Patrick J. Buchanan: Nationalism, Not NATO, Is Our Great Ally

By Patrick J. Buchanan

With Vladimir Putin having bloodlessly annexed Crimea and hinting that his army might cross the border to protect the Russians of East Ukraine, Washington is abuzz with talk of dispatching U.S. troops to Eastern Europe.

But unless we have lost our minds, we are not going to fight Russia over territory no president ever regarded as vital to us.

Indeed, should Putin annex Eastern and Southern Ukraine all the way to Odessa, he would simply be restoring to Russian rule what had belonged to her from Washington’s inaugural in 1789 to George H. W. Bush’s inaugural in 1989. 

Confronting Britain's Vocation Crisis: Shrewsbury Looks to American Dioceses for a Way Forward

From The Catholic Herald (UK)

By Francis Phillips

I blogged some time ago about a book I was reading: Renewal: How a new generation of faithful priests and bishops is revitalising the Catholic Church by Anne Hendershott and Christopher White. The book’s main theme, addressing the situation in the US, is that faithful bishops leading faithful dioceses attract more young men to the priesthood than dioceses where strong Catholic episcopal leadership appears to be weak and which seem to be run by committees.

In support of this contention, the book quotes the retired Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha, Nebraska, who published an article in 1996, entitled “Crisis in Vocation?”, in which he wrote, “When dioceses and religious communities are unambiguous about the ordained priesthood and vowed religious life; where there is strong support for vocations, and a minimum of dissent about the male celibate priesthood and religious life, loyal to the Magisterium; when the bishop, priests, Religious and lay people are united in a vocation ministry – then there are documented increases in the number of candidates who respond to the call.”

'Heaven is for Real' Director Randall Wallace with Raymond Arroyo

Have you seen "Heaven Is For Real"?  If so, please leave a comment below and share your thoughts and reaction.

RANDALL WALLACE, author, Academy Award nominated screenwriter, and director of the new film, HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, the true story of a young boy who experiences Heaven while undergoing surgery. In an exclusive interview, Randall Wallace talks about the new movie, his work in Hollywood, and the role his faith has always played in his life, both personal and professional.

The Recovery is Dead

 

There’s a damning number regarding our economy that Obama doesn’t want to talk about. It’s a number, but for him, would be lower. And, lower, in this case would be a good thing for the economy. 

“Although estimates vary,” says Joel Kurtzman, a senior fellow at the Milliken Institute, “American companies have between $4 and $5 trillion in liquid assets, a sum greater than the size of the German economy.”

How is it that companies can now have more cash than anytime in history, while unemployment remains so high, inflation in many goods so low, and national income grows so anemically?

Oh, yeah. Democrats at work. Shhhh.

If all that was needed to bring us a juggernaut economy was more money, we’d be in boom times boys.

But alas, while more money is the Democrat recipe for success in everything-- and generally good in the corporate sense-- in this case it’s a telltale sign that something is wrong with policies coming out of Washington.

Because those high cash balance sheets are telling us a few things. 

Read more at Townhall Finance >>

Easter from King's 2014

Homily of Pope Francis for the Easter Vigil

Vatican Basilica

Holy Saturday, 19 April 2014

Video

 The Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ begins with the journey of the women to the tomb at dawn on the day after the Sabbath.  They go to the tomb to honour the body of the Lord, but they find it open and empty.  A mighty angel says to them: “Do not be afraid!” (Mt 28:5) and orders them to go and tell the disciples: “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee” (v. 7).  The women quickly depart and on the way Jesus himself meets them and says: “Do not fear; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (v. 10). “Do not be afraid”, “do not fear”:  these are words that encourage us to open our hearts to receive the message.

After the death of the Master, the disciples had scattered; their faith had been utterly shaken, everything seemed over, all their certainties had crumbled and their hopes had died.  But now that message of the women, incredible as it was, came to them like a ray of light in the darkness.  The news spread: Jesus is risen as he said.  And then there was his command to go toGalilee; the women had heard it twice, first from the angel and then from Jesus himself: “Let them go to Galilee; there they will see me”. “Do not fear” and “go to Galilee”.

Galilee is the place where they were first called, where everything began!  To return there, to return to the place where they were originally called.  Jesus had walked along the shores of the lake as the fishermen were casting their nets.  He had called them, and they left everything and followed him (cf. Mt 4:18-22).

To return to Galilee means to re-read everything on the basis of the cross and its victory, fearlessly: “do not be afraid”.  To re-read everything – Jesus’ preaching, his miracles, the new community, the excitement and the defections, even the betrayal – to re-read everything starting from the end, which is a new beginning, from this supreme act of love.

For each of us, too, there is a “Galilee” at the origin of our journey with Jesus.  “To go to Galilee” means something beautiful, it means rediscovering our baptism as a living fountainhead, drawing new energy from the sources of our faith and our Christian experience.  To return to Galilee means above all to return to that blazing light with which God’s grace touched me at the start of the journey.  From that flame I can light a fire for today and every day, and bring heat and light to my brothers and sisters.  That flame ignites a humble joy, a joy which sorrow and distress cannot dismay, a good, gentle joy.

In the life of every Christian, after baptism there is also another “Galilee”, a more existential “Galilee”: the experience of a personal encounter with Jesus Christ who called me to follow him and to share in his mission.  In this sense, returning to Galilee means treasuring in my heart the living memory of that call, when Jesus passed my way, gazed at me with mercy and asked me to follow him. To return there means reviving the memory of that moment when his eyes met mine, the moment when he made me realize that he loved me.

Today, tonight, each of us can ask: What is my Galilee?  I need to remind myself, to go back and remember.  Where is my Galilee?  Do I remember it?  Have I forgotten it?  Seek and you will find it! There the Lord is waiting for you.  Have I gone off on roads and paths which made me forget it?  Lord, help me: tell me what my Galilee is; for you know that I want to return there to encounter you and to let myself be embraced by your mercy. Do not be afraid, do not fear, return to Galilee!

The Gospel is very clear: we need to go back there, to see Jesus risen, and to become witnesses of his resurrection.  This is not to go back in time; it is not a kind of nostalgia.  It is returning to our first love, in order to receive the fire which Jesus has kindled in the world and to bring that fire to all people, to the very ends of the earth.  Go back to Galilee, without fear!

“Galilee of the Gentiles” (Mt 4:15; Is 8:23)!  Horizon of the Risen Lord, horizon of the Church; intense desire of encounter…  Let us be on our way!

The Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom

O death, where is your sting? 

O Hades, where is your victory?

Let all pious men and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late; for the Lord is gracious and He receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes on the eleventh hour as well as to him who has toiled since the first: yes, He has pity on the last and He serves the first; He rewards the one and praises the effort.

Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one: let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of his goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free: He has destroyed it by enduring it, He has despoiled Hades by going down into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh.

When Isaias foresaw all this, he cried out: "O Hades, you have been angered by encountering Him in the nether world." Hades is angered because frustrated, it is angered because it has been mocked, it is angered because it has been destroyed, it is angered because it has been reduced to naught, it is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body, and, lo! it encountered heaven; it seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible.

O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen and you are abolished. Christ is risen and the demons are cast down. Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen and life is freed. Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead: for Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the Leader and Reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. 

Amen.