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11/25/2009 - FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas (AFNS) -- Susan and Joseph Kosek are thankful for many things. This Thanksgiving they're especially thankful for tourniquets, helicopters, "battle buddies" and scores of doctors and medics across the globe. They're also thankful for the mine resistant ambush protected vehicle that absorbed most of the blast from a 35-pound improvised explosive device meant to kill their daughter. "Wendy called me a few hours after she was brought to the Green Zone and said, 'I want to talk to Dad,'" Mrs. Kosek said. "We didn't' know the extent of the injuries and neither did she."...

Anita Mellott's column, Homeschool Encouragment looks at "Blessings" as we approach Thanksgiving.

The blessings of the grapesBy Kate Gonzales Posted: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:35 AM CDT Father John Finley sings hymns Sunday with children after he has blessed Lavender Ridge Vineyard grapes. Enterprise photos by Kate GonzalesFinley blesses thousands of grapes with holy water. Enterprise photo by Kate GonzalesLavender Ridge Vineyard owners Rich and Siri Gilpin added an extra ingredient to their winegrapes this weekend: holy water. Friends, family and employees of the Gilpins traveled out to their vineyard along the rolling golden hills of Milton to enjoy the second annual ceremony of the blessing of the grapes. “It's just new...

U.S. bishops approve new blessing for unborn children      The U.S. Catholic bishops meeting in their General Assembly Baltimore, Md., Nov 11, 2008 / 06:32 pm (CNA).- Children in the womb will now be able to receive a special blessing from their parish priests following an overwhelming vote by the U.S. bishops in favor of the new blessing.  "The Blessing of a Child in the Womb" has been in the works for two years, but Bishop Michael Saltarelli noted at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon that, “happily it’s come to fruition at this time when I think it’s...

This kitty is reminding all to love one another and not be cold hearted! Song of this video is Deep & Wide, song by children. Thanks for viewing!

This is footage of a white dove perched on a branch and children singing the song, Kum Ba Yah, Come By Here.

"Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done." That was the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale in 2007, repetitiously inciting her disciples to be not just pro-choice but fanatically pro-abortion. This is significant because, according to standard journalistic stylebooks, Ragsdale does not exist. We're told that pro-choice folks don't like abortion; they're just trying to help a woman facing tragedy. Ragsdale, though, says...

The red tabby cat in this video is a good listener!

Wishing everyone a very Happy Easter. May God Bless each and every one of you And God Bless America.

Thanks for viewing!!! Happy Easter!

Wonderful Medley for the Christmas Season! Thanks for viewing.

STATE OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. IN COMMITTEE of SAFETY, EXETER, November 1, 1782. ORDERED, THAT the following Proclamation for a general THANKSGIVING on the twenty-eighth day of November, received from the honorable Continental Congress, be forthwith printed, and sent to the several worshipping Assemblies in this State, to whom it is recommended religiously to observe said day, and to abstain from all servile labour thereon. M. WEARE, President. By the United States in Congress assembled. PROCLAMATION. IT being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to offer up their supplications to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all good, for his gracious...

God Bless America

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq, Oct. 7, 2008 – Unless they’ve been through it themselves, few people understand the hardships that U.S. soldiers endure in a combat zone, away from everything familiar in a foreign land, far away from the support systems of family, home and friends. Army Chaplain (Capt.) Tim Reynolds runs the Soldiers’ Blessing Store on Forward Operating Base Prosperity in Baghdad. The store is stocked with donated items for soldiers to take as needed. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Whitney Houston, Multinational Division Baghdad  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. To help troops counteract the effects of being...

This video is short and has singing frogs looking at a Church. The instrumental is, Praise God, from Whom All Blessing Flow. With humor it was created to lead someone to church and think about worshiping his or her creator. Thanks for viewing. Revski

Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush's press secretary, died July 12 of colon cancer. He was 53. The following was apparently written by Tony a couple of years ago. What a strong testimony to the faith of one person. Oh, that we all could be this strong. Blessings arrive in unexpected packages — in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases — and there are millions in America today — find ourselves in the odd position of coping with...

