McCain - Palin

"Senator Obama does not understand." Repeat this several times and you get a grumpy old man raining disdain down upon a younger one. The further ahead John McCain went into the exercise of disparagement that was the presidential debate of September 26, 2008, I could only shake my head and play some interesting scenarios in my mind.
McCain to Putin: "Y'know, Vlad, I don't think you understand just how much the United States cares about Georgia."
McCain to Ahmadinejad: "You really don't understand what could happen to your country if you continue to be so hard-headed."
McCain to Pelosi: You don't understand what it means when I say that single-payer health care in the United States is not an option."
McCain to Reid: "You don't understand that the minimum wage will not be increased by one thin dime."
Palin to Governor Richardson: "You don't understand how to deal with the Mexican Government because there is no maritime border of any consequence between New Mexico and Mexico."
Palin to Katie Curic: "Ma'am, I got those papers you were asking about."
McCain to Gordon Brown: "You don't understand the negative economic impact that it would have if the United States imported all those French Fries fom your neighbor across the Channel."
McCain to the Pope: "You don't understand the good will that you could cause between the United States and Italy if you bought your car from General Motors rather than FIAT."
McCain to "Our Dear Leader": "You don't understand how fast your 2 million man army could be vaporized by China."
McCain to Stephen Harper: "What part of '54 / 40 or fight!' don't you understand?"
McCain to Calderon: "You don't understand that the 'Great Texan River' belongs to the United States, south bank, water and all the fish and people that it contains and north bank. Take it or leave it."

Mr. McCain: You don't understand the basic rules of civility. That's why you're going to lose. As a true son of the South, you spent 90 minutes disparaging a Black Man. That Black Man will come back to haunt you.

RCIA -- RUN TO BAPTISM == NOT!!!

RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults in the Catholic Church is a source of great happiness and consolation as well as of deep frustration.  At its base, the rite is meant to emulate the journey that Jesus took with His disciples for three years,  He teaching them the true meaning of discipleship in the light of the Scriptures and they absorbing the way of life that He was showing to them.  The moral conversion of their lives was not an easy one to make.  They were not really spiritual people, they were simple Jews.  They did not come from the Temple, they came from the secular working class.  Surely they knew their basic Scriptural lessons from the Old Testament, but Jesus was there to show them how He meant for these same lessons to be lived.  

Slowly, daily contact and daily exchange of ideas began to have an effect on them.  Slowly, he came to understand what He meant and where He wanted them to go.  Slowly, they came to appreciate the difference between Jesus, themselves, the Temple people and the people on the street.  That is the goal of the Church: to teach those who would be Catholic the meaning of true discipleship with Jesus.  The goal of the Church is not to prepare people to received the sacrament of Baptism.  Although Baptism is essential to Christian life, the living of the grace infused into the soul through this essential sacrament is, after all a lifetime calling.  To live this calling dynamically on a daily basis is where our eternal salvation is crafted in the company of Jesus, in and through the Church.  This life is not fulfilled by the mechanical reception of sacrament after sacrament; it is not fulfilled by getting to accumulate more and more intellectual information about God and His Church;  it is fulfilled by living the Mission given to us all, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, etc.  

It brings me to other points:  The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is not a catechism program to prepare candidates for Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation.  

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is not a seasonal program that lasts from the second week of September to the third week of May, gloriously cranking out newly baptized Catholics after 8 months of text book preparation.  Ever stop to think if that's the way the Baptists do it? I'd bet that a caller who would be told in July to get back to us in September would resolve the problem by finding someone who would solve the problem NOW.

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is a hard row to hoe.  It requires a deep commitment by deeply spiritual people.  These people do exist.  Note to pastors:  These people do exist.  The pastor is not in a position to "pity" the volunteers  who dedicate themselves to the Rite by giving them the Summer off.  It is not up to him to create a revolving group of "teachers" or "presenters" so that no one will have to be up and ready for 52 weeks per years.  This does not create the community that Christ created with His disciples because of His constant presence among them.  The Rite is based on creating Community so that people can convert to the Community of the Church, the Communion of Saints.  

That's the bottom line.  It all leads to walking with Jesus and learning to work at doing what He told us to do.  That's what true Catholics do.  The pastors should facilitate this process through the priesthood of all faithful by humbly accepting that their are lay people in this world who are more zealous that those who are sent to lead them.

TRUTH FROM THE PULPIT ?

