ContactMusic: Stone Advocates Oral Sex
Actress SHARON STONE is adamant teenagers should be prepared to engage in oral sex, if it saves from them the dangers of unprotected penetrative sex.
Ummm...Sharon? I don't know how to say this...but you really should buy a dictionary (sorry) and try to look up the definition of "penetrate"...
It is now official, kiddies. We are no longer allowed to laugh at the pictures of savages with bones in their noses or plates in their lips.
The hip-hop culture is sinking its teeth into a new fashion trend. Individual gold-capped teeth have given way to grills and fronts — removable mouthpieces made of gold, platinum or silver and sometimes studded with jewels.
The trend has been boosted by hip-hop icons such as Nelly and rappers like Paul Wall.
After Nelly's 2005 hit "Grillz," which glorifies the trend, young people all over scrambled to wrap their chops around a shiny grill.
Jacob Owens, a 17-year-old South High School student, snagged a diamond-studded silver grill a couple of months ago for $200.
"Everybody is getting grills," Owens said while hanging out at the food court at Tower City. He chose silver to set himself apart.
Owens sheds his grill to eat and at bedtime, but wears it for hours at a time to match his earrings.
The mouthpieces are made from dental imprints and many are purchased online. But they are sold at local outlets too, like Wired Up at Tower City.
Jeremy McGrew, manager at the Wired Up kiosk, said business has been booming since the release of "Grillz."
Generally, tooth imprints are made and sent to a jeweler who fashions the fronts and returns them to the client or retailer where the items were purchased.
The flashy mouth jewelry has caught the attention and concern of the American Dental Association.
Matthew Messina, a Fairview Park dentist and ADA spokesman, said improper use and care of fronts can result in serious gum disease or cavities.
Messina has no problem with the aesthetic aspect of a grill, but he warns of problems down the road if they are not kept clean or if they are bonded to natural teeth.
Snap-on grills do not fit particularly well in and around the teeth, he said, allowing food and bacteria to get trapped underneath, which can cause cavities or other problems like gum disease or gum recession.
Other dangers include allergic reactions to cheap metals and adverse reactions to jewelry cleaners, which can burn gums, Messina said.
"The really wealthy who have them made of high-quality precious metals, you will have less allergic reaction," Messina said. "Someone going more of a cut-rate route, where they are using lesser metals, we see a lot more metal-allergic reaction to more-base metals."
Messina said some vendors may be unaware that in some states — Ohio included — taking an impression of someone's mouth is considered dentistry, which requires a license.
Today is the Feast of St. Vincent Ferrer, a priest, teacher, missionary, and the patron of builders. He also worked to end the great schism of the 14th century. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.
Today's reading for the Feast of St. Vincent Ferrer is 2 Timothy 4:1-5.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 40:2, 4, 7-9, 10-11.
Today's Gospel reading is Luke 12:35-40.
[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]
Everyday links:
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.
Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire
Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)
Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
First up is the noted inventor who, once upon a time, was also King Goober II's dauphin.
"George W. Bush as Neville Chamberlain?
"That's the comparison Al Gore makes in Vanity Fair's environmentally correct 'Green Issue.'" New York Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove writes.
"The former veep -- President Bush's 2000 election opponent -- keeps insisting that he has no intention of running again for the White House.
"But that hasn't stopped him from writing a gasket-blowing polemic arguing that by refusing to face up to the threat of global warming, Bush is just like the disgraced British prime minister who appeased the Nazis before World War II," the columnist said.
"'Where there is no vision, the people perish,' Gore writes, quoting the Bible to bash Bush.
"Warning that Bush and the Republican Congress have displayed 'a blinding lack of awareness' about 'the worst catastrophe in the history of human civilization' -- global warming -- Gore also blames the incumbent for ignoring the threat of 9/11.
"Bush 'was warned on Aug. 6, 2001, of an attack by al Qaeda. "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," said the intelligence community in a message so important that it was the headline of the president's daily briefing that day, five weeks before the attacks,' Gore seethes.
