Have you thanked your mother?

Happy Mothers' Day, Blessed Mother

Mother's Day has its roots in ancient Greece and Rome as so many of our holidays do. Pagan
societies celebrated their maternal goddesses during the spring as the buds swelled with new life. Holy Mother Church, knowing that you can't replace something with nothing, tended throughout history to sacramentalize the natural by replacing pagan feasts with holy days. So the date for Christmas was chosen to replace the winter solstice celebrations with welcoming the birth of Christ. In the 13th century the Church did the same thing with the month of May when they named it Mary's month. There is something particularly appropriate about honoring our natural mothers during the month dedicated to our Blessed Mother.

Would you give to the restoration of Notre Dame without knowing what you'll get?

Donations are pouring in to repair Notre Dame. What can we expect from a secular government?
Already, voices clamor for something completely new that fits the France of today. Ah...the hubris of progressives who happily throw away the past!

That thought leads to some troubling speculations. Will Notre Dame become a multi-cultural center? Or will it be designed with architecture that celebrates Islam? Will the "new" church really be Notre Dame rebuilt, the great gothic cathedral erected over hundreds of years by the faithful? Or will it be something strange? And even possibly a monument to the spirit of the world?

Will the new Notre Dame resemble the glorious old as we see her here?