7 Quick Takes Friday

1)  Please pray for my daughter-in-law, whose father has terminal cancer.  She is pregnant with her first child and is going to name the baby after him. It breaks my heart that she has to go through this at all, much less at such a young age and when she is becoming a mother.

Our Lady of Sorrows, watch over her.

2)  I've been struggling with feelings of depression and burn-out.  I'm going to be looking for a local NAMI group to join.  I wish there were a CHADD group nearby.

3)  Yesterday was the feast of St. Benedict.  I am especially attracted to his idea of stability.  Life isn't always smooth sailing, in spite of promises by some televangelists and advertisers.  Stability is one of the cornerstones of love. It is what makes us stick by someone through think and through thin.

4) I've been doing some preliminary research on ADD and it is amazing what I'm finding.  Factors that may contribute to causality include premature birth and maternal smoking, both of which apply to me (and my mother respectively) Along with distractability, ADD symptoms can include impulsivity (which, if involving food, can lead to weight gain) and slow processing.  So much is making sense.

5)  The pastor where I go to daily Mass often preaches on the importance of focusing  more on living out our Christian lives and less on the outward "trappings" of Christianity and Catholicism. This is hitting me where I live right now.  I think, if a person or group's focus is too much on outward signs of piety, it can lead to a kind of "shunning" (either overt or covert) of those perceived to be on the "outside" of the group.  We need to keep a close watch on ourselves if we find ourselves thinking that someone is not a "true" Catholic just because they don't happen to have a particular devotion that we favor.  I don't think approved devotions should be suppressed, but, in my opinion too much "official" focus on them can lead to marginalization of parishioners whose spirituality does not include those particular devotions.

6)  In spite of my support for getting rid of the HHS mandate (or putting in place a *real* conscience clause), I *am* in favor of universal health care in one form or another.  I think many Catholics are cutting off their noses to spite their faces when they tow the Republican Party line insisting that people without healthcare are lazy and evil.  We are morally obligated, as a society, I think, (and the bishops do too) to make sure everyone is cared for.  We need to stop the partisan politics and start caring for each other.  If we are innately suspicious of the Church's teachings on social justice, we are not in line with the Church.

7)  I really think that focus away from active love is what is killing our parishes and our faith. We need to not only set a good example of what Christians are, but we need to literally do what Jesus did--help, love and heal others.   We need to be counter-cultural, and right now kindness is the most counter-cultural thing we can do as Christians.

On Voting, the Government and Catholic Church Teaching

This blog is, admittedly, not one where you will read long intellectual treatises, but from time to time, I will put my thoughts "on paper" so to speak.  With the 2012 political race heating up, I've been doing a bit of research on voting and Catholicism and I've come to one conclusion above all other:  Neither the Democratic nor the Republican party embody Church teaching on social justice issues.  Hanging desperately onto either party does no good for the future of our country and does NOT in any way guarantee that one's vote will be in line with the teachings of the Church.

For example, there are those who bristle at the mention of voting with an eye towards social justice issues, seeing them as tied to abortion advocacy. Just because a majority of social justice advocates may be pro-abortion, doesn't automatically make social justice anti-Catholic as some try to claim.  In fact, the Church wants us to have a complete ethic of life, which includes being against abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia and for such things as fair and livable wages and the right to basic health care.

It is the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States who are putting these issues in separate boxes and forcing apart what could be one of the biggest voting blocks in the country. If we as Catholics had candidates who would truly be for the common good, imagine what could be done!

The common good is the very purpose of the existence of government.  I have become convinced that government, as it stands today, has gone far beyond the common good and into the good of those in power.

This income chart from Vox Nova shows, as their accompanied article implies, "the problem" with today's economy.  The top 1% of  earners in the country have seen a 261% increase in income from 1980-2007 compared to a paltry 15-55% increase for the rest.  (Notice that the 55% increase is for the top 20% and the 15% is seen in the bottom 20%.)   Think things were always this bad?  The graph on the left shows that income increases were stable across all groups from the end of World War II until 1979.

That does not bode well for our future, or for the future of the so-called "free world."  Those in power still give lip-service to ideals such as "freedom" and "democracy" while concentrating decreasing financial resources in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

This is the stuff of which revolutions are made, something which is beginning to be seen in the various OccupyWallStreet protests, which have now begun to spread around the country.  You will read and hear, by the way, that these protesters are disaffected youth, immoral, and perhaps violent.  Perhaps that is true of some.  But that still does not in any way prove that the protest themselves or the impetus behind them are not philosophically sound.

Free the Slaves--Today

Slavery still exists.

People are held against their will and forced to do work for no pay even in the United States.

The cost to free a slave is well within most people's budgets.

• $92 will free a child from slavery in Ghana.
• $14 will buy that child school books, a uniform and book bag to attend school for a YEAR.
• $174 will allow that child's family to start a business and become self supporting and prevent re-enslavement.

For more information on modern day slavery and how you can help, go to FreeTheSlaves.net.