"'Didn't he see that clear warning?' asks Gore. 'Why were no questions asked, meetings called, evidence marshaled, clarifications sought?'
"As for Bush's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, 'Once again an urgent warning was ignored. The videotapes of one session make clear that the president heard the warnings but, again, asked not a single question.'
"Americans are finally acknowledging 'that Katrina, as horrible as it was, may have been the first sip of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us over and over again,' Gore rants.
"It's not easy being green."
Or nuts, for that matter.
Next we have the Democrasses' token token, Senator Barack "Roseanne Roseannadanna" Obama.
He accused President Bush of a "stubborn refusal" to attack the causes of climate change, and said tougher fuel standards, stricter curbs on oil imports and more investment in cleaner energy are essential to avert global catastrophe.
"Saying that America is addicted to oil without following a real plan for energy independence is like admitting alcoholism and then skipping out on the 12-step program," said Mr. Obama in a reference to one of the principal themes of Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.
Hoohoo! What an orator! He better have Jesse Jackson teach him how to rhyme if he wants to succeed Queen Hitlery in 2016.
Finally, we have Time magazine (Ha! I thought Nixon had them exterminated decades ago.) and ABC (Obviously the winners in the Katie Couric derby .) News. (Yeah, I know. It's ironic, that use of the word "news" and all, but that's what they call themselves. Honestly, they do. Stop laughing. I'm not making this up.)
"Hello, global warming. Goodbye, journalistic ethics," Amy Menefee and Dan Gainor write at www.freemarketproject.org.
"The new Time magazine/ABC News poll showed about two-thirds of Americans still believe there's a debate about global warming, despite the media's best efforts to convince them otherwise. Americans now face an onslaught of one-sided global warming coverage that downplays or even derides critics and skeptics," the writers said.
"'It's no longer a controversy. Science tells us it's a fact. The new issue of Time magazine tells us to worry,' proclaimed ABC's Terry Moran on the March 27 'Nightline.'
"Time devoted 24 full pages of its April 3 edition to shameless advocacy about global warming, blaming the United States and the Bush administration for destroying the world. Time called the United States 'intransigent' for not joining Kyoto's emissions mandates and the White House's environmental record "dismal." Simultaneously, ABC launched a series of reports on global warming."
(Thanks to The Washington Times' Inside Politics column by Greg Pierce for the laughable leftist Lysenkoist lunacy.)
WND: Smart glasses switch focus in instant
No more bi-focals: 'Dynamic' spectacles snap from 'distance' to 'reading' mode --New Scientist
The widow of a Catholic hero of the last century has gone to her reward.
From Macleans.ca:
Nina von Stauffenberg, widow of the aristocratic Nazi army officer who tried to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb, has died, an official said Monday. She was 92.
Peter Kirchner, mayor of Kirchlauter in the southern state of Bavaria where von Stauffenberg lived, said the widow of Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg died Sunday morning, but gave no further details.
Col. von Stauffenberg was one of the best known internal German resistance fighters during the Second World War, leading the failed attempt to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb placed under a conference table on July 20, 1944.
Four people died in the bombing, but Hitler was only superficially wounded after an aide moved the briefcase before it exploded.
Von Stauffenberg, along with other members of the resistance, were shot and their families arrested by the Gestapo.
Nina von Stauffenberg, who was pregnant with their fifth child at the time, was held in a camp in Frankfurt an der Oder, while the four other children were kept in an orphanage in the state of Thuringia under false names.
Only after the war were the children reunited with their mother and new sibling.
No immediate information on survivors was available.
A burial is to be held Saturday in Kirchlauter, Kirchner said.
Impossible, you say. Well, take a gander at this:
From Thomas Sowell:
Guests or gate crashers
Immigration is yet another issue which we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric...
Most of the arguments for not enforcing our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric and slippery sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny.
How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price.
Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.
If Mexican journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about "taking jobs that Americans don't want" is such nonsense.
