Free Republic

In the Stations of the Cross Jesus says a rather extraordinary thing. He addresses it to the women who have gathered to lament Him:Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, “Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.” At that time people will say to the mountains, “Fall upon us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?...

If THIS doesn’t get one’s attention, absolutely nothing will… (The Book of Lamentations is a collection of five poems that serve as an anguished response to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., after a long siege by the invading Babylonian army) Are we there yet ?

Donald Trump said many, many memorable things on the campaign trail as he unbelievably became our 45th president over the course of 2015 and 2016. But nothing stuck as much as what he had to say about Mexican migration on Day One, moments after he and Melania glided down the fancy elevator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best," Trump said on June 16, 2015, adding: "They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And...

The time has come to say it: there is something psychologically wrong with the President. The fuzzy outlines of President Trump's likely mental illness came into sharper focus this week: in two interviews with major networks, he revealed paranoia and delusion; he quadruple-downed on his fabrication that millions of people voted illegally, which demonstrated he is disconnected from reality itself; his petulant trade war with Mexico reveals that he values self-image even over national interest; his fixation with inaugural crowd size reveals a childish need for attention. Partisans have been warning about Trump's craziness for months, but rhetoric from political...

This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on CNN — and that’s saying a lot. Wolf Blitzer broke out with a “developing story” about how if the inauguration is attacked and everyone died, the constitution actually says that an Obama cabinet member would legally become the president.

As Trump’s team basked in the glow of its victory and singled out for praise its campaign’s chief executive, Stephen K. Bannon,... “Do you think you could have just had a decent message for white, working-class voters?” Conway asked. “How about, it’s Hillary Clinton, she doesn’t connect with people? How about, they have nothing in common with her? How about, she doesn’t have an economic message?”... At which point, Conway accused Clinton’s team of being sore losers. “Guys, I can tell you are angry, but wow,” she said. “Hashtag he’s your president. How’s that? Will you ever accept the election...

“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-33)“Great Is Thy Faithfulness”: The hymn our choir sang earlier and which we all will sing at the end of this service--this is definitely an appropriate hymn of thanksgiving and praise on this Day of Thanksgiving. How true are the words of the refrain: Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed Thy hand hath provided; Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me! And since today is the Day of National Thanksgiving, we can also say the same thing about the Lord’s blessings on...

Labor Activists Cry Foul Over Wisconsin Election Results By Steve Peoples Roll Call Staff April 8, 2011, 1:12 p.m. Union officials in Wisconsin are calling for thousands of ballots to be immediately impounded and recounted following the revelation that a county clerk’s computer error tipped the state Supreme Court election in conservative Justice David Prosser’s favor. “The mysterious, and arguably timely, discovery of ballots on a personal computer appears to be the latest example of Governor [Scott] Walker and his friends unfairly using the levers of government to silence Wisconsin voters,” Christine Lamitina, a spokeswoman for the Service Employees International...

Lamentations 3:22-23 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Mortgage trouble is creating some of the biggest bargains this side of eBay, allowing buyers to snap up homes for tens of thousands of dollars less than what they might have paid just a few months ago. "People are doing whatever they can to sell" in order to avoid foreclosure, said Brad Geisen, president and chief executive of Boca Raton-based Foreclosure.com. Notices of pending foreclosures are piling up, in what many believe to be the first wave of a trillion-dollar tsunami: The dollar volume of home loans with interest rates that will be ratcheted upward over the next several months....

On Great Friday the Church remembers the ineffable mystery of Christ's death. Death -tormenting, indiscriminate, universal - casts its cruel shadow over all creation. It is the silent companion of life. It is present in everything, ready to stifle and impose limits upon all things. The fear of death causes anguish and despair. It shackles us to the appearances of life and makes rebellion and sin erupt in us (Heb 2.14-15). The Scriptures assure us that "God did not make death, and He does not delight in the death of the living, for He created all things that they might...

On July 2, I wed my lovely bride, hellinahandcart. Please celebrate with us.