Albigensians: A tight little group that was obviously way ahead of its time

The Albigensians, or Catharists, were neo-Manicheans, regarding material creation as an evil and viewing all of existence as a conflict between evil matter and good spirit—but O’Brien says it was much more.

Like all Gnostics, of which Manicheanism was a branch, they believed themselves to be the only “pure” ones and the only ones to have the truth. They were certainly a forerunner of Protestantism and even more specifically of the most ardent of contemporary fundamentalists, with their complete rejection of the Real Presence, transubstantiation, the Eucharist, and the Mass, and their belief that the pope was the Antichrist.

Their teaching and practice, however, had enormous implications for marriage, sexual morality, and social and political life.

The parallels to the present are almost uncanny. While hatred for the Church is nothing new, the visceral character of the Albigensians’ hatred bears a resemblance to the ugliest side of the Reformation and today’s assaults on religion.

For example, O’Brien tells us how the Albigensians were known for indiscriminately chopping down crosses and stamping on them.

In America today, we see the relentless efforts by rabid, uncompromising church-state separationist groups to remove all religious symbols from public places and the heightened vandalism of crosses and other Christian monuments.

Read more

A reasoned and loving response to a supporter of homosexuality and homosexual marriage.

By Doug Lawrence

(In response to this article)

I happen to have been born with an absolutely dependable sense of direction that happens to be exactly 180 degrees out of phase. (No kidding. This is true!)

When I think I should go left, I invariably ought to go right, instead.

So, in order to get where I need to go, I’ve learned to overrule my natural inclinations, to get a second opinion, or use a compass and map, or GPS.

Needless to say, relying on the opinion of another who suffers from the same seriously disordered sense of direction might appear to work, but only for a short while, until both of us, naturally rejecting all opinions to the contrary, finally come to the realization that we are truly lost.

Homosexual people are in a similar quandary.

Their innate feelings tell them they are right, but the truth is unfortunately, 180 degrees removed.

And without a reliable guide (the Catholic Church) they may well be lost … for a long, long time … perhaps never reaching their intended destination.

True Christians understand this type of problem and attempt to deal with it, through love. Unfortunately, a personally frustrated individual typically responds poorly to such an approach, since he/she typically cannot fathom the true reasons for it.

Hence, love is “naturally” perceived as hate, helpfulness is taken for condemnation, and the will of God is presumed to be something other than what it truly is.

You Kristina, also have a faulty sense of direction. You have chosen your own set of defective guides, and you too, have arrived at the wrong destination.

But there’s still time to find the right path .. and stick to it … with the help of the church.

From the Catechism:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

So go .. and sin no more. God loves you. God will provide. Trust in him.

Once Again, Satan Thanks the U.S. Supreme Court – Near Occasion of Sin!

by Larry Douglas

First it was legalized abortion and now it’s legalized homosexual marriage. Both are extremely deadly to the soul and if statistics and common sense are to believed, not very good for the body, either!

The Supreme Court has spoken and homosexual marriage is now the law of the land. The temporal, legal aspects of the matter have been settled, but what about the moral and spiritual issues?

What are the chances that Jesus Christ, the Ultimate Judge of All, will change his mind and decide to back the court’s decision? Slim to none, since the matter of homosexuality has been “spiritually” settled for more than 4500 years and God doesn’t make those kinds of sweeping reversals.

According to God’s Word, homosexual activity is counter to his law and his will, and an abomination in his eyes. Homosexual activity and all that goes with it is described in the plain text of the Bible as one of only a handful of sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. A well known pair of flaming cities served to forever emphasize that point and there’s nothing the Supreme Court – or anyone else – can ever do to change that.

Why would anyone choose to ignore a dire warning of that type? Why would anyone – especially the U.S. Supreme Court – choose to encourage others to do so? See the above photo.

The Catholic Church categorizes homosexual activity as (objectively) a grave sin, capable of landing a soul in Hell, for eternity.

(The term “objectively” means “typically and ordinarily – special cases and unusual situations excepted” – so a ray of hope and a bit of “wiggle room” remains. But hey – who am I to judge?)

As with all “mortal” sin, the person committing the act must know that God and the Church consider it to be gravely sinful and the act must be committed with full consent of the will. Otherwise, no harm, no foul – at least, when it comes to Divine Judgment.

Those who claim their conscience tells them that homosexual acts are not sinful will need to bring that issue up directly with Jesus, come Judgment Day. Christ remains the head of the Catholic Church. The Ten Commandments, the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels and Epistles, plus all the moral precepts of the Church are his, so how do you think he’s likely to rule?