Another variation on the same theme is that we "need" the millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. "Need" is another word that blithely ignores prices.
If jet planes were on sale for a thousand dollars each, I would probably "need" a couple of them -- an extra one to fly when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don't even "need" one.
There is no fixed amount of "need," independently of prices, whether with planes or workers...
Guests or gate crashers? Part II
Bogus arguments are a tip-off that you wouldn't buy the real reasons for what someone is doing. Phony arguments and phony words are the norm in discussions of immigration policy...
In California, surplus crops grown and harvested by illegal immigrants are often also subsidized by federal water projects which charge the farmers in dry California valleys far less than the cost to the government of providing that water -- and a fraction of what people in Los Angeles or San Francisco pay for the same amount of water.
Surplus crops grown with water supplied at the taxpayers' expense and raised by illegal workers can be grown elsewhere with water provided free of charge from the clouds and raised by American workers paid American wages.
Naturally, when the real costs of those crops have to be paid by the farmers who raise them, less will be grown -- that is, there will not be as much of a surplus going to waste in government-rented storage bins.
With some crops, we don't really "need" any of it. If the United States had not produced a single grain of sugar in the past 50 years, Americans could have gotten all the sugar they wanted and at lower prices, simply by buying it on the world market for half or less of what domestic sugar costs.
Sugar has been in chronic surplus on the world market for generations. It can be grown in the tropics far cheaper than it can be grown in the United States. All the land, labor, and capital that has been spent growing sugar here has been one huge waste.
We don't "need" to grow sugar, with or without illegal workers...
From Rich Lowry:
Forget the long-running bipartisan concern about creating an educated, highly skilled workforce. What the U.S. economy desperately needs is more high-school dropouts — so desperately that we should import them hand over fist.
Such is the logic of the contention by advocates of lax immigration that the flow of illegal labor from south of the border is a boon to our economy. But it doesn't make intuitive sense that importing the poor of Latin America would benefit us. If low-skill workers were key to economic growth, Mexico would be an economic powerhouse, and impoverished Americans would be slipping south over the Rio Grande.
The National Research Council reports that an immigrant to the U.S. without a high-school diploma — whether legal or illegal — consumes $89,000 more in governmental services than he pays in taxes during his lifetime. An immigrant with only a high-school diploma is a net cost of $31,000. Eighty percent of illegal immigrants have no more than a high-school degree, and 60 percent have less than a high-school degree.
Steve Camarota of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies estimates that illegal immigrants cost the federal government $10 billion a year. State and local governments lose even more. Illegals pay some taxes, but not enough to cover governmental expenses like Medicaid and treatment for the uninsured.
According to Camarota, if illegal immigrants were legalized, their net annual cost to the federal government would only increase, tripling to $30 billion a year. Immigrant workers don't earn enough to pay much in taxes, while they qualify for all sorts of governmental assistance. As they become legal, they will get even more assistance — the benefits that they get from the Earned Income Tax Credit, for instance, would increase by a factor of 10.
Whatever benefit illegals provide to the economy in general must be minuscule. All workers without a high-school education — illegal and otherwise — account for only 3 percent of economic output. Even if illegal immigrants were dominant in low-skill industries, their broader impact would be small. But they aren't dominant, and that includes job categories associated with immigrants. Nearly 60 percent of cabdrivers are native-born. In only four of 473 job classifications are immigrants a majority of the workers...
From Herbert E. Meyer:
...But the millions of Hispanics who have come to our country in the last several decades – and it’s the Hispanics we’re talking about in this debate, not those from other cultures—are, in fact, two distinct groups. The first group is comprised of “immigrants” just like all the others, who have put the old country behind them and want only to be Americans. They aren’t the problem. Indeed, most Americans welcome them among us, as we have welcomed so many other cultures.
