Michael, it does not surprise me. I found a couple of other websites. They apparently started this last year and, when taken to task, they said they provided other services, not just abortions. Reading the prophets very closely, particularly the post-exhile ones, I am convinced that Israel’s greatest sin was not turning away from God, or sacrifices to Baal and others. It was child sacrifice. Sins may be forgiven, but sacrificing children is the utlitmate blasphemy again the Giver of Life. And that sin is unforgiveable.

Critical Life Update: I am sending this message to you a second time because it contains critical information that you need to know. Planned Parenthood is now selling gift certificates for abortion as Christmas “stocking stuffers.” This is all part of their end-of-year fundraising drive to make abortions more frequent and to fatten their bottom line. Please help us fight back with a tax-deductible contribution of whatever you can afford to give this Christmas season. It’s up to you whether we have the resources to compete with the world’s largest abortion provider this Christmas season – Charmaine

Can’t find any reference to this on either the aul.org or the planned parenthood web-site though. If merely a fund raising scare tactic–highly irresponsible.

Michael: You gotta be kidding!!?? Where did you see that??

Nick, thank you for the reminder. It was a stunning moment. Also indicative of how far our culture has fallen.

BTW, did you see that Planned Parenthood is promoting abortion gift certificates for Christmas?

In thinking about what one of mine might be, I immediately and without hesitation thought back to December 24, 1968. I think it was mid-evening. I had gone to the A&P to get something for my mom. As I got back into the car to drive home, I had my radio on. It was tuned to WBBM News Radio 780 in Chicago. It was an exciting Christmas Eve. Apollo 8 was just going around to the back side of the moon. During that trek, there would be no radio contact with Houston because the moon blocked all radio transmissions. In many ways, it was scary because it would be the first time that the Apollo crews would have no contact with home.

The radio commentator counted down the minutes until Appollo 8 would emerge and we would hear their voices once again. Based on their trajectory, it was said that the first thing they would see was the “sunrise” and then the “earthrise”. While sitting there listening to the countdown, which seemed to take forever, Apollo 8 started to emerge.

Most of you were either too young, or not yet born, to remember that intense moment. What would they say, “Houston, we’re back!”, “AOkay”, or “That was unnerving being out of radio contact”. As it turned out, none of the above.

Here is what we heard, their first words with the establishment of radio contact:

William Anders:

“We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness'”.

Jim Lovell:

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day”.

Frank Borman:

“And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

That moment has been indelibly impressed upon my mind. I was 21 years old then. What that crew saw on that day, in that time and in that place did not evoke a sterile, scientific description of what they saw and felt. Like Moses on the mount, on that day, and after, Anders, Lovell and Borman constantly witnessed to all, that, on that day, in that time and in that place, they beheld the wonder of His Glory.

That will be on my mind when it’s time to go.

P.S. And the Supreme Court had the guts to dismiss unanimously Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s lawsuit against them and NASA. It’s been a long 42 Nativity Seasons.

God Bless.

Cynthia: I believe that the poor Lazarus didn’t enjoy being poor either. We need to be careful … Jesus gives a name to the poor man. The rich man does not have a name like the poor Lazarus does. The Tradition teaches that the rich man does not have a name because his name was not written in the Book of Life. We want to be like the poor man, made rich by the grace of God!

When one has the money-printing machine he can work “miracles”. What the Turks could not accomplish in 400 years the European Union did in less than 30 years. The greatness reached by small countries, now considered “developing countries”, was destroyed by the bombings during WWII. The ideology of communism furthered the decline by destroying the moral value of human nature.

http://www.travelineasterneurope.com/2010/06/bucharest-little-paris-of-the-east/

In 1881, Bucharest became the capital and the political center of the Kingdom of Romania, and gained the name “Little Paris of the East”.
During the First World War, Romania reached its greatest extent on the matter of the territory, becoming Greater Romania, with Bucharest, again, as its capital. The greatness that has been reached so far was destroyed by the bombings that happened on the territory of Romania during the Second World War. Twenty years after the Second World War, Romania was brought under the communist leadership of Nicolai Ceausescu which lasted until 1989. Today, Bucharest has grown to be a modern and urban city still cherishing its beautiful history.

