O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee, Thou noble countenance,
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee and flee before Thy glance.
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!

Now from Thy cheeks has vanished their color once so fair;
From Thy red lips is banished the splendor that was there.
Grim death, with cruel rigor, hath robbed Thee of Thy life;
Thus Thou hast lost Thy vigor, Thy strength in this sad strife.

My burden in Thy Passion, Lord, Thou hast borne for me,
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on Thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot;
Have mercy, I implore Thee; Redeemer, spurn me not!

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

My Shepherd, now receive me; my Guardian, own me Thine.
Great blessings Thou didst give me, O source of gifts divine.
Thy lips have often fed me with words of truth and love;
Thy Spirit oft hath led me to heavenly joys above.

Here I will stand beside Thee, from Thee I will not part;
O Savior, do not chide me! When breaks Thy loving heart,
When soul and body languish in death’s cold, cruel grasp,
Then, in Thy deepest anguish, Thee in mine arms I’ll clasp.

The joy can never be spoken, above all joys beside,
When in Thy body broken I thus with safety hide.
O Lord of Life, desiring Thy glory now to see,
Beside Thy cross expiring, I’d breathe my soul to Thee.

My Savior, be Thou near me when death is at my door;
Then let Thy presence cheer me, forsake me nevermore!
When soul and body languish, oh, leave me not alone,
But take away mine anguish by virtue of Thine own!

Be Thou my consolation, my shield when I must die;
Remind me of Thy passion when my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee, upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfolds Thee. Who dieth thus dies well.

Thursday morning (Feb 4th), I will be in the Chambers of the Michigan State Senate to deliver the Invocation. It's at 10 a.m. , a few people might want to watch the short prayer live on line. Here is the link:   Click Here

A few years ago I delivered the Opening Prayer at the United States Senate.  Here is the link to the Congressional Record of that day.

Please keep my trip to Lansing in your prayers I'm going up today for various appointments.

Father Richard

Liberal or Conservative?  Enjoy a little insight from this Bird Brain.

Click for Article

On September 9, 2008, Frank Turek debated atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything, at Virginia Commonwealth University. The topic was, “Does God Exist?”

"Hitchens was his usual charming and witty self (I really like him and said as much), but he did not answer any of the eight arguments that I presented for the existence of God.  Many in the audience acknowledged that he dodged nearly all of my questions. Watch the video and decide for yourself which arguments were strongest. Then read comments in the CrossExamined.org blog from a variety of viewers who wanted to weigh in with their opinions and arguments."   -  Frank Turek

Frank Turek, co-author of "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist," and Christopher Hitchens, author of "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," met at VCU in Richmond, VA to debate the subject, "Does God Exist?"

CrossExamined Website

SAINTS PETER AND PAUL CHURCH - STAINED GLASS - 64, originally uploaded by JERRY DOUGHERTY'S CONNECTICUT - TWO.

When we first meet Paul in the Book of Acts (7:58-8:1) it is as Saul; and later, Acts 13:9 describes him as “Saul, who is also called Paul.” As a Jew he bore the name of Israel’s first king (1 Samuel 9:2, 17); but as a free citizen of the Empire, he also bore a Roman name. Many Jews of this period in history had two names, one Semitic and the other Greek or Roman. A child of the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1; Philippians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 11:22), Paul proudly identified himself as an “Israelite” and a “Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5) “extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” who excelled his peers “in Judaism” (Galatians 1:14). But he was also proud to be “a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city” (Acts 21:39). Tarsus was a Hellenized city, famous for its university, gymnasium, theatre, art school and gymnasium. It became the capital of the province of Cilicia during Pompey’s reorganization of Roman Asia Minor in 66 BC. Later on, Mark Antony – famous as Cleopatra’s lover – granted freedom and Roman citizenship to the people of Tarsus. In an age when most of the people living within the boundaries of the Pax Romana were slaves, Paul was born a free citizen of the Empire.

St. Paul was “educated strictly according to the law of our fathers” at the rabbinical school conducted in Jerusalem by the great rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Gamaliel was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, “a teacher of the law respected by all the people” (Acts 5:34). Although Gamaliel is depicted in the New Testament as lenient towards Christians (Acts 5:33-39), his disciple Saul was active in the earliest persecutions of Christianity and attended the stoning of St. Stephen the deacon and first Christian martyr (Acts 7:58). Paul “persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women” (Acts 22:4).
CONVERSION

Intent on exterminating the new faith, Paul sought to travel to Damascus to undertake the persecution of Christians there. It was during his trip from Jerusalem to Damascus in Syria that his life would take a crucial turn when he encountered the risen Jesus in a searing vision of light that left him temporarily blind. This experience was revolutionary, engendering a complete transformation and redirection of his life. As a result of this “revelation” (Galatians 1:12), Saul, the bloodthirsty persecutor of Christianity converted to the faith he once hated, was baptized by Ananias and received into the Church of Damascus, the very community he had set out to suppress (Acts 9:10-31). From this moment on, he became a “slave of Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:1) and in that slavery discovered “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Luke recounts this Damascus experience three times in the Book of Acts: once in the narrative, Acts 9:3-19; and twice, in speeches, before a crowd in Jerusalem (22:6-16) and before Festus and King Agrippa (26:12-18).

“Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,

went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of

Damascus, so that if he found any that belonged to the Way,

men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”

“While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon, I saw

a great light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that suddenly shone

around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground,

I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,

‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’

I answered, asking, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

But get up and stand on your feet!

I have appeared to you for this purpose:

to appoint you to serve and testify to the things you have seen.

I will rescue you from your people and the Gentiles – to whom I am sending you,

to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light

and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of their sins

and a place among those who are being made holy by faith in Me.”

This vision of the glory of God - what later theologians and saints will call the uncreated light - is the call by which Paul becomes the Apostle to the Gentiles, the greatest missionary in the history of Christianity. It is through his missionary efforts that Christianity, originally a sect of Judaism, becomes a world religion.

Source Link

The Anointing at Bethany, originally uploaded by Loci Lenar.

Scripture - John 12:1-3

Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised from the dead. They gave dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.

The stained glass window was photographed inside Our Lady of the Lake Church. The Catholic Church is located in Sparta, NJ, USA.

Photograph Copyright 2009 Loci B. Lenar
www.christian-miracles.com

Audio Interview to Listen to:

Father Richard John Neuhaus defends Mike Behe against Richard Dawkins and the NYT

First Things September 2007
You usually know that somebody is losing the argument when he loses his cool and resorts to bluster, abuse, caricature, and the invocation of authorities who agree with him. The New York Times Book Review, for reasons that surpass charitable explanation, gave Michael Behe’s most recent book, The Edge of Evolution: The
Search for the Limits of Darwinism, to Richard Dawkins for review.

Behe is a biochemist, author of Darwin’s Black Box, and a proponent of Intelligent Design.  Dawkins is an atheist polemicist against religion, holds the ill-named Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and is author of The God Delusion.

Dawkins begins by saying he feels “sorry” for Behe, whom he describes as the “poster boy of creationists everywhere.” Never mind that Behe is not a “creationist.”  No less than three times in the review, Dawkins alludes to the fact that Behe’s colleagues in his university’s biology department have publicly distanced themselves from his position. The other biologists at Lehigh University disagree with Behe. It follows that he must be a nut. Further, “Behe is taking on Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Richard Lewontin, John Maynard Smith, and hundreds of their talented coworkers and intellectual descendents.” This is what is known as argument from authority. Just who does this Behe guy, “the disowned biochemist of Lehigh University,” think he is to disagree with the scientific establishment? Doesn’t he know that science progresses by conformity to conventional opinion, as Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin (!) have taught us.

Dawkins’ clinching argument against Behe’s claims about the limits of natural mutation is that different kinds of dogs have descended from the wolf. Dawkins writes, “As I incredulously close this book, I seem to hear mocking barks and deep baying howls of derision from 500 breeds of dogs.” What the reader hears is the mocking barks and baying howls of Richard Dawkins. He says that Behe thinks that God is somehow involved in the evolutionary process, and the author of The God Delusion knows that that is madness.

All this raises interesting questions about the Book Review, which publicly claims to take care that a reviewer has no conflict of interest that would get in the way of a fair treatment of a book. For instance, is the author your brother-in-law? Apparently it doesn’t matter if a prospective reviewer has publicly and repeatedly heaped contempt on an author and his arguments. This magazine has a different review policy. We will on occasion choose a reviewer who is known to disagree, and disagree strongly, with an author. The purpose is to engage the argument and explain why it is wrong, with the author having a chance to respond. As the editors of the Book Review must know, Dawkins cannot engage Behe’s argument. It is not simply that he is not a biochemist. He is in principle disqualified because he is a militant atheist committed to a position of scientific materialism in which any reference to transcendent purpose or design is deemed to be delusional, meaning it is the product of a mental disorder.

It is hard to know what purpose is served by the Book Review in having Dawkins review Behe, except, possibly, to ostracize anyone who presumes to raise questions about prevailing Darwinist orthodoxies and, perhaps, to pander to the smug prejudices of the presumed readership of the Times. That does not instill confidence in the Darwinist materialism that they are so desperately defending.

FIRST THINGS

Come Join Us at a Benefit Concert
for Grace Centers of Hope

with singer/songwriters
Sarah & Theresa Dalton, performing individually and together

Saturday - Jan 30th at 7:00 p.m.

at Church of the Holy Redeemer
3050 Grant Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48309

free admission - a freewill offering will be received
for Grace Centers of Hope (concert will end around 9 p.m.)

Websites:

SarahDalton.com

GraceCentersOfHope.org

TheresaDalton.com

An Evening of Uplifting Music for a Worthy Cause

Print Four Post Cards to Share With Others

MAP:

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Suffer little children to come unto me.., originally uploaded by Broomwicks.

Jesus Loves the Little Children.

Please pray for Zion Crotteau from Lapeer, Michigan now at Children's Hospital in Detroit. Also keep Louie and Trisha Crotteau in your prayers. Here is a picture of Zion yesterday the 14th. Below is a description of some of the medical condition from Kathleen Crotteau's facebook account.

The doctors have found the cause of Zion's heart abnormality. His lung pressure did not decrease after he was born. His blood and lung pressure are the same. The over abundant pressure from his lungs are producing is overworking his heart and has enlarged the right side. He is on medicine to lower the pressure. Low…ering the pressure is what will keep him going.

After the pressure is released they will be able to do the other corrective surgery on his heart… putting the stint in to replace one of the flaps missing from his valve, plugging the hole in his heart and fixing the kink in his aorta.

(A window in the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Dunsfold.)