Sun Dial Moments

Janus the Roman God of New Beginnings

2012-01-03T00:28:00.002-05:00

January is named after the Roman God Janus, the God of new beginnings. A two faced statue looking backward and forward, Janus builds a future while still respecting the past. Will this be the year Cuba respects but leaves its past and starts a new beginning?

CUBA..the reality

2011-12-27T09:27:00.002-05:00

CUBA: the damage

2011-12-27T09:23:00.002-05:00

A Catholic school built before the communist revolution.

CUBA...has the change begun?

2011-12-27T09:01:00.003-05:00

After 50 years of a failed system communism seems to be slowly compromising with the world reality. The war against Catholicism has ended. This year you may say and celebrate "Merry Christmas". A vibrant faith is emerging from the wreckage of crumbling church buildings. Soon, someone, who somehow has any money might be able to buy a house. A few are now allowed to work for themselves even though they must pay a massive tax for that privilege. 2,900 of the thousands of prisoners will be released from prison, even though very few of the 10 million imprisoned island population are allowed to leave the nation. A trickle of servants are returning to work in the old mansions of Havana which were confiscated by the state after their rightful owners fled to America. The servants now work for government or communist squatters. Like a tree growing from a concrete wall, glimpses of freedom are sprouting. History has proven that the masses demand change not when they are destitute but after they have a taste of a better life, and once that taste is savored there is no force that can stop the appetite.

Hey England, We're Back!

2011-04-01T16:57:00.001-04:00

Pope Benedict XVI and some English priests and seminarians.

Catholicism Returns to the Cathedral of York

2011-03-31T21:44:00.003-04:00

For the first since Henry VIII stole the cathedral of York from the Catholic church, a Catholic Mass was celebrated this week in the ancient church. When he took the church Henry stripped much of its wealth for his mistress, Anne Boleyn, who processed through it at her wedding, pregnant with the pretender of the throne, the future Elizabeth I. Once queen, Elizabeth vandalized the massive shrine by removing any semblances of Catholicism including defacing the graves of the dead. Now 500 years later, a Roman Catholic High Latin Mass was allowed by the Anglican occupiers in this formerly Catholic cathedral dedicated to St. Peter, the first Pope. 900 attended. Slowly, slowly England drifts back to her mother faith.

New English Priests

2011-03-30T18:11:00.005-04:00

About 500 years ago St. Thomas More was executed for remaining loyal to the Pope. The Church of England bishops urged him to spare his life and join them in apostasy. His monies and home were confiscated. He was imprisoned. He died remaining loyal to the King but also the Pope. "I am the King's loyal servant, but God's first" were some of his last words. Today, 50 Church of England priests have left their church to become Roman Catholic priests and are studying for the priesthood on the former site of Thomas More's home. He who laughs last laughs best indeed.

Cuba 2011

2011-03-18T09:42:00.004-04:00

When does "The Revolution" need a revolution? Answer: When the new ruling class becomes as entrenched and self serving as the ruling class it destroyed to achieve power. Today, Cuba needs a new Fidel Castro, only this one must truly love the people and return basic human rights...freedom to assemble, travel, politically choose, worship God, and pursue an economic dream. This new Castro must destroy the aging Communist privileged class that strangles the island nation for their own welfare. The blueprint is given by history. A nation waits. A people so destroyed have little time or energy for a revolution without a leader. This is not middle class Egypt 2011, France 1789, America 1776, or Tunisia 2011. This is China 1949, Russia 1917, Cuba 1959. Cuba needs a new and better Fidel Castro if its torture heroic people are to be rescued. Teddy Roosevelt did it in 1898. We thought Fidel 1 did it in 1959. we were wrong. Cuba waits...

