Recently in Sole Fide Category

The children have been with their grandparents this week and the house is very peaceful. I find myself reciting aloud that Yeats poem: "...And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow..."

Long ago, I was invited to a Catholic church and all who remained after the Mass were to be anointed by a visiting priest. I stayed. As the elderly priest rubbed scented oil in the sign of the cross on my forehead, he asked what blessing I asked of God. I froze, unsure, but out of the depth of my heart I blurted, "Peace!"

Of course I was not asking for the sort of peace that tags along with quiet. Nor did I wish for the sort of peace that comes when swords are beaten into plowshares. Those are very nice kinds of peace, but what I desired was the Peace that floods your soul with comfort and soothes your distresses, the kind you hear "in the deep heart's core".

Innisfree, in Yeats' poem, is a heavenly retreat from "the roadway" or "the pavements gray" and just the hope of Innisfree gave Yeats peace, though he dwelt in a dark and dreary place.

We also have the hope of Innisfree to sustain us in our dark places. Our Lord of the Lake Isle is Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and he offers to each of us comfort, serenity, and (best of all) salvation. No torment is so great, no despair so complete, that He cannot bring peace to our deep heart's core.

      For unto us a Child is born,
      Unto us a Son is given;
      And the government will be upon His shoulder.
      And His name will be called
      Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
      Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This Christmas, and always, I wish you all Peace.

Store workers are being trained to say, "Happy Holidays!" I don't blame them for following company rules and I don't blame the companies who are trying not to step on any toes. However, Christians should reply with a jolly "Merry Christmas!" Christmas is the only chance we have each year to bring out Christ to all we meet. As Scrooge did the morning after his conversion, be sure this season to enthusiastically call out "Merry Christmas" to one and all.

And a Merry Christmas to you!

Imagine one average Monday you are off at work and tragedy strikes your home. A jet crashes into your house and you lose your entire family: your wife, your newborn daughter, your toddler daughter, and your mother-in-law who had come to America to help your wife care for your little ones. You also lose your home and everything you own.

How would you respond? With anger? With despair?

All this happened to naturalized American citizen Dong Yun Yoon and he responded with faith, patriotism, and compassion:

"Please pray for [the pilot] not to suffer from this accident," a distraught Dong Yun Yoon told reporters gathered near the site of Monday's crash of an F/A-18D jet in San Diego's University City community.

"He is one of our treasures for the country," Yoon said in accented English punctuated by long pauses while he tried to maintain his composure.

"I don't blame him. I don't have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could," said Yoon.

We have a little custom at my house: when any family member leaves, everyone says, "I love you." Most of the time there are hugs, too. Many times there are also kisses.

It may seem silly to go to the trouble over and over, but it's comforting to know that, should the worst occur, one last opportunity to express our love was not lost.

It's a dangerous world and often the unimaginable happens. I'm sure Mr. Yoon never thought a jet would crash into his life and destroy everything he had or held dear. 

I only hope that if I am ever in Mr. Yoon's place (and Lord, I pray I'm not), that I react as nobly and honorably as he has.

God bless and keep you, Mr. Yoon.

...unless you are Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Then, ahem, all hell breaks loose.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built where Saint Helena reportedly recovered the True Cross, is under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and Syrian Orthodox churches.

Sounds like a powder keg, does it not? As they say in the infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

None of the communities controls the main entrance. In 1192, Saladin assigned responsibility for it to two neighboring Muslim families. The Joudeh were entrusted with the key, and the Nusseibeh, who had been the custodians of the church since the days of Caliph Omar in 637, retained the position of keeping the door. This arrangement has persisted into modern times. Twice each day, a Joudeh family member brings the key to the door, which is locked and unlocked by a Nusseibeh.

Yes, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher should indeed be a place of Peace and Brotherhood. Alas, it is not.

I think this is part of the Protestant aversion to relics. Wars, large and small, are fought for their possession. I do not need to control or see the Cross, whether it is True or not. My Savior died for me and that is a truth no one can take from me.

I'm an all or nothing sort of girl. Since I became an informed citizen, I have found it easy to become completely enmeshed in politics. My passionate nature makes it difficult for me to relax when I read the political news each day and I feel I have drowned this blog and my family in my passion. So, in order to preserve my sanity and to keep from annoying my husband, I am taking a political fast until the Inauguration, which always happens right before my birthday. (What a Happy Birthday to me!) I will continue to read political news (come on, I can't go back to being uninformed citizen), but instead of posting about or discussing politics, I will be saying each time a prayer for our government:

God of power and might, wisdom and justice,
I commend America to your merciful care,
That we may dwell secure in your peace.
Grant to all in authority,
The wisdom and strength to know and do your will.
May they always seek the ways of righteousness.

