Almighty and everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being: Grant unto us such purity of heart and strength of purpose that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing thy will, and no weakness from doing it; but in thy light may we see light, and in thy service find perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
–A Prayer from the Uppingham School
When I am afraid, I put my trust in thee. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust without a fear. What can flesh do to me?
–Psalm 56:3-4
A sharp increase in the number of women having abortions in their early thirties is partly being driven by the financial crisis of recent years, experts say.
The figure for women between the ages of 30 and 34 rose by 10% between 2009 and 2011, according to figures from the Department of Health. By contrast, the number of girls under 18 who had terminations over the same period dropped by more than 18%.
Over the past decade, the abortion rate for women aged 30 to 34 has increased faster than for any other age bracket ”” from 14.2 women per thousand in 2001 to 17.2 in 2011.
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This retirement oasis in the desert has long beckoned those who want to spin out their golden years playing golf and sitting by the pool in the arid sunshine.
But for Clare Keany, who turned 62 last fall and cannot find work, it feels more like a prison. Just a few miles from the gated estates of corporate chieftains and Hollywood stars, Ms. Keany lives in a tiny mobile home, barely getting by on little more than $1,082 a month from Social Security.
“I would rather be functioning and having a job somewhere,” said Ms. Keany, whose pixie haircut, trim build and crinkling smile suggest someone much younger than her years. “I really don’t enjoy living like this. I’ve got too much to do still.”
Spain’s banking crisis did not come out of the blue.
In the 1990s, the Spanish suffered a bout of collective madness. Interest rates fell from 14 per cent (with the peseta) to 4 per cent (with the euro) in a matter of weeks.
In 1998, the centre-right government passed a law that increased the amount of land for development. Developers got rich, selling the idea that property would always go up in value. You could buy a flat on the Mediterranean for $156,000 and sell it the next day for $234,000; by the end of the month it would be worth $390,000…..
Dorothy Sayers, the British intellectual and theologian and ”“ not incidentally ”“ writer of mystery novels, once remarked that for the average churchgoer of her day, the mystery of the Trinity meant “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the whole thing incomprehensible; something put in by theologians to make it more difficult ”“ nothing to do with daily life or ethics.”
Well, in fact the mystery of the Trinity has everything to do with daily life and ethics, though it is also, it must be said, “incomprehensible.” Which is why in the Church we are accustomed, as we have been this morning, to talking about this revelation as a “mystery.”
But, in this theological sense, when we talk about a mystery, we’re not talking about a sort of intellectual puzzle….No, in the Church, when we talk about a mystery, and especially when we talk about this Mystery of Mysteries, the ultimate mystery which is the Most Holy Trinity, we are using the word in almost the opposite way. Instead of a logical puzzle, a question, we are talking about a truth, a revealed truth, which we may know to be true even though it is impossible to wrap our little heads all the way round it.
In just the two years since the release of Apple’s iPad, the U.S. tablet market has reached a “critical mass,” with nearly one in four smartphone owners also using a tablet in the three-month period ending in April, according to data released by market researcher ComScore.
Tablet use among smartphone owners has more than doubled in the past year, going from 9.7 percent last year to 23.6 percent this year, ComScore found. By comparison, only 10.4 percent of feature phone owners also use a tablet, “suggesting that smartphone ownership is highly predictive of tablet adoption in the current market,” comScore said.
Is your doctor a technophobe? Increasingly, the answer may be no. There’s a stereotype that says doctors shun technology that might threaten patients’ privacy and their own pocketbooks. But a new breed of physicians is texting health messages to patients, tracking disease trends on Twitter, identifying medical problems on Facebook pages and communicating with patients through email.
So far, those numbers are small. Many doctors still cling to pen and paper, and are most comfortable using e-technology to communicate with each other ”” not with patients. But from the nation’s top public health agency, to medical clinics in the heartland, some physicians realize patients want more than a 15-minute office visit and callback at the end of the day.
Far from Silicon Valley and East Coast high-tech hubs, Kansas City pediatrician Natasha Burgert offers child-rearing tips on her blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, and answers patients’ questions by email and text messages.