The Wreckage

2011-03-10T09:54:00.003-05:00

How do you begin... what went wrong? How could an institution so strong, so organized, so historic, so moral, so wealthy, so powerful...just collapse? The picture shows all that remains of a Catholic school in modern Cuba. Destruction from outside...Fidel and his communists. Yes the altar boy, Jesuit trained Fidel Castro grew up to all but erase his church from his nation.
Today, another generation of altar boys are erasing Catholicism. This time it is in America. This time it is not a famous dictator, a Catholic kid who turned bad. This time it is the innocent. Holy boys presented to the church by loving trusting parents only to be sexually molested by sick men ordained as priests. Small in number but devastating beyond anticipation these pedophiles and those bishops who protected them are bankrupting the church financially and morally. Once again they reprove the historic fact that real destruction of the church does not come from persecutors but from its own priests. Probably every heresy was begun by a priest. Today, Holy Mother Church bleeds in America but is being reborn in Cuba.

Silent Soldiers in The Snow

2011-01-30T10:48:00.003-05:00

The sun sets at the monastery on a cold brief Winter day. The bells wait. Like soldiers in the snow they wait to remind us of the glory of the Creator Who is present at all times and in many ways. Soon it will be time for vespers. The bells will call everyone to thank the Creator for another day of life. After vespers the chapel will again be empty. Only the dancing shadows of the vigil light flickering before the icon of the Blessed Virgin remain. Outside, the snow slowly turns from white to blue under the rising moon. The bells stand at attention. So much of the secular world holds no attraction from this peace.

United We Stand

2010-09-30T14:48:00.004-04:00

Torn over issues of female clergy, the practice of homosexuality, declining Sunday services attendance, and some of its former churches turning into mosques, the Anglican Churches of England and Scotland were required by the Queen to welcome Pope Benedict XVI at former Catholic institutions lost when stolen by Henry VIII in the 16th century. Indeed, the current Queen Elizabeth is probably named after Elizabeth I who was excommunicated by the Pope also in the 16th century. Again, history surprises us in our lifetime. Many thought the Soviet Union, the "Iron Curtain" and the Berlin Wall would out last us and our children, but in an historical instant they were all gone.

Now we have the Pope welcomed by Queen Elizabeth to visit the former Benedictine monastery of Westminster Abbey, and the actual courtroom where Thomas Moore was sentenced to death because of his loyalty to the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff. Four hundred years ago Catholic priests were hung, disemboweled and quartered for the "crime" of being a priest. Henry VIII stole, looted and destroyed 600 Catholic churches and monasteries. Now the Roman church returns to declare blessed, John Cardinal Neuman who left the Anglican priesthood, converted to Roman Catholicism and became a cardinal. A Pope honoring an Anglican who converted to Roman Catholicism in England under the witness of the schismatic Archbishop of Canterbury... historically unthinkable but now a reality.

One senses that the Christians of Europe are possibly finally reuniting. Devastated by Nazism, Communism, Secularism and now a growing Islam, Christians are seeing an urgency and duty to save Europe's Christian soul and identity. Perhaps our lifetime will witness the spectacular once again...a reuniting of Protestantism, Anglicanism, the Roman and Orthodox churches.

Saint Edward the Confessor

2010-07-27T18:07:00.006-04:00

It was a sad Mass. So sad even the priest cried. We were not burying a person but rather a building…the church of Saint Edward the Confessor still standing amidst the urban prairie of the north Philadelphia badlands. Over a century old it had watched its community built, beautified, abandoned and finally destroyed. All that was left were occasional defiant row homes without rows that gasped on acres of broken bricks and dead trees. The aftermath of another great urban battlefield, one of many that chanted the sorrow of American cities at the end of the twentieth century. And now the little congregation of ten gathered in a church which had once greeted a thousand for spectacular Christmas Masses. We came to bury this glorious monument of English Gothic architecture. Towering stained glass windows from France reflected for one last time the story of our faith. Altar bells echoed in the great void. The Virgin Queen gave her final loving gaze. “Ita Missa Est” whispered the broken priest. He had tried so valiantly to save this lighthouse of love in a violent sea of drugs and cruelty. It was over. He had lost.

