Being! Or Nothingness

2005 Blog Awards

This is funny.  I found out that there are Catholic blog awards.  You can make nominations here:  Nominate a Blog

I'm getting a kick out of these and wouldn't be opposed at all if one of my brilliant readers were to nominate Being! Or Nothingness.  For, oh, let's say, best new blog or something . . .

I'm shameless!

The NYT does EWTN

The "Paper of Record" has an article on EWTN.  It made me chuckle, and I especially like the author's affinity to G.K. Chesterton.  It's enough to make you say:  Was that really in the New York Times??

Regret: The Pain of Abortion

Jim Gay over at Premature Terminal Delivery has some good pictures and comments on the 2005 March for Life. 

I especially like this picture, with the brave woman and her three children.  She regrets her abortion, as do so, so many.  I was struck 2 years ago at the March, when I worked with Priests for Life, in getting the Silent No More campaign underway at the March.  I remember 30 women who braved the freezing wind and evening cold to share with each other the pain of their past abortions.

May God grant his peace to all who suffer with this pain.

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dyanamite (Please rate my quiz)

Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
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Why We March!

I am not at the March for Life this year, sadly.  However, NRO has some good reasons why we march:

Michael Novak

In politics, steadiness is everything. Persistence counts. Will power and people power matter. That is why, exhausting as it is, repetitive as it is (like the circulation of the blood, the beating of the heart, the rhythm of the lungs), the March for Life must go on year after year, through storm and sleet and hail.

The Supreme Court wants us to believe that they have settled a matter they have no power nor right to settle, that they have created precedents, and generated behaviors and commitments which compromise millions and many will therefore want in self-interest to defend, and that slowly their decision of 1973 will pacify the public thoroughly.

But they have overstepped their powers. They have practiced government without the consent of the governed. They have usurped the role of the legislature.

We have no procedure for making our consciences effective within the law, short of marches and protests and a constant series of elections — defeating those who would kill the unborn by choice, and bringing in new champions of the inalienable right to life and to defend the otherwise defenseless.

The moral position of the other side is more and more visibly untenable.

They are welcome to their liberty and their free choice, of course, but they have no right to employ these to abort the lives of those who are human individuals every bit as much as they are. The genetic code of every single one of the aborted is unique and irreplaceable, different from that of mother and father (although of course related). The aborted would never become cocker spaniels or sparrows or any other creature except fully grown human beings, were their lives not abruptly taken from them.

Each of them would be different from any brother or sister or any other person. To destroy these unique human individuals wantonly is no one's right.

In a Lockean democracy, the point of the social contract between the individual and the state is to protect vulnerable individuals from the rapacity of others. The state is obligated to provide that protection. In the case of the aborted, it is failing in its duty.

March on, then! March on!

Sooner or later the drip, drip, drip of the "water torture" of this annual March will awaken the nation. Today our nation knows not what it is doing. It is refusing to regard with clear eyes the horrific abuse it is heaping on its own unborn.

We march to invite people to, please, think again. "You could not possibly wish abortion had been done to you," we say. "Therefore, do it not to others."

— Michael Novak's latest book is The Universal Hunger for Liberty (Perseus, Basic), but he has written extensively on the theme addressed above in Belief and Unbelief and The Experience of Nothingness, as well as (with Jana Novak) Tell Me Why, all of which are still in print and available through his website at www.michaelnovak.net.

Jill Stanek

I think the march is something of a pilgrimage.

The March is organically grown, not a particularly organized event. There's no promotion, no cajoling of people and associated special-interest groups to attend (like the so-called March for Women's Lives). The weather is the worst of the entire year, yet the number of attendees only grows. It's something pro-lifers are just drawn to do. The march provides an opportunity to see a hundred thousand friends, gathered together to mourn the loss of 45 million of our babies.

— Jill Stanek is a nurse and pro-life activist.

Nerds Just Wanna Have Fun

Please sir, can I have another?

There is an article in The Scotsman about Opus Dei.  It's not a great article, but as far as secular press coverage of Opus Dei goes, it's not too bad either.  There are a few jabs . . . "
Women in Opus Dei, as in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church, remain second-class citizens," . . . (tell that to Holy Mary!) . . . however, over all it's not a bad piece.

The Monsignor and the Beautiful Women

Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete has never looked so good.  I'm pretty sure it's the fact that he's surrounded by beautiful women at the National Diakonia of Communion and Liberation in "sunny" Ft. Lauderdale.

He is a beautiful man.  His is the first face of the Movement I ever met.  I did not know of CL at the time, nor did I hear of it when I met him, but I was struck by this man's awareness of and desire for reality.  He was like no one I had ever met before, and I was drawn to him, but it would not be until a couple of years later, when I finally began to participate in Communion and Liberation that his face and the memory of that first meeting bevame overwhelming.  Every time I see him I am reminded of the great gift that God has given me in the movement.  Though it is true that I am made aware of this gift with other friends who help me to recognize Christ, it is in Msgr. Albacete's face that the sweetness of the beginning has all its vigor.  I did not know where that first meeting would lead, I did not even think much of it at the time, but here I am a few years later and WOAH!  It's like I woke up from a dream and have finally begun to live my life.

I have to thank Msgr. Albacete and especially Msgr. Giussani for that yes that they echo with Mary.

Mother Lillie and the Trinitarians of Mary

Mother Lillie and the Trinitarians of Mary have been popping up in my line of sight a lot lately.  I have learned not to take these coincidences for granted, so I'm doing what I can to pray for them, learn about them, and maybe make a visit to them.  The seem like a holy and humble community.  There is something about it though, something that makes them seem great too.  I'm not sure what it is, but there is something beautiful happening in Tecate, Mexico and it ain't the beer . . .

Catholic Exchange Article on Mother Lillie

I'm a Boxer Puppy!

It's ironic . . . my family raised Boxers.  I guess it's not really THAT ironic then . . .

You Are a Boxer Puppy

Energetic, playful and good with kids. You've also got a wild spirit that can't be trained or tamed.

What Breed of Puppy Are You?