If you see that the Church in Russia is the victor in its struggle against atheism, then you can be sure that you have been counted worthy to witness the sign of the spiritual rebirth of Europe… And if you see that for a whole century and more Europe has indeed been the most unChristian continent on earth, then your whole soul will tremble from fear. Your trembling will be the surest sign of the postponement of the coming of the end of the world. Nothing changes the human spirit and leads to its spiritual awakening so forcefully as the realization of its sins and fear in the face of the truth of God…

When the religious spirit – the only authentically life-giving and creative spirit – becomes the spirit that reigns supreme in family life, education, literature, art and journalism; when you see it on the streets and in the shops, in the towns and in the villages, not only in England, but all over Europe, then know that God has forgiven Europe and that it is on the path to becoming a new Europe.

Let him who is able to labour, labour and further this rebirth. Do not stop him who wishes to pray from praying. Let him who can reflect on this give birth to thought. All of this will no doubt help the common cause. These first lightning flashes of the religious rebirth of Europe must be clearly discerned and filled with living power. Otherwise, there will be nothing in history to compare with the drama of a whole Continent shaken to its very foundations…

I don’t see it as an ad hominum. I think Fr. John was being discreet — if I understand him correctly that is. I just want to make sure I understand him.

Fr. John, I’d like to see your comments fleshed out too. As it stands now it is a polemic without target, a thinly veiled ad hominum at whom?

Since, IMO, regarding the care of creation: neither of the dominate policital/economic ideologies offer anything new to the Church in terms of wisdom or provide anything with which the Church can work, were does that leave us?

At the same time we have castrated ourselves by continuing in the phantasmagoria of incessant ecclesial power-plays, scandals and out-right corruption.

While I am not a quietist, without a functioning local synod it seems to me we are left to personal action at local levels based upon personal conviction and resources with or without a cosmic-consciousness (boy are we going back to the 60’s?)

According to the interview published on ocanews with Met. Hilarion, only 5% of the Soviet Union appears to be aware that “Christ is risen” as you write, and only a fraction of them appear to have caused that awareness to change any part of their lives.

http://www.ocanews.org/news/Wikileaks12.10.10.html

Disturbingly among those who are aware, many think of the church as an arm of the civil authority. Their recent past wasn’t so fondly remembered to be worth trying again.

I wish they’d take a lesson from China’s book– for a country like Russia that covers so many time zones the totally fantastic things they could do for themselves if only they’d unleash their productive capacities to build and widen roads, generate commercial developments, leave compressed and expensive inner city spaces.

Instead even with all that land and all those resources so much goes to controversies with neighbors and fear of the USA. The last time a state was added to the USA 1959. Did anybody notice we sent armies to Europe twice and Asia then LEFT?

With all the engineering and technical capability there, the artistic assets, why it is they bother with all this international fuss and tolerate the stagnant internal corruption boggles me. They should know by now a ‘strong man’ government limits progress to the limits of the ‘strong man’s’ vision and attention as it waxes and wanes. Russia will not develop it’s enormous potential until they understand their vast country has more opportunity inside her than one man’s vision could ever develop. All this fuss about ‘satellites’ when the whole of Russia makes them look like birds over an ocean.

Personally, I don’t like the quietistic, thinly-veiled Protestant spin put on cosmic–ecclesiastic interface among American clergy. As though piety demands that we churchmen have no hope in effecting any positive change on this earth. It goes hand-in-hand with a crummy attitude toward our collective environmental responsibility – evinced very strongly on this forum.

Fr. John, could you flesh this out a bit?

Personally, I don’t like the quietistic, thinly-veiled Protestant spin put on cosmic–ecclesiastic interface among American clergy. As though piety demands that we churchmen have no hope in effecting any positive change on this earth. It goes hand-in-hand with a crummy attitude toward our collective environmental responsibility – evinced very strongly on this forum.

The Russian Orthodox approach to nature and science is proving to be the superior to our American one, which I think is beholden to (or rather invested in) too many Protestant, anti-cosmic philosophies.

Christ is risen over the corpse of the Soviet Union, and in America they are tying to roll the stone back over the exit of the tomb.