St. Joseph with Christ Child, Michael D. O’Brien
SINCE Christmas is also a time in which we give gifts to one another as a sign of the perpetual giving of God, I want to share with you a letter I received yesterday. As I wrote recently in Ox and Ass, God wants us to let go of our pride which holds on to old sins and guilt.
Here is a powerful word a brother received which expounds on the Lord’s Mercy in this regard:
AS I wrote the Hard Truths the past two weeks, like many of you, I openly wept—struck with a deep horror of not only what is happening in our world, but also the realization of my own silence. If "perfect love casts out all fear" as the Apostle John writes, then perhaps perfect fear casts out all love.
Unholy silence is the sound of fear.
THE SENTENCE
I admit that when I wrote The Hard Truth letters, I had a very odd feeling later on that I was unwittingly writing out the charges against this generation—nay, the cumulative charges of a society which has, for several centuries now, fallen asleep. Our day is merely the fruit of a very old tree.
YOU know, I don’t even know why there’s a Christmas tree in my living room. We’ve had one each year—it’s just what we do. But I like it… the smell of pine, the glow of the lights, the memories of mom decorating…
Beyond an elaborate parking stall for gifts, meaning for our Christmas tree began to emerge while at Mass the other day….
IN my travels across North America, I have met many priests who tell me of the wrath they incur if Mass goes past one hour. I have witnessed many priests apologize profusely for having inconvenienced parishioners by a few minutes. As a result of this trepidation, many liturgies have taken on a robotic quality—a spiritual machine which never changes gears, pulsing to the clock with the efficiency of a factory.
And thus, we have created the one hour prison.
Because of this imaginary deadline, imposed primarily by the lay people, but acquiesced to by the clergy, we have in my opinion stifled the Holy Spirit.
FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
OUR youngest daughter was about five years old at the time. We felt helpless as her personality progressively changed, her mood swinging like the back gate.
Ottawa, Canada
First published April 14th, 2006.
If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes, and takes any one of them; that man is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand. (Ezekiel 33:6)
I AM not one to go looking for supernatural experiences. But what happened last week as I entered Ottawa, Canada seemed an unmistakable visitation of the Lord. A confirmation of a powerful word and warning.
As my concert tour took my family and I through the United States this Lent, I had a sense of expectation from the beginning… that God was going to show us “something.”
Unborn baby at five months
I HAVE never sat down, inspired to address a subject, and yet had nothing to say. Today, I am speechless.
I thought after all these years, that I heard everything there was to hear about abortion. But I was wrong. I thought the horror of "partial birth abortion" would be the limit to our "free and democratic" society’s permissiveness of exterminating unborn life (partial birth abortion explained here). But I was wrong. There is another method called "live birth abortion" practiced in the USA. I will simply let former nurse, Jill Stanek, tell you her *story:
SOME of my friends have either been been involved in the gay lifestyle, or are in it now. I love them no less (though I cannot morally agree with some of their choices.) For each of them is also made in the image of God.
