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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer In what is sure to be an unprecedented display of media bias, ABC News will broadcast a special report on the President’s health care plan from within the Blue Room of the White House on June 24. Opposing viewpoints will not be presented.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer A crisis in the Austrian Catholic Church prompted a special meeting in Rome on June 15 between Pope Benedict XVI and Austrian bishops. The Church in Austria has been troubled for years by dwindling numbers and widespread dissent. 

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer   New York has become the first state in the nation that will allow the use of taxpayer money to pay women to have their eggs extracted for stem cell research.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer According to a new Gallup poll, conservatism is on the rise in the U.S. with 40 percent of Americans now describing themselves as conservative and only 21 percent saying they are liberal. These new numbers represent a three percentage point increase in conservatism among the public at large.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer An icon of St. George in a Greek Orthodox church in Ramla, Israel is drawing blocks of Christians after it began to leak a mysterious oil.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer In another example of the incredible waste of human life that takes place routinely in fertility clinics around the world, a British woman who conceived after receiving another couple’s embryo by mistake decided to abort the child. The aborted baby was the couple’s final embryo and their last hope for a child.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer On the great Feast of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI warned the faithful to avoid “empty Eucharistic worship” and to look to Mary as an example of the kind of faith and love with which we should adore the Eucharist from our hearts.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer   During a recent interview, Archbishop Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, said the recent Notre Dame scandal of inviting pro-abortion President Barack Obama to speak at its 2009 commencement has served to sensitize people to the shame of abortion and to realize how dangerous it is for Catholic institutions to pursue prestige in the secular world at the expense of fidelity to Christ.

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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer For unknown reasons, the White House has purged its website of any mention of the president’s campaign promise to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and filed a Supreme Court brief yesterday where they defended DOMA as being a valid exercise of Congress’ power.

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Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi. This celebration, which commemorates the Body of Christ given to us in Holy Eucharist, is celebrated following Trinity Sunday and was formally established in the 13th Century. St. Juliana of Mont Conillon, also known as St. Juliana of Liege, was the champion of the feast. From her early youth, she had a great love of the Blessed Sacrament and longed to have a feast day set aside to honor Our Lord's presence in the Eucharist. The saint's desire grew after a vision she reportedly had of the Church represented by the full moon. In this vision, the moon had one dark spot, supposedly representing the absence of such a feast day. Juliana expressed her desires to the Bishop of Liege, Robert de Thorete, to the Dominican Hugh who later became the Cardinal Legate in the Netherlands, and to Jacques Pantaleon, at that time Archbishop of Liege who was to become Pope Urban IV. Favorably impressed, Bishop Robert Thorete instituted the feast day in his own diocese in 1247 as bishops were permitted to do at that time, and Pope Urban IV ordered the annual celebration of Corpus Christi on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday in 1264. Though the celebration remains on this day in Rome, here in the United States it is now celebrated the Sunday following Trinity Sunday. The feast offers all of us an opportunity to appreciate more deeply the rich treasure of grace offered to us through the Holy Eucharist. It is a day that begs us to enter into the Sacred Mystery of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divintiy of Our Lord Jesus Christ given to us and for us in every Eucharistic celebration. It reminds us of the divine sacrifice made on our behalf while beckoning us to be infused ever more completely by the Author of Life Himself.  Following are five ways we can enhance our appreciation of the Blessed Sacrament and mine the rich treasure that is ours. It is taken from my book, Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life.

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