At Camp Victory, Counting Blessings — and Days by John McChesney Morning Edition, April 30, 2008 · On their last tour in Iraq, the soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard's 39th Combat Brigade Team saw heavy combat on a street in Baghdad known as "Purple Heart Boulevard." Now, in a short turnaround from that 2004-05 deployment, the Guardsmen are back. "You probably won't find anybody out there that was, you know, thrilled about the prospect of coming back. But there was very little in the way of soldiers ... being overly concerned about coming back," says Col. Kendall Penn, commander...

While some may wonder why one would take the opportunity on this Holiest of Holy Days for Christians, to want to call upon the Almighty to Bless our Great Republic and at the same time, all of you, far from being a dichotomy whatsoever, the two invocations, are inextricably entwined Understandably, this devoted observance drives the secular progressives and the illogical fanatics to, and proponents of, The Establishment Clause, bonkers. So be it.

The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Fla., area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2007 – President Bush issued his Thanksgiving greeting today, counting members of the U.S. military among the many blessings Americans have to be thankful for. “Today, the men and women of the United States armed forces are taking risks for our freedom,” the president said at historic Berkeley Plantation in Charles City, Va. “They're fighting on the front lines of the war on terror, the war against extremists and radicals who would do us more harm.” Bush noted that many U.S. troops will spend Thanksgiving far away from the comforts of home and expressed thanks for...

Speaking as a misfit unassimilated foreigner, I think of Thanksgiving as the most American of holidays. Christmas is celebrated elsewhere, even if there are significant local variations: in continental Europe, naughty children get left rods to be flayed with and lumps of coal; in Britain, Christmas lasts from December 22nd to mid-January and celebrates the ancient cultural traditions of massive alcohol intake and watching the telly till you pass out in a pool of your own vomit. All part of the rich diversity of our world. But Thanksgiving (excepting the premature and somewhat undernourished Canadian version) is unique to America....

Psalm 28:3 ``The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of majesty hath thundered, The Lord is upon many waters." Water Numbers 5:17 "And he shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and he shall cast a little earth of the pavement of the tabernacle into it."   For the Christian, water, as the matter of Baptism, is life. Tertullian (b. 160), making a play on words based on the Greek acrostic ICQUS , or Ichthys, meaning "fish" and indicating "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour", wrote in "De Baptismo," "But we, little fishes, after...

What is the date and the Saint that we as Catholics take our pet to Church and ask the Priest to bless our pets? I had all my Labs blessed 14 yrs ago but now I have a whole new crew 3,2 and 1 yr olds and my Catechism class time is so intense that I don't have the option to ask this ????. My Labs all travel in the van with us and since we go to Catechism the one Lab for the last two school years whines and wants to get out at the Church (for real he...

I received this message from fatima. Please pray for her and her family as well as Ed. **Could you please ping your prayer list for the death of my son Ed -44 years old.accidential death.Official.Pray for our family.Ed saw Father on saturday and went to confession and went to Mass on Sunday and was was found dead wends morning at 1 AM.**

The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the mountains of Alaska for some sight-seeing. He was cruising along the campground in the Pope mobile when there was a frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods. A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a "Save the Whales" hat, and a "Bush Lied - People Died" T-shirt, was screaming while struggling frantically, thrashing around trying to free himself from the grasp of a 10 foot grizzly. As the Pope watched, horrified, a group of Republican loggers came racing up. One quickly fired a .44 magnum into the bear's...

Blessed are YouIf you have food in the refrigerator, cloths on your back, a roof over you head and a bed to sleep in, You are richer than 75% of the world’s population. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness You are blessed more than the million who will not survive the week. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy. If you attend a Christian church service without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are...

Today, 52 years ago, my husband was born in a small hospital in rural South Carolina. As a mother myself, I can imagine how thrilled my mother in law was! However, her happiness was not going to last long. Her baby suffered from projectile vomiting and, during the next few weeks, he lost weight until, to use her words, “his arms and legs were as thin as sticks”. The doctor, young and fresh from medical school, did not know what was causing the problem. One of the hospital nurses told my father in law that “he would not be watching...