I'm hoping this fast will be the ultimate palate cleanser. Until January 20, as the saying goes, "How about those Mets?"

My daughter said "It's like we're in a dream."

She's right.

I pray for our nation and the eight years to come. (Unless he really messes up or Republicans get their acts together in the next election, you know Obama will get two terms.)

What gives me the greatest hope for our future?

As she headed to bed last night, my daughter declared, "Even with Obama as President, this is still the greatest nation in the world!"

She's right and let us never forget that.

Come what may, our hope is in our country's foundation of Faith and Freedom and despite all America will suffer in the coming eight years, our hope lies also in the future generation: that they may love the Lord with all their hearts and souls and strengths and minds and that they may love their neighbors as themselves. And that they may cherish and defend their nation with every breath they take and every fiber in their beings.

Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...we here highly resolve...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

As we near Reformation Day, October 31, when Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation by nailing his ninety-five theses on the Castle Church door, I find this article on Wittenberg fascinating.

What caused the spiritual death of the birthplace of Protestantism? The Socialism of East Germany.

Just as Wittenberg rises slowly from the despair of Socialism, America descends willingly into its depths. It is as though Wittenberg proclaims our fate, as did many tombstones of yore: eris quod sum - what I am, you will be.

Long before John F. Kennedy, way back in 1928, Al Smith was the first Catholic, major party candidate to run for President of the United States. Smith was also Irish. Those were two strikes against a presidential candidate back in the days when Catholics were distrusted and the Irish were ridiculed. Al Smith lost to Hoover but still managed to become a four-term New York Governor and, as president of  Empire State, Inc., was instrumental in the construction of the Empire State Building.

Each year since Smith's death in 1945, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation has held a dinner in his honor to benefit Catholic Charities.

While commendatory references to Smith and his actions were once common, by chance or by design, many of the addresses at later dinners have taken on a lighter tone. Indeed, the occasion has evolved into something of an opportunity for speakers - particularly ones whose mien is typically quite serious - to show, through quips and slightly irreverent humor, that they can poke fun at a political issue, an opponent, or themselves... In the days before Saturday Night Live, the Al Smith dinner served as a kind of "proving ground for the candidate as entertainer," as one reporter described it. Today the dinner remains a true phenomenon - a living memorial to an uncommon public figure, best known as the first Roman Catholic presidential candidate, who died more than six decades ago. Doubtless the dinner's honoree would be deeply gratified that he is being remembered each year in this fashion. He would be even more gratified to know that the dinner commemorating him and his unique role in American politics has contributed millions of dollars for charitable endeavors in the city he loved so much.

This year, the dinner's keynote speakers were Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. I find it ironic that Obama was a keynote speaker because, while he shares Al Smith's Socialist ideals, his extreme pro-abortion beliefs and votes run contrary to Catholic Charities' Principles of Catholic Social Teaching. There have been times when pro-abortion politicians were not invited, such as in 1996 when Cardinal O'Connor was reportedly upset with President Bill Clinton for vetoing a bill which would have banned certain late-term abortions and in 2004 when presidential candidate John Kerry, a Catholic, was not invited, reportedly due to his pro-abortion stance.

I love to watch politicians mock themselves and each other and I think you will enjoy the videos below of McCain and Obama speaking at the dinner last night. The first two videos are of McCain, who spoke first, and the last two videos are of Obama, who spoke right after McCain. Regardless of which candidate you support, I believe you will want to watch all four videos. They are refreshing glimpses of both Senators and humorous respites during this tooth and nail election.

   
Feast of Trumpets

Leviticus 23:23-25

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.'"

I Thessalonians 4:16-18

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

As do all the biblical feasts, the Feast of Trumpets foreshadows an event important to my Christian faith - in this case, the Rapture, when Jesus will come again to fetch the faithful. Just as the shofar sounds each year on Rosh Hashanah, so shall the shofar call to all believers, alive and dead, on that holy day to come.

I wish "Shana Tova," or "a good year," to all Jews, but I listen for the shofar from the heavens which will finally call me home.