Peter Kreeft and Robert Spencer Debate the merits and demerits of Islam

Several weeks ago, I heard that this debate was coming up, but I was unable to attend. Two people I know personally and respect, Dr. Peter Kreeft and Robert Spencer, debated the question of Islam. For those of you who know Dr. Kreeft’s work, you know he is eminently reasonable, always irenic, and a deep thinker. In fact, as I have gone on record saying many times over the years, I regard Peter Kreeft as our generation’s C.S. Lewis.

Here's the most encouraging headline I've since since yesterday's election

Abortion Groups NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List Dejected After Election
Oh, yeah, baby! I loved seeing that. And I loved seeing this quote from the same LifeNews.com article:
“’Yesterday was a difficult day’ for the pro-abortion movement, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards admitted in the opening of an email to supporters of the abortion business today.”
Awww.

"Put no trust in princes, in mere mortals powerless to save" (Psalm 146:3)

I find this picture from today’s Drudge Report very poignant and thought-provoking.


Here we are, on the eve of the U.S. mid-term elections, and most people seem to sense the palpable unease that is in the air. A great tumult may be not be far off. Tumult and turmoil go hand in hand. And many pessimistic prognosticators have been prognosticating for the past year that something big and bad will happen in the U.S. that will shake things badly. An economic implosion, perhaps, or another successful terrorist attack, a natural disaster, or some kind of event that will provoke wide-spread civil unrest. God forbid! 


I hope they’re all wrong. I hope that tomorrow’s election will help to stabilize things somewhat and maybe even move us back toward some kind of sanity in our fiscal and social policies. Heaven knows that the damage wrought in the last two years of the current regime’s disgusting bacchanalia of spending and social engineering will be hard to correct. Some say impossible. But I am hopeful. Like many of you, I am worried and prayerfully cautious about how things will turn out. I don’t put my trust in the princes and princesses of either political party, but I remain hopeful. 


Look at that poor man in the picture. He is not hopeful. He personifies the despair that so many are experiencing these days. See how he kneels (kneels!) in the gutter, hands folded and face set like flint in grim mask of supplication as the presidential limousine whisks by him. I don’t know what was in his heart at that moment, and I don’t know what his political views are or what he hopes will happen in tomorrow’s election. But I am quite moved by this picture. This man represents something very sad to me about the way America has been changing in recent decades, certainly since I was born in 1960. His face reflects an abject servility that is very disconcerting when I think of how cringing and servile so many Americans have become in their attitude toward The Government. How bad can it get, and how long can it go on?


What makes me so sad — and angry, too — is that this disconsolate man should feel so hopeless that he is reduced to kneeling in the gutter in hopes that the occupant of that armored limousine will take notice of his plea for help. I see a look that says, “Please look at me! Live up to your promises. Don’t betray me. Don’t leave me here in the gutter after you promised to help me me up.”


The Government (certainly not this one) can’t save him. It can’t save us. It can’t even save itself from itself. It devours. It’s a necessary evil that seems bent on becoming ever more unnecessary.


Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about this poignant image is that it might just as well portend the calm before a storm — one man’s last, ditch effort to get help. And when the limousine passes him by once again, and things just continue getting bleaker, what then? 

Mormons set to build new temple in Rome, Italy

The Mormon Church has been on an ambitious temple-building spree for the past 30 years. With 134 currently operating temples and nine under construction, the group recently announced 14 new temples, including one in the Eternal City. This, of course, is something they consider to be a milestone in their expansion, in part because Italy has been a country where Mormon missionaries have not had great success in finding converts.


The two major reasons for their overall lack of proselytism progress there is, in my view, 1) because Italy is more than just ostensibly a Catholic nation and, 2) because Mormonism is so very, very “American” that Italians, as with other Europeans who tend to look down on America and Americans, are even less interested in buying what the Mormon missionaries are selling than they might otherwise be.

Japanese Beatles

Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy

“Blessed are You, Lord, God of all creation. Through Your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.”

Some additional info about Luisa Piccarreta and the "Divine Will" Movement

A new era of grace. Revelations of Jesus never before seen by the eyes of the Church. The possibility of a holiness beyond that of saints. An Italian mystic who rivals the Blessed Mother in importance and sanctity. Sound intriguing? Good. We’re about to take a trip through the Kingdom of the Divine Will. Hang on, it could get bumpy.

Church history is littered with strange movements; those that have passed away and those that still remain. Just about all of them started with a single individual who, through charismatic presence or seductive writing, managed to gather a flock of believers. The Divine Will movement is no different.