In this life, there’s absolutely no getting around the issue. Let’s look at what type of divine punishment the Supreme Court is likely in for, and then we’ll look more closely at the fate of those who choose to actually enter into the spiritually deadly institution known as homosexual marriage – as well as those homosexuals who choose to do otherwise.

By its’ recent decision, the Supreme Court has chosen to define itself as totally lacking in morals and woefully ignorant of the legitimate purposes of institutions like holy matrimony. But that’s not the worst of it: the Supreme Court has – once again – constituted itself as a genuine, official, U.S. Government sponsored “near occasion of sin”.

A near occasion of sin is someone or something that leads others to commit sin, or serves to confirm or justify others in their sin. Such a thing is a grave sin in and of itself, but multiplied by the number of souls the court decision will likely affect, the actual level of spiritual depravity is incalculable.

Absent an effective reversal and/or a spiritually acceptable remedy, death, judgment and Hell are almost certain to follow. Under the present circumstances, I wouldn’t want to be a member of the United States Supreme Court. Much better to resign, repent, confess, do penance and receive absolution, at least for the 6 of 9 who are Catholics. (Oh, the scandal!) I’m not certain they would even qualify for absolution if they did not first, resign.

As for the rest of the Justices, whether they actually believe in God, or not – unless they engage in some prompt, serious, soul searching and repenting – they’re shortly going to suffer the wrath of an angry God, who also happens to be the chief judge of the entire universe – something from which their Supreme Court robes and lofty opinions will offer scant protection.

Such is the level of depravity of today’s Supreme Court. The whole lot of them ought to be impeached – for their own good – and for the good of the country!

Now let’s look at the homosexuals who have received legal approval by the nation’s highest court to engage in an act that will serve to permanently cut them off from the grace of God and – absent timely repentance and conversion – almost certainly lead to a very bad (and eternal) end.

On the one hand, we have the homosexual with absolutely no interest in marriage – or even living with a sexual partner – someone who simply wants to have a little “fun” via an occasional, same-sex “hookup”. On the other, we have a committed, long-term homosexual “couple” who decide to go the marriage route, looking to make their relationship legal and permanent. 

There’s a major difference between the two situations, but neither is really any good – or even acceptable – on a spiritual level – especially for Catholics.

A permanent, live-in, homosexual relationship, “married” or otherwise, serves only to establish a permanent state of mortal sin, which keeps the soul in a decrepit, graceless condition, effectively cutting off such persons from the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, unless and until the elicit living arrangement and the underlying sinful acts (for all intents and purposes) have effectively ceased.

Only then might the Sacraments once again be received, sanctifying grace restored and a “nominal” relationship with Christ and his Church be resumed.

It’s not easy and it’s also very rare for someone to break up a household and call a halt to a long-term, personal (and sexual) relationship in the hope of getting their spiritual affairs in order. It happens, but long experience proves that it’s much more common for people to simply die in their sins and suffer the eternal consequences.

The unmarried, non-cohabiting homosexual is in a much better position, from a spiritual standpoint, than his/her married homosexual counterpart. 

The absence of a permanent, live-in homosexual relationship leaves the practicing, “single” homosexual (potentially) only one good decision away from overcoming his/her disordered sexual inclinations.

Much as any other sinner, a “single” homosexual may confess his/her sins as often as necessary, receiving absolution for those sins and any others, so long as a spirit of repentance and a firm purpose of amendment (the actual intent, as well as the distinct possibility to overcome and do better, in the future) truly exists.

Such a thing may constitute a life-long struggle, and it may prove extremely difficult, but so long as the person does nothing to make the homosexual situation permanent and unalterable (like getting married or cohabiting) hope, grace, the Mass and the Sacraments remain available and effective.

When the Supreme Court of the United States decided to make homosexual marriage legal (and apparently, more acceptable and desirable) all they really did was induce more people to enter into permanent, sinful relationships that will quite likely, lead them straight to hell. They did the same thing with abortion, around forty years ago!

Satan once again thanks the U.S. Supreme Court – Near Occasion of Sin!

Lest anyone attempt to categorize me, the Catholic Church, or God as a hater, please know that the main purpose of this post is to warn people about the inherent dangers of their personal choices, based on the best theological information available, so that those persons might avoid making spiritually “fatal” mistakes that could one day, land them in Hell.

Charity, not hate, is at work here!

