A Score of Compassion and Jubilance; Touchdown!!!

From Fox News:

"Scoring the team's only touchdown in a 35-6 loss is normally nothing to celebrate. But sometimes the touchdown counts as more than six points on the scoreboard.

In a high-school game in Snohomish, Wash. on Friday, the hometown Snohomish Panthers avoided a shutout in inspirational fashion as junior Ike Ditzenberger -- a 17-year-old with Down syndrome -- scored on a 51-yard touchdown run after entering the game for the first time with just 10 seconds remaining.

Opposing players and coaches of Lake Stevens were apprised of the play beforehand, dubbed "The Ike Special" by his team. According to the The Daily Herald (Everett, Wash.), the play resembles the final snap of each Snohomish practice as his Panthers teammates allow Ditzenberger to score each day. "

It was 45 seconds that was insignificant in the scope of the game, but I am sure led to a flow of tears from his parents and left a big impact on Ike's life and self esteem. Kudo's to the Coach and Opposing Coach for leaving the spartan element of football behind and seeing an opportunity for kindness and love.

We Could All Use a Miracle Right About Now, Couldn't We?

Today I was determined to find good news out there. It seems lately every headline posted at Yahoo or Google is depressing, as our country seems to be more adrift. I was determined to find a story to give everyone a quick Faith shot in the arm. It took quite a bit of searching, but I found such a story that was not even carried by English-speaking media outlets.

As we Americans are very familiar with, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is a horrible disease which gives its recipients very little hope. Sadly, only one in five people who are given this diagnosis live more than 5 five years. 50 percent of them do not make it 3 years.

By 2005, an Italian woman, Antonietta Raco (pictured), was completely paralyzed due to this disease and was resolved that this disease would run its course on her. In August of 2009, her body was completely free of the disease. What happened in between you ask? A pilgrimage to Lourdes, France.

Her prayers at Lourdes were not for self healing. She asked God to take her life in His hands. She asked the Lord to not have her last days mirror a recent highly publicized euthanasia case. She also prayed for a young girl in her village who shared her disease and her fate.

“I felt the presence of someone else [in the healing pool] that held me by the neck; I tried to turn around, but nobody was there. I felt a great pain in the legs, then a relief."

"It was at that moment when I heard to my left, a beautiful female voice, soft, tender, light," she said. “I never heard anything like it; I was relieved by the mere fact that I could actually physically hear her voice." The Woman said, 'Do not be afraid, do not be afraid!”

Upon examining Raco, Dr. Chio, her physician for the past 4 years, was quoted saying, “…from the standpoint of the medical literature, there has never been a case of regression for this disease.” He was surprised and said, "I am left speechless,'" Raco recalled.

I often think of an explanation for miracles that I once heard that resonated with me. The explanation was that a main purpose of a miracle is to remind us all who is really in control and still remains all powerful over science, nature, physics, perceptions, academia and our low-level realities. As humans we become standardized to the ways of the world and trapped in its secular thinking. Miracles drive a bulldozer through this default thinking.

Some links we all could use:

Here is a list of people who were cured at Lourdes. This is the official document, the Catholic Church is the most critical review on any reported cure. Ms. Raco has not been added yet.

Here is a link to get your prayer requests delivered to the Grotto at Lourdes.

Top Baseball Prospect Trades Home Runs for Homilies

Every once is a while a story comes around that separate the Deist's perceptions from secularist's perceptions. This is a great story where most of the worldly-thinking, materialistic masses will think, "What is he thinking???", and those who understand the magnitude and impact of priesthood will think, "He couldn't have made a better $29,000 choice."

"[Grant] Desme, 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, delivered one of the finest statistical seasons in the minor leagues last year, hitting 31 homers with 89 RBI and 40 stolen bases. He was ranked the No. 8 prospect in Oakland's organization by Baseball America, and in November was named Most Valuable Player of the Arizona Fall League, the most prestigious talent showcase for minor leaguers.

But even as his career was beginning to blossom, Desme felt a tug from somewhere other than the diamond. During an injury-plagued 2008 season, in which he missed all but two games because of wrist and shoulder problems, he began reassessing his priorities.

Then Desme, born and raised in a devout Catholic family, said he had a powerful religious experience before last season.

"I had a really strong feel of a calling, a real strong desire to follow it. But I guess in a way I fought it," he said on a media conference call Friday. "As the year went on, God blessed me and I had as good a year as I could have ever imagined. But that almost reconfirmed my desire (to become a priest). I wasn't at peace with where I was at."

Read more on this story here:

Baby Faith: The Beauty, Value and Impact of a Single Life

Multiple, recent polls have shown that the heart of America is changing to the Pro-Life belief. There are many reasons I believe for this, but despite my personal list of reasons, the most predominant one is that the pro-life position is the position of absolute truth, unconditional love and recognizable beauty. Sooner or later, open hearts will find their way to this core belief; many times by the result of being exposed to a "witness of Faith".

Myah Walker, a 23 year-old, Canadian college student, received the news that the baby she was carrying had anencephaly, a condition where her baby had no brain. She followed and documented the beautiful story of this child, baby Faith - aptly named - with her blog:

"When I had my 19-week ultrasound, I remember the look on the radiologist's face (I can't describe that look) and when he asked me if this was my first child, I had a feeling that something was up. He said, "Something is wrong with the baby's head.This doesn't mean that you can't have healthy babies in the future." That is all he would tell me, that there was something wrong with the baby's head…

The doctor told me with tears in her eyes, "What they found is that the baby has no brain." She said that I could choose to continue the pregnancy with no risk to my health, but that my baby would die shortly after birth. Or, I could choose to induce early to terminate the pregnancy.

I was shocked. Just an hour earlier I was watching the ultrasound monitor and I could see her swimming around and sucking her thumb just like a normal baby. She looked perfect to me. I thought, no brain? How is that even possible? I said to the doctor,"Well... she must have some brain," but she just shook her head and said, "No." She assured me that her movements were "only reflexes."

When given the option to either carry her to term or terminate the pregnancy, I immediately told the doctor that I wanted to carry her to term. It was not a decision that I had to think about. For some reason I had to give the doctors my decision over and over again, which was frustrating. One doctor asked, "Can I ask why you want to continue this pregnancy?" I guess some people are baffled by unconditional love."

Myah obviously did carry the baby to term, and, as diagnosed, little Faith went home to God shortly after as Myah blogs:

"The best 93 days of my life were spent with my daughter. Faith went to Heaven today. We spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon snuggling together in my warm bed. I told her that I loved her many times. I was holding her in my arms when she passed away. It was around 4:40 in the afternoon. I had just finished changing her diaper and I decided to pick her up and wrap a blanket around her. She made a very sweet smiling face and held it for several seconds... I thought it was very cute. I waited for her to take her next breath, but she didn't. She looked up at me and opened her beautiful eyes, and I realized what was happening. I told her to go with Jesus. I told her that I loved her and that it was ok, that I would meet her in Heaven. I held her close and cried tears on her face. I felt her chest and there was no longer a heartbeat. But she still looked so beautiful. And even now, she is still so amazingly beautiful... as I hold her here she is looking like a porcelain doll. Her tube feed is gone. Her lips are still pink and her facial expression looks so happy and peaceful. God is good."

God is good, Myah, and so are Pro-life mothers. A priest once told me that while giving "last rights" to a very holy and frail person, their face lit up joyfully precisely at their moment of death. The priest was convinced that this person was seeing the Beatific Vision. Faith's smile at the moment of her passing reminds me of this story.

Any parents who have been through such an experience like this know the heartbreaking tragedy of receiving the sad neonatal news and having to return your baby to God so early in their life. But this tragedy could have been compounded tenfold if little Faith never had the opportunity to feel the embrace or soft kiss of her mother. Little Faith's soul went home to God from the warmth of her mother's arms and was released to Him with Myah's love. Myah did love unconditionally, as she made sure this baby was showered with human love before entering the kingdom of Divine love.

Myah has had 42,000 views of her blog profile since December. This could easily put the unique visitors to her blog in the millions. Multiple millions of people have read and been inspired by this beautiful story of little baby Faith. We must never underestimate the value and impact of an individual life. Even a little one, who was less than perfect and lived for only 93 days. To Myah, her many blog readers and her God, little Faith was definite perfection and her 93 days a more than ample amount of life to be vitally meaningful.

