Prayer request for a miscarriage

Fellow blogger RADICAL CATHOLIC MOM has announced that she has miscarried.  Of course, I don’t know what it feels like to lose a child, and even if I could know, I assume the mother’s experience would be very different from mine.  I did however lose my father last month so I know how loss feels.  I also know how it feels to know others are praying for you and yours in such a situation.  Please remember Rad Mom in your prayers.  “And Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me…for to such as these the Kingdom of Heaven belongs’….Then he blessed them and embraced them, putting his hands upon them.”

Three great thinkers

St Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle writes: “The usage of the multitude, which according to the Philosopher is to be followed in giving names to things, has commonly held that they are to be called wise who order things rightly and govern them well. Hence, among other things that men have conceived about the wise man, the Philosopher includes the notion that ‘it belongs to the wise man to order’ (Aristotle Metaphysics I,2). Now, the rule of government and the order for all things directed to an end must be taken from the end. For, since the end of each thing is its good, a thing is best disposed when it is fittingly ordered to its end.” (Summa Contra Gentes I,1).

“A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called “The Remedy.” It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that “The Remedy” is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease .

The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak of the Social Organism, just as it is convenient to speak of the British Lion. But Britain is no more an organism than Britain is a lion. The moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity of perpetually talking about “young nations” and “dying nations,” as if a nation had a fixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say that Spain has entered a final senility; they might as well say that Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada should soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada must soon grow a new moustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation may be decrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar applications of the fallacy are made by those who see in the increasing size of national possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do not even ask whether an empire is growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its old age. But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug.

Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily breakdown; and that for an excellent reason. Because, though there may be doubt about the way in which the body broke down, there is no doubt at all about the shape in which it should be built up again. No doctor proposes to produce a new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. The hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg less: but it will not (in a creative rapture) send him home with one leg extra. Medical science is content with the normal human body, and only seeks to restore it.

But social science is by no means always content with the normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist will say “I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan,” or “Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise of Collectivism.” Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but he certainly wants health. No one says “I am tired of this headache; I want some toothache,” or “The only thing for this Russian influenza is a few German measles,” or “Through this dark probation of catarrh I see the shining paradise of rheumatism.” But exactly the whole difficulty in our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea of property than with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is not a tooth, but a toothache. Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; but I would rather have rheumatics.

This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion; that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear each other’s eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad thing. We should not by any means all admit that an active aristocracy would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood; but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one. Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who would be even more indignant if it were strong. The social case is exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like doctors, about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half would call blooming health . Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree about the bad public house. It would be precisely in front of the good public-house that our painful personal fracas would occur.

I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method is quite useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or cataloguing prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.” (G.K.Chesterton What’s Wrong With The World?)

Since I agree with them, make that “three great thinkers and a stow-a-way.” Sadly, our world has come to the point of ignoring the end in order to justify and means.

Half a million pray for missing girl

Half a million pilgrims in Fatima pray for missing British girl

Lisbon (dpa) – About half a million pilgrims were in Fatima, Portugal on Sunday, the 90th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary that appeared to three children in the pilgrim site.

At a mass, Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano lamented the increasing alienation in Europe of the Catholic Church.

“In our countries a decline of faith is spreading, to which we cannot be indifferent,” he said on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI who was in Brazil.

Europe was tempted to forget the faith that strengthened the continent for hundreds of years.

Believers in Fatima were this year called upon to pray for the safe return of Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old British toddler, missing in Portugal’s Algarve coast since May 3.

Portuguese authorities said Fatima on Sunday experienced the largest inflow of pilgrims since former pope John Paul II visited in 2000.

Located about 120 kilometres north of Lisbon, Fatima became legendary after the Virgin Mary was first said to have appeared to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos and brother and sister Jacinta and Francisco Marto – on May 13, 1917.

Today, the place ranks among the most important sites for Catholic pilgrims worldwide, attracting over 3 million a year.  (Hat tip to Jessica who tipped me off to this and to the Pope Benedict XVI blog which was her source.)

MAY WITH MARY, DAY 14

From St Alphonsus Ligouri comes this presentation of the seven dolours (sorrows) of Mary:

Mary was the Queen of Martyrs, for her martyrdom was longer and greater than that of all the Martyrs.

Who can ever have a heart so hard that it will not melt on hearing the most lamentable event which once occurred in the world? There was a noble and holy Mother Who had an only Son. This Son was the most amiable that can be imagined—innocent, virtuous, beautiful, Who loved His Mother most tenderly; so much so that He had never caused her the least displeasure, but had ever shown her all respect, obedience, and affection: hence this Mother had placed all her affections on earth in this Son. Hear, then, what happened. This Son, through envy, was falsely accused by His enemies; and though the judge knew, and himself confessed, that He was innocent, yet, that he might not offend His enemies, he condemned Him to the ignominious death that they had demanded. This poor Mother had to suffer the grief of seeing that amiable and beloved Son unjustly snatched from her in the flower of His age by a barbarous death; for, by dint of torments and drained of all His blood, He was made to die on an infamous gibbet in a public place of execution, and this before her own eyes.

Devout souls, what say you? Is not this event, and is not this unhappy Mother worthy of compassion. You already understand of whom I speak. This Son, so cruelly executed, was our loving Redeemer Jesus; and this Mother was the Blessed Virgin Mary; Who, for the love she bore us, was willing to see Him sacrificed to Divine Justice by the barbarity of men. This great torment, then, which Mary endured for us—a torment which was more than a thousand deaths deserves both our compassion and our gratitude. If we can make no other return for so much love, at least let us give a few moments this day to consider the greatness of the sufferings by which Mary became the Queen of martyrs; for the sufferings of her great martyrdom exceeded those of all the martyrs; being, in the first place, the longest in point of duration; and, in the second place, the greatest in point of intensity.  (Continue reading)

Not so famous quotes

Because Dim Bulb is too modest to post these quotes of his in his own “Quotes” category, I’ve decided to do it for him:

“One expects sacramentalism from the Pope and excrementalism from the press.”   (Said in reference to the press reaction to Sacramentum Caritatis)

“Burking up the right tree.”  (Said in reference to Archbishop Burke’s decision to resign from a charity event which featured pro-abortion singer Cheryl Crow)

“Someone should tell Mister Steinberg that useless butt-rags like the Chicago Sun-Times should be used for wiping up scat, not disseminating it.”  “Said in response to newspaper column Steinberg wrote attacking the Pope)

Posted by Brite Bulb.  Go ahead runt, just try and delete it.