Related Link

Catholic chaplains given marching orders barring service to gay couples

RNS () — Catholic military chaplains cannot be forced to witness or bless a same-sex marriage, nor are they allowed to take part in any marriage counseling retreats that are open to gay couples under new rules issued by the Archdiocese for the Military Services.

The rules, sent to chaplains on Sept. 18 by Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of the AMS, also bar chaplains from taking part in a funeral for a Catholic if that participation “would give the impression that the church approves of same sex ‘marital’ relationships.”

Link

Albigensians: A tight little group that was obviously way ahead of its time

The Albigensians, or Catharists, were neo-Manicheans, regarding material creation as an evil and viewing all of existence as a conflict between evil matter and good spirit—but O’Brien says it was much more. Like all Gnostics, of which Manicheanism was a branch, they believed themselves to be the only “pure” ones and the only ones to have the truth. They were certainly a forerunner of Protestantism and even more specifically of the most ardent of contemporary fundamentalists, with their complete rejection of the Real Presence, transubstantiation, the Eucharist, and the Mass, and their belief that the pope was the Antichrist. Their teaching and practice, however, had enormous implications for marriage, sexual morality, and social and political life.

The parallels to the present are almost uncanny. While hatred for the Church is nothing new, the visceral character of the Albigensians’ hatred bears a resemblance to the ugliest side of the Reformation and today’s assaults on religion. For example, O’Brien tells us how the Albigensians were known for indiscriminately chopping down crosses and stamping on them. In America today, we see the relentless efforts by rabid, uncompromising church-state separationist groups to remove all religious symbols from public places and the heightened vandalism of crosses and other Christian monuments.

Read more

Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt: Family as the foundation of culture.

Dear friends in Christ,

Since the beginning of man’s life on earth, the family has served as the cornerstone of society.  The integrity of the family set the standard for society from the beginning of time as the underpinning of our civilization, reflecting the beneficial differences between men and women and the complementarity of their hearts, minds, and bodies.

Aristotle argued that the natural progression of human beings flowed from the family via small communities out to the polis. The state itself, then, as a natural extension of the family, mirrors this critical institution.

Inspired by Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas writes, “man is by nature a social being since he stands in need of many vital things which he cannot come by through his own unaided effort. Hence he is naturally part of a group by which assistance is given him that he may live well.  He needs this assistance with a view to life as well as to the good life.”[1]  And Pope Leo XIII develops Aquinas’ thought further, recognizing that “man’s natural instinct moves him to live in civil society, for he cannot, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the necessary requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his mental and moral faculties.”[2]  Indeed, just as our communities and the state itself imitate the structure of the family, our economy is also modeled after oikonomia—the Greek word for household management.

Read more

Editor’s note: This is a fairly long piece, but it is worth a read. This is what good Catholic bishops are supposed to do – teach!

New Bulletin Insert on Marriage from Illinois Family Institute

ONE MORE OBSTACLE
before legalization of same-sex marriage and
MAY  WE  B E  T H AT  O B S TA C L E !

“… a time to be silent and a time to speak, …” Ecclesiastes 3:7

Now is the time to speak in defense of the God-ordained institution
of natural marriage and family. Don’t delay any longer!
Call your state representative or, better yet,
drop by his/her district office and tell the secretary that you oppose
same-sex marriage and are urging the representative to oppose it.

MARRIAGE is a sexual complementary union of body & soul of one man
and one woman that is inherently designed for procreation which results in
distinctive norms of family life, monogamy, exclusivity, permanence.

CHILDREN, in some cases, will be deliberately deprived of the opportunity
to be raised by a mother and father. Research shows a child develops best
with one mother and one father. Children should be of paramount
importance in considering public policy.

SCHOOLS will be mandated to teach homosexuality as normal behavior,
which many parents believe is unnatural, unhealthy, and/or immoral.

PARENTS have the right and responsibility to teach sexual conduct to their
children. David Parker, a father of a Massachusetts’ kindergartner, was
jailed overnight because he insisted his child be removed from class
during discussions about homosexuality. Massachusetts courts ruled
that because SSM is legal, schools have no obligation to notify parents.

BUSINESSES will be under further legal obligation to comply
or face lawsuits.

An Illinois bed & breakfast was sued because they refused
to accommodate a civil union ceremony in 2011.

Catholic Charities (of Illinois ) dropped their adoption care services
rather than place children in homosexual households.

