word, please pray, and consider helping yourself. Thank you!

More Rat Virtues

Best Pastoral Zinger Ever

It's true, too. Told to me years ago by a Southern Protestant minister who was working in his church during the racial desegregation of the schools, culture, and to his parishioners' horror, churches.

Church lady: I don't see why things can't stay the way they have been--whites go to our church, and blacks have theirs. I mean, it doesn't harm anyone. It's the way it's always been, separate but equal. This is our special space--I just don't want to be that close to them, you know? I just don't understand why you want to invite blacks to our church.

Pastor: Well, ma'am, I just want to keep some folks from going to hell.

Church lady: Oh, well, I don't want them to go to hell!

Pastor: I wasn't talking about them.

(nothing but net)

Robert, I remember you fondly today. Keep preachin' it.

Pearls Before Swine: The Modern Virtues

Friday's QOTD

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

--C.S. Lewis 

Weddings Need To Be In A Church: Looking More Reasonable All The Time

McDonalds serves up McWeddings in Hong Kong.

(Holy holy holy is the Big Mac Almighty?)

Korrektiv has a new address

Korrektiv: bad Catholics blogging at the end of the world

they have a new hairdo and url
w' nuff irony to make toes curl
Yes, its PG 13
so be careful 'round tweens
but otherwise, give it a whirl

(Go there for the good poetry and social commentary.)

Serious post and big announcement

Announcement: We're trying to adopt a child with special needs.  :)  This may take a while, but we're excited!

In the meantime, this little boy needs a home immediately.  And we can't pull our finances together soon enough to make that family ours.  Please go to this blog post, where I blog my heart out for Anthony...and say a prayer that someone can step forward for him.  Better yet--pass the word.  Thanks!

OpEd: Dear Women Rioting in Italy, Berlusconi's Treatment of Women Not Church's Fault

Ah, dear sisters who got interviewed by NPR, please put down your placards for a moment and have a cup of tea with me. Or a nice glass of Chianti. We need to talk, woman to woman.

You spoke to me this morning as I was getting my kids ready for school, listening to a news story on your prime minister's latest attempt to make Hugh Hefner look like a saint. Rioting in the streets to protest Berlusconi's outrageous behavior seems like an entirely appropriate reaction to me. No qualms there. The reporter then said there was a lot of consideration as to why the vibrant feminist movement in place in the 1970s had suddenly spiraled into underage women being used by powerful men for pleasure and power. Your answer?: The macho culture and the Catholic Church.

Okey dokey. I'm sure the machismo doesn't help matters a bit. But the Catholic Church is responsible for a situation where Berlusconi is sleeping with 17 year old girls?

Let me point a few distressing facts:

• The Catholic Church considers sex before marriage sinful. Always has. Always will.
• The Catholic Church holds that women should be respected in the dignity of their personhood. That is in the home, in the workplace, on the beach, on TV, at a party, actually, anywhere. There's a document named Mulierius Dignatatem. Feel free to read it sometime. Or heck, read the gospels.
• Since maybe 50% of the named saints come from Italy, you can look to them for some examples--especially the modern ones. Apparently you walk down any street and encounter a shrine, right? These women were, to a person, happy, and liberated from the culture's false sense of need to be any man's cupcake. You think they're oppressed?
• Candidly, Catholicism has fallen so out of favor within Italian culture I wonder where you think the Catholic Church would have that kind of widespread societal influence.

More Chianti?

See, sisters, here's the sticky part. Although Berlusconi is responsible for his own sins, and these women are at least at some level victims, I'm afraid there is a certain amount of reaping the whirlwind here. When you advocate being "liberated" from marriage, you're freeing yourself into being used. Sister, what were you thinking when you came up with this quote?

"As far as I'm concerned, everyone can have all the orgies they like. However, orgies can in no way be the key factor in the selection process of political leaders."

