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Who Loves Most? ( or least?) Posted on March 3, 2021 by billrandles There is a vignette in the Gospel which illustrates a very critical point about Loving God. It answers the question why some come to love God and others do not seem to have capacity to love him. And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an...

Fittingly for someone who spent more than three decades as a member of the U.S. Senate, President Joe Biden holds the so-called world's greatest deliberative body in high regard. Biden calls the Senate his "second home" in his 2007 memoir and, as that metaphor suggests, it is often obvious that the relationship is about more than just a physical place. Biden sees the Senate—with its arcane rules and combative but dignified atmosphere—as the embodiment of what government should aspire to be. When Biden stresses that Americans must learn to disagree without disrespecting one another, as he did in his inaugural...

During the Fox News Channel’s Inauguration coverage on Wednesday, incoming Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will use the reconciliation process to “impose the Green New Deal, higher taxes, and Medicare for all.” Graham said, [relevant remarks begin around 11:00] “[W]e’re going to have our hands full. I’m going to be the Budget [Ranking Member]. I’m going to be fighting Bernie Sanders as he uses the budget reconciliation process to impose the Green New Deal, higher taxes, and Medicare for all. So, to my Republican colleagues out there, let’s...

Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter John 21:15-19 Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. Thus the Lord gave Peter the opportunity to be reconciled with him for his threefold denial. What does the word "reconciliation" mean? It is derived from the latin term cilia, meaning eyelashes. To be re-conciled is to be brought eyelash to eyelash with another, to see face to face, eye to eye. Jesus was perceived by the first Christians as the fulfillment of this hope of Israel. He was himself, in person, the reconciliation of divinity and humanity....

The battle over the Supreme Court merely reflects the hostility that underlies American politics today. It is fashionable to blame President Donald Trump for all the nation’s ills. However, his success grew out of the political war that liberals have been waging on the American people for years. Abraham Lincoln observed that all the armies of the Earth could not take over America. Rather, he warned: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our...

King James Version 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we...

Bless me, FatherMsgr. Charles Pope Question: In confession recently the priest told me I should not say, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned”; instead I should say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” Is he right?— Name, location withheld Answer: The opening of confession with the expression “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned” is a widespread custom in the United States and in some other regions. In different parts of the world, there are other expressions used to begin the confession.The insistence that you should say “Forgive me, Father” is puzzling and requires something of you that...

“Drain the swamp.” It was one of President Trump’s most powerful messages on the way to victory. Shake up Washington. Break a few eggs to create a new omelet. Overturn the establishment. Well, hats off to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for doing some swamp-draining when he exercised the “nuclear option” to overturn the filibuster for Supreme Court justices. McConnell busted an old 19th century rule, which was never in the Constitution, and cleared the path for the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch -- as good a candidate as can be found. Good for McConnell. But let’s shift our swamp-draining focus...

President Trump pledged during the presidential campaign to deliver legislation that “fully repeals Obamacare.” By forcing the House to a vote on a bill that does not repeal the health insurance regulations that are the driving force behind the Affordable Care Act’s skyrocketing premiums and low-quality coverage, Republican leaders are abandoning the president’s pledge. The leadership bill would only modify those regulations. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office projects, it would increase premiums 15-20 percent above their already-high levels and leave more people uninsured than full repeal would. House leaders claim Senate rules require a 60-vote supermajority to repeal...

Good news, they’re listening to you.  No other approach to repealing ObamaCare is possible.  It’s not ideological, it is simply reality.  The backstory on our prior explanations are HERE and expanded HERE. After listening to conservative groups at a White House meeting yesterday, it became obvious to POTUS  those group leaders/members did not understand WHY no other approach to repeal is possible.   POTUS asked Speaker Ryan to put this together and deliver it today: WOW: Paul Ryan's American Health Care Act (Obamacare Replacement) FULL PowerPoint Presentation Most of you already know this outline because you’ve understood the bigger picture.  Hopefully this message will reach the...

oscow will host a meeting of the Palestinian Authority's Fatah and Hamas factions on January 15th, according to Russia's TASS news agency. .....

