Message From Pope Benedict XVI for LENT 2009
“He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry” (Mt 4,1-2)
“The practice of fasting is very present in the first Christian community. The Church Fathers, too, speak of the force of fasting to bridle sin, especially the lusts of the “old Adam,” and open in the heart of the believer a path to God. Moreover, fasting is a practice that is encountered frequently and recommended by the saints of every age. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself.”
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Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (Encyclical Veritatis splendor.) May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Causa nostrae laetitiae (Cause of our joy,) accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.”
Archive for February, 2009
LENT for the Soul
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Culture, Defending Life, Lent, Lexio Divina, Mary, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, Religion, Spiritual Things with tags Catholic, Christian, Church, Culture, Defending Life, Faith, family .community, fasting, Jesus, Lent, Lexio Divina, Mary, neighbor, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, Prayer, Religion, Scripture, sin, Spiritual Things on February 20, 2009 by JoannReality Check
Posted in Economy, News, Opinions, Politics, United States with tags American, depression, Economy, FDR, New Deal, News, Opinions, Politics, Stimulus Bill, stock, unemployment, United States, USA, WW II on February 20, 2009 by Joann
NOTA BENE: The unemployment rate after the 1929 Market Crash did not turn down significantly until the United States entered World War II.
The much acclaimed New Deal of FDR is presently being heralded as having saved the economy, and bringing down the high unemployment rates of the Depression. As you can see, That presumption is unfounded in the fact and numbers of actual history.
Beware the hype! The New Administration saying that such New Deal spending will bring down unemployment rates in our present economy will not make it so.
We hear that our unemployment figures are “the worst since the Depression.” Look at the real picture over time to get a perspective based on the actual numbers. Notice, we are nowhere near the unemployment rate of the depression years, and notably below the high of the eighties. The problems of our economy are being compounded by irresponsible media and Presidential spin.
Source for unemployment rates here.
Before Entering the Frey
Posted in Catholic, Christ, Christian, Defending Life, Imitation of Christ, Just Thinking Out Loud, My Journal, Religion with tags Catholic, Christ, Christian, consolation, conversation, Defending Life, Imitation of Christ, Just Thinking Out Loud, Lord, meditation, My Journal, Reflections, Religion, soul on February 20, 2009 by JoannGood Morning, Everyone!
Before the day sounds through the rafters of my mind like bats in the belfry, before entering the fray myself, I’m making room for another voice:
My Imitation of Christ, Book III, Chapter I by Thomas a’ Kempis:
The Inward Conversation of Christ with the Faithful Soul
I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me.”Blessed is the soul who hears the Lord speaking within her, who receives the word of consolation from His lips. Blessed are the ears that catch the accents of divine whispering, and pay no heed to the murmurings of this world. Blessed indeed are the ears that listen, not to the voice which sounds without, but to the truth which teaches within. Blessed are the eyes which are closed to exterior things and are fixed upon those which are interior. Blessed are they who penetrate inwardly, who try daily to prepare themselves more and more to understand mysteries. Blessed are they who long to give their time to God, and who cut themselves off from the hindrances of the world. Consider these things, my soul, and close the door of your senses, so that you can hear what the Lord your God speaks within you. “I am your salvation,” says your Beloved. “I am your peace and your life. Remain with Me and you will find peace. Dismiss all passing things and seek the eternal. What are all temporal things but snares? And what help will all creatures be able to give you if you are deserted by the Creator?” Leave all these things, therefore, and make yourself pleasing and faithful to your Creator so that you may attain to true happiness.
My favorite line:
“Blessed are the ears that catch the accents of divine whispering, and pay no heed to the murmurings of this world.”
Tea Party
Posted in Just Thinking Out Loud, News, Political, Politics, Pork, Reflecting on the news, Santelli with tags American, Barak, Just Thinking Out Loud, News, Obama, policy, Political, Politics, Pork, president, Reflecting on the news, Santelli, Stimulus Bill, voice on February 19, 2009 by JoannA response to Rick Santelli , it seems, is underway. The American Freedom network writes:
Most of you have already seen the wonderful,passionate speech by Rick Santelli among the traders in Chicago today. He decries the way the Obama policies for mortgage support reward the “water drinkers” instead of those who carry the water. It is one of the most truly inspired speeches I have ever seen or heard, and well worth viewing if you value capitalism. I love how Santelli dismisses the traders are “putty in his hands”, but are real Americans who want to enjoy the fruits of their hard work.
Party Hardy!
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I’m Mad As Hell And I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore!
