Colleen McCarron's awesome song

Theology of the body, what? Congrats to this gal and her fiance! Hopefully she won't be too busy to make an appearance at my school around Prom time :)

For the non-clickers

Here's an audience view of the awesome kids:

930 Club

Coolest thing:

My housemate Anne Marie works at Brookewood. She was at the music store up the street and someone there asked if she could get a children's choir together to perform with Guster at the 930 club.

So check out this link to see the coolest kids from Brookewood performing with Guster. (It's the 2nd video on the page)
Guster tour

I heart U2

I went to their amazing concert last week, and the priest who drove us introduced me to this version of one of my favorites.....
love them.

Another reason I love DC

You can go to a gallery and see something beautiful like this statue at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

For wretches!

I've just discovered that the talks given by Fr. Kim Schreck at a retreat I went on are posted online: St Paul and the Heart of Christ.

I highly recommend them, especially for young women since it was given for us!

That's just weird

I found a CD with files from 2007- including the wretch database. I went about updating it really simply and discovered something which I think can't be right but might be; there's an even split between states of life: 10 religious and 10 married.

How can we get a real update??? What are the odds of such evenness?? There are 89 women on the list, some of whom I don't even know/ have never met/ don't have their last name. ha. And I totally forgot some of your names.

PS- I included in that count the wretch leaving us in September for the sisters of life... hope y'all got that happy email!

Interesting

The fact that the Pope isn't jumping on the Internet makes me very happy, not unhappy as some react (see Whispers for a somewhat disgruntled take on it)

This is not unrelated to my previous post. I would disagree that the Successor of Peter should be spending time in front of a computer screen or text messaging or whatever. Perhaps instead of seeing this as "yet another Vatican media blunder" we should see it as the Pope saying something. There's no argument from silence, of course, but he has said enough by way of caution that we could read a bit into it. From the World Day of Communications:

"It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," he stated. "If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development."


The irony of my posting this on a blog is not lost on me. I'm heading out to the world again now :)

Put it down...

For a nice explanation of how I feel about cell phones, check out this video pointing out the ways that they are used. (My objection is not centered on that, but it is certainly evidence of a problem.)

We've all been in situations when someone opts out of whatever's going on, especially if there's awkwardness, to make a phone call or text someone. I've certainly done it a few times only to kick myself afterward. But what this guy says about it is right on and definitely how I feel if someone texts or calls another while we're hanging out-- "Anything coming out of this device is more important than you." Often I think it's just out of ignorance or lack of reflection; they don't mean to be rude. But.

Along these same lines, I have a certain amount of respect and love for those people who I know will almost never answer their phone or get to responding to an email right away. These facts seem to be serious affronts to a lot of people who've bought into this availability thing--"You are available to me at any time"-- but because I know that's not true- nor should it be- I see the so-called lack of communication as a sign that they are really being present where they are. (Which incidentally means that when I'm with them, I, too, get their full attention.) Seems a much more human way to be.

"Embryo adoption"

This article by Janet Smith on so-called embryo adoption, reveals serious problems in the argument for this 'compassionate solution' which does not take the body seriously enough.

Smith’s assertion that gestating a child not conceived with one’s spouse does not break the marital bond reduces the bond of marriage to one of will alone. If both spouses agree to “adopt” this embryo, Smith seems to suggest, then there’s nothing wrong with it. But when a man and a woman marry, the marital act that joins the two in one flesh is not simply a means to an end (either babies or unity) but one that expresses the truth of who they are now: given to one another. In this way, the entire process of the conception and gestation of a new life is a continuation of this expression of the love of husband and wife. It is only because her husband loves and has given himself to his wife that she can become a mother. One does not marry motherhood or fatherhood, but a person who may become one or the other, if God wills it.

Certainly if life begins at conception, it continues without interruption in gestation and should be respected and allowed to mature in this context of love. I am shocked that Smith would suggest that “some forms of ‘surrogacy’ be permissible” when the Church has uniformly spoken against it (see Donum Vitae 3 for a very clear explanation of why) and Dignitas Personae is clear about this, saying it is not licit “in any form”(19).

Clearly the process of “embryo adoption” removes not only the man completely but also the woman from the generation of this new life. Regardless of intention, the woman’s body is being used as the means to an (admittedly desirable) end.

I will just echo the words of Dignitas Personae, which deal with this question specifically and Smith never quotes in her article, “All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved”(19). Regardless of the technology that is made available, the basic principles outlined again and again by the Church reiterate that sex and procreation may not be separated. Not for any reason, however noble.

Well said

A letter from Fr. Carron (leader of Communion and Liberation) called A Mercy Challenging Us about the Pope's letter to the bishops about all this excommunication business.

Earth and Moon reunited

I was excited to visit with Sr. Beatrice this past weekend. She is doing quite well and she's quite goofy; more herself, I think, than I've ever seen her. Yay! This fun will hopefully be repeated in July for Sr. Anna's final profession of vows.