Red, White, and Blue in the Face!

I’m working from home and have been watching the so-called health care “summit” at the White House. The sham show at the White House is so transparent I can’t believe they’re trying to pull this one over our eyes. The “summit” is nothing more than a very thinly veiled attempt to make the Administration look like the “good guys” and the minority party to look like the “bad guys”.

They’ve been yakking for hours now and as best I can tell have accomplished zero, changed no minds, come to no consensus, compromised on nothing. President Obama, the Democratic members, and the Republican members have done nothing differently but finally at around 3:40PM EDST they really ticked me off.

Responding to Senator McCains remarks regarding the use of “reconciliation” to pass health care reform legislation President Obama said he thought “most Americans don’t care about procedural matters”. What! Perhaps many Americans don’t care and aren’t paying attention but most Americans certainly do care and are paying attention. Most Americans have said loudly and clearly they don’t want what the Administration is offering in the way of health care reform. My personal reason for rejecting Obamacare is that we’ve seen we cannot trust them to do the right thing. Candidate Obama made much ado about getting rid of the special influences, knocking off the back room deals, and making government more transparent. He’s done none of these things and in fact has jumped right into the “business as usual” way of working. he has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that no politician can be trusted.

I’m sick and tired of these people thinking they know better how to handle our lives when our government has proven time and time again that it cannot do better. We need to stop this foolishness Mr. President. It is not too late to begin anew a discussion of health care reform that will be right for America and right for the common good. Your current proposal simply bankrupts all Americans and the country to boot.

Is there no one left in Washington who has any idea what to do for the good of the country rather than for the good of their own agenda?

FAST  from judging others
FEAST  on Jesus within them

FAST  from emphasis on differences
FEAST  on the unity of all life

FAST  from apparent darkness
FEAST on the reality of Jesus the Light of the world

FAST from thoughts of illness
FEAST on the healing power of God

FAST from discontent
FEAST on gratitude

FAST from anger
FEAST on patience

FAST from worry
FEAST on enthusiasm

(from my pastor’s homily for Sunday, 2/21/10)

It is no good asking God to work in your life if you are not willing to be honest with him, or yourself, about the mess he has to work with. You have to see a problem before you can get it fixed. You cannot put something in order until you see how far it is out of order. When someone has made a mess of his finances, and the credit card companies are chasing him and his checks keep bouncing and the electric company has turned off the lights, he has to find out how much money he has and how much money he owes to whom, before he can ever get out of debt. He has to face the facts.

We have to see the disorder of our lives if we are ever to accept God’s ordering. And more to the point, we have to see the problem clearly before we will know whom to ask for help. The less we know about ourselves, the more likely we are to be Pelagians, people who assume they can get themselves out of trouble without bothering God for help—and, were we honest about it, without submitting to his will. The best cure for Pelagianism is reality.

Letting someone smear ashes on your forehead while telling you that you are dirt is, of course, a statement that you have seen and accepted the facts about yourself. It is a sacramental enactment of something that is (we hope) going on in your heart. That is the obvious meaning. But I think the imposition of ashes also dramatizes St. Paul’s remark in 1 Corinthians that “since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” It has two movements: one corresponding to “As in Adam all die” and the other corresponding to “In Christ shall all be made alive.”

To see this, we will have to use the original, pre-“inclusivized” version. In Latin, it goes, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.” In the traditional English version, it goes, “Remember, O man, that dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.” The modern versions have all eliminated that “O man,” unwisely assuming it to be sexist and exclusive, rather than, as we shall see, a statement of the most extraordinary inclusion in the history of the cosmos.

The meaning of the rite depends upon the multiple meanings of man. In that word is the Christian hope conveyed. Without it, the declaration is simply a statement of an unchangeable reality, a declaration of hopelessness and despair. The removal of man in the modern rites eliminated the crucial allusions, or at best made them needlessly distant and obscure. The liturgical effect is to eliminate the hope that alone makes the facts—that we are dust and to dust we shall inevitably return—bearable.

(from “The Dust of Adam” by David Mills)

Jesus, covered in blood and much sadness, said to Mother Pierina: “See how much I suffer. I am understood by so few. What ingratitude on the part of those who say that they love Me! I have given My heart as a sensible object of My great love for man, and I give My Face as a sensible object of My sorrow for the sins of man. I desire that it be honored by a special feast on Shrove Tuesday. The feast will be preceded by a novena, during which the faithful make reparation with Me, uniting themselves with My sorrow.”

This year, the feast occurs on February 16th, 2010 (Shrove Tuesday) thus the novena began yesteday, Sunday Feb. 7^th.

A form of prayer suitable for the Novena of the Holy Face is the Chaplet of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus. Pray it on ordinary rosary beads. Apart from the opening antiphon, which was composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Office of Corpus Christi, it is entirely drawn from Sacred Scripture. It incorporates all four steps of lectio divina: lectio (the Word heard); meditatio (the Word repeated); oratio (the Word prayed), and contemplatio (the Word’s embrace).

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O Sacred Banquet in which Christ is received,
the memory of His passion is renewed,
the soul is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory is given us, (alleluia).

Before each decade:

My soul is thirsting for God, the strong and living God;
when shall I enter and see the Face of God? (Ps 41:3)

On the Hail Mary beads:

It is Thy Eucharistic Face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not Thy Face from me. (cf. Ps 26:8-9).

After each decade:

Behold, O God our protector,
and look upon the Face of Thy Christ. (Ps 83:10)

In conclusion, three times:

Father, glorify the Eucharistic Face of Thy Son,
that Thy Son may glorify Thee (cf. Jn 17:1)

(thanks to Vultus Christi)