The problem is the second group of Hispanics. They aren’t immigrants – which is what neither the Democratic or Republican leadership seems to understand, or wants to acknowledge. They have come here solely for jobs, which isn’t the same thing at all. (And many of them have come here illegally.) Whether they remain in the U.S. for one year, or ten years – or for the rest of their lives – they don’t conduct themselves like immigrants. Yes, they work hard to put roofs above their heads and food on their tables – and for this we respect them. But they have little interest in learning English themselves, and instead demand that we make it possible for them to function here in Spanish. They put their children in our schools, but don’t always demand as much from them as previous groups demanded of their kids. They don’t always pay their taxes – or insure their cars.
In short, they aren’t playing by the rules that our families played by when they immigrated to this country. And to ordinary Americans this behavior is deeply – very deeply – offensive. We see it unfolding every day in our communities, and we don’t like it. This is what none of our politicians either understands, or dares to say aloud. Instead, they blather on – and on – about “amnesty” and “border security” without ever coming to grips with what is so visible, and so offensive, to so many of us – namely, all these foreigners among us who aren’t behaving like immigrants.
The phrase we use to describe foreigners who come here not as “immigrants” but merely for jobs is “guest workers.” And we are told – incessantly – that we need these “guest workers” because they take jobs that Americans don’t want and won’t take themselves. This is true, but it’s also disingenuous. Throughout our country’s history, immigrants have always taken jobs that Americans don’t want and won’t take themselves. For crying out loud, no foreigner has ever come to our country out of a blazing ambition to dig ditches, mow lawns, bag groceries, sew clothing or clean other people’s houses. If we hadn’t always had a huge number of these miserable jobs available that none of “us” would do – there wouldn’t have been a way for immigrants throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to step off the boat and find work.
A willingness by “immigrants” to start at the bottom – so they can move up the economic ladder or at least give their kids a shot at the higher rungs – is precisely how the system is supposed to work. And it always has. (My own family is one of the tens of millions that did precisely this. My grandfather came from Poland and found work as a pocket-maker in New York’s garment district. The pay was low, the hours were long, and when the old man finally retired he could hardly move his fingers or see without thick glasses. Yet one of his sons, my uncle, became a lawyer with a fancy practice on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His kids did even better; his son wound up chairman of Stanford University’s history department, and his daughter became a famous art critic, moved to London, and married an Englishman who became a member of the House of Lords. What is astonishing about this story is that – it isn’t astonishing. It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time, and it’s why ordinary Americans don’t want to change the system that made it possible.)
Blame the Birth Rate
One fact that hasn’t been part of the immigration debate is this: During the past two decades our national birth rate has dropped to just below the 2.1 births-per-woman replacement rate. So we really do need to “import” people because – to put it bluntly – we haven’t bred enough of them ourselves to do all the work that needs to be done in an affluent, ageing society like ours. But then, we’ve always needed “more” people to do the work we want done. And we’ve always brought them in from elsewhere – as immigrants.
Yet today we have millions of foreigners among us who have come here to work, but not to immigrate. Our politicians tell us that we must accept this because – for the first time in our history—we’ve reached that point when we need “guest workers” who aren’t immigrants to keep our economy growing. If this is true—and isn’t it odd that no one has troubled to explain why it’s true – then we must find some way to distinguish between “immigrants” and “guest workers” so that they aren’t treated the same just because they both are here. And if it isn’t true that our continued economic growth requires “guest workers” who aren’t immigrants—then the entire concept of “guest workers” that lies at the core of virtually every proposal now before Congress, including amnesty for those who are here illegally, must be abandoned in favor of something that makes sense...
From Wes Pruden:
The "debate" over illegal immigration has become a contest to see who can hurl the most emotional taunts. This is the "civil" debate George W. Bush asked for.
The illegal-immigration lobby has cast the argument as between the friends of the working poor, the sick, the halt, the lame and cherubic little children on one side, with Tiny Tim lifting his little voice (in Spanish, of course) with the invocation that "God bless us every one," and on the other side, Scrooge and his crabby malcontents, eager to consign the poor, sick, halt, etc., back to the hell whence they came.