SOCIAL AND CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS will be forced to accommodate
same-sex couples. County clerks, and justices-of-the-peace
will be obligated to issue marriage licenses or face the loss of their job.
On May 30, 2012, the ACLU and Lambda Legal filed lawsuits
against the Cook County Clerk, suing him for
not issuing gay “marriage” licenses to homosexual couples.

Sign up to receive E-Alerts on this issue,
for more information, or to find your state representative,
go to www.illinoisfamily.org or call 708-781-9328.

Church Bulletin Insert (PDF)

2-minute video explains why marriage between one man and one woman is unique, critically important to society – and totally non-discriminatory.

Watch the video

Your participation is requested: USCCB Call To Prayer For Life, Marriage, And Religious Liberty.

Join the Movement

• What: The U.S. bishops have approved a pastoral strategy to advance a Movement for Life, Marriage, and Religious Liberty. It is essentially a call to prayer, penance, and sacrifice for the sake of renewing a culture of life, marriage, and religious liberty in our country.

• Why: The well-being of society requires that life, marriage, and religious liberty are promoted and protected. Serious threats to each of these goods, however, have raised unprecedented challenges to the Church and to the nation. Two immediate flashpoints are the following:First is the HHS Mandate, which requires almost all employers, including Catholic employers, to pay for employees’ contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs regardless of conscientious objections. This is a clear affront to America’s first freedom, religious liberty, as well as to the inherent dignity of every human person.Second, current trends in both government and culture are moving toward redefining marriage as the union of any two persons, ignoring marriage’s fundamental meaning and purpose as the universal institution that unites a man and a woman with each other and with the children born from their union. These challenges call for increased awareness and formation, as well as spiritual stamina and fortitude among the faithful, so that we may all be effective and joyful witnesses of faith, hope and charity.

• When: In this Year of Faith, starting on the feast of the Holy Family (Dec. 30, 2012) until the feast of Christ the King (Nov. 24, 2013)

• Who: All of the Catholic faithful are encouraged to participate

• Where: Throughout the entire country; at your local parish, cathedral, school or home

How To Participate: 5 Ways

On “gaytrimony” and “gayrriage”

by Doug Lawrence

Since we know that marriage between one man and one woman will always be the norm, and anything else would be so qualitatively different as to be something else entirely, I think it’s time to give that progressive new “state in life” where same sex couples choose to bind themselves to each other in a mutual covenant, a legal definition and corresponding name that is clearly different and absolutely distinct from traditional matrimony/marriage.

Instead of the word “matrimony” … which defines a holy covenant between one man and one woman … we can have “gaytrimony” … which legally defines something else, entirely.

Instead of the word “marriage” … which properly defines the state of holy matrimony between one man and one woman … we can have gayrriage … which legally defines a totally different state in life.

Pressure groups could go on to lobby the government for whatever particular benefits and privileges they might desire, but the integrity and proper definition of the holy institution of matrimony would never again be in danger of being hijacked, and the distinctive legal definition of both “states” would remain permanently and absolutely clear.

This way, everyone will be able to “have their cake and eat it too” yet there will be no doubt whatsoever that the particular “states” of  matrimony and “gaytrimony” will always remain quite different and distinct, despite any accidental similarities.

Some might call this just another version of “separate but equal” … but that’s only because the homosexual rights movement has been, up to now, politically linked to the issue of racial equality. And that’s just wrong, since sexual preference and race are two entirely different things.

There’s absolutely no personal choice in selecting one’s race, but there is always a great degree of personal choice in how one chooses to conduct himself/herself/itself  in regard to personal, particular sexuality … whether hetero, homo … or other.

That’s just the way it is.

President Obama says he’s “disappointed” by North Carolina constitutional amendment.

Traditional, biblical marriage is now constitutionally protected in North Carolina — and President Barack Obama says he is “disappointed” about that.

On Tuesday, 61 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, making North Carolina the 31st state to protect traditional marriage. Thirty-nine percent voted against the amendment.

Link

Radical feminism is … at its very core … unnatural and unholy

Consider the moving story of Kate Spicer: “I’m childless at 42 and haunted by the baby I aborted at 18″. I offer here parts of that story: “Terminating a pregnancy seemed far cleverer than pushing double buggies in small-town Devon, which is what some of my peers were doing after their O-levels.

“Today, I feel more emotional, guilty almost, about that bundle of cells I got rid of. In the bitterest of ironies, that terminated pregnancy remains the sum total of my reproductive history. Throughout my adulthood, I have sometimes felt broody, but have never let myself dwell on it.

