Lenten Journey with the Saints: Day 36

April 10
“Lent is a fitting time for self-denial; we would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by our own poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance. I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt.”
-Pope Francis
Today’s Reflection
What have your Lenten sacrifices cost you thus far? Could you do more? As we enter into Holy Week, prayerfully consider Pope Francis’s reflection and ask Our Lord how you can make the best of the remainder of Lent.

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Notre Dame Refuses to Filter Porn from University WiFi

(Credit: Michael Fernandes courtesy of WikiCommons)

In spite of a request by dozens of men of Notre Dame asking the University to filter out pornography from its WiFi, school administrators have brushed off the request and are agreeing to do nothing more than suggest that students voluntarily adopt filters.

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Planned Parenthood Loses $44 Million in Taxpayer Funds

The U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services (HHS) released a list of Title X grants that will no longer include Planned Parenthood affiliates in five states because of their affiliation with abortion, a cut that amounts to a loss of about $44 million in taxpayer funding.

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Is there Such a Thing as Secular Mindfulness?

BD writes: “I have repeatedly asked my therapist to find something other than mindfulness to help me with my anxiety issues. But he insists that this therapy has no Buddhist roots (even though he admits that it is based on the MBSR) and has been secularized. Is this true?”

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Woman to Woman: Unplanned Actress Confronts Alyssa Milano

Actress Ashley Bratcher, in the role of Abby Johnson, speaks with clinic workers in the film Unplanned.

Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

Women are very much at the center of today’s culture wars, and no where is this more evident than in the latest abortion conflagration in Georgia over passage of the “heartbeat” bill. Unplanned star Ashley Bratcher, a resident of the state, decided to use her feminine genius to teach actress Alyssa Milano a lesson about how to fight for women’s rights.

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Planned Parenthood Behind CA Rule Forcing Churches to Pay for Abortion

Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

Attorneys have released a series of emails proving that Planned Parenthood played a pivotal role behind the drive to pressure the state of California to force religious employers to pay for elective abortions in their health insurance plans.

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Lenten Journey with the Saints: Day 34

April 8

“Nothing, how little so ever it be, if it is suffered for God’s sake,
can pass without merit in the sight of God.”

-Thomas a Kempis

 

Today’s Reflection

We are not all called to do great things, but we can all do small things with great love. This is wisdom that is part of our heritage from St. Teresa of Calcutta. Today, when those small annoyances inevitably occur, remember that you can suffer them with love for God and perhaps your little cross can be of great merit for the redemption of mankind.

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