The U.S. Senate's Amnesty Caucus, the sob-sister chorus, is winning this match. Whether they can preserve the chaos on the border is something else.
Their guest-worker bill, designed by Rube Goldberg & Associates, is a "solution" not intended to actually solve very much, but to preserve abuses valuable to that small corporate sliver of the gringo majority. This legislation provides a "path to citizenship" only via a convoluted formula requiring the 10 million or 12 million illegal aliens -- nobody actually knows how many because it's not nice to ask -- to learn English, show "good character," study American history (maybe even write a term paper about the Boston Tea Party) and pay a $2,000 fine.
It's not clear how a poor illegal, who typically works at pickup jobs at a wage as close to the legal minimum as big-hearted Corporate Republican employers can get away with, will be able to scratch up the $2,000. Since such an illegal is illegal already, why should he turn himself in just to avoid being illegal? He knows that a government that enacts laws with a wink to the cops and a nudge to the courts won't ever send him home. These hard-working folk are illegal, but not dumb...
The forces of Antichrist lie and babies die.
PPP--PLANNED PARENTHOOD PRAYS:
From The New York Times: "People wearing clerical collars and small crucifixes were wedged at tables laden with muffins, bowing their heads in prayer. Seminarians were welcomed. Scripture was cited. But the name of the sponsor cast everything in a new light: the Planned Parenthood Federation of America." Read it.
(Thanks to Laura Ingraham for the heads up.)
LEFT: Noted totalitarian crackpot Cynthia McKinney peddles Government Cheese to the poor who cannot afford to flee her fiefdom.
The Party of Blasphemy, Buggery, and 'Bortion can only prove its New Zeal for our safety is genuine by urging the conviction and execution of this noted security checkpoint avoider and law enforcement officer batterer.
Capitol Police Chief Speaks About McKinney Altercation
(CNSNews.com) - The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, speaking for the first time about the altercation between one of his officers and Rep. Cynthia McKinney, said Tuesday evening that the officer was just doing his job. Full Story
McKinney's A Racist, Conservative Black Leader Says
(CNSNews.com) - A conservative black leader says Rep. Cynthia McKinney is using allegations of racism to get away with breaking the law.
Full Story
McKinney Case Submitted to Federal Prosecutors
(CNSNews.com) - Information regarding a clash between U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and an officer of the Capitol Police was forwarded to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., on Monday, even as supporters of McKinney gathered in Atlanta to decry the incident as racial profiling of a "competent, courageous and committed" congresswoman. Full Story
McKinney and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi no longer speak...
Congress Prepares Resolution of Commendation... (For the cops, not La Congressthing.)
Security video DOES NOT show her encounter with police officer...
Statement...
Congresswoman Admits 'Error' With Taxpayer Money...
Tom DeLay Leaving Congress
(CNSNews.com) - The news broke late Monday night: Rep. Tom DeLay let it be known that he will resign from Congress, partly because the midterm election had become a "referendum on me." Full Story
The Texas tough guy turned out to be just another Repansycan. Surprise!
I'm not really shocked, kiddies.
Most real men steer clear of politics. That's why we must do everything we can to take power from politicians at all levels and return it to the people. (Whether they want it or not.) That is the only way to limit the damage our "leaders" can do.
...seems to have found its way into the cat lexicon.
From Right Wing Nuthouse:
BODY COUNT
Jack takes down 5 traitors while Wayne accounts for 3. And you can add hit and run homicide to Henderson’s list of crimes.
JACK: 24
SHOW: 164
In his General Audience of 7 April 1982, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on theology of the body, addressing the superiority of continence. It is superior to marriage, not based not on any devaluation of sexuality or of the human body, but on the motive for which continence is chosen, viz., the kingdom of heaven.
Superiority of Continence Does Not Devalue Marriage
At the general audience of 7 April, held in St Peter's Square, the Holy Father continued his catechetical series on the value of continence with the following discourse.