Enter Luisa Piccarreta. Born in 1865, bedridden for most of her life, she claimed to receive locutions from Jesus. Evidently, the communications were lengthy and frequent, filling 34 volumes by the time of her death in 1947.


According to Piccarreta’s writings, there were three great eras in salvation history which corresponded to, and followed from, three great “fiats.” The first was the creative fiat: God created all things by His Word. This initiated the “Age of Creation.” The second fiat came from the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). This ushered in the “Age of Redemption.”


Finally, after many years of turmoil in the Church, God has completed the work of creation and redemption by inspiring the third fiat: Piccarreta’s own surrender to God. Her submission, which is presented as being on par with the fiat of creation and that of our Blessed Mother, brought the Church to a new level of sanctity. We have now entered the “Era of Sanctification.” Through Piccarreta, the Kingdom of the Divine Will came to earth and is available to all who welcome it. Eventually, this new gift to the Church will spread to all Her members and creation will be restored to its pre-Fall state.


This raises the obvious question: What does this gift entail? According to Piccarreta’s revelations, to “live in the Divine Will” is to literally possess the Divine Will in such a way that one’s actions become purely divine. Before the “Era of Sanctification,” all that could be achieved by the saints was a “poor and lowly union with God.” They could, by grace, do God’s will, but were not capable of possessing the Divine Will itself.


This new union with Deity was introduced to the Church by Jesus through Piccarreta (though Adam, Eve and the Blessed Mother had this gift as well). One alleged locution has Jesus saying, “When a soul acts in My Will, her humanity is, as it were, suspended. Then the Divine Life of My love takes its place and acts; and, as it acts in a creature, My love finds itself unburdened of its desire for expression” (Book of Heaven, 94).


Contrasting the traditional way of holiness (ie. obedience to God’s will by grace) with the new way (ie. possession of the Divine Will), Jesus tells Piccarreta, “. . . to live in My Will is to reign in It and with It, while to do My Will is to be at My orders . . . To live in My Will is to live with a single Will — God’s Will — a Will all holy, all pure, all peace.” In this way, the traditional Catholic means of holiness is denigrated as mere servitude, over and against the new life in the Divine Will.


How, then, is one to receive this sublime gift? Two things must be done . . . (continue reading article)


[Also . . . read the letters to the editor written for and against this article, as well as Fr. Terrence Staple’s lengthy, point-by-point response to challenges to his view of Luisa Piccarreta and the “Divine Will” movement.]

Queue "The Twilight Zone" Theme for this

Sure, this could be some kind of high-tech digital hoax, and maybe that’s just what it is. No problem. But if it’s not, then I don’t know how to account for it. What do you think?  

I'll be on Relevant Radio in a few minutes to discuss Marian doctrines

You can tune in online here: 

A few thoughts about golden leaves and graying hair

Today has been another crisp, gorgeous fall day in Central Ohio. I love it here, and while I love all the seasons, I think I love fall the best. As I’ve gotten older, the changing color of the leaves always evokes in me a happy-sad, bitter-sweet, contentment alloyed with an ever-keener sense of unrequited longing in my soul.

I know that it’s the Triune God I long for, and the arrival of the fall colors is a quiet, beautiful harbinger of the eventual end of this earthly life and the commencement of the life to come. Nature’s resplendent colors during this season are, at least for me, a reminder that those of us who are fortunate enough to live the allotted “three score and ten” years (I’ve only lived two score and ten of them, thus far, but I have my fingers prayerfully crossed that more will follow) must not forget that winter is  . . . not far off.


With gratitude, joy, and peace, I want to welcome the approaching winter of my life, even though it may be a ways away just yet. But most of all, I pray the Lord will grant me the graces necessary to be ready to go be with Him on that day when all the leaves of my life have fallen and the snow lays thick upon the frozen ground. How I want to be with Him and His friends forever in that land of eternal spring!

“I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!” (Psalm 27:13)

“The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair” (Proverbs 20:29).

The autumn leaves are a reminder to me of the time of life I am in now. Turning 50 this year, my ever-graying hair is analogous to the leaves turning from deep green to red and orange. Winter will be here soon enough, and the leaves will  fall to the ground. The endless cycle of life.

Rural Ohio, where we live, experiences a beautiful explosion of color each autumn. It’s a glorious time of year. I learn something new and deeper, each year. These colors are a faded signpost of muted glory pointing off into the distance, down this road I am travelling, toward a fog bank topped by a dark cloud with a piercingly brilliant, radiant, golden explosion of light beyond it.

The leaves are bright and beautiful, but not for long. Winter will be here soon.

This is a house I pass by on my short drive into town. This particular tree is quite spectacular.

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