You may notice the new sidebar link to Amazon for their new "Kindle" which I mentioned in a post below somewhere. I used to have quite a few Amazon links on my sidebar, but they never amounted to much. However, they are paying a pretty good referral fee for the Kindle. We could use the extra dough this time of year, so I figured I'd put it up there.
I don't think I'd buy one myself if I had the money, but if you have a hankering for one, please buy it here!
Now back to our regular programming.
But God promised to send a Redeemer-for this reason. Man (Adam) had offended an Infinite Person, so the sin was infinite. But man is not infinite, so he can't make infinite atonement or reparation. He could do nothing to merit restitution, since he lost sanctifying grace; therefore the only Person who could make adequate restitution is an an Infinite Person. No creature (created) could do this. No creature can offer an infinite prayer to God.
So, God planned that the redeemer would be God the Son, who could offer infinite restitution for man. But now Redemption can't come to all men through Adam, but to each individually (emphasis in original - ed.) through God the Son.
The promise is duly recorded in the Old Testament.
The time for the coming of the Redeemer was chosen such that man would want a Redeemer and be prepared for Him-when man had learned from bitter experience that their nature is weak and their pride should be humbled.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Ghost speaks through the inspired writers and prophets, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name will be Emmanuel" (God with us or he who is to come). Christ is both God and man-perfect humanity, perfect human nature. His human nature is essentially like ours.
Stay tuned for the final installment next time.
Oremus pro invicem!
I spent yesterday putting books up on the internet. Boy, I hate it-it is the worst of sitting in front of a computer all day! At the same time, I found myself looking around the house for items to put on ebay when I came down for dinner. Not a good sign!
One thing I did come up with is some Rock 'n Roll era records in the 78 RPM format. I have alot of 78's from my father and from my old days of searching thrift shops. But I am not a collector. I only bought things I liked to listen to.
However, some years ago, I did buy a portable (as in wind-up) "picnic" 78 rpm phonograph which included 4 or5 78's by artists from the 50's: Johnny Mathis, Fats Domino, the Jive Bombers, etc. Played them once, then put them away. Hmmm.....
Enough about ebay and on-line selling-its driving me crazy after just two days. Can't wait til the junk is cleared out.
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But speaking of music, I think that we sing more now than we did when we lived in the city (Columbia), but we play less records and dance less. Part of this is a space thing, and part a time thing.
Our house in the city had a little more space and thus the record player was always sitting out just begging to be turned on. And, if it was turned on, more than likely dancing would take place.
We also have a few more chores here, with the livestock, etc., so getting out the records plays second fiddle. However, Mrs. Curley and I would like to do more dancing as we did in the past. But we do more singing. It is not as good physical exercise as dancing, but it is great spiritual exercise.
Oremus pro invicem!
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us!
November is winding down and thus you have only a day or so left to take advantage of the deep discounts on quantity purchases of the Holy Souls prayer booklets: Daily Prayers for the Church Suffering-a daily committment to praying for the holy souls in purgatory.At Requiem Press we have made it our apostolate to promote prayers for the holy souls in purgatory through the free distribution of this booklet with every order. Periodically we discount it so that others can share in this apostolate by purchasing it in quantity and giving them out or leaving them at train stations, or whereever one leaves them properly.
There is my final pitch for November....
May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. And may perpetual light shine upon them. Amen
I am starting a "new business" this morning: selling used books on the internet. We have some around here to get rid of, and we "inherited" some.
There are several sources for used books on the internet. I have always used http://www.abe.com/ for my used book searches and purchases. But ebay and Amazon Marketplace are two other places many people go.
Some of the books we have to sell are commonplace with little value, and some could be collector's items. I need to feel my way carefully as this is all new to me.
Hopefully this isn't a long term endeavor, just a way to get rid of some stuff.
We also have a 1989 Subaru with a shot body and a great engine. We want to disassemble the engine and sell the parts on ebay.
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Speaking of books-since I am already in the business, I have doing a lot of thinking lately. The recent release of Amazon's Kindle, and the general change in how people are entertained and get their information has gotten me thinking about the future of books.
Now I am a book-lover, and I suspect there will always be a certain number of book-lovers. But we are getting rarer. As a publisher, should I start going to audio books?; e-books?; Kindle books (however that works?); Podcast books?
These are things to think about. I am not shy about learning things and new technology. Publishing was totally new to me in 2004 and I think I am getting the hang of it. Your opinions are welcome (via 'email me').
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us! ... Oremus pro invicem!
When God created Adam, among other things, He gave him sanctifying grace, which transforms man's nature to a higher order (not really in Adam's nature) and allows him a real participation into the nature of God, i.e. it enables him to perform supernatural acts to merit his supernatural reward-perfect happiness.
When Adam fell, he lost the sanctifying graces, as well as bodily immortality, freedom from concupiscence (integrity), and freedom from pain.
