Wouldn't it be great to be back in North Platte for ten minutes?
May 19, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
One of the most beautiful versions of the Agnus Dei you'll ever hear
May 18, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
When you can, stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, and let this gorgeous hymn wash over you. Let it inebriate your spirit with joy and gratitude to the Lord Who loves you so much that He died for you to redeem you and save you from your sins. Dial the volume up and let this magnificent prayer carry you heavenward to the throne of the victorious Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Praise Him.
Do not learn from this man
May 17, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
Hands down, this guy is the least motivating motivational speaker I have ever run across. And the funniest, too. My favorite line is, “You can do anything that you think that you can do.” As one person commented, I’m just glad he didn’t think he could fly.
Artsy time-elapse video of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption
May 15, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
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Earth as seen from Mars
May 15, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
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This pretty much sums it up. Any questions?
May 15, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
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Pope Benedict implores Catholics to join him in evangelizing
May 14, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
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Celebrating Mass in Porto, where he had arrived from Fatima early this morning, Pope Benedict called the faithful to witness the Resurrection and be missionaries of Christ. He urged Catholics not to let anything prevent them from spreading the Gospel, because if the Church rests on its laurels “it would be sure death in terms of the Church’s presence in the world.”
The Holy Father arrived in Porto this morning by helicopter to celebrate Mass in the Square of the “Avenida dos Aliados di Porto” where he was joined by tens of thousands of faithful.
Recalling the words of Peter, who said to the disciples in the Upper Room after the Ascension that “one of these men must become with us a witness to His resurrection,” Pope Benedict XVI called all people to missionary action, imploring them, “you need to become witnesses with me to the Resurrection of Jesus.
“In effect,” he continued, “if you do not become His witnesses in your daily lives, who will do so in your place? Christians are, in the Church and with the Church, missionaries of Christ sent into the world.”
The Pope said that receiving and offering the Risen Christ to the world is the “indispensable mission of every ecclesial community,” so that “growth and life” might come from “weakness and death.”
As Peter recommended, continued the Holy Father, we must always be prepared defend the hope within us, without imposing anything and never ceasing to propose. This is what “everyone” asks of us, and from experience, “we know well that it is Jesus whom everyone awaits,” the Holy Father shared.
Pope Benedict also reflected on the mindset necessary for evangelization. Together with Christ, without whom “we can do nothing,” we are called to evangelize, he said. “We must overcome the temptation to restrict ourselves to what we already have, or think we have, safely in our possession: it would be sure death in terms of the Church’s presence in the world; the Church, for that matter, can only be missionary, in the outward movement of the Spirit.” . . . (continue reading)
What you see versus what you think you see
May 12, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
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Max & Anna
May 12, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
"Inconvenient people" and the rising "Obligation to Die Movement"
May 11, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
I’ve been warning about this for years in my lectures on global aging, about how what we currently know as the “right to die movement” is steadily morphing into what soon will be soon be the obligation to die movement, which will increasingly target old people and others whom our sick society deems to have “outlived their usefulness.” Authors such as Peter G. Peterson (Gray Dawn) and Ken Dychtwald (Age Wave), Patrick Buchanan (The Death of the West) and Wesley Smith (Forced Exit), have been ringing the alarm bells for years (much louder and more eloquently than I have been, to be sure), though it doesn’t seem like many are paying attention to what’s coming. Thomas Sowell is one of the few who is. Here are some of his thoughts about a common mentality that is paving the way for enforced euthanasia:
One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die,” rather than become a burden to others.
This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.
Make no mistake about it, letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to keep them alive and well. If a government-run medical system is going to save any serious amount of money, it is almost certain to do so by sacrificing the elderly.
There was a time— fortunately, now long past— when some desperately poor societies had to abandon old people to their fate, because there was just not enough margin for everyone to survive. Sometimes the elderly themselves would simply go off from their family and community to face their fate alone.
But is that where we are today?
Talk about “a duty to die” made me think back to my early childhood in the South, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. One day, I was told that an older lady— a relative of ours— was going to come and stay with us for a while, and I was told how to be polite and considerate towards her.
She was called “Aunt Nance Ann,” but I don’t know what her official name was or what her actual biological relationship to us was. Aunt Nance Ann had no home of her own. But she moved around from relative to relative, not spending enough time in any one home to be a real burden.
At that time, we didn’t have things like electricity or central heating or hot running water. But we had . . . (continue reading)