Posted in Economy, Just Thinking Out Loud, Media, News, Obama, Opinions, Political, Politics, Pork, Santelli with tags Economy, foreclosure, Just Thinking Out Loud, Media, News, Obama, Opinions, Political, Politics, Pork, referendum, Santelli, Stimulus Bill, subsidize on February 19, 2009 by JoannThanks to the Anchoress! Read here.
Rick Santelli’s right-on diatribe should have Americans opening their windows and yelling:
“I’m Mad As Hell And I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore!”
Rick Santelli:
“How about this, President – New Administration: Why don’t you put up a website to ask people to vote on the internet as a referendum to find out if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages, or would we would we at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people who might actually prosper down the road and reward people that could carry the water rather than just drink the water.”
In response to cheers and applause, Santelli declares: “This is America! … President Obama are you listening?!”
Rick Santelli then adds: What we are doing in this country, right now, is making the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves.
St. Gertrude the Great – God’s Promise
Posted in Catholic, Christ, Christian, Defending Life, Just Thinking Out Loud, My Journal, Religion, Spiritual Things with tags Catholic, Christ, Christian, Defending Life, Faith, hope, Just Thinking Out Loud, love, meditation, My Journal, promise, Reflections, Religion, Spiritual Things on February 19, 2009 by JoannYou may find the language of St. Gertrude the Great difficult. The arcane style is cumbersome in these days of expediency. If I simplified it, you would lose the sense of the Saint, herself. Slogging your way through is well worth the effort to get to the treasure . God made promises to St. Gertrude the Great, recorded by the Saint, herself, contained in The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great. When you consider Who it is who condescends to make the promise, how likely is it that we in our day have outgrown the promise in favor of modernity?
Your liberality, O Lord, has bestowed on me this gift, more necessary than all – certifying to me that whoever, in their charity, will either pray for me – the vilest of God’s creatures – or perform any good works, either for the amendment of my life, or the forgiveness of the sins of my youth, or the correction of my iniquity and malice, shall receive this reward from thy abundant liberality – namely, that they shall not die until, by Your grace, their lives have been pleasing to You; and that You will dwell in their souls by a special friendship and intimacy………
You have added to all these favors, my kind God, by an abundant liberality – that if anyone, after my death, considering with how much familiarity You did communicate with my unworthiness while in this life, should recommend themselves humbly to my prayers, You would hear them as willingly as if they invoked the intercession of any other person, provided that they had the intention of repairing their faults and negligence, and that they humbly and devoutly thanked You for five special benefits which You granted me.
First. For the love by which You freely chose me from all eternity, and which I declare to be the greatest of all the benefits which You have bestowed on me: for as You were not ignorant of, or rather did foresee, the corrupt life which I should lead, the excess of my ingratitude, and how I should abuse Your gifts, so that I deserve to have been born a pagan, and not an enlightened human being – Your mercy, which infinitely exceeds our crimes, has chosen me, in preference to many other Christians, to bear the holy character of a religious.
Secondly. Because You have drawn me blessedly to You; and I acknowledged it to be an effect of the clemency and charity which is natural to You, Who have won, by the attractions of Your caresses, this rebellious and stubborn heart, which deserves to be loaded with fetters and chains; and it has seemed as if You hadst found in me the faithful companion of yYour love, and that Your greatest pleasure was to be united to me.
Thirdly. Because You have united me so intimately to You; and I declare, as I am bound, that I am indebted for this only to Your signal liberality, as if the number of the just was not great enough to receive the immense abundance of Your mercies, not that I had better dispositions than others, but, on the contrary, that Your charity might be the more signalized in me thereby.
Fourthly. That You have taken pleasure and delight in dwelling in my soul; and this, if I may so speak, proceeds from the ardor of Your love, which has deigned to testify, even by words, that it is the joy of Your all – powerful wisdom to stoop to one so dissimilar to You, and so utterly ungrateful.
Fifthly. That it has pleased You to accomplish Your work happily in me; and, it is a favor which I have hoped with humble confidence from the tenderness of Your most benign charity, and for which I adore You with gratitude, declaring, O sovereign, true, and only treasure of my soul, that I have in no way contributed to it by my merits, but that it is a true gift of Your liberality.
All these benefits coming from Your immense charity, and being so far above my nothingness, I am unable to give thanks for them worthily; but You has further assisted my misery, in exciting others, by the most condescending promises, to render thanksgivings to You, the merit of which may supply my deficiencies. For which may all creatures in Heaven, on earth and under the earth, glorify You and thank You continually!
