“Rich Weinstein is not a reporter. He does not have a blog. Until this week, the fortysomething’s five-year old Twitter account had a follower count in the low double digits.
“I’m an investment adviser,” Weinstein tells me from his home near Philadelphia. “I’m a nobody. I’m the guy who lives in his mom’s basement wearing a tinfoil hat.” (He’s joking about the mom and the tinfoil.)
He’s also behind a series of scoops that could convince the Supreme Court to dismantle part of the Affordable Care Act. Weinstein has absorbed hours upon hours of interviews with Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor who advised the Massachusetts legislature when it created “Romneycare” and the Congress when it created “Obamacare.” Conservatives had been looking for ways to demonstrate that the wording of the ACA denied insurance subsidies to consumers in states that did not create their own health exchanges. Weinstein found a clip of Gruber suggesting that states that did not create health insurance exchanges risked giving up the ACA’s subsidies; it went straight into the King v. Burwell brief, and into a case that’s currently headed to the Supreme Court.”
Category Archives: Christian
Found
My Lord, my Love,
Turning to you,
I meet Your gaze.
Your eyes never stray
From your child.Since my conception,
That awesome moment,
You have kept
Careful watch over me.Through fleeting years,
You have guarded me,
As the apple of Your eye.
Your angels await my prayers.
I part my lips,
Pronouncing Your Name,
And they are at alert.“Thy Kindom come”
A flurry of wings
Break the silence.
“Thy Will be done. “
The brightness of electrum
Pervades the air.“Give us this day
Our daily bread.”
Shining beings glow white hot,
Wings unfurl.Soaring heavenward
To the throne of God,
Weightless spirits
Obtain my abundance,
In measure overflowing.Depending on You,
For even my gratitude,
I rejoice,
For the Sun rises
Each day in my heart.Searching for You,
I find Your trail,
There is food on the table
And horses in the stall,
My children, too, are clothed,
And I am adorned in virtue,
Protected by humility.
What have I,
You have not given me?Though I spend myself in labor,
My vigor, I have not exhausted.
Though, I fall into bed at night,
I look back on a day,
Lived in Your Presence.Now, I recognize Your disguise.
I find You in the dawn.
Announced by bird song.
Heralded in my children’s cries.
“Tie my shoes,”
I hear You say.Hope sends out new shoots,
As I find my strength refreshed
By your calm streams.
My duty awaits me,
And I am Your steward.Drawing from coffers
That may appear empty,
They are, none-the-less,
Full of opportunity,
As Your poor
Are always with us,
Depending on You,
And, You, on me.You no longer hide.
You await me in the voiceless.
Your vessels of helplessness
Beckon me, “Come!”Your Cross surrounds me,
As I find myself
Nailed to the society of men.
The blood of Adam fills my veins,
But, so too,
The Blood of Christ.As I expend myself on family
You are fed and clothed
In your hunger and nakedness.
As I lift my voice in song,
The high heavens resound,
Echoing Your Name.My Jesus, You, fill the Universe,
For need and the Promise of Plenty,
Are all about me,
And I am Church,
Throbbing with Your Blood,
Beating with Your Heart.Copyright Joann Nelander
NAACP doesn’t acknowledge minority GOP wins | Fox News Video
“Mrs. Bishop” and the Theology of “but of course!”
I’m starting in the middle and steering you here: via “Mrs. Bishop” and the Theology of “but of course!”.
“Let’s leave aside all of the giddy “yes I was ordained and then made a bishop by the super-coolest of the cool bishops” anti-establishment boring-ese bits — and also the question as to whether she is being used as a handy stooge by bishops too cowardly to proclaim themselves (because sneaking about is so very Holy) and be forced from their powerful positions. Here’s what jumped out at me:
“I had felt called by God to priesthood since I was a small child,” she says simply, “and I wanted to be a priest before I died.”
That’s four I’s in two sentences, and not a “Jesus” in sight, in the whole long piece, except as necessary to provide the vaguest of explanations for our teaching on ordination.
Once again, as with the lady from Long Island, there is a great deal of pride and self-reference in all of this. Beyond that, the idea that “I felt called and wanted this before I died, because I am a prophet” makes her theology terribly suspect.
She calls herself “a prophet” but prophets generally don’t want any part of whatever it is they’re being called to. If they eventually find joy in their obedience, their first response is usually, “oh, hell no.”
Theologically, she is missing the whole idea — the Christ-promulgated idea — that you can’t always get what you want, but (if you try sometimes, though obedience is hard) you get what you need.
I am thinking of Moses, reluctantly leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the desert, only to be denied the Promised Land.