After a two-year-long investigation, the Vatican strongly condemned a 2006 book on sexuality written by a prominent American nun. The Vatican’s doctrine office said Just Love by Sister Margaret Farley reflects a “defective understanding” of church teaching on issues including masturbation, homosexuality, marriage and divorce. Sister Farley taught Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School for more than 30 years. She said her book was not intended to be an expression of official Catholic teaching, but rather an “exploration of contemporary interpretations.” With this week’s news, the book has shot up the bestsellers charts. Many lay Catholics around the country have been rallying in support of US nuns. Last week, the umbrella group representing the majority of American Catholic sisters pushed back against a Vatican rebuke of them. In April, the Vatican accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) of having “serious doctrinal problems” and ordered the group to place itself under the authority of Seattle’s archbishop. Conference leaders will go to Rome Tuesday (June 12) for a meeting with church officials to discuss the situation.
Meanwhile at the Vatican, the investigation continues in the so-called “VatiLeaks” scandal in which private papal documents have been leaked to journalists. The pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was formally questioned this week. Under Vatican law, he faces up to six years in prison on charges of aggravated theft of the documents. But after Gabriele’s arrest, more documents were leaked, along with an anonymous note threatening still more unless certain church officials resign, including Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state. Bertone, who has been targeted in many of the leaks, accompanied Pope Benedict XVI to Milan last weekend for a huge event””the World Meeting of Families. An estimated one million people attended a special Mass there. Benedict announced the next World Meeting of Families will be in Philadelphia, in 2015. He said he looks forward to taking part “God willing.” He’ll then be 88 years old.
Amid all of this, the US Catholic bishops will be holding their semi-annual meeting this coming week in Atlanta.
Anglican Archbishop Jeffrey Driver has accused the Commonwealth government of gambling with the future of young Australians as it considers changes to gambling regulations.
Proposed changes to online betting laws outlined in the government’s interim report on the Review of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 include the legalisation of new forms of online gambling that the Archbishop believes could create a new wave of problem gamblers.
“The proposed changes to online betting have the potential to open up more opportunities for Australians, especially young Australians, to gamble online,” Archbishop Driver said. “Young people are the most attuned to the digital revolution but also the most vulnerable to its disadvantages or dangers.”
The house lights go down. Spinning, multicolored lights sweep the auditorium. A rock band launches into a rousing opening song. “Ignore everyone else, this time is just about you and Jesus,” proclaims the lead singer. The music changes to a slow dance tune, and the people sing about falling in love with Jesus. A guitarist sporting skinny jeans and a soul patch closes the worship set with a prayer, beginning, “Hey God ”¦” The spotlight then falls on the speaker, who tells entertaining stories, cracks a few jokes, and assures everyone that “God is not mad at you. He loves you unconditionally.”
After worship, some members of the church sign up for the next mission trip, while others decide to join a small group where they can receive support on their faith journey. If you ask the people here why they go to church or what they value about their faith, they’ll say something like, “Having faith helps me deal with my problems.”
Fifty or sixty years ago, these now-commonplace elements of American church life were regularly found in youth groups but rarely in worship services and adult activities. What happened? Beginning in the 1930s and ’40s, Christian teenagers and youth leaders staged a quiet revolution in American church life that led to what can properly be called the juvenilization of American Christianity. Juvenilization is the process by which the religious beliefs, practices, and developmental characteristics of adolescents become accepted as appropriate for adults. It began with the praiseworthy goal of adapting the faith to appeal to the young, which in fact revitalized American Christianity. But it has sometimes ended with both youth and adults embracing immature versions of the faith. In any case, white evangelicals led the way.
Boko Haram militants have attacked two churches during Sunday services, triggering deadly reprisal attacks.
In the central city of Jos, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a church, wounding at least 50 people.
In a separate attack, gunmen opened fire during a service in Biu in northeastern Borno state, leaving at least one person dead.
Lisa and Jorge Alvarez wanted a child. One child to diaper, feed, cuddle and watch grow. Over a dozen years, they’ve had 90.