What hope we have, when we consider the lengths to which our Lord goes, reaching through the centuries, to supply for our lack of merit.
Racing Ahead
Posted in Christ, Just Thinking Out Loud, Lent with tags Christ, Just Thinking Out Loud, Lent on February 19, 2009 by JoannLent isn’t here yet, but our priest understands the need to prepare. He’s also an Eagle Scout, and a National Guardsman. Today was all about the little niches, the “altarcitos” (New Mexico, here) around us in our pagan society. Every aspect of it vies for our attention. Our society rejects the Cross: euthanasia, abortion, birth control; all part of rampant hedonism. Eternal youth, that’s the ticket! (Good luck with that one!)
There’s a scene in The Passion of Christ in which Jesus is rebuked for embracing His Cross. That is the reasonable attitude without Christ who reveals the Mystery. No one will escape the Cross. Many will waste the Cross in their lives. Without daily union with Christ, our crosses bring us down. There’s the rub. That’s the waste!
Preparing for Lent is preparing for the realities of Life. Eagle Scout-mentality is a plus: the epitome of “Be Prepared.” I’ll bet our priest has his hair shirt at the ready and I’m looking for mine.
Searching with Mary
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Just Thinking Out Loud, Mary, Mother of God, My Journal, Religion, Rosary, Spiritual Things with tags baptize, Catholic, Christian, heaven, human, Jesus, Just Thinking Out Loud, Mary, Mother of God, My Journal, mystery, Prayer, race, Reflections, Religion, Rosary, Spiritual Things on February 19, 2009 by JoannParaphrased from The Holy Rosary Narrated, distributed by Keepthefaith.org and narrated by Fr. Hugh Thwaites:
A reflection on the Fifth Joyful Mystery – The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
“The whole human race are either Mary’s children or potentially her children because when we’re baptized, we are baptized into Jesus and become her children. For the rest, her motherly heart searches, and cannot rest until she sees her children safe in Heaven.”
If you look closely at an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, you will notice the small sandal hanging from the foot of the Infant Jesus, who is safe in His Mother’s arms. This represents those who Mary also holds if only by a thread.
Divine Office, Divine!
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Divine Office, Religion, Spiritual Things with tags Catholic, Christian, Divine Office, Prayer, Religion, Spiritual Things on February 18, 2009 by JoannFor all you, who pray the Divine Office daily or are struggling in an attempt, you’ve got to check out DivineOffice.org. They do an incredible job of presenting the Divine Office (Invitatory, Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer) with beautiful music and a community of voices. I love the sense of community!
Your “Cloud of Witnesses” will have help cheering you on from this side of Heaven. It’s a great way to begin the day and so blessed a way to end it. Commuters, you’ll actually find this time beating back the devil.
Did I tell you it is FREE!
The really good news is you can download the podcasts and take them with you (FREE!!!!!!!!)
No Mention-Pelosi
Posted in Catholic, Just Thinking Out Loud, News, Pelosi, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Religion with tags Catholic, Just Thinking Out Loud, News, Pelosi, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Religion, world news on February 18, 2009 by JoannGateway Pundit calls it a rebuke , while Speaker Pelosi avoids the obvious in her release:
“It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI today,” Pelosi said in a statement released hours after the meeting. “In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show his Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.”
Victor L. Simpson, AP writer, reports:
The Vatican’s attempts to keep the Pelosi visit low-profile displayed its obvious unease with the new U.S. administration. Benedict and Bush had found common ground in opposing abortion, an issue that drew them together despite their differences over the war in Iraq.
Wednesday’s meeting, in a small room off a Vatican auditorium after the pope’s weekly public audience, was closed to reporters and photographers.
The Vatican also said — contrary to its usual policy when the pope meets world leaders — that it was not issuing either a photo or video of the encounter, claiming the meeting was private.
The Anchoress writes: Pope Punks Pelosi Pix
A Fly on the Vatican Wall
Posted in Catholic, Just Thinking Out Loud, Pelosi, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pro-life, Religion with tags Catholic, Christian, Church, Just Thinking Out Loud, moral, Pelosi, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pro-life, Religion, world news on February 18, 2009 by JoannOh, to have been the proverbial fly on the wall when Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Madam Speaker Pelosi. Actually, if I were the fly, I’d have perched myself on Nancy’s nose as she posed Speakerential. The Pope is cool, kind, and slendorously Poperific so he’ll continue fighting for her soul while she’s stuck in radical wrong-headed feminism.
From Whispers in the Loggia, the Vatican statement:
Following the General Audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.
His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.
