Thomas Sowell fed up with theatrics:
No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney Frank to force banks and other financial institutions to reduce their mortgage lending standards, in order to meet government-set goals for more home ownership. Those lower mortgage lending standards are at the heart of the increased riskiness of the mortgage market and of the collapse of Wall Street securities based on those risky mortgages.
God does not ask a great deal from us. A brief remembrance from time to time. A brief act of adoration occasionally to ask Him for his grace,or offer Him your sufferings. At other times to thank him for the graces He has given you and is giving you. In the midst of your work find consolation in Him as often as possible. During your meals and conversations occasionally lift up your heart to Him The least little remembrance of Him will always be most agreeable. You need not shout out. He is closer to us than we may think.
A meditation by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (Letter 9 – page 69)
You don’t usually get to hear a Lutheran congregation holler an, “Amen” or “Preach it, Brother. ” Today was no different, but the minister seemed to want one. I was visiting with the Lutherans and the minister confessed that the one time he could remember that someone called out, “Amen, Brother”, it caught him so by surprise that it totally threw him into confusion. Now, however, Jesus was talking plain in the Gospel and the minister felt he could use a reminder from the pews to, “Make it plain; make it plain!” He was preaching John 3:16, “the Bible in a nutshell.”
The evening before, I heard a priest of the Roman Catholic Church preach it. He truly kept it simple. He said,
“Life is short. Hell is for Eternity. Think about it!” He sat down. That was it! Talk about nutshells.
My Lutheran friend said a bit more, before remembering his injunction to himself, “Make it plain!” The plain fact was that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The minister said that the love He bore us was not the stuff of “warm fuzzies” but “agape”, that to die for love that willing died for all mankind; sparing not a drop of blood, or leaving a breathe unspent.
The sermon in my head reminded me, Jesus plainly and emphatically proclaimed that verse, now made famous by placards at football games and verse17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” However, not many people finish the message. Jesus’ “make it plain” message, was also recorded by John in chapter 3:18-19.
No “warm fuzzies” here, either, only the uncomfortable part of the Truth, John 3:18-19.
“Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”
Jesus spoke the whole Truth and so should we because: “Life is short. Hell is for Eternity. Think about it!”
Sorry, if this is too much Chaput for you, but the man/bishop has a message America and American Catholics need to hear. I intend to follow his lead and spread the message.
“Some Catholics in both political parties are deeply troubled by these issues. But too many Catholics just don’t really care. That’s the truth of it. If they cared, our political environment would be different. If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn’t need to waste each other’s time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow ‘balanced out’ or excused by three other good social policies.”
Offering a sober evaluation of the state of American Catholicism, he added:
“We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because they’re not real. We can’t talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves and to God by claiming to ‘personally oppose’ some homicidal evil — but then allowing it to be legal at the same time.”
Commenting on society’s attitude towards Catholic beliefs, Archbishop Chaput said, “we have to make ourselves stupid to believe some of the things American Catholics are now expected to accept.”
“There’s nothing more empty-headed in a pluralist democracy than telling citizens to keep quiet about their beliefs. A healthy democracy requires exactly the opposite.”
What’s in a word? Archbishop Chaput will tell you:
Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput delivered a speech on Saturday reflecting on the significance of the November 2008 election. Warning that media “narratives” should not obscure truth, he blamed the indifference and complacency of many U.S. Catholics for the country’s failures on abortion, poverty and immigration issues.
He also advised Catholics to “master the language of popular culture” and to refuse to be afraid, saying “fear is the disease of our age.”
Archbishop Charles J, Chaput, speaking in Toronto -excerpt:
The “separation of Church and state” does not mean — and it can never mean — separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be “leaven in the world” and to “make disciples of all nations.” That kind of radical separation steals the moral content of a society. It’s the equivalent of telling a married man that he can’t act married in public. Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won’t stay married.
Be Holy! 