I'm Back from Retreat, and Feeling a Longing Not to Be.

I miss my retreat already. There is something so wonderful about silence. All the ladies on the retreat were very good about keeping the silence this year, and it's amazing how it opens up possibilities to hear God. When your life isn't filled with chit-chat, the radio, social media, TV, blogging, etc. you can enter into the exhortation, "Be still and know that I am God." I'm longing for it to continue.

This year my re-entry into the noisy world was abrupt. I'm taking part in a conference on "end of life" issues and had to leave the retreat early. To go from complete silence to seeing old friends and meeting new ones, hearing stories discussing serious issues in the culture of death -- well...it's exhausting. I want to go back to the chapel and sit with the Lord and let the world go to hell in a handcart on its own without me.

Taylor Marshall Offers 10 Radical Ways Catholics Can Save Marriage!

I love the first:

Always use the term "holy matrimony" for authentic marriage. What a beautiful term. My husband Larry will celebrate 46 years of "holy matrimony" this October. What a reminder of the sacramental nature of our union. We didn't "hook up" on our wedding day or promise to stay married "as long as we both shall (mush) love." No! We vowed to become one flesh "til death do us part."

I like Marshall's number 7 a lot too:

True Love Requires "One Particular Woman."

“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he “wants a woman.” Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want.

"He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes).

"Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give."
C.S. Lewis - The Four Loves

And this is exactly why we talk about "sex objects." A man filled with lust treats many things as equal, i.e., anything that can be used to bring it on. I won't get graphically specific. 

The man who loves, on the other hand, treats the woman he loves with great respect. He is moderate in his love-making. In other words, if she is sick or exhausted from caring for a young baby, etc. he places his own desire for sexual gratification after what is good for his wife and family. He is a man of self control rather than selfish, uncontrollable little boy.

Thank God for manly men who imitate Jesus Christ rather than Adam. We certainly need more of them.

I'm on Retreat this Week Praying for You

I'm leaving this afternoon for a five day silent retreat using the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. During the retreat I will be off the computer, off social media, and off the phone. In other words, I will be putting the world on mute and entering into an intense time with the Lord. So I will not be posting this week live. Instead, I've scheduled some articles that will automatically post while I'm gone, but I won't be moderating comments until I return. So expect a delay in seeing your comment if you leave one.

I will be praying for all the members and visitors of my blog at daily Mass and when I pray the rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy, especially those whose I.D.s I know and can remember to specifically mention like Catechist Kevin, New Guy, Boinky, Dymphna, Terry, Janet, TLM, etc. Thank you all for your part in my spiritual growth. May God bless you abundantly.

Two Thumbs Up for my Pastor who Gave a Great Homily on Marriage!

We often hear some in the Church lamenting how bad Vatican II was, but here's a quote that is right on target, one to meditate on frequently:

"The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws....God himself is the author of marriage."
                                                     Gaudium et Spes #48

This is the portion quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that Father read to us this morning, but it would be well worth while to pull out your copy of the documents of the council (You have one right?) and read the entire section on marriage. I'm leaving for retreat tomorrow and I'm taking it as a source of meditation so I can reflect on how I'm doing after 45 years.

Everybody Loves a Parade...

...so we had one at Camp Kreitzer for the 4th of July. If you want to read about it, visit my Gramma blog. When I'm together with my family, especially the grandchildren, it gives me real hope for the future. As someone once said, "Children are God's opinion that the world should go on." And they are the future! Let us raise them to be warriors and witnesses for Christ.

I Woke Up This Morning Filled With Hope! Let's Reclaim the Rainbow.

No matter what the Supreme Court does...no matter what the Vatican does...no matter what my local bishop does...no matter what Barrack Obama or the Congress or the Democratics and Republicans do...GOD IS STILL GOD!

So, yes, I'm celebrating this INDEPENDENCE DAY. Christians, we are independent through the power of the Holy Spirit. Think of the early Christians. They were free even in prison. They went singing to their deaths knowing that for all the persecution, they were the fortunate ones -- not the mobs screaming for their blood. Think of Maximilian Kolbe at Auschwitz. Who was more enslaved? He and his fellow prisoners or his captors locked up in hate, enslaved by the devil?

You know what I'm doing today? My husband and I are going to Mass to thank God for this beautiful country that in the past offered so much hope to so many people. We can be that country again. I hope some of our visiting grandchildren will go with us. Then we're going to the dollar store to buy a bunch of patriotic balloons to take to the nursing home. What a joy it will be to have my grandchildren give out the balloons to the residents and staff wishing them all a blessed day. Then we'll stop at Sheetz to buy treats for the kids.

And then....we will celebrate the rest of the day honoring marriage and family with food and fun and fireworks.

As the day closes, we will pray the rosary for our poor country through the intercession of Our Lady of Hope. Being a gloomy Christian never helped anyone. I refuse to give the rainbow, the sign of hope, to those celebrating sodomite marriage. I reclaim it as the sign of the covenant with Abraham. God promised his descendants would be like the sands on the seashore. Christians, let's get busy changing this sinful world starting by reclaiming our own families and neighborhoods.

Our Lady of Hope, pray for us!

Reflection on Independence Day: What is there to Celebrate?

As I think about our country and its founders on this 239th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I wonder what we have to celebrate? Certainly not our government's honoring the beliefs of our founders. Our political leaders and the courts, especially the Supreme Court, have turned upside down everything in which the men who signed the Declaration believed.

The Bill of Rights is in deep trouble. Freedom of Religion is a joke. The powers that be have said we are free to worship in our churches, but they've locked the doors to keep us inside telling us not to bring our narrow-minded opinions into the market place. And certainly we may not exercise our moral values on the job. Christian nurses and doctors have been fired for refusing to participate in abortions. Christian photographers and florists and bakeries, you better provide services for sodomite marriages! Teachers, don't you say a word against sex ed or sodomite marriage or the gay-straight alliance. Sure, you can have moral values as long as you shut up about them.

It's Civil War! County Clerks say they will not sign.

County Clerks Refuse to Obey Supreme Court Sodomite Marriage Ruling

From small counties in Arkansas to busy towns in Texas, there are hundreds of people ready to defend the ground five unelected justices took from voters. The Court may have changed their definition of marriage, Kentucky clerk Chris Cockrell explained, but he isn't prepared to change his. If that means going to jail, so be it. And according to the state's ACLU, that's no empty threat. "Two things can happen if a Kentucky clerk won't issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple," warned one law professor. "They can resign or go to jail." 

And don't think the Left won't send them.

Laity, Rise Up! Most of Our Bishops Won't and the Clergy are between a Rock and Hard Place!

I remember being outside the Supreme Court the day the Webster decision came down July 3, 1989. I met a young man that day who was about to enter the seminary. He is now a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. Recently he published a strong column in his bulletin about how wrong sodomite marriage is. (He didn't use that terminology.) What happened? He got a slap down from the Cardinal. Will he speak out again?