Ht to Creative Minority Report through Waltzing Matilda

Easter's Lesson: Evil's One Mortal Wound

"... Two days later, early in the morning, a converted sinner is found walking in a cemetery — she whose heart had been captured by Him without, as other men had done, laying it waste. She was in search of a tomb and a dead body which she hoped she might anoint with spices. The idea of the Resurrection did not seem to enter her mind — she who herself had risen from a tomb sealed by the seven devils of sin. Finding the tomb empty she broke again into a fountain of tears. No one who weeps ever looks upwards. With her eyes cast down as the brightness of the early sunrise swept over the dew-covered grass, she vaguely perceived someone near her, who asked: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (John 20:15).

Mary, thinking it might have been the gardener said: "Because they have taken away my Lord; and I do not know where they have laid him."

The figure before her spoke only one word, one name, and in a tone so sweet and ineffably tender that it could be the only unforgettable voice of the world; and that one word was: "Mary."

No one could ever say "Mary" as He said it. In that moment she knew Him. Dropping into the Aramaic of her mother’s speech she answered but one word: "Rabboni"! "Master"! And she fell at His feet— she was always there, anointing them at a supper, standing before them at a Cross, and now kneeling before Him in the Glory of an Easter morn.

The Cross had asked the questions; the Resurrection had answered them.

The Cross had asked the question: How far can Power go in the world?. The Resurrection answered: Power ends in its own destruction, for those who slew [their God] lost the day.

The Cross had asked: Why does God permit evil and sin to nail Justice to a tree? The Resurrection answered: That sin, having done its worst, might exhaust itself and thus be overcome by Love that is stronger than either sin or death.

Thus there emerges the Easter lesson that the power of evil and the chaos of any one moment can be defied and conquered, for the basis of our hope is not in any construct of human power, but in the Power of God Who has given to the evil of this earth its one mortal wound — an open tomb, a gaping sepulchre, an empty grave. " -Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Shooting for the Stars: Balloons and Paper Clips

Here is a great story. Four Spanish teenagers put a digital camera on a weather balloon and ended up taking pictures of space. The balloon made it twenty miles up and the whole projected cost the equivalent of about $75.00 US dollars. Now, here is my question. How much do you think it would cost our government to get the same exact picture? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions?

While we are talking about great ideas from young people that inspire, here is one of my favorites. A 26-year old, unemployed man decided to test his barter/trading abilities. He started with an idea of trading a paper clip that he had on his desk and by the time he was finished he traded up to and owned a house.

With these stories, what achievement is not possible?

Why do Catholics Pray to the Blessed Mother Mary?

Many non-Catholic Christians have such difficulty in understanding and accepting why Catholics pray to our Blessed Mother instead of going directly with our needs to Christ.

To facilitate some understanding and shed some insight to non-Catholics, I would like to reference a passage in scripture, specifically the Wedding Feast of Cana.

I always felt if Catholics were asked to rank the 10 most important Scriptural Events (ex: Resurrection, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Beatitudes, Transfiguration, Passion, etc…), this event would most likely be left off their list. It would not be left off mine. This sacred text has so many different levels of importance and reflection. It is the official starting point of Christ’s public ministry. The passage also has strong contemporary and spiritual value in the fact that Christ chose a wedding as the place of his first recorded miracle when considering the tremendous hostility that the sacrament of marriage faces today in our society. With all of this being stated, most importantly it also shows us the way to present a petition to Christ that can not be refused.

As the sacred scripture tells us, the Blessed Mother asked her Son to help with a wine shortage that the embarrassed wedding hosts were experiencing by performing a miracle. Christ replied:

"Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come." (John 2:4)

It is two small sentences… but it tells us everything of the Blessed Mother’s relationship with Christ.

First, the phrase "Woman" used by Jesus to address the Virgin Mother, was a title of respect. Christ did not use the term, "Mother" when addressing her as you would think he might, He elevated her beyond this relationship title (Mother) with an all encompassing title (Woman). It would be similar to calling Tiger Woods, "Golfer", or Michael Jordan "Basketball Player". It was her essence and her perfection.

Biblical scholars also would say this title of "Woman" reflects back to Eve in Genesis. The "Woman" that turned her back on God at the time of creation was now being replaced by a "Woman" who would never disobey or disappoint Him. The "New Eve."