This is a beautiful idea that someone had. This short movie is part of her effort to bless a million people in a hundred days. The movie is wonderful in its own right and here is a link to it: may you be blessed

I am a BIG fan of Tom's. My heart breaks for him and his family right now. Feel Free to email Tom and wish him peace, I am sure he would love to hear from us. It's an old saying that's right on the money: count your blessings. I've been realizing my blessings with renewed intensity this week. Everyone in my family has. My cousin Sean, only 33, was in a terrible accident that he did not survive. We were stunned when we got the news, and we have been reeling at the loss. We can't imagine the pain my...

Before you can really know how good things are this Christmas, you have to know first of all how bad things are. And things are bad—for at least three distinct groups of people. Things are bad for people who deliberately and self-consciously keep shoving the God of the universe to the margins of their lives. Such people, of course, don't know yet how bad things really are. But that ignorance, willing as it is, simply makes their situation worse. They revel in what they think is the freedom to make up their own rules and standards along the way, never...

Catholic Church Provides Food, Facilities, Medical Services For Gulf Coast People Displaced By Katrina WASHINGTON (September 1, 2005)--Catholic Church facilities nationwide, and especially in Louisiana, Mississippi and East Texas, are responding to emergency and long-term needs by providing shelters, food, medicine and schooling for Hurricane Katrina refugees. Virtually all dioceses nationwide planned parish collections the first weekends of September. In addition, further immediate assistance is coming through everything from Catholic Charities agencies, St. Vincent DePaul Societies, Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals, parishes, retreat centers and families. Examples abound. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Texas, where well over 30,000 storm refugees relocated from...

by Leon J. Suprenant, Jr Other Articles by Leon J. Suprenant, Jr The Life-giving Love of True Fathers 06/18/05 I have an unusual family background. My late father and his wife had eleven children. In the 1950s, his wife died of cancer, and so my dad left his sporting goods store in Kankakee, Illinois and moved most of the family to Southern California. Not too long after that, he met and married my mother. In This Article...Family RealitiesSomething to CelebrateComing to Grips with Fatherhood Family Realities A decade earlier, my mom's husband had been killed in World War II, leaving her...

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped...

Terri's struggle for life has ended this morning. December 3, 1963 - March 31, 2005 Attorney David Gibbs "The Schindlers said that God loves Terri more than they do." Father Frank Pavone, Natl. Director of Priests for Life "We will pray that it will never happen again."

This is a prayer thread for Terri Schiavo. Please let it remain a peaceful place and not an arena for arguments. God has released her from her earthly bonds. She is at His side. Please express blessings and sentiments of sympathy for her family, and wishes for Terri's peace in heaven.

Patron Saints of Desperate, Forgotten, Impossible or Lost Causes Saint Philomena Martyred at about age 14 in the early days of the Church. In 1802 the remains of a young woman were found in the catacomb of Saint Priscilla on the Via Salaria. It was covered by stones, the symbols on which indicated that the body was a martyr named Saint Philomena. The bones were exhumed, cataloged, and effectively forgotten since there was so little known about the person. In 1805 Canon Francis de Lucia of Mugnano, Italy was in the Treasury of the Rare Collection of Christian Antiquity (Treasury...

[India News]: Bangalore, Jan 21 : American evangelist Benny Hinn Friday evening began his much-awaited "Festival of Blessings" prayer meeting here, which saw a shutdown call and incidents of stone throwing by protesting Hindu activists earlier in the day. About 8,000-10,000 policemen have been deployed in and around the sprawling venue to regulate crowds. Organisers of the show, being held at the Jakkur airstrip on the outskirts of the city, said earlier that about 400,000 people had already gathered for the event from all parts of the country, especially south India. A few hundred also came from abroad. Speaking to...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

A group of American Catholic bishops meeting with Jewish rabbis have slammed Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," saying the film was anti-Jewish. In their joint report on the meeting, which brought together representatives from the National Council of Synagogues and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Gibson's fellow Catholics claimed the movie "was in reality a modern version of the notorious medieval Passion Plays which so often over the centuries have triggered riots against the Jews of Europe." The report noted the film caused "deep and understandable concern within Jewish community world-wide." Admitting the movie prompted none of...

