Photographs of St. Bernadette Soubirou

A prayer to St. Bernadette.

Saint Bernadette, little shepherdess of Lourdes, favored with eighteen apparitions of the Immaculate Virgin Mary and with the privilege of lovingly conversing with her, now that you are eternally enjoying the entrancing beauty of the Immaculate Mother of God, do not forsake me, your devoted client, who am still in this valley of tears. Intercede for me that I, too, may walk the simple path of faith. Help me to imitate your example, at our heavenly Queen’s request, by saying the Rosary daily and by doing penance for sinners.

Teach me to imitate your wonderful devotedness to God and our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, so that, like you, I may be blessed with the grace of lasting faithfulness and enjoy the happiness in heaven of the eternal vision of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

God of infinite mercy, we celebrate the feast of Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, the sinless Mother of God. May her prayers help us to rise above our human weakness. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen

Who Do You Worship?

Can’t say it any better than Mel Gibson, Tim Hughes and Jim Caviezel:

Update – The Age of “Just Hope It”

“Amen” to what he said.  Charles Krauthammer commenting on the Nobel Prize Surprise supposedly heralding the shining future of Obama the Peacenik and Flower Child ushering in the Age of “Just Hope It!”

“What’s come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.

What’s come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama’s shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told). China hasn’t moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed it’s pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

What’s come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? “The settlement push backfired,” reports The Washington Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have “arguably regressed.”

And what’s come from Obama’s single most dramatic foreign policy stroke — the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.”

Krauthammer hopes too, in the form of a question:

Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends?

Ahh, you guessed it, did you?!

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, talk it up President Obama. “Peace,peace” and prizes for peace! So there is no peace to speak of, only talk and the shifting sands of duplicity beneath our feet.

Update: Personally, for me, a bumper sticker speaks more to truth and peace than Obama.  It says: “No Jesus. No Peace. Know Jesus. Know Peace.” I know Charles Krauthammer wouldn’t put it that way, being Jewish; however, the way Christ preached, of truth and sacrificial love, rings throughout Krauthammer’s body of work.  Krauthammer doesn’t hand you ‘pie in the sky’, he preaches the need to slug it out in the trenches with our ethics, morals and integrity in tact.

Nature Cries Out!

I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.’ Luke 19:40

Here is a photograph of a living tree which I pass almost everyday.  One day it stopped me in my tracks as an image emerged out of the noise of criss-crossing leaves and branches. This tree was struck by lightening and now bears a recogognizable image:

Scourging and Crucifixion

Scourging and Crucifixion of Christ.

I am an artist and that may make me sensitive to images camouflaged in the ordinary things around us.  Not only do I see the Scourging and Crucifixion of Christ in this living tree, but I can also see the Crown of Thorns. As a starting point for mediation, ask yourself, “Why a tree?”

Evangelize Without Yielding to Secularization

Gathering His Chicks

Jesus is still gathering His chicks in a world bent on self rather than Salvation.  Jesus will never give up on us though.

close-wing

Five Little Ducks

Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hill and far away;
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only four little ducks came back.

Four little ducks went out one day,
Over the hill and far away;
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only three little ducks came back.

Three little ducks went out one day,
Over the hill and far away;
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only two little ducks came back.

Two little ducks went out one day,
Over the hill and far away;
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But only one little duck came back.

One little duck went out one day,
Over the hill and far away;
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack.”
But none of the five little ducks came back.

Sad mother duck went out one day,
Over the hill and far away;
The sad mother duck said “Quack, quack, quack.”
And all of the five little ducks came back

“God, our Father, created a big and loving family in His Church. Jesus prays that we are one (John 17:21-23), as He and His father in heaven are one. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we wish to invite you to learn more about our family in faith: a Church filled with beauty, miracles, heroes, history, love and peace.” (Catholics Come Home)

“Love is a mutual self-giving that ends in self-recovery. You recover God, and He recovers you.”

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen