Ride, Joe Cool, Ride!

Well, tomorrow I will be taking my second California road trip of the year. I am really looking forward to it because due to this wonderful weather we are having I will be riding the FatBoy and not driving. Granted the drive takes me there in comfort, I listen to music of my choice, get to munch as much as I want, enjoy me a coffee and or soft drink while I drive and sometimes when possible experience the highway at high speeds which my Pony is capable of but on the downside it is also a thirsty steed and it drains my pocket mighty fast.

Yet, I love driving it but I also love riding my bike and unfortunately I don't get to do it as often as I would like, so taking advantage of the wonderful weather I thought riding to Cali was the way to go.

Of course the time to get there is extended by at least an hour an a half. First because I have to gas up three times. I fill up the gas here, then top it off in Tonopah, top it off again at the Arizona/California border and again in Cathedral City. As for the speed, I ride hard so I am not too slow a rider but each stop eats at least 25 to 30 minutes off my time to stretch and rest. Fatigue is a rider's enemy so you have to fight it and beat it.

The reward is that at the end of the line I will see my sweetheart but taking the view, the sights, the noise, the wind, and just plain having all that time to yourself and your thoughts is worth the ride. If you are a rider you know what I am talking about. You can really reflect on many things while riding because your mind is free of distractions.

You get to admire the roads, the stops, the people. It never fails but during my trips I always get a "Mr your bikes is hot" or "I wish I would ride" or "I wish I had one". Last time I rode to Cali I came out of a store to find a guy taking pictures of my bike. Then we talked for nearly 20 minutes and said goodbye. The bike opens up conversations with strangers that would never happen when driving. Of course my 07 and 93 Mustangs also attract many good comments, specially my 93. Yet, it's not the same as the ones drawn by the bike.


These are two popular stops for me. The top one is Chiriaco Summit and the bottom one is Desert Center. Both in California.

The idea is to leave early but knowing me that plan can go out the drain really fast, yet I am shooting for an early departure to beat the sun. It doesn't need to be hot for a rider to get totally sunburned, the wind chill alone does the trick.

My sweetheart tending to my sunburn back in October. I think I learned the lesson.
Then add the photo op factor. I stop anywhere and everywhere taking pictures which as many of you know is one of my passions. For those of you that have not seen my photo blog just CLICK HERE to see some of my captures.

Thanks to today's technology I get to mark my progress mostly on FaceBook for all my peeps to know where I am and to check my progress. However my phone's battery is old and in need of replacement and in the bike I won't be able to recharge it so I am sure it will die withing a few hours of my departure.

So, whish me a good trip and I will post later to let you know how things are going.

Icons as useful aids for attaining holiness

Brethren, Peace and Good to you in our Lord Jesus Christ. I was asked the following question by a dear Orthodox Christian sister in a forum I participate. I want to share both the question and my answer with all of you:

…with your suggestion of discussing what happens when we venerate holy icons, and given that we agree that to venerate the icon is to draw near to the person in the image, then the question remains how does drawing near to Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints affect us.

I’ll be brief for a change. I think that becoming holy is to become fully human and that when we become holy, we are able to take off the masks we present to others, the masks of our pretenses, of the ideals promulgated by our Pagan culture. We are able to show ourselves to others as who we are, in all of our depths, in the reality that God meant us to be from eternity.

The iconographer recognizes this fact; he or she has the gift to see the holy ones as they truly are now, shining with inner light in eternity. With economy of form and movement, the iconographer captures the inner depths and the outer symmetries of the holy one who is now fully what God intended him to be.

The iconodule or “icon venerator” (you and me, I hope) recognizes that we are meant to be subjects for a future iconographer. We need to reflect the Glory of God in Jesus in ourselves, by being the man or woman God intended us to be from eternity, before sin marred us. Our duty of sorts is to be a subject for an iconographer and through the exchange, to become examples for others to emulate.

That’s why icons appeal so much to me, why I treasure and venerate them, and become closer in the Body of Christ to those whom the icon re-presents to us on earth.

We mourn the victims of the Ohio school shootings

Brethren, Peace and Good to you in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We mourn the victims of the Ohio school shootings and pray for all their families, friends, and the people of the town of Chardon. Lord, please be close to all of them in this period of mourning.

Following our Master’s teaching, we bless the shooter and pray for his soul. May he come to understand the evil of his deed and the darkness in his heart, so that he may turn to You, O Lord, and find healing and peace during the many years he will spend in prison.

Brethren, let us reclaim our culture in order to undercut the nefarious trends in all communications and entertainment media that helped fuel, and justify the mind of the shooter.

We go pro

Over the last 24 hours the Jazzman and I have been trying to curb our enthusiasm but now that it's a done deal we are getting a little giddy.

For the first time since we have been making music (at least 10 years), we have a regular weekly gig, beginning March 8. The owners of the Marina Cantina want us to play Thursday evenings, plus they want us to play for their wedding at the Yacht Club (aren't we chichi?) and for St. Patrick's Day (OUR wedding anniversary). I can't think of anything I'd rather do to celebrate our anniversary (of the day we met, the day we married and the day we bought our boat), than make music. If it didn't sound like a cliché I'd say we're in clover.

The boat crowd tends to be retirees, who hopefully can relate to our music. The owners want to become known as the place to hear jazz, a musical genre very hard to come by here in Mexico.

It's a small place, with an outdoor patio and indoor restaurant, not the greatest acoustics but we'll manage. We stopped by this morning and worked out the day of the week we'll play, the pay (paltry, of course), talked about the wedding (we'll start playing at 10pm!) and their plans for St Paddy's. Think I want a green dress...

American Chopper - Senior vs. Junior

So I have been a fan of what many may consider a stupid show but to me it has many of the elements that I like and value. At first glance the show was designed to highlight and showcase those awesome, expensive, and sometimes useless custom motorcycles, but most of us learned pretty quick that the show was taking shape as a drama without a script where father and son constantly fought and yet worked together to produce some of the most amazing and pretty bikes.

While many motorcycle shows came and went, American Chopper has survived for ten years and I still sit on Monday night first watching a bunch of reruns while waiting for the new episode to air.

So apparently the show was successful for six years and then the never ending father and son fights got so intense that Sr. and Jr. parted ways. This in itself would take all the mystique out of the show, after all the formula for six years had been the fights, the tantrums, the destroying and throwing things around and with Jr. gone you could finally count on the show being cancelled.

Now the show has been revived as both OCC and now PJD "compete" for companies to hire them to build them a theme bike, which is what they had specialized in, and I once again find myself hooked on the show.

I like the show, I like the characters, and I like the bikes and it seems both companies are being successful but for four years they had gone to court, sue each other, and apparently gone all this time without speaking to each other and I can't help but think that if that was me I would be going crazy.

There is just no way that I could ever lose a grip of what family life is, in my world without your family you are nothing and then think how fortunate I am to have them around to bug the heck out of me at will. I love it and wouldn't have it any other way.

So, if at all, this show aside from entertaining me, it also reminds me of how important my family is to me and how essential it is for me to have them around, if in fact the Teutuls are estranged they better get their act together because life is too short and wasted days will never come back.

You think I could ever go without this guy? Of course not!
Or without this one? Nope!
Or this one? Nope, nope, nope!
I love my kids and they need to be in my life, that is just a simple fact.

Timeline

Well, here I am again with a new book in hand. As I said before, this will be the year that I get back into reading. I used to read so many blogs that book reading sort of took a back seat but now it's time to pick it up again. So far so good. Here's my list thus far:

So far this year I have read:

The Broker by John Grisham
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
In The Name of Honor by Richard North Patterson

I am reading:
Timeline by Michael Crichton

What's on your reading list? Have you read any of the ones I’ve read?

I went looking for the first book of "The Hunger Games" trilogy but found out that all the copies they had at the library were out and that way too many people had put holds on them already so I did the next best thing and just announced it on Face Book that I wanted to read them and for someone to send them my way. My nephew sent me a reply saying he has all three of them and will gladly lend them to me. So, yey! Score!

Not wanting to come out of the library empty handed I picked up "Timeline", a book by Michael Crichton. He is one of my favorite writers and I have read many of his novels.

The first one was "Rising Sun" followed by "Disclosure". I enjoyed both novels so much (By the way, eventually both became movies)that I started reading more of his books. So far here is a list of the ones I have read, all of them fiction books:

The Andromeda Strain
Rising Sun
Disclosure
Eaters of the Dead
Congo
Sphere
Jurassic Park
The Lost World
Jurassic Park III
Airframe
State of Fear
Coma

Out of these books most have been turned into movies: The Andromeda Strain, The 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead), Congo, Sphere, the Jurassic Park trilogy, Coma, Rising Sun, and Disclosure. Twister is an awesome movie which I happened to catch first so I never read or will read the book, and as soon as I finish reading this one I am going to try and find me a copy of the movie. The theme is too hard to be put into film so I am curious to see how well hollywood did on this one.

An Affair to Remember

For the past two weeks the Capt and I have been working toward getting ready for a big event yesterday. The occasion was "An Affair to Remember," an art exhibition for which the Capt volunteered to supply live music, i.e. us.

He also signed up to show about ten of his watercolors and oils, some of which had not yet been painted! Only one of which was properly framed. He turned out three oils in about ten days, and one was still not completely dry when we hung them at the exhibit.

He arranged to have mats and glass cut for his watercolors, and had our friend Charlie make some frames. But with only hours to go before the show, we picked up the matting and glass and found they were all the wrong size! So he had to quickly hire Charlie to make new frames the right size.

Also, since we had to fill a three-hour exhibit with music, it was necessary for us to dig up several songs we hadn't done in years, rearrange them and get them up to performance standards in about three days.

A recipe for disaster! But somehow we got through it and it was indeed for us an affair to remember. The Capt even sold one of his paintings.

The exhibit was held in a large empty brick-walled room, reminiscent of a warehouse. We were expected to provide "only background music," but at least a dozen people came up to us and asked us to crank it up, so we did. Nobody complained we were too loud.

We played in front of a huge window and the late afternoon sun, combined with the body heat of hundreds of people, made it feel like a Mexican summer, so I unwisely shed the lightweight vest I had worn over my tanktop.

A tsunami of sound bounced off the walls, as a thousand people elbowed their way through the door over the three hours. A great test of our ability to soldier on through any kind of distraction and stay on the beat.

It was exhilarating, exhausting and instructive. We came away with a few lessons learned...
1) The bass and drum tracks on our iPad system are not reliable. Sometime between rehearsals and the show, some of the songs changed tempo and added verses, creating extra havoc. We'll have to test each song an hour before the show, preferably after we've set up. Or find another system.

2) One thing we did right, and probably will do again. Since we have two big speakers, we set one up outside, and friends told us we actually sounded better out there, without the echoing background of umpteen conversations.

3) Next time we have pictures framed, we will pay to have the entire job done at the shop, so there will be no miscommunications.

4) We didn't have any business cards with us! Duh!

5) Never again will I wear a spaghetti-strap spandex top onstage without a shirt over it, no matter how hot it gets, unless I have spent at least six months at the gym.

Thank you Mother, for bringing me back home

Brethren, Peace and Good to all of you in Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Yesterday was a very special day: it was exactly a year since I reported for active military duty in Afghanistan, and it was also the day in which I reported back to end my mission. My wife accompanied me to Washington, DC to complete the paperwork and then we spent the day together. We had lunch at a local TexMex/Cuban/Puerto Rican place (Banana Café and Piano Bar. I recommend it) and then spent the day together. Among the places we visited was the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where we attended Mass in thanksgiving for my safe return, and where I had the opportunity to thank the Blessed Mother’s special care for me in the chapel dedicate to her under the title of Our Lady of Częstochowa, patroness of Poland. The picture at right is of yours truly, confirming the visit.

The origins of the icon and the date of its composition are still hotly contested among scholars. The difficulty in dating the icon stems from the fact that the original image was painted over, after being badly damaged by Hussite raiders in 1430. Medieval restorers unfamiliar with the encaustic method found that the paints they applied to the damaged areas "simply sloughed off the image" according to the medieval chronicler Risinius, and their solution was to erase the original image and to repaint it on the original panel, which was believed to be holy because of its legendary origin as a table top from the home of the Holy Family. The painting displays a traditional composition well known in the icons of Eastern Orthodoxy. The Virgin Mary is shown as the "Hodegetria" ("One Who Shows the Way"). In it the Virgin directs attention away from herself, gesturing with her right hand toward Jesus as the source of salvation. In turn, the child extends his right hand toward the viewer in blessing while holding a book of gospels in his left hand. The icon shows the Madonna in fleur de lys robes. (Source: Wikipedia)

The icon played a primary role in the Marian devotion of one of my heroes: Blessed John Paul the Great.

This prayer, composed by the late Archbishop of Krákow, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, is taped to the pre-dieu I’m kneeling upon:

Holy Mother of Częstochowa, Thou art full of grace, goodness and mercy. I consecrate to Thee all my thoughts, words and actions, my soul and body. I beseech Thy blessings and especially prayers for my salvation. Today, I consecrate myself to Thee, Good Mother, totally, with body and soul amid joy and sufferings to obtain for myself and others Thy blessings on this earth and eternal life in Heaven.
Amen.

Vivificat on the go! - You can now listen to this blog!

Brethren: this is an amazing service provided by Odiogo.com! Now you can listen to my blog posts from the site, feed, iTunes, and several other means. This is fantastic! Just go to the blog and click on "listen know" or subscribe to the feeds on my Odiogo page!

http://podcasts.odiogo.com/vivificat/podcasts-html.php

I hope you like and use this new service.

The great reverence with which we should receive Christ

Brethren, Peace and Grace and Good to all in Jesus Christ our Lord. The following is Chapter 1, of Part IV of the Imitation of Christ. I wanted to share with you as a Lenten meditation.

THE DISCIPLE

THESE are all Your words, O Christ, eternal Truth, though they were not all spoken at one time nor written together in one place. And because they are Yours and true, I must accept them all with faith and gratitude. They are Yours and You have spoken them; they are mine also because You have spoken them for my salvation. Gladly I accept them from Your lips that they may be the more deeply impressed in my heart.

Words of such tenderness, so full of sweetness and love, encourage me; but my sins frighten me and an unclean conscience thunders at me when approaching such great mysteries as these. The sweetness of Your words invites me, but the multitude of my vices oppresses me.

You command me to approach You confidently if I wish to have part with You, and to receive the food of immortality if I desire to obtain life and glory everlasting.

"Come to me," You say, "all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you."[48]

Oh, how sweet and kind to the ear of the sinner is the word by which You, my Lord God, invite the poor and needy to receive Your most holy Body! Who am I, Lord, that I should presume to approach You? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain You, and yet You say: "Come, all of you, to Me."

What means this most gracious honor and this friendly invitation? How shall I dare to come, I who am conscious of no good on which to presume? How shall I lead You into my house, I who have so often offended in Your most kindly sight? Angels and archangels revere You, the holy and the just fear You, and You say: "Come to Me: all of you!" If You, Lord, had not said it, who would have believed it to be true? And if You had not commanded, who would dare approach?

Behold, Noah, a just man, worked a hundred years building the ark that he and a few others might be saved; how, then, can I prepare myself in one hour to receive with reverence the Maker of the world?

Moses, Your great servant and special friend, made an ark of incorruptible wood which he covered with purest gold wherein to place the tables of Your law; shall I, a creature of corruption, dare so easily to receive You, the Maker of law and the Giver of life?

Solomon, the wisest of the kings of Israel, spent seven years building a magnificent temple in praise of Your name, and celebrated its dedication with a feast of eight days. He offered a thousand victims in Your honor and solemnly bore the Ark of the Covenant with trumpeting and jubilation to the place prepared for it; and I, unhappy and poorest of men, how shall I lead You into my house, I who scarcely can spend a half-hour devoutly -- would that I could spend even that as I ought!

O my God, how hard these men tried to please You! Alas, how little is all that I do! How short the time I spend in preparing for Communion! I am seldom wholly recollected, and very seldom, indeed, entirely free from distraction. Yet surely in the presence of Your life-giving Godhead no unbecoming thought should arise and no creature possess my heart, for I am about to receive as my guest, not an angel, but the very Lord of angels.

Very great, too, is the difference between the Ark of the Covenant with its treasures and Your most pure Body with its ineffable virtues, between these sacrifices of the law which were but figures of things to come and the true offering of Your Body which was the fulfillment of all ancient sacrifices.

Why, then, do I not long more ardently for Your adorable presence? Why do I not prepare myself with greater care to receive Your sacred gifts, since those holy patriarchs and prophets of old, as well as kings and princes with all their people, have shown such affectionate devotion for the worship of God?

The most devout King David danced before the ark of God with all his strength as he recalled the benefits once bestowed upon his fathers. He made musical instruments of many kinds. He composed psalms and ordered them sung with joy. He himself often played upon the harp when moved by the grace of the Holy Ghost. He taught the people of Israel to praise God with all their hearts and to raise their voices every day to bless and glorify Him. If such great devotion flourished in those days and such ceremony in praise of God before the Ark of the Covenant, what great devotion ought not I and all Christian people now show in the presence of this Sacrament; what reverence in receiving the most excellent Body of Christ!

Many people travel far to honor the relics of the saints, marveling at their wonderful deeds and at the building of magnificent shrines. They gaze upon and kiss the sacred relics encased in silk and gold; and behold, You are here present before me on the altar, my God, Saint of saints, Creator of men, and Lord of angels!

Often in looking at such things, men are moved by curiosity, by the novelty of the unseen, and they bear away little fruit for the amendment of their lives, especially when they go from place to place lightly and without true contrition. But here in the Sacrament of the altar You are wholly present, my God, the man Christ Jesus, whence is obtained the full realization of eternal salvation, as often as You are worthily and devoutly received. To this, indeed, we are not drawn by levity, or curiosity, or sensuality, but by firm faith, devout hope, and sincere love.

O God, hidden Creator of the world, how wonderfully You deal with us! How sweetly and graciously You dispose of things with Your elect to whom You offer Yourself to be received in this Sacrament! This, indeed, surpasses all understanding. This in a special manner attracts the hearts of the devout and inflames their love. Your truly faithful servants, who give their whole life to amendment, often receive in Holy Communion the great grace of devotion and love of virtue.

Oh, the wonderful and hidden grace of this Sacrament which only the faithful of Christ understand, which unbelievers and slaves of sin cannot experience! In it spiritual grace is conferred, lost virtue restored, and the beauty, marred by sin, repaired. At times, indeed, its grace is so great that, from the fullness of the devotion, not only the mind but also the frail body feels filled with greater strength.

Nevertheless, our neglect and coldness is much to be deplored and pitied, when we are not moved to receive with greater fervor Christ in Whom is the hope and merit of all who will be saved. He is our sanctification and redemption. He is our consolation in this life and the eternal joy of the blessed in heaven. This being true, it is lamentable that many pay so little heed to the salutary Mystery which fills the heavens with joy and maintains the whole universe in being.

Oh, the blindness and the hardness of the heart of man that does not show more regard for so wonderful a gift, but rather falls into carelessness from its daily use! If this most holy Sacrament were celebrated in only one place and consecrated by only one priest in the whole world, with what great desire, do you think, would men be attracted to that place, to that priest of God, in order to witness the celebration of the divine Mysteries! But now there are many priests and Mass is offered in many places, that God's grace and love for men may appear the more clearly as the Sacred Communion is spread more widely through the world.

Thanks be to You, Jesus, everlasting Good Shepherd, Who have seen fit to feed us poor exiled people with Your precious Body and Blood, and to invite us with words from Your own lips to partake of these sacred Mysteries: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you."

The Capt is painting again!

Like me, he tends to work best on a deadline. So he signed up for a benefit art show this Sunday afternoon at the marina. Not satisfied to show only the work he did years ago, he rented space in a local consignment store for a studio, and he's been producing some more oils: all scenes of Mexican life, but different from the usual images you might expect. A man washing a red Volkswagen at the park in Guaymas. A chubby little boy with his puppy. A girl striding past a hole-in-the-wall taco stand. A man securing his dinghy at the marina.

He's done watercolors in the past, but he seems to prefer oils now, so he'll be exhibiting both. Here are some examples of his work, at his online gallery. But now that he's done so much more work, he's going to have a lot of new images to upload, when he gets a breather.

Did I mention how proud I am of him?

As though he didn't have enough pressure on him, we are also going to perform three hours of jazz at the art show. So when he's not painting, we're practicing.

Here's a watercolor he did of a parakeet we had for 11 years. He may have a hard time selling this one...lots of sentimental value for him.

Video: How redefining marriage impacts all

Brethren: Peace and Good to you in Jesus Christ. The following is a video produced by Minnesota for Marriage:

Today’s Ash Wednesday

Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake endured temptation and suffering.

Words of wisdom from Winston Churchill

 

‎When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home. ~ Winston Churchill

A bit of heaven

Walking the dog in the early dawn with my camera, I stopped to capture this view of the golf course, the shining sea and hills of Guaymas.

Mornings are chilly here in February, but it's still my favorite time of year.

I'm so grateful to our six gardeners for their hard work. Because our landscaping was created in the early 80s, our trees, shrubbery and cacti are mature and thriving. There are much more palatial homes elsewhere in town, but nowhere will you find more beautiful surroundings.

Obamacare vs. the Constitution

Brethren, Peace and Good to all in Jesus’ Name.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote this in the WaPo and was republished at the Catholic Education and Resource Center’s website. It is a good analysis of the Obama Administration’s strategy of “dividing and conquer” that has been enabling them to violate our freedom of conscience. Here’s an excerpt:

Give him points for cleverness. President Obama’s birth control “accommodation” was as politically successful as it was morally meaningless.

It was nothing but an accounting trick that still forces Catholic (and other religious) institutions to provide medical insurance that guarantees free birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients — all of which violate church doctrine on the sanctity of life.

The trick is that these birth control/abortion services will supposedly be provided independently and free of charge by the religious institution's insurance company. But this changes none of the moral calculus. Holy Cross Hospital, for example, is still required by law to engage an insurance company that is required by law to provide these doctrinally proscribed services to all Holy Cross employees.

Nonetheless, the accounting device worked politically. It took only a handful of compliant Catholic groups — Obamacare cheerleaders dying to return to the fold — to hail the alleged compromise and hand Obama a major political victory.

Before, Obama's coalition had been split. His birth control mandate was fiercely opposed by such stalwart friends as former Virginia governor Tim Kaine and pastor Rick Warren (Obama's choice to give the invocation at his inauguration), who declared he would rather go to jail than abide by the regulation. After the "accommodation," it was the (mostly) Catholic opposition that fractured. The mainstream media then bought the compromise as substantive, and the issue was defused.

Please continue reading here.

Furthermore, EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo’s reporting on this issue, broadcasted last Thursday on his World Over newscast is a must see, if you wish to understand the issue from a true Catholic perspective:

Discussion on HHS Mandate

There’s a lot of misleading anti-Catholic propaganda out there on this issue, and many dissenting Catholics-in-name-only are lending themselves as useful tools for advancing the Obama Administration’s conscience-violating provisions. Don’t be mislead!

The issue here is not the right of Catholic dissenters to disregard the Church’s moral stance, but the right of faithful Catholics to live according to their consciences without the government’s forcing them to violate their consciences. The state has no such right, just as it also lacks the power to legalize abortion, or same-sex “marriage.” Caesar is not enthroned in our altars, Jesus is. We will not obey, and we will not comply with Caesar’s decree: we will not burn incense for him.

• Read also : WP: The claim that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception: a media foul.

My most prescient post

Brethren, Peace and Good to all of you in Jesus Christ. Thanks to him, I talk to you from my warm home.

I wrote the following post almost two years ago. I think it was prescient. Do you remember it?

---

The US Catholic Bishops and Health Care Reform: A Failure of Imagination

Sadly, the bishops have misunderstood the entire process, and now we will all pay

Folks, according to Catholic World News:

Denouncing current Senate health care legislation as deficient because it provides federal funding for abortions and leaves Catholic hospitals and physicians bereft of conscience protection, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasized in a December 22 letter that “until these fundamental flaws are remedied the bill should be opposed.”

The three coauthors of the letter-- Cardinal DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City-- noted that the legislation

violates the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions -- a policy upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment as well as in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program -- and now in the House-passed “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” We believe legislation that fails to comply with this policy and precedent is not true health care reform and should be opposed until this fundamental problem is remedied.

Despite claims to the contrary, the House-passed provision on abortion keeps in place the longstanding and widely supported federal policy against government funding of elective abortions and plans that include elective abortions. It does not restrict abortion, or prevent people from buying insurance covering abortion with their own funds. It simply ensures that where federal funds are involved, people are not required to pay for other people’s abortions. The public consensus on this point is borne out by many opinion surveys, including the new Quinnipiac University survey of December 22 showing 72 percent opposed to public funding of abortion in health care reform legislation.

The abortion provisions in the Manager’s Amendment to the Senate bill do not maintain this commitment to the legal status quo on abortion funding. Federal funds will help subsidize, and in some cases a federal agency will facilitate and promote, health plans that cover elective abortions. All purchasers of such plans will be required to pay for other people’s abortions in a very direct and explicit way, through a separate premium payment designed solely to pay for abortion. There is no provision for individuals to opt out of this abortion payment in federally subsidized plans, so people will be required by law to pay for other people’s abortions. States may opt out of this system only by passing legislation to prohibit abortion coverage. In this way the longstanding and current federal policy universally reflected in all federal health programs, including the program for providing health coverage to Senators and other federal employees, will be reversed. That policy will only prevail in states that take the initiative of passing their own legislation to maintain it.

Please continue reading here.

Commentary. I think that the bishops attempted to negotiate with the devil and to no avail. They thought they could influence our lawmakers to provide us a "clean" government takeover of the nation's health care system, "clean" in the sense they hoped this "reform" would include strong conscience protections while defunding abortion, without objecting to the basic premise of unprecendent governmet growth.

With all due respect to our pastors, our bishops have been wrong all along for advocating a government takeover of the US health care sector in the name of "social justice." Frankly, they haven't argued convincingly how an expansion of the free market would have hurt, rather than helped those who are most in need, making the public option necessary. In the words of the Venerable Pope John Paul the Great in his masterful encyclical, Centesimus Annus:

34. It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. But this is true only for those needs which are "solvent", insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources which are "marketable", insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to man because he is man, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required "something" is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity.

The Pope clearly established a balance between not allowing fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish and the necessity to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. I'm still waiting for our pastors to apply these words to our current situation and to assist us laypeople to enact a healthy, balanced public policy more in line with the whole of Catholic Social Teaching. My scorecard for them is an "F".

Our bishops, still convinced of the desirability of the welfare state, have unwittingly painted themselves into a corner. If they had opposed this attempt at socialism from the viewpoint of the very Catholic notion of subsidiarity, and had supported instead the initiative of a humanist free market as John Paul envisioned, their critique would have been a more honest, coherent, moral, and intellectual one. But by accepting the premise that government ought to grow to cover this human need, they became more accomplices than shapers of what Congress has wrought. Because they bought into the "big government" idea, just differing on how big and in which direction government ought to grow, we find ourselves in this mess.

I want to state for the record that I think that those who cannot, in the words of John Paull II, acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources should be protected and provided for. The Bible is clear about who they are: the widow, the orphan, the elderly, the infirm and yes, the alien. A partnership of public and private initiatives will always be needed to care for these biblical "protected classes." Although our bishops are in tune with the needs of those unable to learn, work, and compete, they say little or nothing about our duty towards those who are able: we need to create the conditions and opportunities for them to join "the circle of exchange." This bill doesn't do that and our bishops seem to be oblivious of that basic fact.

For all these reasons, in my lay opinion, and from my reading of Catholic Social Teaching, this "health care reform" about to befall us is all wrong. Our bishops have never challenged the underlying, flawed premises. Rather, they got entangled in it, and now we're all going to pay for a large, unwieldy system that is designed to fail in the long wrong anyway in order to justify later a larger, irresistible complete government takeover of the health care sector. Read my lips, when that happens, there wwill be little or no consideration given to conscience protections or the defense of the right to life in anyway.

I hope and pray that our bishops learn from this mistake and give us better guidance next time. Their has been a failure of imagination of vast proportions. Hear us, O Lord, for the time to come.

In The Name of Honor

So I am now reading "In The Name of Honor" by Richard North Patterson and so fas so good. I like books that grip you and don't let you go and this is one of those.



Because it involves the military and it's a court case my mind keeps putting images of Tom Cruise and Demi Moore as the main characters only because they both did such an awesome job in "A Few Good Men". This is the reason I don't watch the movies first. Now "In The Name of Honor" may not be made into a movie but my mind just happens to put those faces in those lines as I read them. Well I kindda don't mind because I really enjoyed that movie.

My daughter handed me this book along with "Water for Elephants" which by the way was really good. I enjoyed it very much. I wish I could say the same for the movie but unfortunately the movie did not do it for me. It wasn't all that bad but I guess I wanted and expected more.

So I will be needing more reading material soon. If you have books laying around that are just gathering dust send them my way and I will gladly give them a go.

Until the next time, happy reading.

To Grow in Attachment to God the Father

Father Nicolas Schwizer

There is a proposal by Father Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt Movement, for growing in closeness and attachment to the Father. He calls it: to walk in the presence of God. It consists of three simple actions: “to look frequently at God with the eyes of faith; to converse often with God in childlike love; and to offer sacrifices to God frequently.”

And he adds: If you want to know why you do not reach deep attachment to God, you only have to ask yourself: Which of these three actions am I not practicing?

1. To look frequently at God with the eyes of faith. Now, how can I do it in spite of my activities? Let us recall the time of our courtship. It is evident, when two love each other, they remember each other and they communicate mutually. From that experience, I have to learn how to cultivate my love for God. What I did then spontaneously, I now have to learn by practice. I should train myself to look at God several times a day. Without that effort, I will never reach a more personal relationship with Him.

