Unsure of what serious Muslims are like? Then do this from the safety of your home...

You can join a Facebook group page then chime in the discussions with your Christian or Jewish views.

Or you can go to an online chatroom and voice your opinions there.

I won't tell you how my experiences were to not bias your expectations.

This will help you go beyond the articles and video clips and actually interact with Muslims yourself.

At least, you'll be safe in the privacy of your home.

Video: Hypocrisy of Arab States on "Defamation of Religion" Exposed

How hypocritical is the Muslim push against 'defamation of religion'? Watch the videotape and see for yourself.  Will Congress overcome its political correctness long enough to take 'defamation of religion' off the Obama administration's agenda? Or will they keep putting lipstick on this pig and worship it like a golden calf?

Details on Obama's support here at http://nosheepleshere.blogspot.com/2010/06/deceiving-infidels.html
 

HumanRightsUN June 24, 2010 4:25
UN Watch intervention delivered to 14th session of United Nations Human Rights Council by UN Watch delegate Lisa Levy.

Source at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poBZ2ZF0-GA&feature=player_embedded
http://www.unwatch.org/donate - Speech text: http://bit.ly/9p2O0m

Cafeteria Catholics and Catholic Spiritual Cafeteria

A Jesuit, Franciscan and Salesian was praying Vespers when the power went out.  The Franciscan closed his breviary knowing the he’s dispensed; they’re the touchy feely types. The Jesuit continued praying from memory without missing a beat; they’re the intellectual badasses. The Salesian went to the utility closet to change the fuse – ‘nuf said.
Within the Catholic religious life, there are obviously different ways of following Jesus. While all take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, each order has a different mission and way of doing things - like a spiritual cafeteria.  But regardless, all these guys follow all of the Catholic faith with an additional consecration to religious life. While they emphasize certain aspects, they reject none of it, unlike a cafeteria Catholic who picks and chooses truths and practices. While cafeteria Catholics claim to have a relationship with God, that relationship is dubious; if one knows God as Father, then one would have the Church as Mother. But cafeteria Catholics reject things about their mother so, they may not know their Father at all.

US public schools under Obama's administration give condoms to 6 yrs. olds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgsKxOuhMSc

6 yr. olds given condoms in US public schools under Obama's administration. And parents are barred from opting out so, our children's innocence will be raped by the government sponsored school system under Obama. Isn't this covered by laws against corruption of minors? Then again, the laws nowadays are ignored by the people who were supposed to enforce them. And we know that those condoms will be defective, so there will be abortions on the way funded by taxes through Obamacare.  So, I can only think of homeschooling, private schooling and suing the public schools if there is a law that can apply.

According to NYDailyNews on June 22:
[T]he school committee has unanimously adopted a condom distribution policy beginning as early as first grade...  The committee also directed school leaders not to honor demands from parents who object to their kids receiving protection....

More from the Boston Globe:
Superintendent Beth Singer, who wrote the policy... insists that if an especially young child requests a condom, the nurse will ask the student's motive and act accordingly.
"If that were to happen, we would deal with it in a professional and appropriate way," she said. "I don't anticipate that this policy is going to affect youngsters. It's there for adolescents.... We do know from research" that children now have sex at a younger age.

According to Fox:
Parent[ ]... Colleen Dostal... was most upset over the instructor simulating sexual acts using stuffed animals designed to resemble STD's.
"I do not understand why any adult with a classroom of children would show them sexual positions," she toldFox News Radio. "I think that's horribly inappropriate."
Read more at source: http://www.jillstanek.com/public-school-sex-ed-on-sex-st.html

Loitering in the restrooms of the interior castle

St. Therese of Avila is one of the doctors of the Catholic Church because of her teachings about the mystical life. In her classic, Interior Castle, describes spiritual growth as moving from mansion to mansion to eventually reach the courts of the God.