“Using logic and reason, I pushed these instinctive urges from my mind: you don’t have enough money, you don’t have a solid relationship, you have no career stability, men can’t be relied on, you are too insecure. The family unit — Mum, Dad, two children — looked dull, claustrophobic and suburban. I was in denial, but every now and again my real feelings would break through the tough-girl rationale.

Read more

Cohabiting couples regret wasting years in relationships that would have lasted only months, had they not been living together.

Drawing from research and from her own experience working with young adults, Jay argues that there is actually something internal to the practice of living together that can put a future marriage on shaky grounds.

The decision to live together is often one that couples “slide” into simply because it is economical or convenient, she says. After moving in, they feel “locked in” because of all the entanglements of living together, such as co-ownership of furniture or pets, which can in turn lead to a mentality of sliding unreflectively into marriage.

Jay cites the situation of one her clients, a 32-year-old woman she calls “Jennifer,” who lived together with her boyfriend for four years, married him, and was looking for a divorce lawyer less than a year later.

“I felt like I was on this multiyear, never-ending audition to be his wife,” Jennifer had told Jay. “We had all this furniture. We had our dogs and all the same friends. It just made it really, really difficult to break up. Then it was like we got married because we were living together once we got into our 30s.”

Read more

Submitted by Doria2

Marriage in God’s plan — the pivot of civilisation

One of the greatest threats today to what has been most noble and humane in Western civilisation is the attempt to rewrite the meaning of marriage as something other than how it has been traditionally understood in the Judaic-Christian moral tradition.

Some sense of the greatness of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman and its link to the development of community life exists in all cultures. Aristotle, for example, regarded marriage and strong families as essential to the right ordering of society and for the proper socialisation of children. He saw the friendship and the bond between the married couple, together with the natural bond of affection linking them to their children, as an important factor conducive to the development of those virtues upon which peaceful coexistence between the members of society depends.

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Editor’s note: It’s no coincidence that every society which ever attempted to “normalize” and/or otherwise promote homosexuality soon came to a bad end.

Obama and Planned Parenthood – A marriage made in Hell!

Thus, just over weekend, Richards was in Detroit stumping for President Obama and saying of those who have been vocal in their opposition to the abortion pills, sterilization, and contraceptives mandate: “These folks are against women, they are against working people, they are against the middle class.” (Notice how she skillfully avoided any mention of “these folks” being against killing pre-born children, taxpayer-funded abortions, and stark violations of the First Amendment.)

Added Richards, “President Obama stood with us, and we are going to stand with him.”

And that’s what it all comes down to. President Obama has stood with Planned Parenthood at every step along the way in his presidency. He funneled taxpayer money into their coffers, so they’re standing with him now.

Read more

Married priests: The unfortunate and scandalous “downside”.

We then learn the details of Canon Clitherow’s personal life.  He married his first wife in 1982 and they had two children, but they divorced in 2002.  He married his second wife that year, a women he had first met in 1992 when she was a high school student and he the chaplain of her school.  This marriage also produced two children, but in March 2011 he announced to the congregation that he was divorcing a second time.

The Mail lets us know that rumors at the church swirled around this second divorce, with tongues wagging about the vicar’s affair with a blonde divorcee who was a member of the choir.  At the time of his divorce the vicar informed his bishop that the marriage had broken down but that there was no other person involved. The vicar went on sick leave following Easter services, citing stress as the culprit — and then married the blonde divorcee at a private ceremony at a registry office over the Christmas holidays.

Read more

Editor’s note: The Catholic Church can look forward to these new (for us Catholics) types of scandals, now that we are accepting married Anglican/Episcopalian priests into the pope’s new ordinariate. Nothing wrong with the ordinariate … I’m just saying that we better start getting ready for this new type of moral assault on the Catholic priesthood.

Celibate or not … there’s still no substitute for fidelity and chastity … inside or outside of matrimony … by layman and/or priest.

New USCCB Site – Marriage: Unique for a Reason!

ABOUT THE ART

Saints Joachim and Anne are the father and mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary is the fruit of their marriage.

By a singular grace of God in view of the merits of Jesus, she was preserved from all stain of Original Sin from the moment of her conception. Thus it is in the context of married life and conjugal love that Mary is prepared to receive the Divine Logos, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus is the Logos, the “Reason” at the heart of all reason and truth, including the truth of marriage.

The marriage between Joachim and Anne is a significant witness to why marriage is “unique for a reason.”

