Signs of the Times

Photo by Justin Soutar

by Justin Soutar

In his popular 1966 book What Is It About Virginia?, Norfolk journalist Guy Friddell opined that there is actually a fifth season in between summer and autumn, which is not quite summer and not quite autumn. He wrote that this fifth season, which runs from mid-August to mid-September, is a mysterious period of transition and change in terms of weather and personal schedules. For me, this unique time of year is simply late summer and early autumn combined. The midday sun is getting lower in the sky and early morning temperatures are often chilly, but daytime readings can still be warm or even hot. Rainfall has noticeably declined, but occasional showers and thunderstorms still visit our area. Some tree leaves are turning color and falling, but most are still green. The growth of grass and weeds has nearly plateaued, but no frosts have yet destroyed them. Several of my garden crops are finished for the year, but several others are still producing vegetables. Some birds have already migrated south, but most are still here. Squirrels and deer are everywhere.

This beautiful and special time of year is a gift from our Creator. He has designed the earth and the solar system in such a way that there are gradual transitions between not only summer and autumn, but also autumn and winter, winter and spring, and spring and summer. These significant month-long overlaps between seasons allow earth's creatures valuable time to adjust, mentally and physically, to the different weather and climate of the approaching season. Without this gentle transition period, life on earth would be much more stressful and difficult if it could survive at all. Signs of the next season unfailingly appear towards the end of the current season as if to remind us that time is marching on. 

In today's overly busy and hyper-stressed world, an increasingly large number of people are so caught up in the performance of daily tasks that they no longer pay attention to signs of gradual change in the big picture in society, culture, education, the economy, politics, law, international relations, etc. However, our Lord Jesus Christ has summoned us, his followers, to pay attention to the signs of the times and to relate the truth of the Gospel to them. There is no shortage of such signs in our country and our world today. We just need to take a candid look at them and where they are pointing in the light of God's unchanging eternal reality, then respond with prayer and action as Christ calls us to do in our hearts and through the guidance of his Church.

Copyright 2023 Justin D. Soutar.

Quote of the Day

"When it is considered how short is the span of human life, does it really matter to a man whose days are numbered what government he must obey, so long as he is not compelled to act against God or his conscience?"

--Saint Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book V, Chapter 17

Quote of the Day

"The questions you have within you, the important ones that concern  your dreams, affections, greatest desires, hopes and the meaning of life: do not keep them to  yourselves but bring them to Jesus. Call him by name, as he does with you. Address your questions  to him, entrusting to him your secrets, your loved ones, your joys and concerns, and also the problems  of your nations and the world. Then you will discover something new and surprising: that when you  ask the Lord, when you open your hearts to him each day, when you really pray, your interior lives  are transformed."

--Pope Francis, Address to Youth, Lisbon, Portugal, August 3, 2023

Quote of the Day

"I am convinced that the destruction of transcendence is actually the mutilation of man from which all the other sicknesses spring."

--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), 1927--2022

Quote of the Day

"When the people broke the covenant, God appeared to Moses in the cloud to renew that pact, proclaiming His Name and its meaning... God is not far away and closed in Himself, but He is Life that wills to communicate itself, He is openness, He is Love that rescues man from infidelity. God is “merciful,” “compassionate,” and “rich in grace” because He offers Himself to us to fill our limitations and our failings, to forgive our errors, to bring us back to the way of justice and of truth."

--Pope Francis, Angelus Address, June 11, 2017

Quote of the Day

“We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

--Ronald Reagan (1911--2004), U.S. President, 1981--89

Reflection for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

"In the second reading, we hear the words of Paul who, looking back on his whole life, says: 'I have fought the good fight' (2 Tim 4:7). The Apostle is referring to the countless situations, some marked by persecution and suffering, in which he did not spare himself in preaching the Gospel of Jesus. Now at the end of his life, he sees that a great “fight” is still taking place in history, since many are not disposed to accept Jesus, preferring to pursue their own interests and follow other teachers, more accommodating, easier, more to our liking. Paul has fought his own battles and, now that he has run his race, he asks Timothy and the brethren of the community to carry on his work with watchful care, preaching and teaching. Each, in a word, is to accomplish the mission he or she has received; each must do his or her part."