Dear precious saints of our Lord Praise be to the Lord Jesus Thank you for your prayers regarding crusade, my mission journey, return trip, little girl Seenath, my family and the orphanage. Just this morning I reached back Kottayam. By God's grace and because of your prayers the crusade and the mission journey was well and safe. I had to visit some of the mission fields. Last month six of our missionaries were arrested by the police by the force of RSS (RSS is India's strong and politically influenced anti christian group). Missionaries tried to convert people from Hindusim to...

I could not check out for the night without reminding you all once more about the power of optimism. We were up, we were down, but we kept believing. We won a victory tonight that will shape the world, save lives, and bring freedom to people all over the world who have not yet had the blessing we receive every day. Rejoice, FReepers. You earned the right tonight. PD

The blessings in things gone awry Thank you Lord for the life lessons learned in things gone awry Some of them have taught me how to make better decisions Some of them taught me that it really is okay to cry. Making mistakes is not something that one plans for, or envisions Life is teaching me things; some lessons are harder learned than others For years I had been stuck in the rut that I thought I was special, I thought you hated me I thought I was set apart to be treated different than my Christian sisters and brothers...

Securing the Future of Conservatism Jerry Falwell Thursday, May 27, 2004 What do you get when you cross Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell and a plethora of college students who are anxious to impact the culture with our time-honored conservative values? Well, if you ask Sen. Hillary Clinton she’d likely tell you that it is further evidence of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” that is out to destroy her husband’s so-called legacy and steer the nation toward mindless servitude to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. (Maybe I should write the Democrats’ talking points.) But the correct answer is: The new Helms...

Good News for Would-be Mothers: Early, Non-Invasive Method to Assess Down Syndrome Risk a Success 2/5/04 10:25:00 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk, Women's Health and Medical Reporter Contact: Stacy Scarazzo of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, 202-367-1632 NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A study unveiled today at the 24th annual Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) meeting brings hope to all pregnant women looking for an early, non-invasive way to assess their risk of delivering a baby with Down Syndrome. The trial reveals that measuring fetal neck fold thickness (nuchal translucency) by ultrasound, combined with a measurement of...

I would like to take this quick opportunity to thank everyone who prayed for my father and our family over the last few days. I hope next week to be able to go through the two threads regarding the condition and then passing of my father and reply to the posts individually. Time right now does not permit. Let me share a couple of experiences that occurred that will hopefully build faith and hope for us all and are what I believe to be direct answer to the prayers of so many. 1st, my father suffered a massive heart attack...

On the tube now. A neighbohrood in CA was completely destroyed by the fires, only one house was spared. The house should have been destroyed, everything around it was gone. During the fire the owners wanted to check on the dwelling so they sent a fax to the fax machine in the house. The Fax went through, and the house survived. The fax on the machine read: GOD BLESS THIS HOUSE AND THE FIREFIGHERS WHO PROTECT IT. Wow.

CONTENTS: The Foundation From Our Constitution's Author Founders on the Constitution Reflections on the Constitution The Gipper From the High Court On the Web New and Improved? And Last THE FOUNDATION "We The People of the United states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this, Constitution for the United States of America." --Preamble to the U.S. Constitution FROM OUR CONSTITUTION'S AUTHOR "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to...

LONDON, Oct 22, 02 (CWNews.com) - Anglican clergy across Britain are defying the Church of England's ban on gay "marriages" by presiding over hundreds of such ceremonies every year. An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has revealed how easy it is for same-sex couples to receive a blessing ceremony in an Anglican church. During the one-week investigation, reporters posing as gay couples were offered blessings by 14 different vicars even though they were strangers who had no connection with either the local church or the parish. Blessing gay couples, either in church or in private, is forbidden by Church of...

By MICHELLE KINGSOLVER Brown News Service SINKING SPRING - Tucked deep in the breast of a hollow in Brushcreek Township, you will find one of the most blessed houses in Highland County. At least, that is how the Sandlin family feels as a community of family, friends and strangers breathes life into a race to preserve their family as they know it. Mike and Barb Sandlin have two children, Stephanie Stephens and Jared, and they both have cystic fibrosis. While Mike and Barb celebrate the approaching arrival of a grandchild and a continued good pattern of health for Stephanie,...