Reflection on the Meaning of Suffering

FROM THE DAD'S EULOGY FOR HIS SON:

On Wednesday night, I think I may have confused Ethan. After arriving to the ER and after being worked on by the trauma team, Kristen and I were pulled into a waiting room to be told that Ethan’s heart had stopped…..that Ethan had passed, and that there was nothing the doctors could do. I immediately ran into the trauma room where I found Ethan’s naked body on the table. I grabbed him by the arms and said “Ethan, your a little scrapper, you know how to fight, so fight for daddy, you have to come back, daddy says come back!” In that immediate moment his heart started up again. I think the confusion for Ethan was that as he was making his way to Jesus, he heard my voice calling to him. His mind full of wonder was probably attracted to the beautiful light of God but the obedient boy that he is, he came back when he heard me.

At that very moment, Ethan’s ministry began. I didn’t see it then but it can’t be any clearer now. The mobilization of prayers throughout the country and the world unified an entire global community. Facebook exploded! My analytical mind cant help but wish for an algorythm that could measure how many thousands of people connected to God through Ethan in prayer. From Nepal, to Holland, Japan, California, Puerto Rico, Texas, and many more places, tens of thousands were praying. And they were posting, and texting and calling. Even The Donald, yes Donald Trump prayed for Ethan. Ask me later. It’s an amazing story. And just as Jeff stands next to me today, your prayers supported us when there was no way we naturally could.

Ethan started something big. A friend of mine who I hadn’t seen or heard from in over 12 years wrote to me saying, “Sam, I haven’t spoken to God in over 10 years, but today I spoke to God because of Ethan”. Others wrote saying, “I am hearing God louder and clearer in my life than at any other time.” And others expressed, “Ethan has restored faith in Jesus for me.” It’s so ironic, that as people prayed for a miracle in his life, the miracle was actually happening in theirs, in my life and in yours. Some of you may have never met Ethan …but all of us met God at some point last week. I will never forget what Ethan has done to my life, never forget what God did in yours. That will be his legacy forever. A short life of 20 months that ministered to more people than some may do in 90 years of living.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

The Dysfunctional Nations

From time to time a local pastor fires us up with fortitudinal e-blasts, of which this is his latest: Dear Parishioners, Every Catholic should be angry about this. Please take the time to read the editorial below that recently appeared in Investor's Business Daily . Cheers in the Lord, Fr. Tony United Nations Scolds Catholic Church On Human Rights Anti-Religion: Ignoring abhorrences such as China's one-child policy and atrocities condoned by Shariah law, a U.N. committee tells the Vatican to deal with abusive priests and change its teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. That the report issued by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child would mention the instances of abuse of children by priests in the United States is not surprising. What is surprising and unfortunate is that the U.N. would act as if the Catholic Church had done nothing about it and use the report as a ...

Novus Motus Liturgicus

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: In 1959, Pope John XXIII saw a true need for liturgical renewal within the Roman Rite in accordance with the metaphorical principle of organic development, the aim of the Liturgical Movement endorsed by Pope St. Pius X. In authentic organic development, the Church listens to what liturgical scholars deem necessary for the gradual improvement of liturgical tradition, and evaluate the need for such development, always with a careful eye on the preservation of the received liturgical tradition handed down from century to century. In this way, continuity of belief and liturgical practice is ensured. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote at the time, the principle of organic development ensures that in the Mass, “only respect for the Liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture , but receive as a gift. Organic de...

Et Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt

What Is the Source of This Darkness of Our Times? |Blogs | NCRegister.com : What prompted me to write a book about the current spiritual war ongoing in the world in which we live? Stumbling upon this quote by the Pope of the council, Pope Paul VI : We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the devil. We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned instead was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties . I am an avid reader of Msgr. Charles Pope, who has written recently on this our adversary in ...

Dancin' With Mr. D: Non-Binary?