The Southwest Miami-Dade, Fla., couple, who were unable to have their own children, have fostered that many kids since they decided to take in a baby boy in hopes of adopting him. Though that didn’t work out ”” the child was adopted by his aunt ”” they got lucky with their second placement, a cherubic-faced baby named Natasha whom they adopted soon after her second birthday. Today she’s almost 12.
One day Thomas Jefferson and a group of other men were fording a swollen stream on horseback. A man on the bank of the river waited until several of the men crossed. Then he waved to Jefferson and asked to be taken across, and the President gladly obliged. When the wayfarer reached the other side, one of the men asked, “Tell me, why did you select the President to ask this favor of?” The man replied, “I didn’t know he was the President. All I know is that on some faces is written the answer ”˜No’ and on some the answer ”˜Yes.’ His face was one of the latter.
–Chuck Swindoll, The Grace Awakening (Dallas:Word Publishing, 1990), used by yours truly in this morning’s sermon
“Home,” he mocked gently.
“Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
“I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
–The Death of the Hired Man
Good Jesu, fountain of love:
Fill me with thy love,
Absorb me into thy love,
Compass me with they love,
That I may see all things in the light of thy love,
Receive all things as tokens of thy love,
Speak of all things in words breathing of thy love,
Win through thy love others to thy love,
Be kindled day by day with a new glow of thy love,
Until I be fitted to enter into thine everlasting love,
To adore thy love and love to adore thee,
My God and my all. Even so, come Lord Jesu!
–Edward Bouverie Pusey ( 1800-1882)
A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein; for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. [Selah] Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! [Selah]
–Psalm 24
Muslim prisoners are bullying inmates to convert to Islam at a top-security jail, provoking fear of a campaign to radicalise prisoners.
Extremist Muslim inmates at Whitemoor prison use “runners” to attack or threaten other inmates while they keep their distance. Muslim prisoners are the most prominent group within the jail and the influence of some of the “big players” is spreading fear among other inmates and staff, according to a report commissioned by the Home Office…..
The number of Muslims within the 450-strong population of the jail in Cambridgeshire had led to efforts by other inmates to boost attendance at Catholic masses as a counterbalance to the influence of Islam.
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Europe is to offer Spain a bailout package of up to €100 billion ($125 billion) to help rescue the country’s banks and keep the 17-country eurozone from breaking apart.
After months of fierce denials, Spain admitted it would tap the fund as it moved faster than expected to stem the economic crisis that has ravaged Europe for two years.
Spain becomes the fourth – and largest – European economy to ask for help and its admission of help comes after months of market concern about its ability to pay its way. In recent weeks investors have demanded higher and higher costs to lend to Spain, and it became clear it would be just too expensive for the country to borrow the money necessary for a bank rescue from the markets.
Every generation has an incentive to borrow money from the future to spend on itself. But, until ours, no generation of Americans has done it to the same extent. Why?
A huge reason is that earlier generations were insecure. They lived without modern medicine, without modern technology and without modern welfare states. They lived one illness, one drought and one recession away from catastrophe. They developed a moral abhorrence about things like excessive debt, which would further magnify their vulnerability.
Recently, life has become better and more secure. But the aversion to debt has diminished amid the progress. Credit card companies seduced people into borrowing more. Politicians found that they could buy votes with borrowed money. People became more comfortable with red ink….
Next week, North Dakota voters will decide whether to add an amendment to the state’s constitution that supporters say will guarantee religious freedom. But the ballot measure has prompted debate over precisely what it safeguards; opponents argue that it’s a solution in search of a problem and worry about its consequences.
Measure 3 is worded this way: “Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty.” Its supporters call it the Religious Liberty Restoration amendment; they say it’s needed because of a 22-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision they believe has put limits on religious freedom.
Although they have rented it out to a restaurant for the past five years, the owners of one building in Aspe have never paid property tax. Nor have they ever paid tax on the apartments that house two of their employees. But that may be about to change. Last week, the city’s government voted to partially rescind the exemption that the Catholic Church, landlord of those three properties and another eight more in town, has long enjoyed. And thanks to the crisis that threatens to upend Spain’s economy, it’s not the only place demanding change.