--Pope Francis, Homily, June 29, 2022

Quote of the Day

"For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them."

--Saint Thomas More

Marching for Life in the Post-Roe Era

by Justin Soutar
June 21, 2023

On February 1, 2023, I was among many thousands of faith-filled people of all ages, races, and backgrounds from across the Old Dominion and neighboring states who converged on Richmond for the Virginia March for Life. While the great majority of participants in this annual demonstration were my fellow Catholics, including hundreds of brother Knights of Columbus, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, there were many hundreds of people from other Christian denominations as well, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. It was also an overwhelmingly younger crowd, with a large number of enthusiastic teenagers and young adults present. Despite our differences, we were all gathered for a single purpose: to respectfully demand that Virginia lawmakers protect the God-given right to life of innocent unborn children in the Commonwealth. 

Photo by Justin Soutar

It has been a year since the U.S. Supreme Court finally rectified its erroneous and infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the horrific practice of abortion in all fifty states and resulted in the tragic murder of more than sixty million unborn children during a forty-nine-year period. While the pro-life movement in the United States grew dramatically in the following decades, with tens of millions of believers consistently praying and advocating for Roe's reversal and most states enacting various effective restrictions on abortion access, we were not entirely prepared for the Dobbs v. Jackson decision and how to proceed in its wake.

This lack of a unified and coherent plan for the post-Roe era was reflected in the variety of opinions and responses to Dobbs. Some pro-life leaders insisted that the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. should continue to be held even though its goal of ending Roe had been achieved. Others favored shifting the movement's activism efforts to the state legislatures. And still others argued that pro-life activism should continue at both the federal and state government levels. Similarly, some parishes and Catholic colleges sent busloads of parishioners and students to the March for Life in our nation's capital; others sent buses to the March for Life in their state capitals; and still others participated in both the national and state demonstrations.

Meanwhile, although the abortion cartel led by Planned Parenthood was considerably less prepared for Dobbs than the pro-life movement was, it quickly adapted to the new legal situation to protect its bottom line, shifting its deadly operations to states with permissive abortion laws and convincing (bribing?) the FDA to allow the abortifacient drug Mifeprex (formerly UR-486) to be distributed over the counter to pregnant women in all fifty states via retail pharmacies and the U.S. Postal System in clear violation of federal drug safety guidelines.

Photo by Justin Soutar

Considering that the Dobbs decision returned the abortion issue to the American people and their elected representatives at the state level, it makes perfect sense that pro-life efforts in the state governments, including electing pro-life representatives and governors and enacting pro-life legislation, should be intensified in order to restrict and ban abortion in as many states as possible. This will significantly reduce the number of unborn baby killings nationwide, allowing us to make good progress toward our goal of eliminating legalized abortion throughout the United States. But we simply cannot reach that goal through state-level activism alone because certain states will continue to keep abortion legal. 

The inalienable right to life of each innocent person is affirmed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, although neither document specifies when life begins because no one knew at the time. Far more importantly, abortion is a direct violation of the Creator's natural law and basic human rights regardless of anyone's beliefs or opinions about it, so the question of whether or not it should be legal cannot simply be left to the whims of each state legislature's vote and each governor's signature or veto.

Federal legislation will ultimately be necessary to eradicate this scourge from our nation once and for all. In his famous 1983 "Evil Empire" address, U.S. President Ronald Reagan predicted that legislation to end the abortion tragedy would someday pass Congress. There is, in fact, just such a piece of legislation called the Life at Conception Act, introduced by Senator Rand Paul, that would enshrine the right to life of the unborn child into federal law. The pro-life movement should unify behind this Act and get it passed and signed into law.

All things considered, this author believes that the American pro-life movement should be waging a two-front campaign at the state and federal government levels to end the slaughter of the unborn. The long-running March for Life in Washington should continue for as many years as is necessary until the Life at Conception Act becomes the law of the land, but the route should be altered to end at the U.S. Capitol building instead of the Supreme Court. In the meantime, every state should have an annual March for Life demonstration in its capital city to push for an end to legalized abortion in that state. Let's keep praying and marching for life until we win!

Copyright 2023 Justin D. Soutar.

Quote of the Day

"For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our flesh and blood is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus."