Each mansion signifies a situation:
1st: In the state of grace but surrounded by sin. Starting a program to grow in perfection.
2nd: Embarking in religious practices e.g. prayer to advance.
3rd: Living an exemplary life of love governed by reason (so none of that sentimental or lustful desire).
4th: Starting to surrender personal plans and programs to God’s activities
5th: Something like a betrothal where there is “incipient” union in which the soul prepares itself to receive gifts from God.
6th: Something like being “lovers” where the soul is torn between enjoying favors from God and afflictions from outside.
7th: A clarity in prayer culminating in a spiritual marriage with God.

I got lost in the fifth room and will probably lollygag around the restrooms there if I do not do more with my prayer life. Since I am living in the real world of politics, taxes, groceries and timesheets, I doubt if I really can have that serious of a prayer life with the incipient union – whatever that is. I seriously doubt if that is demanded from my state of life. Nonetheless, this is still everyman’s pilgrimage – whether one strides quickly or moseys along. The very language of the upper mansions is so romantic, syrupy and sweet that it is hard to relate to but is something to look forward to. I guess experience will make things intuitive. Lord knows how ineffable these realities are so, St. Therese must have had a heck of time trying to come up with a narrative or description.

One can always read the source and commentaries. I guess it’s a start – like reading about the warmth and light produced by fire. But it is best to actually see and touch the fire at the same time.

Bottom line, there’s a great frontier to explore out there - space for spiritual growth. St. Theresa provides a map or method of going through this morass of the unknown. And it is by prayer.

One enters the first mansion by mental prayer or meditation where one withdraws from without and concentrates on the devout observance of the passion of Christ and penitence.

The second level is the “prayer of quiet” where the human “will” is lost in that of God by virtue of a charismatic, supernatural state given of God, while the other faculties, such as memory, reason, and imagination, are still susceptible to distraction. Despite the interruptions, there is more stillness than the first mansion.

The third level is called "devotion of union" and consists of being is ecstasy. That’s different from taking that street drug because the high comes from the Most High. Reason is absorbed in God even if the memory and imagination wanders around a bit. The intellect and will kind of rests peacefully and blissfully in a conscious rapture of the love of God. I guess it is like being in a trance having your heart and breathing stop – well almost as you behold something so awesome that you just get caught in the moment and your jaw drops while drooling uncontrollably. (St. Therese didn’t put it that way but I don’t get her flowery language much.)

I have to cut and paste the fourth levels and beyond just because. If you get it, I salute you. Here goes. “The fourth is the "devotion of ecstasy or rapture," a passive state, in which the consciousness of being in the body disappears. Sense activity ceases; memory and imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxicated. Body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, a complete impotence and unconsciousness, and a spell of strangulation, intermitted sometimes by such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space. This after half an hour is followed by a reactionary relaxation of a few hours in a swoon-like weakness, attended by a negation of all the faculties in the union with God. From this the subject awakens in tears; it is the climax of mystical experience, productive of the trance. (Indeed, she was said to have been observed levitating during Mass on more than one occasion.)”

There it is and it is what it is. Once you or I get there, then it will make sense. For now, we’ll clumsily make our way through the castle. When things start getting weird - in nice way then it will be time to get a spiritual director for coaching. Sometimes the devil gets in the act to mess with our heads. It’s worth the journey and the journey is just as fun.  Or we may choose to loiter around the restrooms of the interior castle and get nowhere until time is over.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Castillo_Interior for overview
http://www.catholictreasury.info/books/interior_castle/index.php Interior Castle by St Teresa of Jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Ávila#Writings Writings of St. Teresa

LCWR & CHA women masquerading as nuns are wanted: dead or alive

We're looking for those faithless women in the CHA who are masquerading as nuns. They are a threat to the Christian community by confusing others with their disobedience, isolence, arrogance, pride and fashion violations. Polyester pantsuits are so 70s. In keeping with the Gospels, we're going to have a little "fraternal" correction. They might be having too much ecstasy - and not the spiritual kind if you know what we mean. And Obama's pen is not going to relieve their frustrated desires to be ordained. So if they can clean up their mess with a public retraction, it will shave off decades from their sentences in Purgatory and be a good preparation for a happy death.  You never know when a Jihadist will hijack their earthly pilgrimage.

