Category: Uncategorized

May I commend to your attention the very fine charity Aid to the Church in Need, which has been providing direct aid to the Church in poor countries and situations of persecution for over 50 years?

Genevieve Kineke, author of The Authentic Catholic Woman, did some reading in the Koran as part of her research for a book on women in Muslim cultures, and has written a helpful article on the differences between the Christian and Islamic concepts of God.
The Christian revelation presents God as consistently good and truthful, and worthy of adoration; and it says that God, in some sense, is Love.
The Koranic message does not make these affirmations, and calls not for adoration, but for submission, and asserts above all else that God is powerful.
The consequences are enormous.

I am not making this up.
From the Lawrence (MA) Eagle-Tribune:

METHUEN — Mary Jo Coady walked into her daughter’s bedroom Sunday afternoon and noticed a familiar image on the bottom of an iron sitting on the floor.
“I see his eyes, his nose, his whole face and I was like, ‘That’s Jesus looking at us,'” Coady said.
The rust-colored residue on the bottom of the iron strikes a remarkable resemblance to Jesus Christ. For the 44-year-old secretary who was raised Catholic, the image reaffirmed her faith at a time when she has separated from her husband, had her hours cut at work, and moved out of a house she owned and started renting a home where she now lives with her two college-age daughters.
“It just gave me a sign that life is going to be good,” Coady said. “I think he’s listening.”
Coady said she hopes her story will lift other people’s spirits in time for the holidays. Her daughters — Melody, a 21-year-old student at Northern Essex Community College, and Alison, a 20-year-old student at Merrimack College — aren’t ones to overreact to an iron.
“They wouldn’t believe this if it hit them in the head, and they were like, ‘Mom, that’s Jesus looking at us,'” Coady said.
[more at the original story]

Oh, well, God does “draw straight with crooked lines”: odd things, even mistakes, can sometimes work out to our good.
Now, I shared this with some other friends today, and they couldn’t help wisecracking:

Friend 1: “Is she getting messages as well?”
Friend 2: “Only when the iron is set on ‘steam’.”

But fortunately, the lady is not “getting messages”, and isn’t out to persuade anyone that this is anything miraculous. She’s just taking it as a personal hint from God to get back into a regular relation with Him after being distant from the Church for a while.
By the way, this story goes well with the restaurant grill in Calexico bearing an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Pete Vere writes:

Internet access limited over next couple days. If you have a moment,
please blog a time sensitive prayer request for a soldier’s child in
need.
I cannot share any more details. However, I appreciate your help.

Since the live feed isn’t on EWTN or on Boston’s CatholicTV, you can get the Internet feed from Long Island’s “TelecareTV” network here:

It’s too bad that the bishops would pass up the reliable service they’ve had from EWTN, and turn the job over to an outfit that has only had satellite capability for less than one year. The result has been a TV blackout of the meeting for most of the country.
UPDATE: I’ll put the links to the recorded video from Monday below: