Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Ann Bartlett This Lent

February 18, 2012

Deacon Chip Uncategorized Leave a comment

Folks,

There are a few changes to the Adoration schedule on the Fridays of Lent this year.  For multiple reasons, which are beyond the scope of this post, we have decided to concentrate our hours for Eucharistic Adoration into three hours, from 9:00 pm (after Stations of the Cross and the Holy Hour after ) until midnight.  First Friday 24-hour Adoration will go as usual, and everyone who usually volunteers can count on their usual hour being available for them.  But on the Fridays of Lent besides First Friday (March 2nd), the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed at the end of stations, and the Holy Hour will continue until 9:00 pm in the Main Church.  We will move Adoration to the St. Joachim Chapel at 9:00 pm, and continue until midnight.

Please sign up for an hour with the Lord!  There will be sign-up sheets available in the Narthex after Masses this weekend (but not for you Saturday Mass folks; I’m not that good!).  We are looking for at least four volunteers per hour from 9 to midnight to commit to an hour; everyone else is welcome to come and visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament at their leisure.

Eucharistic Adoration is a good Lenten practice, one that, when developed, can bear fruit all year.  Please join us in Adoration of Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar!

Oh…did anyone stop to consider…

February 11, 2012

Deacon Chip Uncategorized Leave a comment

That the Government has no authority to mandate that anyone buy *anything* like health insurance for contraceptives and sterilizations (or Anything else)? One of the major objections to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is exactly that mandate. And it ain’t been demonstrated that the Federal Government has the power to do any such thing as tell you and me what we *must* buy. states? Yes. That’s why you have automobile insurance as a condition of operating a motor vehicle.

But the Federal Guhmint? I don’t believe so.

Man.

Responses to the HHS Mandate “Compromise”

February 11, 2012

Deacon Chip Apologetics, Commentary , , , , 1 Comment

I so wish I was part of the class of folks who can think and write quickly and clearly on the spur of the moment. I am, alas, not one of those people.

But thank God I read people who are!

With a h/t to CatholicVote.org, I point out this article regarding a letter that analyzes the “compromise” offered by the Administration on its mandate. I saw a really interesting comparison to the terms of the mandate here, on the same blog; it’s like telling a kosher Jew that the bacon on his Rueben sandwich plate is free, even though he didn’t want it or ask for it.

If anyone is looking for a physician to treat all these diseases that can supposedly only be treated with BAC pills, I have a referral list. Our doctors have been lied to in training, at the same time we’ve all been lied to about the “benefits” of contraception. There’s no getting around what artificial means of preventing pregnancy do (all oral contraceptives have three mechanisms of action, ovulation prevention, fertilization prevention, and implantation prevention, and that last is abortifacient) (sorry if that truth bothers anyone). The reasons the Church calls artificial birth control evil are cogent (even if it took me 32 years to figure that out; the culture is LOUD on this subject!).

And the “compromise” is no compromise. Don’t be fooled!

And never forget, my Friends of Color: the mother of the Birth Control Movement (Margaret Sanger) wanted to make sure that you “undesirables” didn’t breed. How loud y’all need me to shout that? Go visit maafa21.org.

Birth control ain’t about “women’s health”. It’s about money. And it’s about purifying the species. And ultimately, it’s about abortion (because what do we do when ur birth control “fails” (meaning that life succeeds)? We visit Planned Parenthood to correct the “mistake”.

Y’all better WAKE THE HECK UP.

“To Stop The Multiplication Of The Unfit

February 10, 2012

Deacon Chip Commentary , , , , Leave a comment

To Stop The Multiplication Of The Unfit

With a h/t to Michelle Malkin, this is what I have been trying to point out for a while. Y’all need to wake up, and at least acknowledge,the truth of what we are doing, pursuing a policy like this HHS mandate that birth control be free to all and paid for by every employer, conscience be danged!

Ok, by show of hands, who believes that unfettered access to artificial contraception is the best thing that ever happened to mankind? You, sir? You, ma’am?

Alright…why do you believe that? Yes? You in the white shirt. …oh, because it lets women control when they are going to have children, so that they can ensure the best possible environment for their kids? Yes, you in the beret? … Ah, yes. Because it frees women from the yoke of the tyrannical womb? Frees them to do what? Have sex whenever they want with whomever they want? I see.

All well and good…but what did Pope Paul VI predict about all this in his landmark encyclical, Humanae Vitae? Well, let’s take a look.

His Holiness Paul VI predicted, in para. 17 of his encyclical, the following:

Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Hmmm…sound familiar, anyone? I think I saw this the last time I accidentally stopped on BET when they were playing “music” videos.

Read the rest of the paragraph. Heck, read the whole thing. you’ll immediately see two things. First, Paul VI was prophetic when he wrote Humanae Vitae. Second, you’ve been lied to, a LOT, about what the Church teaches about life, the regulation of birth, and the proper use of our sexuality.

And if you think the President and his cronies are doing the right thing by the tens of millions of Black and other minority women they’re pimping birth control for…

Think again.

Are *you* one of Margaret Sanger’s “unfit”?

My Bishop Rocks!

February 4, 2012

Deacon Chip Uncategorized Leave a comment

Our bishop, Most Reverend J. Terry Steib, of Memphis in West Tennessee, has joined a growing number of bishops across our country (here’s the most current list I could find) who vocally oppose the Health and Human Services contraception mandate. To date, 155 bishops have voiced their opposition to this goofy violation of our religious liberty a s Catholics.  I seriously doubt that the Administration has thought this through.

Thank you, Bishop Terry!

You’ve got to be kidding me: Military Issues Gag Order On Catholics

February 4, 2012

Deacon Chip Apologetics, Commentary , , , , , 2 Comments

This here is an interesting post, courtesy of The Creative Minority Report:

Military Issues Gag Order On Catholics.

Weakness is rampant in Guhmint leadership. If the only way you can defend an egregious act is to make everyone shut up about it, then you know you’re waaaaaay off base.

President Obama may have created a far bigger problem for himself, politically, than he thinks he solved by throwing the weight of government enforcement behind suppressing the religious practices of the Catholic Church in the United States.  Might not have been such a good idea.

And for those who might respond to this post with diatribes about how dumb the Church is to have a stance against artificial contraceptives, etc., etc.,  save your breath.  Your arguments are specious, and based on faulty logic, and have already been addressed elsewhere in the blogosphere.  If you insist on trying to convince me the Church is wrong, I will engage you, certainly, in conversation.  But to tip my hand, I will want you to show me the great good that has come from ubiquitous use (even among otherwise faithful Catholics) of artificial contraception.  Then, I will ask you to show me where Pope Paul VI was wrong, when in Humanae vitae (Of Human Life), when he pointed out the grave consequences of methods of artificial contraception:

Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. (no. 17)

He went on  to point out the danger peoples in repressive countries would face from contraceptives in “the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law.”  China, anyone?

So don’t run at me with all the usual arguments (freedom for women, liberation from antiquated notions about sexuality, getting the Church out of my bedroom), until you show me where Paul VI erred in the above.

Sheesh.