In Adam was contained all men-the father of all men. Just as all of us today, suffer or profit from the failures or success of our fathers, so, the human race with respect to Adam-like hot dog stand. So we lose all the gifts-not really in our nature since they're supernatural and preternatural-so we inherit the sin: Original sin, i.e. lack of grace = sin.
My comment: I don't have any idea what the "hot dog stand" referred to. I imagine he had an example in mind he was going to use. I am not editing, I am transcribing, so you get it all.
Oremus pro invicem!
It is a disappointment, but do look for it early in the new year.
In the meantime, we have other books which would make fine Christmas gifts....
Okay, so the Massuchusetts legislature is considering outlawing spanking for children under 18. (See story here):
If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect.
So we can spank our older children? Or is that just covered under a different law?
Now that the Massachusetts legislature had failed in its duty regarding the definition of marriage, they are poised to start micromanaging parenthood. Great! Do we need a Constitutional Amendment that allows parents to be parents?
Let's see, we can't outlaw killing babies, and we no longer define marriage as union between one man and one woman. (Why then is polygamy still against the law then? Oh that's a different subject entirely.) So, why is the anti-spanking legislation a surprise? It is the next logical step to break the family. Put the parents in jail and have the state raise the children.
The world is wacky. My kids are going to have a lot more obstacles in raising their children than we've had. Whew!
Everything is turned upside down. There is a tendency in the our society to celebrate youth and physical beauty over wisdom and charity. Or do I understate?
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So every morning I access my email and get several emails (more like 50) with a subject line like this: ðÒÉÇÌÁÛÁÅÍ ÎÁ ËÕÒÓÙ. Now why would anyone open such an email-especially if you have 50 of them in your inbox? Yet they come overnight like clockwork.
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Been reading another issue of Invention and Technology. The Fall 2006 issue (yes I am reading back issues-but because it is history, it stays current.) has an amazing article on how the Hoover (Boulder) Dam was built. I had really never seen pictures of it or realized how mamouth the structure was. And think of it, this project was completed ahead of schedule!!!
On to work....
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us! ... Oremus pro invicem!
From bits and pieces, one could come to the conclusion that it (the Church-ed) is unscientific, or unreasonable in its demands, irrational in its beliefs, or too rational (too good to be true), too militant-only men as priests, too soft-the many women who are religious, too humble-Christ's humility and that of the martyrs, to proud (pomp and ceremony), etc. But it is none of these. For example, the Church can't clash with science because God made the world, and the men of science can only find what god made; it can't clash (i.e. the Church and science-ed). The conclusions they draw may be different from the truth, but it is because they only see bits and pieces.
What I hope to do is to review, without much explanation, and without proof, God's plan for man.
God, perfect, infinite and limitless, created things in various orders of being. God, being God, is not a creature, was never created, but exists for all time, with no time dimension.
His highest order of creation is the angels, purely spiritual beings. The lowest order of being are the inorganic material things: non-life, stones, water, etc. The next highest order is life, not sensual life: plants, trees, flowers, etc. The next higher order are sensual beings: animals, fish, birds, etc. The next highest order are rational beings-men.
Each higher order of being possesses more perfect activity. All of the creatures mentioned fulfill necessarily their destinies without choice, except man.
Only man has both material body and immortal soul. He has intellect and will: intelligence or the ability to know God, and will or the ability to choose God and/or other things. His intellect is always seeking truth in one form or another. His will is always seeking good in one form or another. He seeks all truth and all good for(?) an infinite end. these things can never be completely satisfied in the world no matter how much he knows or how many things he chooses.
In essence, it is God's plan that these two desires be completely fulfilled in the next world, when they contemplate god, who is or contains all truth and all good. then will man's soul be completely happy. The measure of happiness obtainable by any soul will be determined by man's life on earth. All souls in heaven will be completely happy, but some will be capable of more happiness than others.
Nearly full male and female nudity, sexual references and innuendo, period bawdiness, adultery, implied non-marital encounters, intense violence with gore and a suicide. Possibly acceptable for older teens. (my emphasis-so you won't have to read it twice.)
putting up a picture of my Dad. My sister, when she came down this weekend, brought some notes of some talks my father was planning to give that my Mom must have dug in cleaning things out. It is unclear where and under what circumstances some of the talks were to be given. They were not connected to his work (he was a physicist employed by the government for most of his career.)