Remembering Michael
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Defending Life, Just Thinking Out Loud, Mary, Pro-life with tags Catholic, Christian, Chuck Schumer, Communion of Saints, Defending Life, Faith, grief, hope, Just Thinking Out Loud, Mary, mourning, Pro-life, sorrow on February 17, 2009 by JoannAmy Welborn shares not only her grief but her gratitude for all that is Michael. Amy writes:
“How can I, even as I acknowledge the crushing, puzzling, confusing loss and my shattered heart – for even Jesus wept - how can I say that I love him and that I believe all this stuff we both said we believed is actually true – and not allow some gratitude, albeit limited and struggling gratitude – to creep into my soul, for that thing, which is not a small thing, but a great thing?”
It will be a good day to die when someone who knows me intimately can write:
He prayed the Office almost every day of the last 25 years or so. Prayed the rosary every day for longer. Went to Mass almost every day.
He prayed, and knew intimately all those words I have been praying – or trying to pray – so intensely over the past week.
Thirsting for God. Rescuing from the snares of the enemy. Letting Christ live in me, being consumed, taken over by Christ, the Risen One, alive in Him. Praying for that. Every day. Asking God for mercy, for forgiveness, for peace. For the total embrace of Love.
You Are My Hiding Place
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Culture, Defending Life, Just Thinking Out Loud, My Journal, Religion with tags Catholic, Christian, Culture, Defending Life, Just Thinking Out Loud, My Journal, Prayer, Reflections, Religion on February 17, 2009 by JoannThe Anchoress reminded me of a verse from the Evening Prayer of the Divine Office for Thursday Week I.
So let every good man pray to You
in the time of need.
The floods of water may reach high
they shall not reach him.
You are my hiding place, O Lord;
you save me from distress.
You surround me with cries of deliverance. (Psalm 32: 6-7)
When I read the words, “You are my hiding place,” Corrie ten Boom’s story,”The Hiding Place” came to mind. I was also reading Immaculee Ilibagiza’s book, “Left To Tell, Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.” Both Corrie’s story and Immaculee’s book leave vivid images of the faithfulness of God not only in the mind, but in the heart, . Neither tells the story of the proverbial rose garden that we all want. Corrie and Immaculee lose the people they love. Their homelands become unrecognizable.
Corrie introduces us to her sister, Betsie, who dies in the concentration camp. What I loved about Betsie was how she made a home in the midst of the horrific circumstances of the camp; cheery dish towels hung at the window. Betsie’s actual home was the hiding place she made in the heart of God. Betsie was prepared to die.
Immaculee’s book describes an actual hiding place, a bathroom that became a haven for her and seven other women for ninety-one days. It was here they hid, and silently prayed, while hundreds of crazed, “machete-wielding” neighbors sought to butcher them. Again, God proved to be the real hiding place.
The triumph of their stories is told by the transformed hearts of these women of faith. Their books are a witness to God’s faithfulness in times of desperation.
Living in the Womb
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Defending Life, Holy Spirit, Just Thinking Out Loud, Mary, Mother of God, My Journal, Religion, Spiritual Things with tags Catholic, Christian, Defending Life, Holy Spirit, Just Thinking Out Loud, love, Mary, meditation, Mother of God, My Journal, Religion, Spiritual Things, womb on February 17, 2009 by JoannI should be in bed. It’s too early for this, but if I don’t share it, I won’t be able to get back to bed as I still imagine I will do. I was listening to a rosary reflection on the Visitation. Here in essence is what was said:
Our Lady, now expecting, goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. We can be sure that during the journey and the months she was caring for Elizabeth, Mary never forgot the baby growing within her. Jesus, being fashioned, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit; that’s an image of what happens to us in our life of grace. That intimate fashioning is what my whole life as a christian is to be.
When we are in the state of grace, we have the Holy Trinity living in us. We, however, can be so caught up in daily life and its demands, that we don’t think of that at all. If we did, we’d be aware of the movements of grace within, and so be motivated more by grace than by nature. Jesus being fashioned by God in the womb of His Mother Mary; to be in touch with this mystery is not to leave Jesus alone, as it were, but to be with Him as Mary was. The reality of our life of grace is that, like Jesus, we are very dependent on Mary. It is our Father’s plan: to be fashioned by God in intimate dependence on Mary into a perfect likeness of Jesus. This is the essence of our whole life of in the Spirit. Our entire life is now wrapped up in loving God. In Mary, for the first time, God is adequately loved by a creature.