Secondly, in this one line of scripture, Christ’s words validate that Mary had an intimacy with Christ and prior knowledge of His planned ministry. She was His close confidant. Christ is not saying, "Sorry Mom, I have to inform you now…it’s not My time yet to start My ministry yet." He takes the tone, "What does this have to do with Me, Mom… you know My plan... and you know it is not My time."

Catholics give Mary the title, "Co-Redemptress" because of the supporting role she played in Christ’s redemption of the world. She was there every step of the way. Mel Gibson has a very powerful scene in The Passion of the Christ, where, while being tortured, Christ locks eyes with His Mother from a distance and they rise to their feet together, she providing strength for Him to complete His mission. Now this is not based in Scripture, but it is reflective of the relationship they had. What is in Scripture was the support she gave her Son during His Passion. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that when every human word is written and spoken, the saddest of words in human history will be, "There was no room at the inn." In this quote, I propose the saddest event of human history was the Crucifixion, a creation destroying their loving God, and this event could have even been more sorrowful if Christ had died alone by Himself up on Calvary. Like an unloved dog in an alleyway. Mary’s presence prevented this from happening. Our Lady of Perpetual Help (left) is a holy image of Our Blessed Mother that depicts Christ as a young boy having a premonition of His Passion and in fear running into the comfort of His mother’s arms. She served this same purpose though His Passion. She was the loving presence at the foot of the cross that served as a comforting focus point for Him in a sea of hatred and torture. We should never underestimate the eternal gratitude Christ must have towards His Mother.

Finally, getting back to the Wedding Feast scripture and the point of this post, after stating it is not His time to perform a miracle, Christ actually does grant the wish of his Beloved Mother. So there was a historical destiny that was planned out for His all-important ministry that should have taken its course, but a request from The Blessed Mother to Christ changed this historic destiny. It altered human history.

The Marian shrines throughout the world are littered with piles of crutches from people who had an inescapable human destiny of suffering and sickness that was altered by a request from the Virgin Mother on their behalf to Jesus. Christ could not refuse the request because of who was asking it from Him. It was the mother who caressed Him inutero for 9 months. The mother who smothered His face with kisses when He was a baby. The mother who held Him in the middle of the night when He had nightmares as a little boy. The mother who taught Him how to walk and to laugh. The mother who kissed His face as an adult. The mother whose presence was always just a few footsteps behind Him while He was carrying His cross and who sanctified His wake with her tears. The mother whose kind eyes looked up at Him hanging on the cross to meet His blood-dripping, swollen eyes looking down on her sharing in His suffering. The mother who must have given Him a non-ending embrace after the Resurrection for all they had been through together.

This is why Catholics ask the Blessed Mother to intercede for us. It is a realization that Christ would never refuse her anything she requests on our behalf and many times we are in desperate need to change what is our human destiny.

The Jesuit and the Vacuum Cleaner

I have a very holy, great-aunt who is known in our family as "the hotline" for her ability to get her prayers answered. To give you an idea of how powerful her prayers are, she said a novena for my father to meet "a nice girl" many decades ago. My aunt ended her novena for my father on a Tuesday and my parents met the next day.

I would often tap this source of Faith in my family. Whenever I had an urgent prayer request I would enlist her to storm the heavens. When I would check on her progress and jokingly ask her if she was still praying for my request, she would say in her Irish brogue, "My lips are dry!"

One time after checking on her "progress" on a very special prayer petition during my college years, she told me something that to this day has left an impression on me. She said she made a deal with God that if He honored her request she would vacuum Heaven for Him someday. When I heard this I broke a smile, but she was dead serious. There was definitely a Heaven, and it definitely needed vacuuming. Her Faith was so simple and childlike. It was unsophisticated but completely pure and without any sliver of doubt.

Immediately after this conversation with my aunt I headed off to one of my college classes. It was taught by a Jesuit priest whom on that day mentioned that only three words have been documented out of the mouth of Christ. In looking back, I am unsure of what his end game was in telling the class this. Maybe he was trying to get a rise out of the class, or test our Faith, or dilute our Faith. I have known a good amount of Catholics whom have strayed from Rome as the result of Jesuit instruction that adapted the Catechism of the Church to their own intellectual views. Many don’t know this but Jesuits take a fourth vow at their ordination, when regular priests take only three (poverty, chastity and obedience). This extra oath is obedience to the Pope, which makes some of these Jesuits even more difficult to tolerate. All this being said, like any group of people you have your good and your bad. Father Joseph Fessio and Cardinal Avery Dulles are shining examples of Jesuits.