Visit the site

Editor’s note: Some people of the homosexual persuasion have taken blasphemous issue with the new site. If you want to sample some queer logic, you have a strong stomach, and you are not too put-off by profanity and blasphemy click here. The reader comments are some of the ugliest I’ve seen, anywhere.

This week’s Ask Alice: How to find a good Catholic husband (or wife)

Send A Question To Alice

She’ll answer your Catholic questions
right here, every Thursday.

Email responses will also be provided, as time permits.

SC asks: How come I can’t find any decent, good Catholic men? Help me please. God bless.

Alice answers: You don’t need to find several good, decent Catholic MEN. You only need to find ONE good, Catholic MAN!

The best way to find Mr. Right is to:
1) pray, 2) wait, and 3) love.

1) PRAY
Ask God to send you a good man to marry. You’ve heard the expression, “a match made in Heaven?” Since God initiates ALL relationships, let Him do the heavy lifting. All you need to do is keep your heart open. Sometimes, women have trouble finding Mr. Right because they’re busy seeking a man who meets all the requirements on their checklist: doctor, black hair, blue eyes, 6′ 2″, etc.

Have no expectations. Just keep your heart open wide and let God surprise you with love! Prayer worked, since God sent my Tom to me. Also, our children prayed to find their spouses. Before writing this column, I called each of them and asked.

At our older daughter’s engagement party, Mike, her fiance said he’d been praying that God would send him the right girl to marry. “And, if possible, can she be named Heather?” he asked. God perfectly answered Mike’s prayer when he married our Heather in 2003.

“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)

2) WAIT
“Be still before the Lord; wait for God…. Wait eagerly for the Lord and keep to the way.” (Psalm 37:4,34)

The biggest mistake of my single years was obsessing, instead of waiting for God to send a good man for me to marry. I fell in love with each of my boyfriends then sobbed my way through mountains of tissues every time a relationship ended.

If only I had realized
that God had a man and a plan for me!

God’s time is not our time. Relax and leave the love connection to God. When you’re not looking for Mr. Right, you’ll find him.

3) LOVE
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Love begets love. Focus daily on loving everyone: little old ladies, toddlers, neighbors, friends, relatives, coworkers. Volunteer at a food pantry, homeless shelter, or hospital. Become a catechist. Answer phone calls at a Crisis Hotline.

My friend, Lynn, met her husband, Chris, while praying in The Life Chain outside of an abortion clinic.

Help at park district programs for special needs children or adults. Volunteer at a nursing home. A 90-year-old resident might have a single grandson. Join a Bible Study group. Sing in the church choir.

Our parish liturgical musician, John, met his wife, Heidi, who sang in the choir.

You’ll meet kind, faith-filled people while doing volunteer work, since it’s kind-hearted people who give the gift of self to serve others.

Go out and socialize. Accept invitations to barbecues and parties.

Many of the best marriages are “set ups”. When your friend says, “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” say “yes” immediately.

My college friend, Doris, introduced me to Tom. Each of our daughters met her spouse through a girlfriend.

Consider meeting a good man online. There are Catholic and Christian Singles’ websites. This summer we attended a wedding for Andrew and Lindsay, who met online. When Lindsay’s mother appeared embarrassed about her daughters’ online meeting, I assured her that my paternal grandparents, Stanley and Sophie, met through a singles’ ad in a 1913 newspaper.

SC, you’re in my prayers. Please let me know when God sends Mr. Right to you!

In Christ’s Love,

Alice

Click here to see all of Alice’s other columns

Remembering to pray: A Prayer of Spouses for Each Other

Lord Jesus, grant that I and my spouse may have a true and understanding love for each other. Grant that we may both be filled with faith and trust. Give us the grace to live with each other in peace and harmony. May we always bear with one another’s weaknesses and grow from each other’s strengths. Help us to forgive one another’s failings and grant us patience, kindness, cheerfulness and the spirit of placing the well-being of one another ahead of self.

May the love that brought us together grow and mature with each passing year. Bring us both ever closer to You through our love for each other. Let our love grow to perfection. Amen.

Link

“By dishonestly sanctioning the use of federal facilities for ‘marriage counterfeits’ that federal law and the vast majority of Americans have rejected, the Pentagon has launched a direct assault on the fundamental unit of society – husband and wife.”

(CNSNews.com) – A national group representing more than 2,000 military chaplains from evangelical Christian and Orthodox backgrounds said on Wednesday that the Pentagon has launched a “direct assault” on marriage, and the chaplains they endorse will not be allowed to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies under any circumstances.

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