--Saint Justin, First Apology, no. 66, circa A.D. 155

Quote of the Day

"Just like Mary, the Woman, so too the beloved disciple is both a historical figure and a type for discipleship as it will always exist and must always exist. It is to the disciple, a true disciple in loving communion with the Lord, that the Woman is entrusted: Mary--the Church.

"These words spoken by Jesus as he hung upon the Cross continue to be fulfilled in many concrete ways. They are constantly repeated to both mother and disciple, and each person is called to relive them in his own life, as the Lord has allotted. Again and again the disciple is asked to take Mary as an individual and as the Church into his own home and, thus, to carry out Jesus' final instruction."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), p. 222

Quote of the Day

"In the world in which we presently live, however, that passionate quest of a politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations seems a wistful memory from a distant past. We seem to be witnessing the sorry sunset of that choral dream of peace, as the soloists of war now take over....

"Peace will never come as the result of the pursuit of individual strategic interests, but only from policies capable of looking to the bigger picture, to the development of everyone: policies that are attentive to individuals, to the poor and to the future, and not merely to power, profit and present prospects.

"At this historical juncture, Europe is crucial, for thanks to its history, it represents the memory of humanity; in this sense, it is called to take up its proper role, which is to unite those far apart, to welcome other peoples and to refuse to consider anyone an eternal enemy. It is vital, then, to recover the European spirit: the excitement and vision of its founders, who were statesmen able to look beyond their own times, beyond national boundaries and immediate needs, and to generate forms of diplomacy capable of pursuing unity, not aggravating divisions."

--Pope Francis, Address to Government, Diplomats and Civil Society, Budapest, Hungary, April 28, 2023

Reflection for the Octave of Easter

"At times, we may simply feel weary about our daily routine, tired of taking risks in a cold, hard world where only the clever and the strong seem to get ahead. At other times, we may feel helpless and discouraged before the power of evil, the conflicts that tear relationships apart, the attitudes of calculation and indifference that seem to prevail in society, the cancer of corruption — there is so much — the spread of injustice, the icy winds of war. Then too, we may have come face to face with death, because it robbed us of the presence of our loved ones or because we brushed up against it in illness or a serious setback. Then it is easy to yield to disillusionment, once the wellspring of hope has dried up. ....

"This, then, is what the Pasch of the Lord accomplishes: it motivates us to move forward, to leave behind our sense of defeat, to roll away the stone of the tombs in which we often imprison our hope, and to look with confidence to the future, for Christ is risen and has changed the direction of history. Yet, to do this, the Pasch of the Lord takes us back to the grace of our own past; it brings us back to Galilee, where our love story with Jesus began, where that first call was. In other words, it asks us to relive that moment, that situation, that experience in which we met the Lord, experienced His love, and received a radiantly new way of seeing ourselves, the world around us, and the mystery of life itself.

"Brothers and sisters, to rise again, to start anew, to take up the journey, we always need to return to Galilee, that is, to go back, not to an abstract or ideal Jesus, but to the living, concrete, and palpable memory of our first encounter with Him. Yes, brothers and sisters, to go forward we need to go back, to remember; to have hope, we need to revive our memory. This is what we are asked to do: to remember and go forward! If you recover that first love, the wonder and joy of your encounter with God, you will keep advancing. So remember, and keep moving forward."

--Pope Francis, Homily, April 8, 2023

Reflection for the Paschal Triduum

"Jesus goes forth into the night. Night signifies lack of communication, a situation where people do not see one another. It is a symbol of incomprehension, of the obscuring of truth. It is the place where evil, which has to hide before the light, can grow. Jesus himself is light and truth, communication, purity and goodness. He enters into the night. Night is ultimately a symbol of death, the definitive loss of fellowship and life. Jesus enters into the night in order to overcome it and to inaugurate the new Day of God in the history of humanity....

"We think we are free and truly ourselves only if we follow our own will. God appears as the opposite of our freedom. We need to be free of him – so we think – and only then will we be free. This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. When human beings set themselves against God, they set themselves against the truth of their own being and consequently do not become free, but alienated from themselves. We are free only if we stand in the truth of our being, if we are united to God. Then we become truly “like God” – not by resisting God, eliminating him, or denying him. In his anguished prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom, and opened the path to freedom. Let us ask the Lord to draw us into this “yes” to God’s will, and in this way to make us truly free."

--Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, April 5, 2012

Ten Years with Francis, the Misunderstood Pope

by Justin Soutar
March 30, 2023

Following the surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013 for age and health reasons, few observers were anticipating the quick election of 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as his successor. As the first pontiff from Latin America, the first Jesuit, and the first to take the name of Saint Francis of Assisi, he was a newcomer, a teacher, and a reformer. Francis brought to the Petrine office a fresh perspective, a humble and engaging personality, a simple and clear way of preaching and teaching the Catholic faith, and a frugal lifestyle reflecting Gospel values. With his winning combination of personal warmth, simplicity of life, emphasis on divine mercy, and charitable outreach to the poor and marginalized, he immediately captured the hearts of hundreds of millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike across the globe.

Building upon and continuing the work of his great predecessors Pope Saint Paul VI, Pope Saint John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, Francis has consistently striven to shed the light of the perennial truths of Christ and His Church through the lens of the Second Vatican Council onto the complex situation of the twenty-first century world. Through his homilies, addresses, apostolic exhortations, encyclicals, canon law reforms, the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Year of Saint Joseph, and the three Synods on the Family, the Amazon, and on Participation, Communion, and Mission, he has strengthened and equipped believers to face contemporary issues with the power of Gospel truth; made official Church business more transparent and accountable; and has summoned the whole Church to listen more carefully and respond more effectively to a great variety of pastoral challenges. Furthermore, he successfully navigated the Church through the unexpected and difficult storm of the COVID-19 pandemic and the initial worldwide lockdown in response to it.

Unfortunately, less than two years after his election, the initial widespread enthusiasm with which Pope Francis was received had dissolved into heated controversy, unfair criticism, inane conspiracy theories, and frank disillusionment regarding his character and intentions among large numbers of people both within and outside of the Church, for opposing reasons. His “progressive” style and emphasis, including his elevation to the Curia of some bishops with incomplete fidelity to Church teaching and his call in Amoris Laetitia for a new pastoral approach to some irregular marital situations, has led many faithful and traditionalist Catholics to view him through a “hermeneutic of rupture” as a wild-eyed radical who is bent on distorting Church doctrine and discipline beyond recognition and who was elected through the machinations of a secret group of cardinals for this very purpose. Meanwhile, many heretics and radical secularists who had expected Francis to remake the Church in their own image were profoundly disappointed to find him upholding traditional Church teachings on abortion, marriage, and the devil and publicly rebuking the wayward German synod.

It’s a shame that influential and otherwise faithful Catholic media outlets such as the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and Inside the Vatican magazine have turned themselves into platforms for slanderous attacks on, and unjust criticisms of, Pope Francis by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano and other chronically negative commentators. By frequently zeroing in on a handful of Francis’ vague or unclear words and actions, magnifying their controversial aspects, and ignoring the larger context while conspicuously failing to recognize his personal holiness and the many remarkable accomplishments of his papacy, they are presenting to hundreds of millions of people a heavily biased, distorted, and inaccurate picture of Francis and his reign, thus harming the Church by fueling confusion and division within her and by alienating large numbers of the faithful from their own shepherd. This is not only irresponsible journalism, it is unjust and uncharitable and a tragic disservice to the truth. No wonder that the Holy Father has publicly referred to such incessant criticism as “the work of the devil”!

Many faithful Catholics now erroneously view Benedict XVI as a good pope loyal to tradition and Francis as a bad pope disloyal to it, conveniently brushing aside the facts that Benedict himself as Pope Emeritus explicitly rejected this narrative on multiple occasions as entirely baseless, remained a close friend and confidant of Francis, and frequently renewed his pledge of fidelity and obedience to the Jesuit pontiff. But even apart from Benedict’s unwavering support for his successor--not to mention the sadly neglected doctrine of papal infallibility--when one looks objectively at the totality of Francis’ public words and actions during his ten years as the Vicar of Christ to date, it becomes abundantly evident that the “hermeneutic of rupture” has no logical foundation whatsoever.