So at the time that this intellectual Jesuit, who never wore a roman collar around campus, threw out this discerning fact to the class I had thoughts of raising my hand and asking him if he thought Heaven needed to be vacuumed. I think I would know what his answer would be, but would have loved to have seen the look on his face and I would side with my great-aunt’s belief first. Hopefully, you can appreciate the contrast in this story. An over-educated Jesuit spreading doubt in his Faith, and a "simple" woman without a high-school diploma believing absolutely in her Faith.

Yesterday, I stopped by my great-aunt’s house. She is going on 94 and has deteriorated considerably. She does not recognize people and does not make eye contact with anyone anymore. She is incoherent with any communication. After staying about 20 minutes and upon leaving I, realizing this could be the last time I see her, gave her a kiss and a hug and told her I loved her. At that moment she shockingly made eye contact with me for the only time during my visit and said, "Please pray for me…", then went back into her world.

Even to the very end, with every human function of her body failing, her Faith remained predominate.

It was a very bittersweet moment that this powerhouse of prayer that I relied on so much over the years for her prayers somehow found the will to ask me to pray for her in her final days. She now relied on my prayers and I owed her many. I think my low-level prayers for her will be steady but short-lived as she will be praying for me again soon in between her vacuuming. The Communion of Saints is a true gift of Catholicism.

Mark 10:15: Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."

God's Master Plan For a Father

I often think that marble statues and painted portraits of saints do them such an extreme disservice. The “porcelain-doll faces” that accompany these works really betray the less-than-perfect, human shortcomings that these saints struggled with daily in theirs lives and had to conquered on the way to their sainthood. For the most part, these works portray these spiritual warriors as immune to all human emotions; somehow having a secret to make their lives easier than ours. There are no hints of tragedy in beautiful oil paintings that have peaceful faces with rose-blushed cheeks. Sculpted marble never conveys fatigue, worry, nor tears.

Specifically to this thought, St. Joseph is always viewed as the quintessential protector and provider in his role to the Holy Family. The fact that this view is widely accepted and requires no reflection does St. Joseph the same disservice.

He holds lilies in his hands to show you how easy it was for him to be pure and a carpenter’s saw to show you how easy it was for him to provide for his family. We never truly realize the difficulties he undertook to end up with these reverent symbols.

For instance, three times (Nazareth, Bethlehem and Egypt) he had to completely uproot his business and risk the means of his livelihood to move for the protection/benefit of his family. He must have felt exhausted each time and that all of his hard work to build a master artisan's reputation within these towns was completely erased as he lead his family out of each town.

I likewise envision that a stranger coming into a close-knit town was not immediately, nor freely, trusted to the point of being supplied work. In the beginning, he must have taken any job offered, remedial in task or beneath his skill level, to feed the Blessed Mother and his Child (sound familiar dads?). It is hard to envision St. Joseph pleading for any available work, saying that he would do anything for food or payment, or... begging for lodging as well...

How many doors do you think St. Joseph knocked on before he settled on lodging his expecting wife with animals? How many doors do you think you would have knock on before this concession? Thirty... Fifty... One Hundred?

I often wonder that in the quiet moments following Christ’s birth, when the Blessed Mother was resting from her labor and the child was sleeping in her arms, did St. Joseph, standing vigilant guard, look at his loved ones co-mingled with the dirty beasts and feel as if he had failed to live up to his role as a provider?

These thoughts do not even consider that these difficulties and frustrations must have been amplified many times over considering he knew the importance of whom he was providing for.

But throughout all his struggles and discouragements his Faith never wavered and he knew God had a master plan for his life; that God relied on him meeting his responsibilities.

If one reflects, the master plan of St. Joseph's life was to give all his efforts to serve as protector of the helpless Christ child so that Jesus would be ready to sacrifice himself with great suffering when the time was right. It is really such a chilling irony that his role was to protect his child so that his child could eventually suffer, but take out St. Joseph's protection a bigger master plan could have be in peril. Herod would have found the child in the "Slaughtering of the Holy Innocents" if not for St. Joseph's action. It was St. Joseph who would act on a dream, saving the Christ child's life so that he could eventually redeem the world.