Concretely, I should take better advantage of my times for prayer, for spiritual reading and meditation so that they can truly be personal encounters with God.

2. To converse often with God in childlike love. How can I converse often with the Father? For many of us, it is still very hard to pray, to enter into a profound and personal dialogue with Him. Nevertheless, prayer is absolutely necessary because it is the breathing of the soul; without it, we cannot survive. Each moment of prayer should increase in us the love for God, the loving surrender to the Father God.

I have to learn to dialogue with God the Father about the daily things in my life. Father Kentenich’s opinion is that we would be more interiorly serene and more healthy psychically if we would take our daily problems to God…..if we would talk about them to God…..if we would reflect on the daily encounters with God.

I believe that in all of this we should seek a closer, more spontaneous, more simple and childlike contact with God the Father.

The ideal to which we should aspire is to not only pray frequently, but to pray always. St. Paul also says it: “Pray without ceasing” ( 1 TH 5, 17). What is understood by this? It is the disposition of the heart to never refuse God anything: a permanent openness to his wishes, an attitude of always responding “yes,” an interior disposition for adoring the Will of the Father in every circumstance.

It is the mysterious experience that I am never alone because God is always with me and in me. That permanent contact with the Father supposes that my soul is captivated by God even subconsciously. That is only possible if the Holy Spirit gives us his gifts.

3. To offer sacrifices frequently to the Father. If I want to learn to live in the presence of God, then it is evident that I should also offer Him sacrifices. With my so fragile and limited human nature, I cannot pretend to achieve an attachment filled with love, without a spirit of heroic mortification. Under the order of sin and the cross, love without sacrifice does not exist.

And what could I offer Him? Things of daily life, for example, the sacrifices which assure the education of my temperament or my character; the sacrifice which means to many of us our exemplary professional work; our struggle to carry on with dignity our marriage and family…..

Questions for reflection

1. Do I have moments of encounter with God?

2. Do I tell Him of my joys and sorrows?

3. Is it hard for me to make sacrifices and offer them to God?

Sweetheart Dance at St. Vincent de Paul

My sweetheart and I at the Sweetheart Dance.
For a mere $20.00 per couple we were treated to a dinner, a drink, desert, and a night of dancing, best spent $20.00 bucks. After that the the sodas and water were $1.00 each and the wine and beer $2.00. We opted for wine.

I never caught the name of the band but they were definitely very versatile. The played cumbias (mostly Tejano cumbias), nortenas, some rock favorites and quite a few oldies. Abby and I were there to have fun so we really danced all night long.

We were seated at a table with two other couples but the table next to us was really noisy, it was definitely the party table as it was filled with a wild bunch.

The Wild Bunch a.k.a. The Party People.
Needless to say $2.00 per glass of red wine was an affordable price so we had a few of them during the night. I was feeling happy and energetic so I danced all the line dance songs they played. How is it that people (including me) don't get tired of the Electric Slide and all the other line dance songs, you would figure people should be tired of them by now but no, they still fill up the dance floor. At least they did not play the Macarena, yes even I have my limits. lol

I believe we were doing "El Rodeo del Payaso" here. I quit almost at the end because I was totally spent.
All in all we had a terrific night and we were happy to share it with my nieces and my nephews. Thanks Maryita and Vane for the invite, we loved it.

Abby.
The girls!


Sweet couples!

Arizona Centennial Fiesta

Back in the day Abby's sister took a picture of ther by some lowrider. She submitted the picture to Lowrider Magazine and it was published on the "People's Rides" section. Oh how I wish I could take a peek at that picture. Well, I just may submit this one as she's still a looker.

FIESTA AT ST. VINCENT DE PAUL CHURCH IN PHOENIX

Besides the carnival and mechanical rides and concession stands selling all kinds of food, and the stage where bands and DJ's played music probably all day long this year for the Arizona Centennial celebration also included a car show.

So as soon as the mass ended we first went to get some food, then Abby, my brother in law and I headed to the south field to see the cars. I wanted to take my pony but never heard who was in charge of the car show so the pony stayed home. This particular show had mostly lowriders, to me lowriders are timeless, I can't get enough of them. You can fix a lowrider the very same way it was customized 25 years ago and it still looks hot.

The following were some of the awesome non lowrider cars on display at the show:







And these are the lowriders, there are so many nice old cars here I can't pick a favorite.