Three different laws, including a 1979 agreement with the Vatican, exempt the Catholic Church from paying property tax in Spain. The same provision holds for other recognized religions and non-profit organizations like the Red Cross, yet because Catholicism is the dominant religion in Spain, and because the Church’s holdings there are so vast (España Laica, a pro-secularism group, estimates that were it not for the exemption, the church would annually owe 2.5 to 3 billion euros in property taxes), critics have long argued that the arrangement is part of the preferential treatment granted the Catholic Church. It’s only now, however, with austerity measures bearing down and a European bailout looming, that anyone has thought to put that criticism into action. Economic pressure, in other words, may well accomplish what 33 years of democracy have not.
…the [recent Margaret Farley] episode raises anew the question, always lurking in the cathedral, of who decides what we’re allowed to read, and how we’re supposed to read it. In religion, who controls the books?
In the Reformation, Protestants were persecuted for making the Bible available in vernacular translations, so that laypeople, in addition to priests, could read it. But translation was just one battleground in the war over who controls religious literature. And while the battles have been particularly fierce in the Catholic Church, they are not unique to Catholicism, or Christianity.
“The papacy was not the first to begin this idea of censoring books,” said John W. O’Malley, a Jesuit priest and historian at Georgetown University. “The indices of books that were prohibited, at the universities of Paris and Louvain and so forth, started in the 16th century. It all began with printing.”
The Scottish Episcopal Church has rejected an agreement backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury that could have seen sanctions imposed on them if they diverged from the Anglican Communion’s rulings on issues such as the ordination of gay bishops and same-sex unions.
The church’s General Synod, currently meeting in Edinburgh, overwhelmingly rejected the covenant, stating that it threatened its independence and went against the spirit of the communion.
It had been asked to sign up to the Anglican Covenant, an agreement intended to bring unity to the worldwide communion by introducing a measure of discipline and accountability into relationships between its 38 independent churches.
[Nathan] Baxter, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, will announce his decision this weekend at the 142nd annual diocesan convention in State College. Three-hundred people from the 66 parishes in the 24-county diocese will attend.
Although the Episcopal Church has ordained openly gay bishops in the United States, it has not taken an official stand on gay marriage.
“The Episcopal Church says that homosexuality in and of itself is not a sin,” Baxter said. “We are called to love and respect all persons as being loved by God. I am listening to all views as I discern whether to approve blessing same-sex unions.”
Bishop Asuamah emphasized that no political party was bigger than Ghana and that all parties must put a high premium on the relative peace Ghanaians were currently enjoying and do everything possible to sustain it before, during and after the general election.
He reiterated that the youth also had a part to play to make the election violent free by being circumspect and not allowing the political parties to use them to foment trouble or carry out any diabolical agenda, which would disrupt the elections, maim people and disturb public peace.
Maria Sharapova, who once described her play on clay as a “cow on ice,” defeated Sara Errani of Italy 6-3, 6-2 Saturday to capture her first championship at Roland Garros and complete a career Grand Slam.
“If it was my only one it would be just as special as wining my fourth,” a jubilant Sharapova told the crowd in Court Philippe Chatrier not long after falling to her knees and clasping her face when Errani’s final shot in the 1 hour, 29 minute contest fell into the net.
The three former Episcopal priests said they found themselves more aligned with Roman Catholicism and less with increasingly liberal stances taken by Episcopal leaders. The nation’s sixth-largest Protestant denomination has been divided in recent years over the ordination of [non-celibate] gay men and women and same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church has made efforts to draw Anglicans interested in conversion; even Anglican priests who are married can be ordained.
“It really boils down to understanding of Scripture,” said Vidal, 52. “We believe that the Catholic Church is following the early church teachings more consistently.”
Until they leave, Colonel [Shawn] Daniel warned them sternly, they have a difficult job to do.
“Afghanistan will have the best chance possible to stand on its own feet,” he said. “Until then we have to look after ourselves.”
America is preparing to end its longest war. It is already getting ready to draw down its troops so that in two and a half years nearly all will be gone from this country. Back home, the attention of most Americans has long since shifted elsewhere.
O God, who by the preaching of thy blessed servant Columba didst cause the light of the Gospel to shine in Scotland: Grant, we beseech thee, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show forth our thankfulness to thee by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.