We can take great insight from understanding this father's master plan. As fathers, our primary goals and efforts in life lie in helping our children achieve God's plans for their lives and help them attain holiness/heaven. Everything else is just a distraction and will not matter a century from now.

So to all you fathers: When the bills are many and the energy is fleeting; when the money is dwindling and the pressures are mounting; when there is a family member who is suffering and you cannot help, pray to the great St. Joseph. Start by heartfully mentioning to him that you are approaching him as one struggling father to another. He, through his experiences, will empathetically feel your hurt and raise your prayers up on your behalf to an Indebted Child that he once protected.

Happy Father's Day!

Saint Joseph was a just man, a tireless worker, the upright guardian of those entrusted to his care. May he always guard, protect and enlighten families. - Pope John Paul II

Even In Death She Kept Her Promise...

This next post is directed for all those lapsed Catholics out there who think joking about nuns with rulers from their past is a socially acceptable way to take shots at our Faith:

This news piece had a teacher in Sichuan, China, reacting to a natural disaster:

“A secondary school teacher has set himself dramatically against the tales of heroism arising from the Sichuan earthquake by describing how he callously abandoned his pupils to their fate.
In an act of moral foolhardiness, Fan Meizhong set out on a blog his guiding principle: in matters of life and death, it's every man for himself.”

This story drew stark contrast for me remembering the story of the famous Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word in Galveston, TX, reacting to their natural disaster:

(Please note all the children mentioned were orphans; that these nuns took in when they had no one and as you will see, cared for them as their own.)

“By nightfall, 150 mile an hour [hurricane] winds howled and the sisters took desperate measures.

They had cut the clothesline down and each sister had about six or eight children tied to her side like mountain climbers. In this way, they had hoped to hold on to the children and lead them to safety.

Their efforts were to no avail. Eventually, the girls dormitory collapsed, dumping 93 children and 10 sisters into the raging waters. Only three boys, who clung to a tree, survived. When the bodies of the others were discovered, many were still tied together.

One of the [surviving] boys remembered a sister tightly holding two small children in her arms, promising not to let go... Two of the sisters [bodies]were found together across the bay on the mainland. One of them was tightly holding two small children in her arms. Even in death she had kept her promise not to let go.”
So the next time someone breaks out a joke about ruler-toting nuns, asked them if they know all the uses for a clothesline.

May these nuns rest in God's mercy, and may God bless all the nuns whose lives center around serving Christ by bringing his love to others.

A Saint Among Us?

While waiting just below an overcast sky in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium for the Papal Mass last April, my scan of the stadium landed directly on a man in a heavy-duty wheelchair sitting just behind the home plate area. I immediately knew who this man was without looking any closer.

On July 12, 1986, New York City police officer, Steven McDonald was shot three times by a fifteen-year-old boy during, what seem to be, a routine stop in Manhattan's Central Park.

One bullet shattered his spine and left Officer McDonald paralyzed from the neck down. It is generally accepted that Steven McDonald is the most seriously injured New York City policeman who ever has survived his injuries in the history of the city's police force.

Det. McDonald has publicly, and in his heart, offered this teenager his personal forgiveness for this cruel act and now spends his time speaking to groups of people advocating a pressing need our society has; a need to embrace forgiveness.

Since this life-altering day, Steven McDonald, residing in Malverne, NY, has become somewhat of a celebrity in the Metro New York area. Here is his uplifting, beautiful story told first-hand and definitely worth your time to read: http://thelife.com/lifestories/endviolence.html

My local news station recently did a special report on Steven McDonald, who leads an annual pilgrimage of disabled children to Lourdes every year.
https://www.news12.com/LIHOME/topstories/article?id=211111

I was very taken back with Det. McDonald's humility and kindness during the special. He lives his Faith under extremely difficult conditions. During this show he said (paraphrasing), "I am not one to quote scripture (his humility), but when Christ raised Lazarus it was told of Lazarus’ death-causing illness: "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." In essence conveying that his immense suffering since this horrible event was all to glorify his God.

