I'm noticing a line being drawn in the sand between the liberal and conservative Catholics. In my opinion the resulting changes will be profound and heartbreaking. I suppose each Catholic person has already decided which side of the line they will straddle. Just keep in mind, we will be held personally accountable for each of those  decisions.

If our leader could be considered a thief, you can only imagine what 

kind of sinners the rest of us are. 

The confession loophole

It's none of my business what my boy has confessed to God during his private confession, so I'm not allowed to ask him what he's damaged or broken and I have yet to find the source of his guilt. Once Christ extends his mercy, forgiveness, and grace upon the penitent, i.e., the boy, I'm not allowed to even reprimand or punish him further, if, and when, I find out he's keyed my car, painted the back of the vinyl siding or shaved our cats. Though the boy is unaware of this little loophole about confession which favors the penitent, if I mention anything further about any future discoveries of his now confessed sins, or if I feel the anger rise within me from discovering his bad behavior, "I" will then be the one in-snared by the confession loophole.

My son walks into the kitchen and say's to me, "I feel bad." I said to him, "Do you have a fever, does your tummy ache?" "What do you think is wrong?" He said, "Don't YOU FEEL BAD when YOU sin?" I said, "Yes, I feel terrible when I sin, but I know how to fix it, you can go to confession and say you're sorry and then you can forget about it." 

I didn't ask him what he had done, I figure it's between him and God, though I'm pretty sure the dog knows. People like my son who have a sense of right and wrong may not do very well in this world, but they'll do just fine in the next.

“I have wandered onto the subject of silence. But this is not what I wanted to speak about, but rather about the soul's life with God and about its response to grace. When a soul has been cleansed, and the Lord is on intimate terms with it, it begins to apply all its inner force in striving after God. Yet the soul cannot do anything of itself. God alone arranges everything. The soul knows this and is mindful of it. It is still in exile and understands well that there may yet come cloudy and rainy days, but it must now look upon things differently from what it had up to now. It does not seek reassurance in a false peace, but makes ready for battle. It knows it comes from a warrior race. It is now much more aware of everything. It knows that it is of royal stock. It is concerned with all that is great and holy.”

-Sister Faustina

 “I tremble to think that I have to give an account of my tongue. There is life, but there is also death in the tongue. Sometimes we kill with the tongue: we commit real murders. And we are still to regard that as a small thing? I truly do not understand such consciences. I have known a person who, when she learned from someone that a certain thing was being said about her, fell seriously ill. She lost a good deal of blood and shed many tears, and the outcome was very sad. It was not the sword that did all this, but the tongue. O my silent Jesus, have mercy on us!”
- Sister Faustina

On an attack on "intellectual liberals","If a child refuses to accept its father or mother, that child is not a liberal, that child is a brat. And how much more important is God to us than a parent to a child?"

Cardinal Arinze

Bob Woodward has complained that being seated next to Al Gore during a dinner party was a "Taxing" Experience. I think Bob is being a bit too hard on Mr. Gore, after all, Al's been under a dark acid rain cloud for many years now.  Consider Al's brain as a ticking time bomb as he contemplates and calculates how many pounds of chlorofluorocarbons his freezer, refrigerator, ice machine, wine cooler, air conditioner, and ice cream maker produce every day! Those figures don't even include his propane grill or dryer, nor his hot tub, heated water bed , or the space heaters strewn about his various homes. (He has three)  Al's brain can barely keep up with the strain.  I haven't even mentioned his incalculable carbon footprint for his numerous public appearances. News articles have said that Al is becoming more difficult to be around but that's because in Al's world, the sky is falling and it's falling in big invisible chunks. One of two things will have to happen, either Al will go crazy from the stress and anxiety of trying to save the planet alone with 6 billion uncooperative people or he will have to let go and let God be in charge.  The lesson here? At this point, only God can still enjoy the company of Al Gore.