Trump-backing congressman says GOP will use budget 'reconciliation' to repeal Obamacare in first 100 days – depriving Democrats of the chance to filibuster it * Rep. Chris Collins, the first Republican to endorse President-elect Trump, says the GOP will move legislation to repeal Obamacare within Trump's first 100 days * Party would use budget procedure that would let them jam it through on a simple majority vote, depriving Senate Democrats of the filibuster * Medical device tax, 30-hour workweek for coverage, employer mandate, employee mandate all could go, gutting the plan * Says there would be a 'transition' for 2017...

The biggest plus is a Trump/Cruz ticket would immediately secure the nomination for us (the majority of the right-leaning grassroots voters), end any possibility of a GOPe betrayal at the convention, and would ensure the Republican party is finally with we the grassroots people (tea party, conservatives, religious people, economic conservatives, business people, middle class, blue collar, national security patriots, etc, ie, a rebirth of the Reagan Coalition) and against the globalist GOP big government establishment. It’d be a yuuuge middle finger to the elite ruling classes of both parties. And it would have coattails guaranteeing a pro-America landslide against...

Much has been written about the sacrament of reconciliation — the theology behind it, the scriptural evidence for it, the power and benefits of it for penitents. But what’s it like, experientially, for a priest to hear the sins of others week after week and month after month? Can it be a burden? Does it affect a priest’s spiritual life? Aleteia’s lifestyle editor, Zoe Romanowsky, asked Msgr. Charles Pope about what it’s been like to hear confessions over his 24 years as a priest. Msgr. Charles Pope is the pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian in Washington DC. He is a...

"In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: . . . And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." (Colossians 1:14, 20) John introduced Jesus to the world at His baptism by saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). He was known prophetically as a lamb even before then. "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep...

But since an Obama veto is guaranteed, what's the point? It’s a first in two ways: The House has passed ObamaCare repeals before, but this is the first one to pass both the House and the Senate and land on Obama’s desk. Oh, and the defunding of Planned Parenthood is in there too. It’s the first time the Senate has used reconciliation to bypass the filibuster and pass the ObamaCare repeal with more than 50 votes but fewer than 60. So sure, it’s more than has been done before. Then again, you’d expect more when you’ve finally got control of...

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday that House members will vote on a rollback of ObamaCare as one of their first acts of 2016. "When we return in January, the House will put an ObamaCare repeal bill on the floor and pass it and put it on the president's desk," Ryan told reporters Thursday. "We are going to keep working to give families relief from this law while we work to dismantle and replace it altogether." The vote on the legislation, which has already passed the Senate, will set up a veto battle with the White House just ahead of...

As of this writing, House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan has not decided whether to run for speaker. He has been bombarded by all the Republican factions. Even Mitt Romney says the Wisconsinite can unify the Republican conference and take ON the job. I applaud Ryan’s leadership and policy skills and think he would make a good speaker But there’s a backstory to the current chaos of the GOP conference and the withdrawal of Kevin McCarthy from the speakership race. The GOP leadership in the House and Senate has failed to pass legislation to repeal the Obama agenda and...

Why not? It worked for ObamaCare, didn’t it? The Hill reports that Speaker John Boehner’s latest strategy to thread the needle of demands to defund Planned Parenthood and yet avoid a government shutdown will take a page from the Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi playbook: Top House Republicans hope to convince their members to keep the government open by using a fast-track process known as reconciliation to try to defund Planned Parenthood.House Republican leaders are planning to target Planned Parenthood’s funding by immediately drafting a fast-track reconciliation bill, according to a senior House GOP aide.Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants...

 "When did you stop beating your wife?" is the position of the logical fallacy, the Loaded Question. The answer "I never started" improperly grants the question the dignity of the reasonable. "Pope tells priests to pardon women who have abortions ... overruling hardline traditionalists within the Catholic Church" screams the headline from APF by Jean-Louis de La Vaissiere. He writes from the Vatican, without knowing anything about his subject. Prior to this declaration, only the Pope himself could pardon the sin of abortion. "Sins which the priest has no authority to absolve are called reserved sins. Absolution from these sins can be obtained only...