It's not exactly an enthralling statement of conscience, is it? No, it goes against basic logic, women: have orgy => get used => be seen as usable object => get treated like usable object. If you don't make a stand for dignity in the first place, you can't easily reclaim it later. Women, YOU helped foster this culture that is destroying our daughters. (Yes, not just you. Men too. I'm having a talk with them later, thank you very much. I'm planning to use the Chianti bottle on them after we finish drinking it.)

The good news is, of course, there is some conscience at work here. We agree Berlusconi must be held accountable for his crimes (and they are crimes). But I beg you to stop drinking the "open sex is free" Kool Aid. Berlusconi is apparently "surprised" that a million women are in the streets, protesting his behavior. Is it worth asking the question--why?

IC

"Sts. Cyril and Methodius: Still waiting for your card"

And a happy-dappy Valentine's Day to you, too.

Heaven: By definition, everything is good and right in heaven. But it doesn't mean that saints don't have feelings.

That's the message that has been leaked by Slavonic members of the heavenly chorus this February 14th: although they don't begrudge the honoring of Saint Valentine this day, the communion of saints think Cyril and Methodius would like a card or prayer or two....

Read the rest here (a repeat from 2009).

Ironic, indeed

...when the assigned lectionary reading for World Marriage Sunday is "love your enemies"....

Worldwide Chocolate Shortage Brings People Back To God

Mexico City, Mexico: Weather patterns that destroyed the regional cocoa crop in Central America have created a significant chocolate shortage this Spring, and locals have seen an dramatic increase in mass attendance.

Coincidence? Sr. Maria Esperanza Garcia of Santa Clara Church thinks not.

"I know this through my own experience. When I slip in my trust of God, the first thing I do is try to drown my problems in chocolate rather than God. I'm depressed, and instead of praying or offering it up, I go and buy a chocolate bar. Without the candy bars for sale, I see it as the crutch that is is. And I go pray," she offered.

A local sociologist, Isabella Rodriguez of RBCU*--Ciudad de Mexico campus, decided to test this theory through a randomized double blind survey, asking members of the population under what conditions they ate chocolate, and what they do now without chocolate in the stores. Rodriguez found that 74% of participants responded they ate chocolate more when they were depressed, lonely, or craving meaning in their lives. 60% of these respondants said they were turning to meditation and prayer practices during the shortage. The other 15% began drinking more coffee.

RBCU colleague Fr. Josemaria Blanco, SJ, argued that the Church needed to see the importance of these findings. "First, people still crave meaning and relationship. Second, we need to preach to these people to help them recognize that God is the source of meaning and relationship, the immutable good, while chocolate is a mutable good. Third, we obviously need to send missionaries to Weight Watchers meetings."

The archdiocese could not be reached for comment.

--IC

*RBCU=Really Big Catholic University

Friday's QOTD

You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.

--St. Teresa of Avila

"Jonah the Worm"

A ditty with a surprise ending from Allen's Brain.

I encourage you go there and read the entire thing--the ending is worth it.

Wow, those Christians are bringing out the brass knuckles....

HT Nate Lenz on fb.

My eyes! My eyes!

Found (actually, re-found) a new blog: Saint Kitsch--trying to expose all that shouldn't be in the world of art within the Christian Church.

The owner, Frank, offers the worst sacred Heart of Jesus picture EVER, and I must say I believe he is coorect:

Auuugggghhhhhh!

10 best answers for theology students stumped in class

OK, theology students out there. Your teacher asks you difficult theology questions? Do you never know how to answer? Tired of not knowing what the heck to say? These ten answers should get you out of any given Christian theology question. Use with abandon and confidence.

10. Get thee behind me, Satan! (p.s. may have to drop course afterward)

9. Professor, I was practicing lectio divina on the text, and the material was so rich, I didn't get past the first paragraph.

8. But why do I need to answer such things when all is vanity? Do you want me to contribute to that?

7. In all respect, professor, I don't see why I have to answer when Thomas Aquinas more or less aced it for all eternity.

