What does 500 books look like?

Some pictures from this weekend's renovations:

We're moving!!

Hi all!

We are moving to a new host! You can now visit Catholic Poster Girl at
http://catholicpostergirl.stblogs.com

or click here

See y'all over there!! I am going to be transferring all this stuff over there so until that's done there may not be anything new...

Oh, so that's what happened!

You regular readers of this page know that I am seriously pro-life. I am a "take-no-prisoners" fully pro-life pro-lifer (if that makes any sense). Usually I find nothing about the topic funny.

However, as Mother Angelica says, "we have to laugh," and the boys at Number 1 Happy St. had this on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade :

Today, dozens of rallies have been taking place all across the country to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. If you've been under a rock, that's the supreme court decision in which a woman (Roe) wanted to terminate her pregnancy. Her unborn baby (Wade) disagreed with that course of action but was ultimately overruled by the high court. And so with that decision, the 'right to choose' was finally a reality.

Unless you are a state. In which case, you no longer had the right to choose. The federal government will be doing all the choosing from now on.

And unless you are the father of the unborn baby. In which case, your choice was already used up when you decided to go with the condoms with the plain black and white wrapper because the other ones were too expensive.

And unless you are the unborn baby. In which case, you don't get to choose because mommy knows what's best for you. I mean she's already proven that she can make good decisions which is how she ended up in the back seat of that Prius anyway. It's not every day you have the opportunity to get nailed by someone who loves the movie Mona Lisa Smile as much as you do!

It's not ha-ha funny. It's sad funny. Because there are a lot of things in there that ring true.

Good article from Mark Shea

In the National Catholic Register:

Cautionary Tales

As a convert to the Catholic faith, I naturally want to see others embrace it, as well. But when I talk with folks who want to be Catholic I often find myself repeating Jesus’ counsel to “count the cost.” Why?

BY Mark Shea

March 11-17, 2007 Issue

As a convert to the Catholic faith, I naturally want to see others embrace it, as well. But when I talk with folks who want to be Catholic I often find myself repeating Jesus’ counsel to “count the cost.” Why?

One thing that concerns me about converts, especially from Protestantism, is that some seem to still be basically Protestant. Some become Catholic, not because they have concluded that the Church is the trustworthy sacrament of redemption given to the world by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, but because they are fed up with Protestantism and are leaving it and joining the Catholics — in protest. Such folk are soon disconcerted that the people at Our Lady of Perpetual Ordinariness are not this haven of saints and scholars, but a bunch of regular people.

Some don’t know their faith at all. Some hold political opinions that are very different from the convert’s. Some don’t much take the Church’s teaching seriously. Some get their spiritual insights from Oprah, or are devout but superstitious, or have a Protestant brother-in-law who has taught them to say “Praise the Lord!” a lot.

It’s all so average to the convert who was bargaining on a safe haven from all that. And when some pope or bishop does something not to their liking, such converts not infrequently embrace some form of the “two churches/two magisteriums” theory of a pre- vs. post-Vatican II Church and (either slowly or quickly) start to hive off into some extreme form of what they call “traditionalism” but which is, in fact, yet another kind of Protestantism, albeit one with ultra-Catholic aesthetics.

What we need to remember is that the Catholic Church is and always has been the vessel of salvation for the world. That means that most of the people you meet are going to be ordinary — like you and me

They are going to have the ordinary tastes, prejudices, mediocrities, failures and virtues of their time and place. There are, to be sure, great heroes and extraordinary people in the Catholic communion. But to expect that as the norm and then be outraged and disappointed when it is not is, I think, great folly and, in the end, great pride. Remember the hellish “wisdom” of C.S. Lewis’ Uncle Screwtape, who would keep far from our minds the thought, “If I, being what I am, can consider myself in some sense a Christian, then why can’t these people next to me in the pew”?

So, though I have been appalled by some of the sins that have been revealed in the ranks of the Church in the past few years, I’ve never been shocked. What did I expect? They’re just sinners like I am, and I know what I’m capable of.

“Well then,” it may be asked, “if the average Catholic is so average, why bother joining the Church?” To quote Walker Percy, “What else is there?” After all, it is not the Church that is mediocre, but only we, her members.

The Church is, curiously, something that exists before she has any members, because she is founded not by us, but by Christ. The Church is the spotless bride of Christ, made so by the Holy Spirit in the washing with water and the Word. We, her members, are generally nebbishes and schleps.

But she is glorious and beautiful, terrible as an army with banners. And in her all the fullness of the faith subsists. In that faith, by the grace of God, I hope one day to be made perfect in love of God and neighbor.

But it is not my job to immanentize the eschaton. I can be more than merely content living in this strange, divine sea of a Church, whose members are, like me, stunningly ordinary, but whose soul, the Holy Spirit, is slowly bringing us along “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4).

So does this mean I can marry William?

from The Anchoress

She’s a bit late to the game, but Queen Elizabeth II wants to “celebrate diversity” and will apparently make a public statement to the effect that “that people should see each other as being individuals who are special.”

“Special” is the most overused, meaningless word currently in use in the English language. “Amazing” is coming a close second.

If the Queen starts talking about how “special” we all are, and how “amazing” everyone looks, the takeover of mediocrity - in language, social discourse, historical reference, etc - will be complete.

Now…Your Maj - I can call you “Maj,” right, since I’m special…how about the Catholics? Are they special yet? Can William marry one and keep his throne? Are we celebrating that much diversity, yet?

