Please Pray for Children Who Are Sexually Scandalized

Please pray for all scandalized children in the United States & in the world. Exposing children to sex in any way, shape or form breaks them. They haven't the ability to understand & process that which is appropriate for adults. Parents & teachers should even tread lightly with teens but 8 year-old kids need to be kids. They also need to be shielded from the sex their parents are having. I went through the hell of being abused including exposure to adults having sex around me & I'm still healing. Sex abuse is one of the greatest causes of failed marriages & failure to marry. Please pray for the children who are abused. And while praying for them, please pray for their abusers - they too are called to be children of God.

PS: sorry I've not been posting as often. I'm undergoing a round of chemo & it's grueling. I suppose I could use prayer too but sexually scandalized children are more important. God bless.

We Need A George Washington

There are those who believe they know the future & they may be right. There are many, many who are afraid. Corruption has become deeply ingrained in our country. Wicked people choose to commit evil & our justice systems punish their victims rather than the perpetrators. This isn't the country we imagine it is & though many are trying to begin the process of restoration, but we don't know what will happen. There is really only one thing we can do about it, appeal to God. That's why I began this blog. We're in big trouble & we desperately need God's help.

On March 13, 1778, George Washington wrote to a the clergyman who had mentioned General Washington in a sermon, "it will ever be the first wish of my heart to aid your pious endeavors to inculcate a due sense of the dependence we ought to place in that all wise and powerful Being on whom alone our success depends[.]" The man who was to become our first president knew we were dependent on God. Will we stop pretending that we can get along just fine w/o Him, stop making God in our own image, making Him as we want Him to be & accept that we are the creatures & He the Creator & He (& only He) can help us? Are we willing to go down on our knees & beg for help? Are we willing to give up one thing that is really precious to us for the next year as a sacrifice & to make reparation to our God on behalf of those who don't love Him & ask God to intervene & raise up the right person to begin to heal our country?

We need a George Washington. We need a president who will serve us, teach us, help us become holy. Those who critique the GOP field can't imagine that such a person is even running; we already know what would happen if Obama wins again - more corruption ending in the place corruption always ends & harming many more people. We've heard so much about class war but so little about the war against faith & virtue & holiness. That is the real war we need to be fighting & there's only one way to fight - go down on our knees & beg God's mercy; fast, make sacrifices - the weight of our sins are so heavy.

Pray the Lord's Prayer everyday. If you are Catholic or feel so inclined, pray the Rosary each day. Sacrifice one thing each month so that at the end of the year you will be sacrificing 12 things (that's 1 thing in Nov, add another in Dec, add another in Jan & so on & so on). I'll post some articles about the rosary written by Protestants - it's not just for Catholics anymore; when Jesus gave Mary to John He gave her to all of us. But whether you pray the rosary or not, just pray & fast & sacrifice. If your child were dying, you'd be down on your knees & willing to do anything to save him/her. Our country, our home is dying. Won't we do the same for her?

From Heirs In Hope

Will we really be Heirs In Hope?

Witness to the Truth!

Ann Barnhardt is Catholic & brassy & sassy & may be a little hard for some to hear & she witnesses to the truth! She's wonderfully courageous. Please, please pray for courage like Ann Barnhardt has; courage to witness to the truth. Pray for the heart & mind of Jesus:

O my Divine Savior, transform me into Yourself. May my hands be the hands of Jesus. May my tongue be the tongue of Jesus, Grant that every faculty of my body may serve only to glorify You. Above all, transform my soul and all its powers, that my memory, my will and my affections may be the memory, the will and the affections of Jesus. I pray You to destroy in me all that is not You. Grant that I may live but in You and for You, and that I may truly say with St. Paul: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me". Amen.

 

The Issue Is Sin (Part 1)

Part 1 of the Ann Barnhardt piece from heirsinhope. See "The Issue Is Sin (Part 2)" for comments.

The Issue Is Sin (Part 2)

From my blog heirsinhope, a Part 2 of piece that reminds us, we can always choose to sin or not sin; we are free.

The purpose of this blog is to make the point that following Christ is what we must do & that prayer, fasting & other sacrifices are the ways to walk His footsteps. And ultimately, we must simply choose Christ or sin: if we choose Christ, we must have nothing to do w/ fomenting sin.

As I write this, I think of the many friends I have lost or w/ whom I have little contact because we walked in different directions. I hungered to follow Christ & many of them felt they could follow Him & continue to break His commandments. Some even believe that traditional Christians have it wrong, that where we see sin, God does not. For years I tried w/ every bit of myself to accept their beliefs but finally found I could not do such violence to my heart & soul. I wanted holiness not to rework my faith so that I could do as I please. So I returned to the Catholic Church & submitted to authority of Scripture & the teaching magisterium that reaches back to Peter - God in His goodness sent me to two parishes overflowing w/ faithful priests & parishioners. The interesting thing is that I read & studied the Church fathers, the disciples of Peter & Paul & the other apostles & their disciples & those who followed them as I tried to convince myself that sin was not really sin. The Church fathers preaching of the Gospel does not differ from what their teachers taught but only illuminates it so that each generation can understand that God is faithful & sent His Son to die for us so that we might be free of sin not trapped in it calling bad good & good bad.

And here we are facing choice. Ann Barnhardt puts it succinctly. She's blunt and that's difficult but sometimes we need difficulty. Sometimes we need to be cut away from the sin we cling to so that we can truly follow Christ:

We are so free that God consents to allowing us to choose to torture and kill Him. Oh, yes, we always, always have a choice. And now, because we have allowed it, the choice now stands as this: Either choose to spare yourself the wrath of an evil, illegitimate government or choose to scourge and crucify Christ. Pick up the flagellum and lean into Him. Skin Him. Make Him bleed and shake in pain. Then pick up that hammer and those nails and drive them in. Feel the bones in His feet and ankles crunch as you pound that nail in. And as you’re doing this, look Him in the eye with a big sh**-eating grin on your face. Tell Him how you have no choice, because it’s either this, or you might lose your job, or your 4000 square foot house. And that’s not even a contest, right? I mean, who WOULDN’T torture and kill their best friend, brother, father, spouse, creator and savior in order to stay in the good graces of the IRS and keep a job or a pension income?

The Kingdom of Heaven is in Your Midst

How can that be when an assistant football coach at Penn State witnesses another coach raping a 10 year-old & instead of stopping the rape or calling the police, calls his dad & the next day reports it to school authorities? How can that be when we see young people calling out to each other to flip over a news van as if they are encouraging one another to chug a stein of beer all because yet another coach was fired when it came to light that he also helped cover-up not just one but many rapes:

Are these acts indicative of the Kingdom of Heaven? Of it's presence in our midst? I'm afraid they are.

Another parable he put before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said to him, `Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?' He said to them, `An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, `Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, `No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" (Matt 13: 24-30)

The student who posted the You Tube video which shows the van being tipped indicated there were a few who tried to stop them but they were out numbered by those who decided to tip the van. This is the way it will be until the last day; sometimes more wheat, sometimes less. As Americans we have seen ourselves as wheat. Now we must accept that there are many tares: "An enemy has done this."

So what shall we do? Pray, fast, sacrifice. Pray for those who do not know right from wrong. Pray for those who are literally insane. Pray, fast & sacrifice on their behalf for we don't know when the last day will come & then our children, our friends, our neighbors, even many of us may be tossed like weeds into the fire. We must want more for our brothers & sisters. We must try for more for ourselves too. Don't we want to spend an eternity w/ our own family, friends & neighbors? Pray, fast & sacrifice.