What is faith?

Atheism must hold that there is no possibility of God, or a god, or supreme being, or anything supernatural.

Agnosticism says "Could be -- we don't know."

Seeking says, "Could be -- we don't know, but I want to learn more."

Hope says, "It looks like there might be."

Faith says, "He found me."

Archbishop Chaput's recommended reading list

. . . has 26 books. Good books. See the list here.

Quick takes - Great quotes from Bishop Fulton Sheen

Click on the post-it to head over to Conversion Diary's quick-takes gathering place.

I find that a number of great quotations from Bishop Sheen have found their way into my notebook. So I present them here for you to run deliciously through your fingers.

(1) Truth must be sought at all costs, but separate isolated truths will not do. Truth is like life; it has to be taken on its entirety or not at all. . . . We must welcome truth even if it reproaches and inconveniences us -- even if it appears in the place where we thought it could not be found.

(2) Nothing is more harmful to a man than his resistance to Grace.

(3) So much do the will and its sin become wedded together that a soul will say, "Let me alone. I made my bed and I will lie in it."

(4) Those who hate Truth and fear Goodness are not far from the kingdom of God. They are fighting against it, and yet they know theirs is a losing battle. The more violently men hate truth, the more they think about it; the more they fear the goodness that demands perfection, the more they know it is what they really seek.

(5) Once we accept him, we find we were truly deceived. It was only the skin of the heavenly fruit that seemed bitter. The meat ravishes the soul. . . At first glance, God seems to be taking away our happiness, but in the moment of surrender we discover he has deceived us. He has merely taken away the dross to give us the gold of his eternity.

(6) Sin was the act by which man refused to see created things for what they were -- stepping stones to God, a means to an end -- and began instead to clutch at them as ends in themselves. That is what sin is, still. As a man loves his sense of humor when he cannnot see the point of a pun, so he loses his humor in its entirety when he ceases to see the point of the universe, which is that all things are revelations, symbols, reminders of God who made them. To take things as ends in themselves is to overrate them, treating them with a solemnity which is not warranted.

(7) Every person carries in his heart the blueprint of the one he loves.

Committing an act of citizenship

Today I sent e-mails to my Congressional Representative and the two Senators representing Michigan. I don't expect any of them to be remotely swayed by my urgings, but one does what one can and leaves the rest to God.

Here's the text of what I wrote to my representative:

To the Honorable John Dingell:

Re: Health Care reform

It is of vital importance that the eventual legislation has:

(1) Explicit broad conscience protection provisions for health care workers and health-providing institutions in the areas of abortion provision and end-of-life issues.

(2) Clear and explicit prohibitions against any -- ANY -- federal financing of abortion services.

Therefore I urge you to support the Stupak amendment and to see to it that the bill's Rule enables a vote on this amendment.

In the absence of protections, the eventual bill should be opposed.

We're paying attention.

Thank you for your service.

Rosalind Dieterich
Ann Arbor, MI

If you would like to e-mail your public servants, the "Contact" page for members of the Senate is here, and the (bit more cumbersome) one for House members can be found here.

The truth packs a lot of clout

Abby Johnson worked for eight years at the Bryan, TX office of Planned Parenthood, the last two as its Director. She piloted the nonprofit through a tough economy, realizing that it had to change its business model from an emphasis on prevention, which wasn't going to pay the bills. "The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion."

Then she watched an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

On October 8 of this year, she submitted her resignation. Johnson has been meeting with the Executive Director of Bryan's Coalition for Life and has participated in praying outside her former workplace.

Full story here.

Hat tip: Curt Jester