I am going to let it all hang out here for a moment. I go to church every single Sunday. Most Sundays I go to the same church and I hear the priests assigned to that church expound their spiritual views from the pulpit of that church almost every Sunday. The problem that I have is that these guys think that they are fooling me into thinking that the reflections that they put forth come from the depths of their own souls. Most times, they do a fair job of assimilating the material. There are times when they really give themselves away. Last Sunday was one of those times.
It was a Sunday when the celebration was really special. It was in honor of the saint who was the patron of the Missionary Congregation to which the preacher is attached. It was a well organized celebration. This individual came to the pulpit and started off by looking for the right words to open his oration. He finally almost got his mind around it, but then had to drop his gaze down to the crib notes that he had prepared for the occasion. This went on for 15 minutes. This missionary who has been dedicating his life for nearly 25 years to the same community didn't have enough personal conviction to communicate the core of his vocation to the parishioners in the pews without crib notes. He came to the pulpit unprepared and staggered through a miserable 15 minute display of searching for his place on his crib-note sheet.
You may think that this was a one-time occurrence. Wrong. About a year ago one of the missionaries from this parish came to the pulpit and intoned that the gospel for the day made him think of his relationship wih his father. He then proceeded to struggle his way through his notes trying to impress us that he was sharing a deeply moving episode in his life and that of his father. For all that I cared, this story could have been written by Ernest Hemingway. If there was a connection between it and the gospel story of the day, it got lost in the feeling of insult that was conveyed by the fact that this individual could not testify honestly to a meaningful event between him and his father in relation to the Gospel.

If this type of ignorance doesn't impress you, let me ask you to consider the bozos who come to the pulpit and dig out a story that they have found on the Internet that they think is going to illustrate the point of the Gospel. You know the type...the cute little dog who is blind or the poor little cross-eyed boy who is bullied at school... They do this despite the wonderful stories that come from the Old Testament readings of the very same day. They ignore these because they are too ignorant to understand what the Church wants to teach through the structure of the Sunday readings.

This is wrong. The people in the pews deserve to be informed about the revelation of God through the Sacred Scripture. This can only be done through priests who are sincere, honest and impregnated with the spirituality of the Liturgy as it is intended by the Church. The instruction of the faithful cannot be accomplished on a steady diet of "canned" presentations.

WORLD YOUTH DAY DOWN UNDER

The youth of the world have gathered in Australia. An Aussie friend of mine said that he and his daughter and some other friends spent some time there and the atmosphere was thick with the Spirit. I was happy to hear that from him. I have to say that I am glad that I was not and am not there.

It's hard to think of the Pope getting there and replaying the same record that he played so often and so poignantly here in North America. How many times and in how many countries does he have to unwrap the child abuse thing? Now, especially at a rally for the youth of the world? Doesn't he have more inspiring things to bring out of his bag? Why does he even have the conviction that the Pope has to repeat himself in every country that he visits? The message that he laid down here was heard by one and all. The Pope after all is the universal unifying personage in the world. This is his authority. It is spiritual, moral, emotional, economical and political. What he said here has had its impact. What he should have done in Australia is to bring the message from his North American visit forward to a newer, higher and more positively inspiring level. After all, what he says in the first world resonates throughout the planet. What he says outside of Europe is all the more meaningful and rings all the more loudly. Why repeat it?

Finally, why all the hand wringing about the guilty priests? What about some hand wringing for the thousands of innocent priests many of whom have been falsely accused and falsely convicted and punished? They are victims too. They suffer from the denial of due process and the right of defense [Canon 221]; they and their attorneys are denied access to their files so that they can know the allegations against them. These are violations of basic human rights practiced at the highest levels of Church governance. Many of them are in jail and never get a visit from those who are bound to care for them. Don't they deserve to hear their plaint ring out in one of these Papal orations? Why aren't they ever mentioned? Is it because they are a part of the lingering scandal which still worms its way through the fiber of the Church?

Speaking about the lingering scandal, you know, the acrid, lung searing blue atmosphere that hovers over the zealous apostles who have to wonder what nasty looks they are going to accounter on the street and from the pews on any given day? The true celibates who believe in the sacrifice of their procreative power and who have spent years hugging the Bride of Christ for the good of the world are victims too. I implore Pope Benedict XVI to start taking his perorations to a higher level. The good priests of this world have to know that the Bishop of bishops loves them and is convinced that they are the keys to the salvation of the Church. The Sacerdotal Community needs some balm for the burning wound that is so slow to heal. It will be better for the Pope to stop beating the Church's breast and to start singing the praises of the remnant.

Finally, the laity, the Holy Priesthood, as Peter puts it, is fed up with all this breast beating from the Pope. If it makes him feel good, it leaves a lot of us uneasy with a rucksack full of unanswered questions. We can devise our own answers if we don't have to listen to the same doleful refrain over and over again. We are becoming more and more convinced that the focus on this issue is now a convenient distraction to ignore the global problem by the Church and governments. We know who the good priests are and we know what they do. We don't need the hierarchy above them to tell us what we already know about the bad ones. The good priests who are left, and the good ones who were bulldozed out are victims of some bishops who treated the confrères of this remnant with such cold hearted, self-serving disdain. These priests who are left have to continue serving the flock under bosses who have bankrupted not only the coffers, but the hearts and minds of some of their most faithful servants.

Holy Father, the next time you address your people on this subject, please make sure that you mention that we all have the equal right to a high quality of life in safety, security and love.

NEW PERSPECTIVE ON HORSES ASSES

This is a rather wonderful story, just about perfectly made for a Kurmujjin like me. This is the first time I ever publish a story that I get through email networks. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates built the US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/ Process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass x 2.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything...and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else !!