Thankfully, the majority of Catholics worldwide still correctly view Francis as the good, simple, holy, hardworking, Christ-like pope that he has been and appreciate the many blessings and graces God has bestowed on the Church through his generally wise and capable leadership. While there is certainly room for respectful criticism regarding some aspects and decisions of his administration, for the most part Francis has served as an exemplary Successor of Saint Peter. History will probably judge his pontificate favorably, and he will likely be fondly remembered long after his harshest critics have vanished into obscurity. Christ too was misunderstood and criticized by some of the religious leaders of his day for reaching out to those on the margins of society. Yet the Church he founded on Peter and the apostles has endured through two thousand years and has survived many grave problems because he and the Holy Spirit have remained with her and have protected her from teaching error. The self-assured critics of Francis on both sides seem unaware that the Church and the papacy are divine institutions.

Copyright © 2023 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

"What does it mean to have the true light, to walk in the light? First of all it means abandoning false lights: the cold, vain light of prejudice against others, because prejudice distorts reality and ladens us with aversion to those whom we judge without mercy and condemn without appeal. This is our daily bread! When you gossip about others, you do not walk in the light, you walk in shadows. Another false light, because it is seductive and ambiguous, is that of self-interest: if we value men and things on the basis of usefulness to us, of pleasure, of prestige, we are not truthful in our relationships and situations. If we go down this path of seeking self-interest, we are walking in shadows.

"May the Blessed Virgin, who was the first to welcome Jesus, the Light of the World, obtain for us this grace of welcoming anew the light of faith this Lent, rediscovering the inestimable gift of Baptism, which all of us have received. And may this new illumination transform us in attitude and action, so that we too, beginning with our poverty, our narrow-mindedness, may be bearers of a ray of the light of Christ."

--Pope Francis, Angelus Address, March 26, 2017

Quote of the Day

"During this liturgical season, the Lord takes us with Him to a place apart. While our ordinary commitments compel us to remain in our usual places and our often repetitive and sometimes boring routines, during Lent we are invited to ascend “a high mountain” in the company of Jesus and to live a particular experience of spiritual discipline —ascesis— as God’s holy people. Lenten penance is a commitment, sustained by grace, to overcoming our lack of faith and our resistance to following Jesus on the way of the Cross."

--Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2023

Quote of the Day

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it."

--U.S. President George Washington (1732--1799), Farewell Address, 1796

Quote of the Day

"History is not history unless it's the truth."

--Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Day

"The Congo is like a diamond, for her nature, her resources, and especially for her people; but this diamond has become a source of contention, of violence, and paradoxically of the impoverishment of the people. It is a dynamic that is also found in other African regions, and which applies in general to the Continent... In the face of all this I said two words. The first is negative: 'Enough!' Stop exploiting Africa!... The second is positive: together, together with dignity, all together, and with mutual respect, together in the name of Christ, our hope, to go forward. Do not exploit, and go forward together."

--Pope Francis, General Audience, February 8, 2023

Quote of the Day

"Men are capable of reciprocal comprehension because, far from being wholly separate islands of being, they communicate in the same truth. The greater their inner contact with the one reality which unites them, namely, the truth, the greater their capacity to meet on common ground. Dialogue without this interior obedient listening to the truth would be nothing more than a discussion among the deaf."

--Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI (1927--2022)

Ice Storm

Eighteen years ago in January 2005, when I was almost nineteen years of age and living in west central Ohio with my parents and sister, a rare severe ice storm coated tree branches and other outdoor surfaces with one inch of ice accumulation, resulting in catastrophic damage and leaving us without electrical power or heat for 48 hours. The bizarre combination of spectacular beauty and terrible destruction inspired me to write the poem below, which was finally completed more than a year afterward and which offers an accurate description of the event. In subsequent months and years, I submitted it to various print and online publications, both Catholic and secular, but it has never been accepted for publication, perhaps due to its length (96 lines), or its changes of meter and lack of consistent rhyme. The style was greatly influenced by the epic classical poetry I studied in high school. Mild ice storms are a frequent occurrence this time of year in the mountains of western Virginia, where I have now lived for fourteen-plus years, and their beauty can be enjoyed without fear of danger except for occasional slippery road conditions. Please let me know what you think of this poem.