On a less flippant tone, their latest crime is supporting Obamacare in spite of the bishops' teaching and mandate.  To quote from an interview..


ALLEN: From your point of view, is this ultimately an ecclesiological question – who speaks for the church?
CARD. GEORGE: Yes, exactly. Our disagreement may be narrow, but it’s a narrow difference that has exposed a very large principle. It affects the nature of the church, and therefore it has to concern the bishops.
I know this comparison may seem dramatic, but a few years ago Cardinal von Galen of Munster [Germany] was beatified. Under the Nazis, von Galen not only condemned euthanasia as an unethical procedure, but he also condemned the laws which permitted it. Today we think of him as a hero, and rightly so. This is the question that has to be raised: Are we to offer moral teaching solely about actions, or also the laws which permit and foster them?"


These nuns think they can speak for the Church.  So, they offer an alternate teaching.  And the media whores quickly pick up on the scandal that they're causing.  They're applying American principles of independence and feminism in places where those do not apply.  The community of faith is not a democracy even if they want to make it such and have themselves voted into power.  The community of believers are not independent from their traditional and historical origins and an American revolution will not change that nature.  But deluded with their degrees and having too much time in their hands plus the limelight of a secular press, these women forge on and wound the very people that they pretend to serve.  


But rather than curse them to hell as I feel like doing, I close with a silent prayer for their conversion.


More analysis and details from Fr. Z http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/06/card-georges-interview-with-john-allen-the-nature-of-the-church/
http://the-american-catholic.com/2010/06/19/healthcare-reform-the-magisterium/
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/obama-casey-laud-catholic-health-association
http://proecclesia.blogspot.com/2010/06/healthcare-reform-and-magisterium.html
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/health-care-transcript-cardinal-george-june-16-ncr-interview

Manhood in a Christian home.

Manhood or "machismo" is defined as a strong or exaggerated sense of masculinity stressing attributes such as physical courage, virility, domination of women, and aggressiveness.  It is downplayed as cultural and even backwards.  But it appears to be deeply planted in nature - genetic even.  Does it have a place in bringing up boys who are followers of Jesus today?


Education is "leading out" into the fore whatever is good.  And masculinity is good.  "Men and female" God made them.  Evangelization is purifying and perfecting these natural elements that have been weakened by original sin.  So, in these traits and leanings lay the Divine genius Who empowered men for a specific and distinctive mission of leadership and service.

Today, the demolition of distinct roles led to emasculation.  And the epidemics of pornography, absenteeism, and adultery brought about an assault on traditional masculinity. With it came an increase in homosexuality as a direct result of divorce and an intentional feminization of boys.  All this societal and cultural ills need to be addressed at the basic unit of the home.

And this is how I encouraged the innate masculinity to teach chivalry, leadership, service, courage and self-confidence.  One starts from the natural tendency then purifies and perfects it with moral and spiritual virtues.

Aggressiveness is faced off against the harsh winter snow.  Dominion is achieved with the power of a snow blower.  Courage and virility is used to mess with trash - something the girls dare not touch.  Strength is employed is doing the most menial of chores - like mopping the floor and brushing the toilet bowls.  

Rather than competing with girls, I teach them to be knights who defend the honor of their sisters.  In the process, I teach respect for girls.  Being the protectors puts them in a position of nobility, superiority and power.  And who does not like that.

Finally, we make time to bond - as men.  It is a natural exclusive club ordained by the Divine for the warriors, kings and priests.  During our boys' night, we gather around the fire (or Mongolian barbeque)  and regale each other with stories of our chivalry and courage.   At the end, we lay our swords at the foot of the Lord to serve the weakest and poorest of all.

So, yes there is room for "machismo".  Please pass the beef tartare and haggis.

Aggressiveness is used to fight the harsh elements.

Physical courage and virility is pitted against the heavy trash and the germs lurking there - something the girls are wary about.

The girls are protected, not conquered.

With the reward of membership in that exclusive circle of warriors, priests and kings.