1. With our gaze fixed on Christ the Redeemer, let us now continue our reflections on celibacy and virginity "for the kingdom of heaven", according to the words of Christ recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 19:10-12).
Man "alone" before God
In proclaiming continence for the kingdom of heaven, Christ fully accepted all that the Creator wrought and instituted from the beginning. Consequently, on the one hand, continence must demonstrate that in his deepest being, man is not only "dual," but also (in this duality) "alone" before God, with God. Nevertheless, on the other hand, what is an invitation to solitude for God in the call to continence for the kingdom of heaven at the same time respects both the "dual nature of mankind" (that is, his masculinity and femininity), and the dimension of communion of existence that is proper to the person. Whoever, in compliance with Christ's words, correctly comprehends the call to continence for the kingdom of heaven and responds to it, thereby preserves the integral truth of his own humanity. He does this without losing along the way any of the essential elements of the vocation of the person created in God's image and likeness. This is important to the idea itself, or rather, to the idea of continence, that is, for its objective content, which appears in Christ's teachings as radically new. It is equally important to the accomplishment of that ideal, in order for the actual decision made by man or woman to live in celibacy or virginity for the kingdom of heaven (he who "makes himself" a eunuch, to use Christ's words) to be fully sincere in its motivation.
"Breaking away from"
2. From the context of the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 19:10-12), it can be seen sufficiently clearly that here it is not a question of diminishing the value of matrimony in favor of continence, nor of lessening the value of one in comparison with the other. Instead, it is a question of breaking away from, with full awareness, that which in man, by the Creator's will, causes him to marry, and to move toward continence. This reveals itself to the concrete man, masculine or feminine, as a call and gift of particular eloquence and meaning for the kingdom of heaven. Christ's words (cf. Mt 19:11-12) arise from the reality of man's condition. With the same realism, they lead him out toward the call in which, in a new way—even though remaining "dual" by nature (that is, directed as man toward woman, and as woman, toward man)—he is capable of discovering in his solitude, which never ceases to be a personal dimension of everyone's dual nature, a new and even fuller form of intersubjective communion with others. This guidance of the call explains explicitly the expression "for the kingdom of heaven." Indeed, the achievement of this kingdom must be found along the line of the authentic development of the image and likeness of God in its trinitarian meaning, that is, precisely of communion. By choosing continence for the kingdom of heaven, man has the knowledge of being able in that way to fulfill himself differently and, in a certain way, more than through matrimony, becoming a "true gift to others" (cf. Gaudium et Spes 24).
3. Through the words recorded in Matthew (Mt 19:11-12), Christ makes us understand clearly that that going toward continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is linked with a voluntary giving up of matrimony. In that state, man and woman (according to the meaning the Creator gave to their union "in the beginning") become gifts to one another through their masculinity and femininity, also through their physical union. Continence means a conscious and voluntary renouncement of that union and all that is connected to it in the full meaning of life and human society. The man who renounces matrimony also gives up procreation as the foundation of the family, concessive renouncements and voluntary children. The words of Christ to which we refer indicate without doubt this kind of renunciation, although they do not go into detail. The way in which these words were stated leads us to assume that Christ understood the importance of such a sacrifice, and that he understood it not only in view of the opinions on the subject prevailing in Jewish society at that time. He understood the importance of this sacrifice also in relationship to the good which matrimony and the family in themselves constitute due to their divine institution. Therefore, through the way in which he stated the words he made it understood that breaking away from the circle of the good that he himself called "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," is connected with a certain self-sacrifice. That break also becomes the beginning of successive self-sacrifices that are indispensable if the first and fundamental choice must be consistent in the breadth of one's entire earthly life. Thanks only to such consistency, that choice is internally reasonable and not contradictory.