OM NAMAH SHIVAYA = PRAYER TO JESUS CHRIST???

ENCOUNTERING THE LIVING CHRIST -- OM NAMAH SHIVAYA

REPORT ON "CATECHIST DAY"
ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA CHURCH
41875 C. STREET
TEMECULA, CA 92592
SEPTEMBER 22, 2007

INTRODUCTION: We meet Christ with joy in our Creation and in each other. Jesus is here, we welcome Him as we journey together in prayer.
+In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

CHANTING: OM NAMAH SHIVAYA Huh? "I bow to Shiva."

Who? The Indian god of destruction, that's who. So, all you sweet, dedicated Catechists, meet Jesus Christ, alias Shiva in the mantra of the day.
The parenthesis beneath the mantra reads: "The blessed name of God, being one with His creation."
Either the innocent one who believes in Shiva as the Blessed God or the disingenuous one who wants to appear chique with a secret knowledge of Far Eastern Spirituality is leading simpler folk astray here. Who would have the testosterone to equate Jesus with the pagan God Shiva? "We meet Christ with joy..." and we send up a mantra to Shiva? This is frightening ignorance, at the least, and fraud at the worst. While they were at it, why didn't they offer a mantra to Shakti, the Indian God who engenders energy? Since we are talking about Jesus and Shiva and Shakti, and we say that Jesus is here "in each other", shouldn't we be talking about energy flowing from chakra to chakra? Maybe that's how Jesus is with us. If we're talking
mantras here, we may as well talk about male and female gods whose energy flows from chakra to chakra, just like Jesus' energy, right? Maybe you're talking about the tongues of fire" Start with a flame at chakra seven and drive your way down to chakra one and ground yourself in divine freedom between heaven and earth.

Whoever you are, you went to guide people on the way to developing a deeper relationship with Jesus. At least that's what the theme line says, "Encountering the Living Christ." You grounded them in a mantra to the pagan god of destruction. Do you think that because you are sent to an inland, back-water region that you can feel free to pass off your twisted concept of spirituality with impunity? Do you think that you are the only "advanced" spiritual theology person in Riverside County?" Did you ignore that there are others here who would know what "Om Namah Shivaya" would really mean?" Did you forget that the Catholic
Tradition of spirituality goes back to more than 2000 years, including the Essenes? Did you consider how brazen you are to invite your followers for the day to sing to Shiva rather than to Yaweh, Or Jesus? Did you consider that during such a gathering, Hallel-luia would have been just as effective? Do you even know what Hallel means? What would have been so wrong with singing, Yaweh, Je'shua, Marana-tha? That may be a big secret to you since you seem to be more versed in Indian paganism than in Hebrew-Judaic-Christian Faith.
Whoever you are, you have a lot to learn. You also must convert your heart back to the grace of the resurrected Christ. If this rant strikes you as being ultra-conservative, you may want to consider the truth of the fact that in Temecula, back in September, you praticed synchretism. That's a Greek word, so you may have to look it up. I don't know what the Indian synonym is. I do know that according to Catholicism, it is a sin. You can look it up.

California is looking at sexually malfeasing teachers

Check this out.

ROBERT TANNER and JULIET WILLIAMS AP Writers California lawmakers say they will explore changes in how the state disciplines teachers accused of sexual misconduct.

Now this is interesting for a Catholic like I am. I'm sitting here wondering a couple of things. How is the suspension of the statute of limitations going to be applied against these unionized ne'er do wells? How hard is the state going to attack the perpetrators, living and dead? How many careers is the state willing to ruin within the confines of its own sandbox? It was easy dealing with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Rarely were the howitzers turned back on the accusers. In fact, SNAP was formed and Catholics attacked Catholic hierarchy and actually banded together with the accusers. Is that going to happen here? Is this going to give birth to an organization of unionized teachers that will turn against its own in outrage for their pedophilic behavior? Would this organization hunt down the managers and executives who shuffled the sexually active teachers into other posts under false pretenses? Worse, to save the hide of a friend with a smoke-filled back-room sweetheart deal?

I want to thank Mr. Tanner and Ms Williams for their courage in uncovering this secret. All honest people knew that it was not just priests who were molesting children under the color of authority. Trouble is, when it comes to sexual abuse of our underage citizenry, there is very little honesty, just emotional volcanism and groundhog hole diving for protection from casting too long a shadow.

What is going to be interesting here is not just the spectacle of watching the unions scramble for pretexts and excuses to protect their own, but the side show of what is going to be said about the sick behavior of many married people of both sexes who are guilty of this behavior. Who is going to retract the stupid comments that were made by many and sundry that if priests were not celibate males all this would never have occurred? How about all the garbage about homosexual priests acting out in a criminal way? I think no one, because as I noted above, this is not going to be an exercise in finding out cold hard facts but in an emotional scramble to protect the crass hides of the criminally warped purveyors and practitioners of extra-curricular underage sex.

So, I am going to sit back and watch what develops. You've had your fun with the Catholic Priests, now you're going to provide this Catholic with some fun of his own.