Don’t forget – the kickoff rally for 40 Days for Life is tomorrow, Tues., Sept. 23 at 6:30 in front of the Planned Parenthood on Pennacook Street (off of Elm Street) in Manchester. It is only through prayer and our faithful witness that we can turn the tide of this war of evil and help to bring about a culture of life throughout New Hampshire, throughout this country, and throughout this world. I hope to see you there!
Today we pray for Rev. Andre M. Thibodeau and Rev. Richard B. Thompson.
Fr. Thibodeau was ordained in 1971 and is now retired, having last served as pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Hillsborough.
Fr. Thompson was ordained in 1969 and is currently the Secretary for Ministry Formation for the Diocese.
We are forever grateful for their many years of service.
May Mary draw them ever closer to her Son, and may they always find inspiration in the life and works of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of diocesan priests.
If more orders and indeed dioceses explained their role and goal with the combination of beauty and simplicity this video shows I cannot begin to imagine how many more vocations we would see. Yet again we see that those orders and dioceses who cling most closely to their original charism and the teachings of the Church are growing and thriving. H/T to Roman Catholic Vocations.
In a word … finally! I’ve been hoping someone at the right level would decide to get this Diocese involved in the 40 Days for Life movement and it appears that it has finally happened. There will be a kickoff rally outside the Manchester Planned Parenthood this coming Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 6:30 PM and then prayerful witness outside the building from 7AM to 7PM from Sept. 24 to Nov. 2.
How can you help? First, come to the kickoff meeting if you can. At least as important as that, however, is to sign up for a slot to spend an hour in prayerful witness in front of the Planned Parenthood abortuary. (If I’m not mistaken, this is another PP building where they lied on their zoning application and the local government eventually decided to let them get away with it. Evil has no shame.) If you can’t manage any time in that schedule, and that happens, then I only ask you to do whatever you can to help out the cause of the most innocent of lives – pray, fast, do pennance, any or all of the above. Parishes in the area will have signup sheets available this weekend so we can sign up for both time slots for witness and to offer any other thing we can offer. There is also a signup form on the 40 Days for Life site here – how this will be coordinated with those forms collected at parishes I don’t yet know but I’m sure that’s been planned out.
More information is available at the 40 Days for Life site, at New Hampshire Right to Life and in this PDF that has been circulated in bulletins recently. Whatever you do, however you can help, please do it. This could be the beginning of the end for Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire and the beginning of a beautiful new era of life in this state.
Having a very low resistance to gadgetry I’ve added the Followers gadget to the blog. If you like anything I’ve written here and are willing to admit it, feel free to add yourself – if you don’t want others to know you read this blog you can do so privately even. No prizes for signing up, no bling, no money.
You mean you didn’t know already? What size rock is that you’ve been hiding under? I suppose I should just be nice and say “tolle, lege“. Even more than that, watch the videos, and donate if you can.
Reading this post by Jeffrey Tucker at NLM made me wonder for just a second if maybe he wasn’t probing around in the small amount of gray matter still under active use in between my ears. Now, to be honest, the music at my parish is nowhere near as bad as that which many are forced to endure Sunday after Sunday – in fact it is generally well-sung and the selections are occasionally even quite good.
What I find missing, and which Jeffrey alluded to in his Second Great Catholic Radio 2.0 Liturgy Debate, is any linkage at all between the liturgy we are experiencing and the music. We’ve gone from music that was created for Mass to music that occasionally sounds good at Mass – from a unified whole pointing to the unity of both Creator and Church to an amalgam which speaks more of the community as a collection of dispersed talents. I want to be very clear on this so no one thinks I’m just complaining – the songs are almost always performed very well and I have yet to hear a single song that outright does not belong in Mass. At the same time there is a great opportunity to use that music for everything great music can do – spiritual uplift, catechesis, etc. To put it another way, it’s okay as it is, but it could do so much more.
Perhaps the one difference I have with Jeffrey (besides not knowing a fraction of what he does when it comes to both liturgy and music) is that I haven’t the slightest hint of musical skill. As the saying goes, I couldn’t hold a note with a bucket. He, and all true musicians, can speak to the situation of liturgical music “from the inside” as it were, whereas I can only look at it and say “it seems odd” or “it seems right”. Perhaps I am too picky. Perhaps I am one of those who will never be satisfied. Or perhaps I’ve, through a combination of luck and persistence, sniffed out one truth from a pile of assorted options. Which that is, I’ll be honest and say I don’t really know.
With a hat tip to Happy Catholic. I’m not at all surprised by the result, particularly not by how close my two high scores are. Maybe St. Ignatius and I have more in common than I’d thought before.
Your result for The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test…
The Lord
You scored 11% Cardinal, 59% Monk, 41% Lady, and 65% Knight!
You are of the intellectual breed and yet you are also very interested in war. You are of the aristocracy and head the cavalry a safe distance from the carnage of the front lines. You believe in defeating your enemy with not only might, but also wit.
You scored high as both the Monk and the Knight. You can try again to get a more precise description of either the Monk or the Knight, or you can be happy that you’re an individual.
I never knew I was such an emotional wreck. This time the fault is all that of Diane at Te Deum Laudamus.
It certainly ties together the great feast of yesterday and the memorial of today in the only way possible. Mary always leads us to Christ, and Christ always leads us to the Father through His Cross. Te Deum Laudamus, indeed!
As we all know, coffee is very bad for keyboards. Particularly when applied nasally. Fr. Zehnle, I’ll be sending you a bill!