ME: When I was little my mom used to mention on and off that I was older than Prince William by a few months. This greatly excited me, being weaned on the Disney Princesses as I was, so I would always say, "so I could marry him!" Then Mom would inform me that I couldn't because I was Catholic. This was highly distressing because I wanted to marry a prince. As I got older and read more about the 'reasoning' behind this rule, I began to think that perhaps the royal life wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

But seriously, isn't this a little ridiculous? I know that one of the monarch's titles is "Defender of the Faith" or something like that (Churcha nd State, anyone? Oh wait...the Church was created by the state. A ha!). But this is kind of old. If William fell in love with a Catholic he should be allowed to marry a Catholic. Sheesh. Fortunately that didn't happen. (Well, fortunately for them)

The end of the Anglican Communion?

George Weigel seems to think so:

The end of the Anglican Communion
By George Weigel

There’s an Anglican church, St. Luke’s, a few blocks up Old Georgetown Road from my parish in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. St. Luke’s recently posted a large sign on the church lawn: “No matter who you are, no matter what you believe, you are welcome at our table.”

Which is, in one sense, a noble sentiment: if it’s meant to convey that, look, we’re all sinners, and no matter how awful you may think you are, you’re welcome in the communion of Christ’s Church if you’re truly repentant. Judging from recent events in the Anglican Communion, however, St. Luke’s sign isn’t a synopsis of the parable of the prodigal son and his merciful father; it’s a succinct, if unwitting, statement of why the Anglican Communion is coming apart at the seams.

No Catholic serious about the Catholic commitment to the unity of Christ’s Church can take any satisfaction from today’s Anglican meltdown. It now looks as if John Henry Newman was right when he concluded that Anglicanism was not a “third branch” on the tree of historic Christian orthodoxy, of which the other branches were Catholicism and the Orthodox churches of the Christian east; rather, Newman decided, Anglicanism was Protestantism in English guise. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, as hopes for ecclesial reconciliation between Rome and Canterbury ran high, it seemed, briefly, as if Cardinal Newman might have been wrong. With the Anglican Communion now fracturing into a gaggle of quarreling communities no longer in communion with each other, it looks as if Newman had the deeper insight into what King Henry VIII wrought.

But neither the late cardinal nor the multi-uxorious king could have imagined that Anglicanism’s breakup would result from some Anglicans’ insistence that sodomy can be sacramental.

Yet that is precisely what is happening. As Canada’s finest Catholic commentator, Father Raymond de Souza, wrote last year (reflecting on the attempts of Dr. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, to hold the Anglican Communion together), “Some [Anglicans] argue that [homosexual acts] are sinful; others that they are sacramental. This is an unbridgeable gap and it appears impossible for Canterbury to straddle it, try as he might.” Dr. Williams has tried mightily; he seems to have failed. There are indeed unbridgeable gaps, and it turns out that it does matter what you believe, if you wish to be seated at “our table” — at least in the minds of the majority of the world’s Anglicans, who disagree with the Episcopal Church USA’s determination to bless same-sex unions and ordain practicing homosexuals to priestly and episcopal ministry.

An American Anglican clergyperson, debating all this on PBS’s “NewsHour,” said that, if schism were the only answer, she and her Pasadena congregation would choose “the Gospel” over “the institutional Church.” From a theological point of view, no more thoroughly Protestant posing of the issue could be imagined. And what does standing up for “the Gospel” have to do with embracing the Zeigeist of the more delirious suburbs of the People’s Republic of California?

Shortly after Rowan Williams was named to Becket’s chair, we spent a cordial ninety minutes together at Lambeth Palace, Canterbury’s London headquarters. I gave him a copy of Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II; we spoke of John Paul’s theology of the body, and then fell to discussing the difference between “sacramental” and “gnostic” understandings of the human condition. The former insists that the stuff of the world – including maleness, femaleness, and their complementarity — has truths built into it; gnostics say it’s all plastic, all malleable, all changeable. The sacramentalists believe that the extraordinary reveals itself through the ordinary: bread, wine, water, salt, marital love and fidelity; the gnostics say it’s a matter of superior wisdom, available to the enlightened (which can mean, the politically correct). Dr. Williams seemed convinced that the gnosticism of a lot of western high culture posed a great danger to historic Christianity and the truths it must proclaim.

He was right. The gnosticism that infects the Episcopal Church USA has just about driven the Anglican Communion over the cliff.

Lenten Friday

So that means Kashi cereal (which is really really good, let me tell you) and OJ.
Probably not what Jesus would've eatenm but it's not meat!!

The Molto Proprio...

re: The Latin Mass is coming soon.

Here is an interview regarding it on Catholic Exchange.

Bookshelf

Just finished re-reading Crossing the Threshold of Hope, which is just classic JP II. I love everything in there, but his passages on abortion, women, and why we should "be not afraid" are just fantastic. If you haven't read this, make it part of your Lenten prep and pick up a copy.

How Crunchy Are you?

Been awhile since I've posted anything "Crunchy", so here's a quiz to dtermine your level.

I am a 28. So in the middle. It must be the make-up and the breast-feeding stuff. I got the link from Nutmeg and I agree with her when she writes that there's really no in-between on some of those questions. And I can't breast-feed so I'm out on a lot of those, if I ever have my own kids. Oh well. And I am definitely a shoe girl. Can't work at the Statehouse without shoes.

But, like Nutmeg says, I try my best. I shop at Trader Joe's when I can and try to get organic meat when it's not too expensive. I eat whole-grain bread (although I have to get that from TJ's because, dude, the Kroger stuff? Not so much. Definitely not so much.) and more fruit because it's better for me and I feel better when I do it. Does that mean I don't have cookies around? Um, no. In fact I am going to buy Oreos as soon as I can...ha ha. But I try to be as "crunchy" as possible.