For your listening pleasure (and education)

Great site for free Catholic MP3 downloads: CatholicIpod.

From the back seat

What I heard coming from the backseat in song the other day:

"There's no God like Joe! There's no God like Joe!"

Now, you may be wondering who "Joe" is. He would be a three-year-old's version of Jehovah.

Burnout

I've been feeling pretty stressed lately - actually for awhile. Mostly around where to live and how to move (i.e. the housing market isn't great for sellers), job situation (or perhaps career), and general stresses. Burnout? Probably. Jennifer at Conversion Diary does a great job of explaining what it is and offers some great suggestions.

Catholicism 101

St. Mary's Catholic Center at Texas A&M offers a three year non-credit Catholic theology program for Aggies. Catholicism 101 is the first semester, and the first three classes with notes are online. How fabulous that this kind of program is offered and on a secular campus!

Noteworthy statistic on their site: out of the 44,000 students at Texas A&M, 25% are Catholic.

Little One's first confession

Well, not really since she is only 3. However, she did insist quite vocally that she wanted to go with me a few weeks ago. I explained that she had to be very quiet and that we would most likely have to wait in line (which is good since it means that there is a line to wait in).

So, off we went to church on a Saturday afternoon. Little did the others in line know that they would get minor entertainment while waiting their turn to enter the confessional.

And little did the priest know that he would be blessed with three-year-old advice. Something like:

Father: "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
Little One: "Mommy, say the 'Glory Be'." (I'm convinced she likes this prayer because it is short.)
Me: "Maybe later dear."

And this is what I remember for my penance: "Read and meditate on the Beatitudes. And then say one ..." Uh, oh, is that bad that I forgot which prayer he wanted me to say? I tried to compensate by saying one each Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.

You Shall Believe

Last week, I went with a dear friend to a talk entitled "You Shall Believe". Excellent! (Although the timing of the event did nothing for my s-l-o-w transformation into a morning person.)

Two gentlemen from Australia, Ron Tesoriero and investigative reporter Mike Willesee, spoke about their investigation and documentation of several miraculous events such as a weeping statue, a communion host changing to flesh, and a woman in Bolivia with the stigmata. The interesting angle is that they use science to prove the validity of these miracles.

I have not read it yet, but I did pick up a copy of their book Reason to Believe.

You can see a short video on Eucharistic miracles and a longer excerpt from a Fox broadcast on stigmata by visiting their site.

Healthcare in the UK

Posted on EWTN today, an example of how healthcare fails in the UK: Infant Left Untreated Because of U.K. Health Rules.

Doctors in England ignored a mother’s pleas for help and left her extremely premature baby to die because he was born two days before a hospital guidelines’ recommended cutoff age for providing medical treatment.