Concupiscence remains
4. In this way, in the call to continence as Christ stated it—concisely but at the same time precisely—the outline and dynamism of the mystery of the redemption emerge, as has previously been stated. It is the same profile under which Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, pronounced the words about the need to guard against concupiscence, against the desire that begins with "looking at" and becomes at that very moment "adultery in the heart." Behind Matthew's words, both in chapter 19 (verses 11-12) and in chapter 5 (verses 27-28), the same anthropology and the same ethos are found. In the invitation to voluntary continence for the kingdom of heaven, the prospects of this ethos are enlarged upon. The anthropology of historical man is found in the overall view of the words of the Sermon on the Mount. In the overall view of the words on voluntary continence, essentially the same anthropology remains. But it is illumined by the prospect of the kingdom of heaven, in other words, of the future anthropology of the resurrection. Nonetheless, along the path of this voluntary continence during earthly life, the anthropology of the resurrection does not replace the anthropology of historical man. In him the heritage of the threefold concupiscence remains at the same time, the heritage of sin together with the heritage of redemption. It remains in the one who must make the decision about continence for the kingdom of heaven. He must put this decision into effect, subjugating the sinfulness of his human nature to the forces that spring from the mystery of the redemption of the body. He must do so just as any other man does who has not made a similar decision and whose way remains that of matrimony. The only difference is the type of responsibility for the good chosen, just as the type of good chosen is different.
Exceptional call
5. In his pronouncement, did Christ perhaps suggest the superiority of continence for the kingdom of heaven to matrimony? Certainly, he said that this is an exceptional vocation, not a common one. In addition he affirmed that it is especially important and necessary to the kingdom of heaven. If we understand superiority to matrimony in this sense, we must admit that Christ set it out implicitly. However, he did not express it directly. Only Paul will say of those who choose matrimony that they do "well." About those who are willing to live in voluntary continence, he will say that they do "better" (1 Cor 7:38).
6. That is also the opinion of the whole of Tradition, both doctrinal and pastoral. The "superiority" of continence to matrimony in the authentic Tradition of the Church never means disparagement of matrimony or belittlement of its essential value. It does not even mean a shift, even implicit, on the Manichean positions, or a support of ways of evaluating or acting based on the Manichean understanding of the body and sexuality, matrimony and procreation. The evangelical and authentically Christian superiority of virginity and continence is dictated by the motive of the kingdom of heaven. In Christ's words recorded in Matthew (Mt 19:11-12) we find a solid basis for admitting only this superiority, while we do not find any basis whatever for any disparagement of matrimony which, however, could have been present in the recognition of that superiority.
We shall return to this problem during our next reflections.
Every few years I take a trip to our nation's capital. This year's itinerary includes a stop at the US Holocaust (It should be Shoah. "Utter destruction" or "catastrophe" in Hebrew.) Memorial Museum in honor of Yom Hashoah, which will be observed on April 25 this year.
Also on the must-see list is the National World War II Memorial.
Not one thing must ever be forgotten, kiddies, not one thing. We live in the Information Age. We have no excuse for being ignorant.
She Who Must Be Obeyed is getting close. Closer every time she tries, in fact. She's really a good little cook, for a white girl. (Ouch! Humblest appy-polly loggies to all my Brothers out there in Bloggerdom. It's just a joke for the goombas in the congregation.)
Of course, I can't praise or criticize her cooking too much, since I am caught in the middle here. Just in case you haven't noticed yet, boys, women have a tendency to talk to each other.
I had some orange Jell-O this weekend for the first time in decades.
Yum!
(Sorry, kiddies, but there have been quite a few food-related issues here in Flyover lately. The next post should be the last of these for a while...)
...Fyodor enjoys the fruits of free (more or less) trade.
La Sierra Cabernet Sauvignon (2004) is the first Argentinian wine Your Humble Servant has ever tried and it is quite good and reasonably priced. (Though it would be more reasonably priced if the stinking booze nazis who run this Commonwealth and their public employees union thugs would get their grubby paws of of the booze biz.)
I like to cook with the wine served with the meal and this cabernet worked very well with some sirloin tips I sauteed.
Viva Argentina! (But they were wrong to try to grab the Falklands.)