For instance, one of the papers seems to be written about 1964 (that date appears on the back of the page amongst other scribblings), yet the paper itself is letterhead from his graduate school and thus would date to several years earlier. The talk is entitled: "God's Plan for Man's Salvation" and opens thus:
Catholic doctrine is a very complex subject and involves all of eternity as well as all aspects of the human race from Adam, the first man, to the present and includes the future. Under various aspects and discussions, it is concerned with such things as history, physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, anthropology, psychology, etc., not just on the surface, but into the essential and basic truths which these subjects have discovered and will discover. Because of its complexity, it is possible to discuss Catholic doctrine under many aspects and come out with a totally wrong idea of what it is all about-its intentions, basic meanings, etc. However, actually when viewed totally, Catholic doctrine is one thing, completely organized, completely intelligible, essentially (in essence) all meaningful and continuous-i.e. completely reasonable to the human mind, when viewed in its entirety.
I haven't read further, but I can't wait to read the rest....
Oremus pro invicem!
Recall a week or so ago I posted a mother's comment about the "Talking about Touching" program the archdiocese of Boston is forcing on the first-graders as their response to the scandal (read: insurance companies). Well here is a new installment from my contact in Boston:
One mom just called me in tears because for the last few weeks her 6 year old son has been markedly less affectionate and when he again refused to kiss her goodbye yesterday she asked why. He told her repeatedly that "it is not appropriate". He also has been displaying a very strong fear of strangers of any kind even though his mom is close at hand. He has always been a very warm, outgoing, happy, trusting little guy.
This is sad and an outrage. But parents need to be aware of what's going on. If every parent in the Catholic schools (or if even 50%) opted out and protested, these programs would quickly die. Some parents are seeing results of these programs immediately, like this mom. Others will see the result down the road.
God have mercy on us!
Wow! lots of things happened here, as I am sure everywhere else. Before Thanksgiving, I spent a couple days finding places to build storage areas (one thing we lack an abundance of here at Bethany). I found two places: one in the upper stairwell where I put some shelves; and on the hearth in the den, where I put up shelves/bookcase. I need to put some closet spaces in the eves, but that is a more intense project which we didn't have time for. Every year it seems I have a Thanksgiving week project. It has become somewhat of a tradition.
My sister arrived for her annual Thanksgiving visit on Wednesday. She has come every year we have been in SC except the first, when we traveled. Once again, it was a wonderful visit.
Thanksgiving day, besides my sister we had 2 friends from our parish share the meal and the day with us. But before we get to that, I must mention our annual Turkey Bowl.
This year, we had a new full time player on our team: my youngest son. (I think he played a bit last year, but not much.) So the teams were: numbers 1 and 2 sons versus myself and number 3 and 4 sons. This gave us the advantage of an extra player, but in return, our quarterback couldn't run. So it evened things out a bit. We also narrowed the field a little for two reasons. The 'out of bounds' used to be the driveway on one side and the cedar trees on the other. This made the field almost as wide as long. Running into the cedar trees is no fun, and running into the driveway is a potential knee problem as there is a drop-off at some points. (Confidentially, narrowing the field also helps an aging player like myself to have a better shot at stopping a long run by a teenage boy.)
Let's review a little history on the Turkey Bowl. It is a timed game, and as such is usually shorter than most of our games (as there is usually plenty to do on Thanksgiving morning). Can't say how many years we have played it, but it has been quite a few. My team won the first few years. Then we had a few years of ties. When we moved to Bethany, my team returned to its former glory and sneaked out a win two years ago. Then last year we were blown out (57-28). We didn't want that to happen again and had been practicing some new plays.
We took the early lead, but couldn't capitalize (my fault on two plays) on what should have been an easy score on our third possession (which would have put us up by 2 TD's early.) So by halftime we were down by 2 scores.
With 2 minutes left in the game, we were down 7-5 (or 49-35), but we had the ball on our opponents 5 yard line (2nd and goal). They stopped us 3 times, and then went on to score once more as we played a gambling defense. It was a close game with some good moments. Number 2 son made some spectacular catches he wouldn't have made in the past. Number 3 and number 4 son made some good runs.
Now back to the weekend: We had our usual turkey fair, but six deserts this year. Apple pie via son Matthew (absolutely delicious), pistachio pudding, cheesecake, pumpkin pie, a devils food cake/chocolate pudding/Irish creme extravaganza, and yum-yum bars. What a feast!
Saturday after my sister left, we had more friends over. We weren't sure we'd have enough turkey, so we quickly slaughtered two chickens and popped them in the oven. (How convenient!)
Sunday after Mass, we finally spent some time alone together winding down. We watched a movie with popcorn and played a game as a family.
So this morning it is back to work. The first thing I did was to go through email-deleting thousands of spam messages.
I hope everyone had as great a weekend as we did.
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us ... Oremus pro invicem!
In case I stop back in, Happy Thanksgiving!
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us! ... Oremus pro invicem!
Interesting article this morning on Advent and Christmas on Catholic Exchange . Here's a piece:
Stand in contradiction to the premature revelry and the misguided festivities. Give the world over to the world. Go into your rooms, shut the doors and pray — pray for fidelity, pray for oblation, pray for true peace. Such an example to our children would be far more helpful than to demand that the world pay lip-service to a God it will not honor. It didn't receive Him upon His birth, and now it mocks Him on His annual feast. Branding the mockery as "Christmas" only heaps scorn on our Beloved.