Elizabeth has applied for a job at one of the  Disney studios and they have  responded favorably to her portfolio. They said that she's one of the finalists

 - but then there are probably a lot of finalists.

We've started a nine day novena on Elizabeth's behalf. Our son  has been participating with us, praying as he's never prayed before. He threw his whole heart into it, praying solemnly, slowly and with as much  devotion and passion as his little heart could muster, unlike his usual method of praying like an auctioneer - late for a pig roast. Joseph believes if his sister is hired, she will then mail him a couple of tickets to Disney World or Disney land so if this prayer is answered God would be in essence killing two birds with one stone.

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 Elizabeth was sitting in her office overlooking Paramount studios next door and watching people come and go in their Bentley's, and Mercedes, then as she  turned to gaze at the "Hollywood" sign, she told me she thought to herself, "Is this all there is?" This place is such a joke. How did  it become so iconic. Hollywood has sold us all a bunch of lies.

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Here's another movie, Elizabeth has made.

Please consider praying for our daughter. We need people like her in Hollywood.

Tears are no sign that a man is in the grace of God, neither must we infer that one who weeps when he speaks of holy and devout things necessarily leads a holy life.

 - St Philip Neri

Yesterday, after one of our two  daughters wedding engagements were called off, I said to her, "Fall into Christ, he should be our first love and our main focus, he's everything." She said, "I'm going to drive to Kansas City and walk through the ghetto and hope I get shot to death." I said, "Well, something much worse would happen before you were shot to death and then you'd get to live. It's time for you to live for Christ alone." She said, "He hates me, and he's screwed me over." I said, "Christ screws no one, people screw one another, besides Christ knows exactly how you feel because he was also betrayed by a kiss.

Our broken hearted daughter doesn't realize it yet but she did indeed dodge a bullet and she didn't even have to go to Kansas city to do it.

- To my daughter, whom I'm frustrated with.

How can we become saints if we refuse to forgive even the smallest infractions against us? Clinging to our pain while saying, "It's not fair," does not justify our refusal to forgive, because with forgiveness we have no "rights".

  Christ commands us to forgive and without being asked to forgive first and without a conditional apology or a sign of remorse from our offenders. Don't even waste the priests time in the confessional by expecting forgiveness for yourself, when you refuse to extend it to others.

When we forgive, we let things go and try to forget about the past sins against us and we don't rehash hurtful scenarios in our mind, in essence- picking at our emotional scabs. When we forgive and forget, we allow Christ to step in to heal our wounds.

When you forgive someone, it doesn't negate any sort of justice from God. Our  God of the ten commandments will still demand justice and an accounting from each and every one of us but for now, while we are living, we step back and let God have our hurt and anger and we  do the things which we've been called to do. In other words, you go to confession and work on making yourself a better person and let God work on your offenders.

The business of forgiveness is a serious matter, it's one of the things your eternal life will be judged upon.

Ephesians 4:32

 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

Matthew 6:14-15

 "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. {15} "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

"I love you more than I loved myself " -  Jesus

 Oh death were is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

1 Corinthians 15:55

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible: and we shall be changed.

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Consider Satan's three day victory  - it was short lived and the victories Satan has gained through us are temporary  as well.

As  sons and daughters of the most high God, we win and we will never renounce this faith nor relinquish our victory -through Christ to anybody - ever.

 

“My Jesus, let my sacrifice burn before Your throne in all silence, but with the full force of love, as I beg You to have mercy on souls. - Sister Faustina

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I love her.
Just think, she could of prayed, "Please God save me, save MEEEE" but she didn't and even at a risk to her own spiritual well being by praying for others instead of herself. Though salvation without Christ is impossible, it's when your concerned and preoccupied for the redemption and salvation of other souls that you in fact, seal the fate of your own.

My son told me he's afraid of people with electrical body parts so naturally I started doing the
 "Robot"- though very poorly and as usual he didn't get my joke.

Come to think of it, I'm scared of people with electrical body parts too.