6. Um, if you could just give me a minute--I'm figuring out the numerology embedded in your question before I answer. Could be a sign, you know.

5. (On a slip of paper to be handed to the professor) I just had a vision that has rendered me speechless. I expect to be able to talk again when my wife gives birth to our miracle child and prophet. I trust you'll understand. Thanks.

4. "The only solution is love." (Dorothy Day)

3. Jesus is the reason for the season, the rizzle for the sizzle, the tension for the question. (snaps fingers at end, dances out of the room)

2. The paschal mystery. It always goes back to the paschal mystery.

1. (with solemn intonation) Well, you know, ...God.

The best reason for vote for me

You should vote for me because the only one I'm mean to is Satan. So there.





The voting is going on now for the 2011 Blogger's Choice awards--thanks all!

Friday's QOTD

Take nothing seriously, except for God; and even then remember, He has a sense of humor too.

Deacon Kevin McGoldrick

Truth Is Stranger #118: Examination of Conscience?--got an app for that

I have to admit, I think this is a cool idea.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (CNS) -- Can modern technology help strengthen our faith? Some techno-savvy Catholics from South Bend think so.

In his message for the 2011 World Communications Day, Pope Benedict XVI said it's not enough to just "proclaim the Gospel through the new media," but one must also "witness consistently." The developers of "Confession: A Roman Catholic App" for Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch think their product helps people do both.

Brothers Patrick and Chip Leinen and their friend Ryan Kreager said feedback has been positive. The app, reportedly the only one with an imprimatur, is designed to help people make a better confession.

Story here.

"My joke is easy...."

(Ok, the post title is lifted from Facebook, offered by another to Fr. James Martin for a book on laughter and holiness.  I love it.)

Bad theological jokes from all over the Christian tradition (and beyond) for your Wednesday.  Enjoy!

Q - What did the Calvinist say when he fell down the stairs?

A - Ughh! Sure glad I got that over with.

***

I visited The Church of Appliantology, founded by L. Ron Hoover.
It really sucked.

***

A Jehovah's Witness and a Unitarian Universalist started a new religion.
One day they knocked on my door.
But when I answered, they just stood there.
After a couple moments of silence, I queried, "Well, what do you want?"
"Oh, nothing in particular," they replied.

***

How many charismatics does it take to change a light bulb? Two...One to change the light bulb and one to cast out the spirit of darkness.

***

Q: Why did the apples in Noah's ark have no worm?

A: Because they all came in pears.

***

The Former mayor of Chicago Mr. Daley died and wound up in hell. Satan was tickled pink to finally have him. "Ok, Mr. Mayor," Satan said "time to pay the piper for your career." From that time on Satan submitted him to the hottest section of hell. Well time goes by and Satan decides to see how Daley was doing.

Imagine Satan's surprise and anger when he found Mayor Daley singing and happily going about things. He barked at Daley "WHY are you so happy?" To which Daley replied " I thought it would be torment down here. I am a Chicago politician this is a cake walk compared to that."

Satan storms away and his wheels start turning, what is he going to do? No one is to enjoy their time here. He gets an idea. In the section where Daley is Satan has the temperature changed to 1500 degrees below zero. As before he waits a little while and then he goes to check on Daley. Much to his shock and horror Daley is even happier than before. He is yelling cheers and singing and jumping up and down.

"What are you doing now?" yelled Satan.

Daley answers "The Cubs won the World Series!!!!"

***

Four engineers were talking theology. One said, God must be a mechanical engineer because He connected our bones and made them move by muscle action. Another engineer said God must be a chemical engineer because of the way He made us to convert food into energy. The next said God must be an electrical engineer because of how He made our brains send messages throughout the body. The last engineer said 'I think God is a civil engineer because He ran the waste pipes through the recreation area.'

***


How do you get a professional theological blogger off your porch?

Answer: Pay him for the pizza!
(Source)