I am not sure if I agree totally with this different perspective (read the whole thing)-but prayer always should be our first recourse; and she has this right. (Read the whole article here ).
I neglected to mention that the most recent issue of Catholic Men's Quarterly landed in my mailbox last week. It was a particularly good issue. Maybe my favorite was Thomas Storck's piece on the purpose of property:
As I noted above, when something has a purpose, that purpose acts a limit on its use. The purpose judges and controls the morality of the thing or action accoridng as it suse contributes to or detracts from its end.
Get yourself a subscription!
There was an article in the November Catholic World Report I wanted to comment on, but have not yet found the time.
And as for my next installment of the "The Ways of God" - for fathers: I missed my self-imposed Friday (last) deadline, and now with Thanksgiving looming it will probably be another week or so.
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us!....Oremus pro invicem!
We slaughtered, dressed and ate the first 2 chickens from our current flock on Thursday evening. The chickens being young made a world of difference in the tenderness. Number 3 son caught the chickens. I broke their necks. All the boys plucked And I dressed it. Mrs. Curley cooked it.
Picked our first crop of turnips and turnip greens on Thursday also. I don't know if it is because Mrs. Curley forgot they were on the stove and boiled them much longer than usual, or if there is another reason, but these were good. I usually can barely tolerate them.
Friday night we went to the premiere of The Spirit of Freedom. It was an extremely well-done and a very professional presentation. It did unsettle one a bit to see your own children playing dead or being killed on screen. But since they were with us in the arts center, you knew it was okay.
Saturday morning flea market: after the price of the table, gas, and two cups of coffee, we probably cleared $11.15-but we got rid of a whole lot of junk. Disappointing? Yes. but now we know.
Finally, Mr. Culbreath is back with some great news!
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us .... Oremus pro invicem!
for an announcement about ... Comments
As a reminder, I don't allow comments per se, but you can email me via the link above my name. I will respond and may refer to it or publish it in a subsequent post.
If you do email me, make sure you use subject line in the email which either mentions the blog or the particular entry. (If you the subject line says anything about replica watches or certain medical products, you can be sure I won't read it.) Somehow spammers have identified this email address, and I am getting a little spam-sure to grow. Some of the spam comes under a blank subject line.
Thanks. Now back to the regular programming already in progress.
Rain! Looks like we got some last night. And it is drizzling a bit today. We are supposed to slaughter a couple chickens today for dinner tonight. Can't believe I am saying this (cause we need the rain so badly), but I hope the rain stops for a while so we can pluck the chicken in dry weather. (Pic is my youngest with one of the future dinners taken a month or so ago.)
Plan on picking the first batch of turnips and turnip greens today also. Maybe we will have a totally homegrown dinner!!!
We have rented a table at the Camden Flea Market for Saturday. For a $10 investment (cheaper than an ad in the paper for a yard sale) I think it will be more successful than our past yard sales. Mostly we have junk-but that always seems to sell the best. And I will try to sell my walking sticks and our wreaths again-but I am not too hopeful. But it should be a fun day regardless.
Finally, my next installment of "The Ways of God" - for fathers is almost done. I would look for it tomorrow.
Oremus pro invicem!
I was looking through some notes the other day from years back and found some commentary on this:
Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light. - Matt 11: 29-30
There are so many agrarian references in Holy Scripture because it was an agrarian society. This isn't true for most of us today, so sometimes the full meaning of the reference slips by us-as was the case for me on this passage. 
I think we all know what a yoke is: it is a shaped wooden beam with means to bind or attach to the head of oxen (or horses). The purpose of the yoke is to direct the oxen in their field tasks. A beast in a yoke can not go their own way; their direction is controlled by their master
When Christ calls us to take up His yoke, I always viewed it as a cross, made "light" by Christ's help. But this forgets the purpose of a yoke-which is not of a burden, but of direction.
Christ's yoke is more of our willingness to be directed by Him-by the will of God. Taking on Christ's yoke is conforming our will to God's-opening ourselves to His action in our life; not going our own way, but being guided by His will. This is why the yoke is sweet and the burden light-because we are walking under God's direction, according to His will.
Another way to view all this may be what Fr. Lee Selzer (may his soul rest in peace) once told me (speaking of each of us): "My life is not about me; my life is about Christ."
Our Lady of Joyful Hope-pray for us! ... Oremus pro invicem!
Here is a group ensemble picture from our All Saints Day party a couple weeks ago.
Please pray for a gentleman in our parish and also a great friend of mine who had a heart attack two days ago. Procedures have been done and recovery is in the works, but at 81, every prayer helps.
Oremus pro invicem!
