Pick a video below if you'd like to know more about what's happening and why. Personally, I like the first and second videos the best, because my little mind needs things simple. Middle school or high school level… that's about right for me!
For middle school youth:
For high school teens:
The next two are a little more involved and scholarly. Fr. John Muir, a great priest from my own diocese, narrates these….
For parish leaders:
For parents and adults:
2. Remember my post called Laughing at Dead Babies and the Avenging Conscience? Well, here is another manifestation of how that works. Notice how pro-"choice" congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee cannot bring herself to say "heartbeat" when referencing the...wait for it...heartbeat of unborn human beings. She makes quite a linguistic gyration in order to avoid the word. Simply bizarre, unless you recognize the avenging conscience at work. Check it out:
3. Let's contrast that stalwart supporter of the Culture of Death to Jon Scharfenberger, the 22-year-old Students For Life staffer who died after a horrific car accident that also took the life of SFL Field Director Kortney Blythe Gordon and her unborn daughter Sophy. I speak often of a crisis of manhood, but Jon stood out from the crowd of his peers -- a rare, true Christian gentleman. As Dr. Gerard Nadal says, all who revere life and strive for virtue "knew" Jon, even if we didn't know him:
An excerpt:
Jon wasn’t typical of most men his age. For one thing, he was a man. A real man. Not in some pseudo-masculine macho sense of the term, but in the truest sense of masculinity.
He was principled, and all in the pursuit of virtue. He had unusual strength of conviction, all aligned along the axis of moral clarity. Such clarity only comes in self-giving and not in self-assertion. It comes through self-discipline, of subordinating one’s appetites to a vision of the other as worthy of our best and not as an object for our consumption. It’s the stuff of which the more cynical among us who have only ever known being used cannot believe exists in reality.The loss of such a truly good man is difficult to grasp, and as a parent, my heart goes out especially to his mother and father.
4. For anyone who wants to see a glimpse of Jon's gentle heart and firm conviction, take a look at him in action:
Resquiat In Pacem
5. Oh, hey, did you know that there's no such thing as evil? Because some super-duper smart neuroscientists have said so, so rest easy...
Of course, people still commit innumerable bad actions, but the idea that people make conscious decisions to hurt or harm is no longer sustainable, say the new brain scientists. For one thing, there is no such thing as "free will" with which to decide to commit evil. (Like evil, free will is an antiquated concept for most.) Autonomous, conscious decision-making itself may well be an illusion. And thus intentional evil is impossible.Check out the whole pathetic thesis if you must, here. I've heard of people trying to weasel out of moral responsibility, but this takes the cake.
6. So Life Site News picked up my last post, which was an honor and very humbling. Humbling especially because the post that gets the most attention is the one in which I lay out all of my sins and deficiencies! Maybe if I write a post detailing the contents of my next sacramental confession it'll be picked up by the New York Times!
7. Get ready for Mass this Sunday by studying the readings ahead of time:
And have a great weekend!
Thanks to Jen for hosting!
