From Rap to Opera

An angel.

A Great Pro-Life Rap Video

This is really beautiful. And hits home to an entirely different population than most pro-life efforts. Thanks, Lisa!

Quote of the Day

"Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, [and] each of us is necessary." Pope Benedict XVI (as quoted by Pres Bush at the 5th annual Catholic Prayer Breakfast)

Again, thank you Lord.

Sex abuse victims who met with Pope Benedict speak on CNN. A more complete, but heart wrenching video version on CNN's website (if it doesn't pop up, click on each of the red links). From Amy Wellborn:

"he is, very pointedly, teaching the bishops how to be pastors. You cannot watch these people speak of their past suffering and what the Pope listening to them today accomplished without hoping and praying that in humility, those of his fellow pastors who have refused to listen and instead dedicated inestimable resources to re-victimizing victims are watching and learning from him.

And perhaps feeling something. A word Benedict has used time and time again these past days.

Shame

Friends from Steubenville might remember another very pastoral, loving man of God who worked tirelessly to bring some semblance of justice to a similar, yet less devastated group of Catholics.

A Snippet for Mary Margaret

This is a beautiful story for all, but especially for my sweetie Mary...

"A priest once asked her not how she does it, but why -- for 23 years, when she could have been elsewhere, when much of her flock cannot pray, or dance or sing. Where else, she asked him, could she walk each day among saints?"

Make sure to check out the video.

Thank you, Lord...

"Pope Benedict XVI held an unscheduled meeting with victims of priestly sexual abuse, shortly after pledging the church’s continued efforts to help heal the wounds caused by such acts.

The Vatican said the pope met privately in a chapel at the apostolic nunciature with “a small group of persons who were sexually abused by members of the clergy.” The group was accompanied by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, the epicenter of the abuse scandal.

“They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterward listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope,” a Vatican statement said.

“His Holiness assured them of his prayers for their intentions, for their families and for all victims of sexual abuse,” it said."

G. K.

I pretty much can't publish an entry without a picture anymore. So here's one of a man who is going to be a favorite author of mine once I read many of his 100 books. Chris and I went to a lecture at TU presented by the President of the Chesterton Society called, "The Intoxication of Existence: G.K. Chesterton and the Purpose of Existence." Chris had recently read his first Chesterton book and was speaking so highly of him, we both wanted to learn more. The lecture was fascinating and I think I'm in love. Chesterton was filled with joy and had a beautiful outlook on life. I wrote down some (not 100% accurate) quotes, so I'll share them with you:

"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."

"If there were no God, there would be no atheists."

"I'm not absent minded, just present-minded about something else."

"The things that make us most human are divine things, including imagination."

"Giving thanks is the highest form of thought."

"We should feel the intoxication of existence; it's a miracle that we are here at all because we could have easily not been."

"When we are close to God our art is full of eternity, with universal and everlasting appeal."

"The incarnation is the essence of all art; the love of God expressed perfectly."

"Good imagination restores, bad imagination destroys."

"There are times in Church history when the Church was wedded to the world, but she was always widowed... At times the Church has been dead, but it has a God who knows His way out of the grave."