A n LGBT activist has admitted that the battle over men accessing women’s bathrooms and vice versa has little do with transgenderism, and everything to do with re-working society and getting rid of the heterobinary structure—eliminating distinctions between “male” and “female” altogether. Male and female He made them. Riki Wilchins, who has undergone “sex change” surgery and is a far-left social change activist, has written that p eople should be able to enter whatever bathroom “fits their gender identity,” but the fact that we even have “male” and “female” bathrooms reflects something about society that needs to change. He added that there are many “genderqueer” or “non-binary” people, pointing to a student who recently “came out” to President Obama as “non-binary” at a London townhall as an example. “Non-binary” people don’t identify as male or female and they often want to be referred to as “they” or “hir” or “zer.” So the fact that there...

Libido Redux: Gabriele Kuby

Gabriele Kuby’s The Global Sexual Revolution has been translated into English and published by Angelico Press. In it, Kuby persuasively argues that the freedom offered by the sexual revolutionaries is another and highly effective means of enslavement. Here are some highlights: · The Marquis de Sade, who lived and wrote violent pornography from his cell in the Bastille as the Ancien Régime fell and the French Revolution began. · Thomas Malthus, Margaret Sanger, Marx & Engels, Wilhelm Reich , Freud & Jung, behaviorist John Watson, Edward Bernays, Bernard Berelson, child abuser Alfred Kinsey, sex-change giant John Money ,--a gallery of evil men whose own immorality drove them to emasculate man’s morality. · The Yogyakarta Principles, a manifesto produced by a cabal of leftist homosexuals and “human rights” activists that purp...

A Child's Right

O ver the years since the accession of Jose Bergoglio to the Chair of Peter, in perusing the Huffington Post blog, the National Catholic Reporter website and other “progressive” social media, one gets the impression that these folks believe Francis (“Who Am I to Judge?”) will revolutionize Catholic teaching on marriage. On these pages I have frequently noted many of Francis’ statements affirming traditional-Biblical-natural marriage, as well as his extremely strong remarks back in Argentina, where he declared same-sex “marriage” a diabolical effort of “the Father of Lies” to “destroy God’s plan … and deceive the children of God.” He said then—only four years ago—that gay “marriage” discriminates against children “in advance,” depriving them of “their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God.” At stake, said Cardinal Bergoglio, was “the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts” and the very survival of the human family, with Satan at work. I co...

Mic’d Up—Dancing with the Devil

Oh- seems someone picked up on my blog theme (taken from a Stones' song) Dancin' With Mr. D! Mic’d Up—Dancing with the Devil A comment on this: TomH Peter • 34 minutes ago According to your logic ( "Satan's great weapon is that he doesn't exis t") he would avoid all corporeal "contact"with the human race, i.e., possession, demonic influences, etc. It's true that he does not want us to know he exists, And not all haunted houses are demonically caused, but just because Satan has a superior intelligence does not mean that he is not also stupid. He is ruled by the passion of "pure" hatred and can't resist getting "involved" with God's, after the angels, highest creation, mankind. His superior spiritual intelligence, like his spiritual power, have been curtailed by Almighty God. You could say he can't resist the temptation. However, his intelligence is still vastly superior to ours except for the s...

Humanae Vitae: Embarassing Uncle or Wise Uncle?

I am not the slightest bit hesitant to say that I believe with the Church that we humans live in a world characterized by a spiritual war, and thus as baptized Catholics we are called to “put on the armor of God.” In an Augustinian sense we must decide where our allegiance lies: are we citizens of God’s kingdom, who happen temporarily to reside in a civil society, or are we full-fledged citizens of the city of men, making room for God when we are able? Catholic teaching on original sin continues to shed light on man’s position in the world. As a result of the Fall, Satan has acquired “a certain domination over man” in spite of our free will . Widespread ignorance of this teaching is the root cause of the crisis of faith facing The Church today. The Catechism teaches the reality of this spiritual combat: The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding...

Why did God Make You?

Often we get caught up in the things of this world to the extent that, as Catholics, we forget why God made us, and what our existence means, really. So, find 45 minutes, and enjoy!

Search This Blog