Doug Mainwaring - Gay, or SSA ?

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http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/11/11152/

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LGBT activists often present this Hobson's Choice to those who have experienced same-sex attraction, especially young people: "Either jump out of the closet, join the celebration, make being gay or lesbian the dominant characteristic of your life and the sole foundation of your identity, and join the same-sex marriage lobby—or remain 'closeted,' deny yourself, choose a false identity, become depressed, and risk suicide."

This tactic purposefully suppresses the truth that there are many other options available to those who are attracted to persons of the same sex. As someone who experiences same-sex attraction, I should know.

Many know intuitively, in the very core of our beings, that this Hobson's Choice can't possibly be all that the world has to offer. It is a false meme, another cornerstone of political correctness. Many gays and lesbians reject this narrative, not because of self-loathing, as name-calling activists blithely assert, but because they are able to make an adult judgment based on reason and nature.

Since I've entered the national debate on same-sex marriage, many men and women have come forward to tell me that they too have chosen a path that is anathema to LGBT activists and ultra-leftist political groups. Many find great joy and fulfillment in heterosexual marriage. Many also find joy in close same-sex relationships that do not become sexual and are never meant to be carnal.

For those who Pray! 'Pro Orantes' - Pope Francis (VID)

Encouragements!!!: 

http://www.romereports.com/palio/pope-to-cloistered-nuns-gods-will-is-part-of-a-higher-law-english-11657.html#.Uo9orNIW3fI

Elijah sends Elisha!

Elijah sends Elisha !

A Treat :) (VID)

Lovely :)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sKhfR12swQ

Francis Xavier of the Seas !

ANDREW COMISKEY - Mercy 16: Cross of Mercy

Mercy 16: Cross of Mercy

NOVEMBER 21, 2013 BY ANDREW COMISKEY LEAVE A COMMENT

'There is no other way except through the Burning Love of Christ Crucified.' St. Bonaventure

I grew up in the shadow of the Cross. To paraphrase the words of John Paul ll: 'It was the gate through which God unceasingly entered my life.' The rather arid Episcopal Church in which I grew up had one thing going for it—a magnificent stained glass of the Cross, with Jesus the Good Shepherd at its center. That image never ceased to burn bright in my heart, a light unquenched by all my demonized wanderings!

My fondest childhood memories involved visiting the Franciscan missions planted in California during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Forging 'El Camino Real' with churches from San Diego to San Francisco, these mighty missionaries defied the odds to plant the Cross as the defining symbol of this new land. Whenever I am tempted to give California over to her gender anarchy, I simply visit Mission San Fernando or San Gabriel or Santa Barbara or San Juan Capistrano. The Cross still invites all to Mercy; California's true inheritance remains intact.

What was so magnetic to me about the Cross? Perhaps it conveyed the surrender of God to reach us. Did Almighty God really subject Himself to such poverty in order to meet us in ours? That union of His strength, poured out in blood and water, with my shameful weakness never ceases to break me.

The Cross levels me, over and over. Whenever I am tempted to shake a fist at my disgusting self or at those who regard God with disgust, I witness that crimson flood. Love overcomes my judgment and reminds me that mercy alone transforms the haggard heart, beginning with my own.

I try to find time daily to bow before the huge, gentle crucifix at my church. There He invites me to cast down the stones hidden in my heart. I need that over and over. My heart quickly calcifies so I need to be reminded that He has given me one of flesh (EZ 37), one that can actually feel and act in harmony with His.

That rhythm is the way of the Cross: surrender, receiving mercy then rising up in new life to extend mercy. We need that rhythm more than ever. We live in an increasingly polarized age marked by brutal politics and deranged killers, wars and rumors of wars. Via the Internet, everyone and their dog becomes a shrill expert on everything. Amid the din of banging gongs, we need the Cross.

St. Edith Stein, a brilliant Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism and was killed by the Nazis, said: 'The Cross is a living, real, and effective truth. It is buried in the soul like a seed that takes root there and grows.'

May the witness of the Cross root in us and establish its merciful rhythm in our depths.

'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.' (2Cor. 8: 9)

Prayer Points:

• Desert Stream/Living Waters: Mid-Atlantic: Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Tom Wright, Regional Coordinator. Please pray for greater unity and strength for our leaders in Virginia.
• Restored Hope Network: Affiliate Ministries Needed: pray the Lord will provide connections with solid, Biblical ministries in the following areas: Seattle, WA; Idaho; Wyoming; Utah; Arizona; N Texas; Colorado; Nebraska; North & South Dakota; Iowa; Wisconsin, Louisiana; Mississippi; Alabama; Georgia; Indiana; west Virginia; Delaware; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Connecticut; Rhode Island; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; Vermont; Maine.
• Courage: Please pray for the preservation of religious freedom in our nation.
• Ministries of Pastoral Care: We ask for the unity of the Holy Spirit between all true Christian organizations and denominations, in Jesus name.

- See more at: http://andrewcomiskey.com/mercy-16-cross-of-mercy/#sthash.JBbA1Ovr.dpuf

The Cathedral of Christ the Light

Have you seen this?  The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California

Cherokee Legend

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youths' rite of Passage?
His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required
to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone.

 Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him.

Maybe even some human might do him harm.

The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold.

It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold.

It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.
He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us. 

Pope-Critic Mario Palmaro Received Call From Pope Francis

Monday, November 18, 2013

Pope-Critic Mario Palmaro Received Call From Pope Francis -- "It is important, to receive criticism."

(Rome) For several days the news has circulated that Pope Francis had called a traditional Catholic who is also one of his harshest critics. The name of the Catholic was not initially announced, so there were doubts as to its authenticity. The daily newspaper Libero confirmed the call through an interview with the critically ill legal philosopher Mario Palmaro.

In the interview published today, Palmaro is said to have been, "surprised, amazed and moved, above all," from the phone call from Pope Francis. Mario Palmaro wrote together with journalist Alessandro Gnocchi, intellectually high-value, but also the toughest, criticism of the pontificate of Pope Francis. The essays of the two Catholic journalists were published in the daily newspaper Il Foglio.

Pope Francis called Palmaro on 1 November on the feast of All Saints. The Pope and the legal philosopher agreed not to disclose the private conversation. But the news appeared in mid-November on the Internet without naming the callee and so other journalists began to be interested. In an interview with Libero, Palmaro has now said: "If it were up to me and Alessandro Gnocchi, this would never gotten into the public. For this reason alone, because the Pope had no intention to make this public, either the gesture or the content of our conversation," he said.

The Sickness and the Criticism, the Pope is Grateful

"Pope Francis said to me, to be near to me, that he had learned of my health situation and my serious illness. And he expressed his his deep empathy very clearly, an interest in my person as such, regardless of the ideas and opinions, as I'm going through a time of trial and suffering. "

"For me, as a Catholic, what I experienced one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I also expressed my unconditional loyalty to the Pope, as a son of the Church. However, I also saw the duty to recall to the Pope that I had expressed together with Alessandro Gnocchi, very accurate criticism of his actions. The Pope almost did not allow me to finish the sentence and said he had understood that this criticism was made out of love and how important it is for him to get those."

Conscience and Loyalty

The intention of the Catholic Pope's critics has always been, that their criticism is "put forward as alert and lucid with regard to the contents of Catholic doctrine, but never to put their loyalty to the Pope as such into question... And I humbly remind you that the deletion of the Scalfari interviews of Pope Francis can assume from the Vatican side, that there was something wrong with the interview, as we noted, among other things." Whether now, the position of the critics will change somewhat in the position. No, replies Mario Palmaro, "we will go on the way we have always gone, we follow our conscience, always connected to the Pope and the Church in faithfulness, but we will continue on our way, just because of this loyalty and love."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: Corrispondenza Romana / Riscossa Cristiana (assembly)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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Pope Francis critiques ‘adolescent progressivism'

Pope Francis denounces 'adolescent progressivism,' calls Lord of the World prophetic

CWN - November 19, 2013

During his homily at Mass on November 18, Pope Francis called the first chapter of the First Book of Maccabees "one of the saddest pages in the Bible" because "a great part of the people of God withdraw from the Lord in favor of worldly proposals."
L'Osservatore Romano reported that the Pope preached:

"Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles round about us; we cannot become isolated" or remain stuck in our old traditions. "Let us go and make a covenant with them, for since we separated from them many evils have come upon us." The proposal so pleased them that some of the people eagerly went to see the king, to bargain with the king, to negotiate.

L'Osservatore Romano continued:

The Bishop of Rome likened their attitude to what he called the modern-day "spirit of adolescent progressivism" which seductively suggests that it is always right, when faced with any decision, to move on rather than remaining faithful to one's own traditions. "The people," he said, "bargained with the king, they negotiated with the king. But they didn't negotiate habits … they negotiated fidelity to God, who is always faithful. And this is what we call apostasy; the prophets called it adultery. They were an adulterous people" who "negotiated something essential to their very being, i.e., their faithfulness to the Lord."

Many people, he said, accepted the king's orders "which prescribed that all the people in his kingdom should be one: and every one should leave his own law." However, he observed, it was not the "beautiful globalization" which is expressed in "the unity of all nations" who each preserve their own identity and traditions. No, he said, the passage describes the "globalization of hegemonic uniformity," a uniformity of thought born of worldliness.

"Still today, the spirit of worldliness leads us to progressivism, to this uniformity of thought" … Negotiating one's fidelity to God is like negotiating one's identity, Pope Francis said. He then made reference to the 20th-century novel Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury Edward White Benson, in which the author speaks of the spirit of the world that leads to apostasy "almost as though it were a prophecy, as though he envisioned what would happen" …

"We would do well to think about what happened in the Book of Maccabees, he continued, about what happened step by step, before we decide to follow an 'adolescent progressivism' and go along with what everyone is doing," the L'Osservatore Romano report added. "We would also do well, he said, to ponder the consequences of their infidelity, to think about the 'death sentences, the human sacrifices' which followed thereafter. He then asked those present: 'Do you think there are no human sacrifices today? There are many, many of them. And there are laws that protect them.'"

Additional sources for this story
Some links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• We do not negotiate our fidelity to God (L'Osservatore Romano)

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