Date With Destiny
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Culture of Death, News, Pelosi, Pope Benedict XVI, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Religion with tags Benedict XVI, Catholic, Christian, Church, Culture of Death, News, Pelosi, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer Intentions, Pro-life, Reflecting on the news, Religion, world news on February 16, 2009 by JoannIt’s confirmed, Nancy Pelosi has her date. According to the Vatican’s Press Office, Pope Benedict will be receiving U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in an audience at noon on Wednesday.
Though a self-described “ardent Catholic,” Speaker Pelosi is confused about what it means to be Catholic.
Hopefully many of you are praying for her. Monumental efforts appreciated!
After her Meet the Press appearance the US Conference of Catholic Bishops responded via this statement issued by, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport:
In the course of a “Meet the Press” interview on abortion and other public issues on August 24, 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion.
The Church has always taught that human life deserves respect from its very beginning and that procured abortion is a grave moral evil. In the Middle Ages, uninformed and inadequate theories about embryology led some theologians to speculate that specifically human life capable of receiving an immortal soul may not exist until a few weeks into pregnancy. While in canon law these theories led to a distinction in penalties between very early and later abortions, the Church’s moral teaching never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development.
These mistaken biological theories became obsolete over 150 years ago when scientists discovered that a new human individual comes into being from the union of sperm and egg at fertilization. In keeping with this modern understanding, the Church has long taught that from the time of conception (fertilization), each member of the human species must be given the full respect due to a human person, beginning with respect for the fundamental right to life.
Shine
Posted in Defending Life, Pro-life with tags Anti-abortion, Defending Life, eloquent, hope, Pro-life on February 16, 2009 by JoannHere a bright ray of hope from the up and coming generation.
From The Raving Theist and Happy Catholic
The Problem of Evil
Posted in Catholic, Christian, Culture, Defending Life, Imitation of Christ, Just Thinking Out Loud, My Journal, Religion with tags Catholic, Christian, corruption, Culture, Defending Life, evil, Imitation of Christ, Just Thinking Out Loud, knowledge, moral, My Journal, Religion, sin on February 16, 2009 by JoannThese verses from Chapter 51 of Imitation of Christ speak to my prayer vs world experiences and fluctuations:
“My Son, thou art not always able to continue in very fervent desire after virtues, nor to stand fast in the loftier region of contemplation; but thou must of necessity sometimes descend to lower things because of thine original corruption, and bear about the burden of corruptible life, though unwillingly and with weariness. So long as thou wear a mortal body, thou shalt feel weariness and heaviness of heart. Therefore thou ought to groan often in the flesh because of the burden of the flesh, inasmuch as thou canst not give thyself to spiritual studies and divine contemplation unceasingly.”
“At such a time it is expedient for thee to flee to humble and external works, and to renew thyself with good actions; to wait for My coming and heavenly visitation with sure confidence; to bear thy exile and drought of mind with patience, until thou be visited by Me again, and be freed from all anxieties. For I will cause thee to forget thy labors, and altogether to enjoy eternal peace. I will spread open before thee the pleasant pastures of the Scriptures, that with enlarged heart thou may begin to run in the way of My commandments. And thou shalt say, ‘The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.‘”
Down to Earth
Posted in Just Thinking Out Loud with tags Catholic, children, Christian, Defending Life, innocents, Just Thinking Out Loud, porn, radio, tears on February 16, 2009 by JoannIt’s a bit of a jolt leaving morning mass to engage life on planet earth again. The car radio was on; Dr. Meg Meeker, a pediatrician, and Teresa Tomeo of Catholic Connections on Immaculate Heart Radio, brought the secular world sharply into focus. Both ladies are terrific. Each is taking on the the culture of death and perversion as their professions allow. Dr. Meeker spoke of how she has encountered the effects of even soft porn in her practice. Looking at the aftermath of pornography through a pediatrician’s eyes can bring tears to mine.
Dr. Meeker spoke of pornography as being “straight from the pit of hell” and striking at the heart of the home. It feeds a bent in the human person for evil, especially in someone who has a propensity for sexual evil. “It’s going to breed a whole generation of young men, and even older men, who are going to play it out and the victims are going to be younger and younger and younger children.” She goes on to say, “Some of the most disturbing, horrific, days I have had as a pediatrician have been when I have had to confront people… deal with young children who have been sexually abused by a perpetrator. It’s just devastating, absolutely devastating… It does start with a perverse soft porn, a song, pictures on a page, pictures on a video screen, and it gets worse and worse and worse.”
There definitely is a reason we been asked to “pray without ceasing.” Add to prayer, vigilance, in our homes and over our hearts. “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8