To see this man who can not move from the neck down, and is always accompanying by breathing apparatus, verbally frame his suffering in line with the message of Christ's Gospel has truly elevated Det. McDonald to a witness for his Faith.

More admirably, Det. McDonald, from his life in an isolated wheelchair, has been a strong public voice AGAINST embryonic stem cell research, once again serving as a true witness for his Catholic Faith. More importantly, he provided a juxtaposition and neutralized the celebrity appeal of Christopher Reeves who called for bold advancements in this "culture of death" research. Through this, Det. McDonald filled a very critical, and very vital, public void. He, through the moral authority of his wheelchair, said that a solution of destroying some members of the human family to benefit others is morally wrong, and therefore not the answer.

A blog posting does not have sufficient space to write about this great man's inspirational life. But I wanted to convey that the television special on McDonald evoked an emotional response in me when I saw this witness for our Faith.

As Christ told us the Kingdom of God is at hand! With this, I also believe that there are saints "walking" in our midst. I would never dare speak for the Vatican who has the final decision on such matters, nor would I want not to give Det. McDonald his due, but the possibility lends itself to the title of this post.


"Before I was shot I had not been very committed to my faith. The shooting changed that. I feel close to heaven today in a way I never knew before, and it makes me very happy. I know it may be hard to understand, but I would rather be like this and feel the way I do, than go on living like I was before." - S. McDonald

In Honor of the Feast of Corpus Christi

A recent, grieving, Protestant widow in a foreign country saw a Corpus Christi procession outside her window. In her overwhelming grief she wrote to her sister-in-law (Protestant as well), "How happy would we be, [if we] believed what these dear souls believe: that they possess God the Sacrament, and that He remains in their churches and is to them when they are sick! … The other day, in a moment of excessive distress, I fell on my knees without thinking when the Blessed Sacrament passed by, and cried in an agony to God to bless me, if He was there-that my whole soul desired only Him."

The grieving widow was Elizabeth Ann Seton, who later became the first American to be canonized. Faith is a journey.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Pray for us.

A Sacrifice Accepted

Recently, with the many pressures of fatherhood, I have come to the awareness and appreciation of how extremely fortunate I have been to have so many superior role models of Catholic fathers in my life.

There was a very great man, Tom, that I had a good amount of exposure to in my youth because was he heavily involved in the local parish's CYO group and friends with my parents.

What made this man so special was that in 1971 he was shot five times while on duty as a policeman, with one bullet hitting him directly in, and passing through, his neck. It is hard to believe that someone can survive this, or not be a paraplegic. He, through the grace of God, survived this horrible event and began his extremely difficult and painful road back to recovery to try to lead as normal a life as possible. He had three small children, one just born, who needed him.

I remember in early grade school seeing Tom at my sporting events, on the sideline, spinning a football with his fingertips then catching it while standing still. Being so young I did not realize his difficulties, but did realize that it was strange that he was never able to turn his head without his shoulders moving in lockstep as well.

Many years later in 2003, one of the nicest surprises on my wedding day was to see Tom and his wife in a pew next to a side door in our church. He had deteriorated quiet a lot and it was no small task for his wife to assist him in moving from his parked car to the pew. I sat down in the pew in front of him and reached for his hand, giving him a soft handshake. I could not make out anything that he said to me, but gave him a smile and pat on the shoulder to show my appreciation he came. His wife apologized to me for not being able to make the reception because of her husband's condition, and he was not doing well.

This man had daily suffering in his life, suffering that would have turned many against God.

His faith was a core aspect to his life, and I have absolutely no doubt that his suffering was offered up daily to Christ.

Upon his passing, countless friends and family came to pay their respect to this great man. The priest presiding at his funeral Mass made the trip in from Pennsylvania. It was proper that this priest was to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass in Tom's memory, because this priest knew Tom well and witnessed his sacrifices over many, many years.

Tom would not have any other priest say his funeral because this priest was very close his heart. It was his oldest and only son, Thomas Jr. It is moving that his son offered the the same sacrifice that was at Calvary, to memorialize his father's personal sacrifice and his Calvary.

I can't help but believe that his many years of suffering and sacrifice yielded a blessing worthy of the challenges and pain he went through. A son who had the powers of consecration and to save souls. God never gives a cross without a Grace.