Happy New Year!!!

2007

"O Mary,

you who have given birth to Jesus

help us to welcome the gift of peace from Him

and aid us in becoming sincere and courageous builders of peace!

-Pope Benedict XVI (January 1, 2007, Angelus)

Goodbye 2006

Feast of the Holy Family

Pope Benedict's Angelus as reported in Asia News Italy:

All the values of family life – obedience, social and religious education, mutual dedication – are found in the Holy Family. “In the life spent in Nazareth, Jesus honoured the Virgin Mary and the just Joseph, submitting to their authority for all the time of his childhood and adolescence (cfr Lk 2:51-52). In this way, he highlighted the primary value of the family in the education of the person. Jesus was introduced to the religious community by Mary and Joseph, going to the synagogue of Nazareth. With them, he learned to undertake the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as narrated by the gospel passage proposed by today’s liturgy for our meditation. When he was 12, he stayed in the Temple and his parents took three days to find him. With this gesture, he made them understand that he had to ‘tend to his Father’s business’, that is, the mission entrusted to him by God (cfr Lk 2:41-52).”

Taking his cue from the gospel passage, Benedict XVI underlined that the family should take great care in “accompanying each of its members in the journey of discovery of God and in the plan He has in his or her regard. Mary and Joseph educated Jesus above all by their example: in his Parents, He knew all the beauty of faith, of love for God and for his Law, as well as for the demands of justice that find fulfillment in love (cfr Rm 13:10). From them, he learned in the first place that God’s will be done and that spiritual ties are worth more than blood ties.”

The pope added: “The Holy Family of Nazareth is truly the ‘prototype’ of each Christian family which, united in the Sacrament of marriage and fed by the Word and by the Eucharist, is called to realize the stupendous vocation and mission of being a living cell not only of society but of the Church, a sign and instrument of unity for all mankind.”

The pontiff said: “Let us invoke the protection of the most Holy Mary and St Joseph for each family, especially for those in difficulties. May they support them so that they will be able to resist the prompting towards disintegration of certain [traits of] modern culture that undermines the very basis of the institution of the family. May they help Christian families to be, in every part of the world, a living image of the love of God.”

New Design for the New Year

We Have a Winner!

The Fort Wayne Jaguars are my fantasy football league...from NFL.Com:

CHAMPION!

Fort Wayne Jaguars won the MICHIGAN BUCCANEERS LEAGUE Championship by a score of 75 to 70 over Michigan Madcows. Shaun Alexander led the team in scoring in the championship round and Drew Brees led the team in scoring for the season. Congrats once again to Fort Wayne Jaguars on a terrific Fantasy football Season. Hope to see you all next year!...

Vatican Denounces Saddam Execution

I have one question: Who constructed that noose?

From the Associated Press:

The Vatican spokesman on Saturday denounced Saddam Hussein's execution as
"tragic" and expressed worry it might fuel revenge and new violence.
The execution is "tragic and reason for sadness," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said,
speaking in French on Vatican Radio's French-language news program.
In separate comments to the station's English program, Lombardi said that capital
punishment cannot be justified "even when the person put to death is one guilty
of grave crimes," and he reiterated the Catholic Church's overall opposition to
the death penalty.
Executing Saddam "is not a way to reconstruct justice" in Iraqi society, the spokesman said. "It might fuel the spirit of revenge and sow seeds of new violence."
Lombardi expressed the hope that leaders "do everything possible" so that "from this dramatic situation ways might open to reconciliation and peace."
In an interview published in an Italian daily earlier in the week, the Vatican's top prelate for justice issues, Cardinal Renato Martino, said executing Saddam would mean punishing "a crime with another crime."

Where is an Unhappy Episcopalian to go?

From The Reading Eagle:

All it took the other day was hearing pop star Olivia Newton-John's
recording of the “Ave Maria” for Father Paul Zahl to feel that old, familiar tug
at his heartstrings.

Then came the voices in his head asking those nagging questions that
many weary Episcopalians have pondered in recent decades: “Why keep fighting?
Why not join the Roman Catholic Church?”