I am thinking of Saint Gemma Galgani, who certainly felt “called” to become a Passionist nun yet never made it into the convent. Rather, when it became clear that what she was being offered a calling of unquenchable thirst, she discovered her consolation in the self-abnegation into which she had been invited; the calling-within-a-calling, so to speak: desire without consummation, except as Christ consumes. “Not my will, but Thine.”
Her calling, in other words, was not to the cloister, as she fervently believed and desired, but to the very Cross, with Christ, and with suffering, too. Because reluctant prophets and those who answer the call to “pick up your Cross and follow me” always do suffer with him, in the end.”
via “Mrs. Bishop” and the Theology of “but of course!”.
Andy Warhol – a Celibate Catholic? – Aleteia
Andy Warhol – a Celibate Catholic? – Aleteia.
Beside his bed, Warhol placed a handmade plaster-of-paris shrine, with a crucifix and a worn prayer book on his bedside table. Under his white shirt, he wore a cross on a chain around his neck; and in his pocket, he carried a rosary.Andy Warhol’s Catholicism was evident in his philanthropy as well as his personal piety. He was a generous supporter of several organizations including a soup kitchen operated by the Church of the Heavenly Rest, an Episcopal church on E. 90th Street. Not content to only help financially, Warhol volunteered at the soup kitchen, ladling soup or helping in any way he could. And when his nephew announced that he wanted to become a Catholic priest, Warhol stepped up to finance the young man’s years of seminary study.
In his eulogy at Warhol’s funeral, British art historian John Richardson said,
I’d like to recall a side of his character that he hid from all but his closest friends: his spiritual side. Those of you who knew him in circumstances that were the antithesis of spiritual may be surprised that such a side existed. But exist it did, and it’s key to the artist’s psyche.Although Andy was perceived – with some justice – as a passive observer who never imposed his beliefs on other people, he could on occasion be an effective proselytizer. To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion.
He took considerable pride in financing his nephew’s studies for the priesthood. And he regularly helped out at a shelter serving meals to the homeless and hungry. Trust Andy to have kept these activities in the dark. The knowledge of this secret piety inevitably changes our perception of an artist who fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, glamour, and that he could be cool to the point of callousness. Never take Andy at face value…
On the Way to Heaven
I like to think it’s all about transformation here or hereafter that is if we choose by our lives to love God. Here is a homily given on All Souls Day-2014 by Fr. Michael DePalma
“-Padre Pio had many incredible, mystical gifts. One such was the gift of being able to witness many souls in Purgatory who came to visit him during the course of a typical day. Often they would just be there, asking him to pray for their intercession. Other Franciscan priests have verified this, because on occasion they themselves were also able to see the person who had come to visit Padre Pio.-But on one occasion Padre Pio was in the choir loft after the church was locked saying his prayers when he heard what sounded like a candlestick falling. He looked down from the loft and saw a Friar moving around the altar. So he shouted down to him asking who he was and what was he doing there. The friar said that he was visiting. Padre Pio came down the stairs and asked which monastery he was from. The friar said, “This one.” Padre Pio replied, “How could that be, I’ve been here for years and I have never seen you.” The friar said, “I was here 100 years ago. I was the sacristan.” It was then that Padre Pio noticed that the friar had been dusting the candlesticks on the altar.-And the friar at the altar turned to Padre Pio and said that he was sent from Purgatory for he had been there 100 years and no one had ever prayed for him. He was requesting Padre’s prayers. Padre Pio asked the friar what did he do to merit Purgatory and the friar answered that when he was saying Mass, and when he was performing his duties as sacristan, he wasn’t always reverent to the Holy Eucharist. He was very sloppy, especially around the altar. The next morning Padre Pio said Mass for the intention of this friar, and he was able to mystically see this poor soul from Purgatory enter into heaven itself.– “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” Only the pure get to go to heaven. That is why so many saints and theologians have said over the centuries that for those who will avoid going to hell, the majority of people will have to go through Purgatory first, before receiving the great reward of heaven.-Though it sounds a bit cheesy, it is still true: heaven is for people who are dying to get there. And anything that gets in the way of us getting to our eternal home has to go, has to be removed—we have to die to ourselves.-But most of us are not at that point yet. We are still too attached to our ways: to our hatred and anger, to our gossiping, to our lustfulness, to our overindulgences, to our selfish thoughts.We need purification. We need Purgatory.-However, belief in Purgatory has declined in modern times because the modern mind has forgotten two extremely important things: the purity of God, and the horror of sin.-Because so many people today are used to getting away with so much that they should not be doing, we have to admit that our teachers, our bosses, our husbands or wives, our mothers or fathers would be amazed to know all of the stuff that we do behind their backs. And we just continue with that attitude, going so far as to think that even God is not aware of what we are doing, or if He is, no worries, He will just let us slide. Continue reading
Be Holy! 