Ice Storm
by Justin Soutar
June 27, 2006

All through the dreary winter afternoon
A soft rain hammers steadily down.
A welcome respite from the piles of snow
Covering the ground some days ago.
Yet, we know this pleasant interlude
Will soon turn to snowy solitude;
And the clear drops of midwinter rain
Will yield to glistening powder again.
But suddenly—
A warning comes,
A dreadful chill
Pierces the wet air.
Raindrops clinging
To ground and branch.
Puddles turn hard.
--Everywhere—
The dismal clouds
Let fall their burden,
To weigh heavily
On the darkening land.
An eerie stillness
Now foreboding,
Nature trapped
Beneath layer upon layer.
As night falls,
The tree limbs’ icy burden
Grows too heavy
To sustain any longer.
The silence of darkness
Is suddenly broken.
C-c-crack! Just like that
A nearby branch snaps and
Crashes to earth,
Flinging a million chips of ice
Like shattered crystal,
Then stillness again.
Far in the distance,
Another bough cracks,
To be answered by another,
More and more crashes,
Each piercing the dark, frozen silence,
Over and over,
Finally a chorus
Of forest lords
Erupts in all directions,
Bowing to the ice.
Giant appendages
Torn from their stalks
Like candy canes
Bit by a child.
All through the night
The dirge wails on.
All through the following dingy day,
And through subsequent gloomy evening, slowly,
The chorus fades in a long decrescendo
Back into frozen stillness.
The next gray dawn arrives:
What a strange, yet beautiful sight!
Trees and earth all wrapped in ice,
All creation shrouded in white.
A million arches, like Romanesque churches:
Intact limbs, having withstood the onslaught,
Curving down with their heavy load
To touch the ground, at rest.
How strange that the clear liquid,
Sustaining all life,
Has morphed into bringer
Of damage and death.
So glorious to behold,
Yet a burden to nature;
A feast for the eyes,
Yet harm to the forest.
A million glistening white branches
envelop the white-coated ground,
Lying as conquered warriors
Beneath the towering staffs.
Fatal white magnificence
Blankets the earth,
A billion crystal jewels
Scattered everywhere.
Once more, the gray clouds turn somber
As night drops over the scene.
The ground remains frozen silent
And perpetually all motionless,
In ever-patient solidarity
With the damaged natives of the woods.
Up on high, a few starry diamonds
Begin to peek through the hugging clouds.
At the swift touch of a whistling breeze,
All of the radically injured trees
In their ice encasings creak and groan,
Limbs heave so painfully to and fro,
Anxiously awaiting liberation
From their long stiff-frozen condition.
Waiting till dawn for the earth to warm
And deliverance from tribulation.

Copyright © 2006 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Quote of the Day

"Common sense is something that's all too lacking in government and politics these days. Too often, we're bogged down by the mental gymnastics of partisanship, the heavy weight of hands that do too much finger pointing, and a media culture that stokes controversy instead of collaboration. But in a Commonwealth that was founded for the people, by the people, we must change course. With courage and conviction, we can--and will--restore common sense to governing."

--Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, State of the Commonwealth Address, January 11, 2023

Reflection for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

 

"To begin the year by recalling God’s goodness in the maternal face of Mary, in the maternal face of the Church, in the faces of our own mothers, protects us from the corrosive disease of being 'spiritual orphans'. It is the sense of being orphaned that the soul experiences when it feels motherless and lacking the tenderness of God, when the sense of belonging to a family, a people, a land, to our God, grows dim. This sense of being orphaned lodges in a narcissistic heart capable of looking only to itself and its own interests. It grows when what we forget that life is a gift we have received – and owe to others – a gift we are called to share in this common home."

--Pope Francis, Homily, January 1, 2017

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

"Augustus' instruction regarding the registration, for tax purposes, of all the citizens of the ecumene leads Joseph, together with Mary, his betrothed, to Bethlehem, the city of David, and thus it helps to bring to fulfillment the promise of the prophet Micah that the shepherd of Israel would be born in that city. The Emperor unwittingly contributes to the realization of the prophecy: the history of the Roman Empire is interwoven with the history of the salvation that God established with Israel. The history of God's election, hitherto confined to Israel, enters the wider world, it enters world history. God, who is the God of Israel and of all peoples, shows himself to be the true guiding force behind all history."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Part Three: The Infancy Narratives (Image, 2012), pp. 64-65