They entered before the incense had even drifted up to the interior heaven. Protected by security guards they began to take as much of the art that they could move this day. The twenty foot crucifix was lowered carefully onto a padded vehicle for transport to the archdiocesan warehouse. Each man carried a massive candlestick from the home they had known for a century. In one corner a group wrestled the Virgin from her pedestal with the help of a small crane. Yes it was really over. Outside nervous young guards stood by as the loot was taken. Across the street a Black man was yelling, “Thieves! This is God’s house. His glory belongs to His people who have nothing!” Some dismissed him as a drunk, a street person from the rubble. The guards would briefly give him quick stares, always avoiding prolonged eye contact. “Thieves! God’s vengeance on you!” He was a prophet of the street. He had nothing but the truth.

The Six Thousand

2010-06-16T14:01:00.003-04:00

This week Cardinal Dougherty High School in Philadelphia will officially close...a thought considered impossible in 1958 when it opened as the largest Catholic high school in the world. Those were the glory days for American Catholicism. Seminaries and convents were struggling to find room for their unending floods of candidates. Priests sat down to rectory dinners at crowded dinning room tables. It was unusual to see an elderly priest. It was equally unusual to have a teacher who was not either a priest or a nun. Parishes and schools were well into a building frenzy. The issue of individual conscience and disagreeing with Church doctrine seemed to be non existent. There were the rules, and those who disobeyed them confessed their sins, or just left. No energy was waisted on accommodation and strained compromises. The Church was "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic" in word and actuality. Each year Cardinal Dougherty would graduate well over 1,000 students. Its halls were built extra wide to accommodate the vast crowds during the change of classes. Tuition was $25.00, books were rented, field trips and movies were unheard of. Silence permeated the school during instruction time. All of the 6,000 students prayed as a mass 8 times a day. Female students wore modest uniforms. Male students sported a suit, white shirt and tie. Sneaks appeared in gym and jeans at home. Ours was a European style education with emphasis on lecture and memorization devoid of any current educational fix all program. Manners, respect, patriotism and God were the constant themes of the school.

Today, the building houses 500 students within its endless halls and 2,000 seat auditorium. Nuns disappeared first, then the priests. Catholicism probably has a bare majority as the faith of the student body. Enduring a withering storm of Great Recession, clerical scandals, and a pagan culture, the building somehow remained open until now. It closes this week. The marvel is that it lasted this long. In many ways it represents the Church in America today. Standing, empty and beloved by those who are blessed with memories of a better America. We are promised by Christ that Holy Mother Church will survive to the end of times. He never mentioned, however, our numbers.

Spring Diet

2010-05-16T10:53:00.001-04:00

Not everyone is slimming down for the summer.

Joey

2010-04-29T21:54:00.004-04:00

Waiting in my car at the Walmart, I saw him approach from the side mirror. Instant decision...roll up the window or see what happens. It was a brilliantly beautiful day and the store was brand new so I felt safe. Not sure why. A voice said take a chance and talk to him if he talks to you. Tattooed and a little drunk he told me his story. He lived in a tent in the woods just beyond the parking lot, and had just survived one of our worst winters in history. It was his third tent. One had blown away and another had been destroyed by a mutually panicked deer. His name was Joey and he was 47 years old. He had lived in the woods for 2 years now. He was forbidden to beg from Walmart shoppers on the parking lot. So we agreed if he was stopped we were just friends having a conversation. His mother lived in senior housing high rise nearby but he was not allowed to visit her after being found sleeping in the lobby. He hadn't seen his father for decades and doubted he would even recognize him. His father had died in in his heart. Before they closed the nearby Catholic church Fr. Bob had let him sleep and shower in the abandoned convent, and even made dinner for him now and then. But that was all over now. Joey loved God, would read his bible in his tent until it got dark. He was currently into Corinthians. Once he went to a nearby Baptist church for bible study but forgot it wasn't Sunday. The church was closed. Proud that he was drug free for 4 months Joey admitted he still needed vodka in the morning to control the shakes. Frustrated he lamented he just couldn't take life much longer. The spider bites, the rain, the despair...it was all too much. On April 5 he had remembered it was his birthday and cried bitterly. There was no cards, no cake, no recognition by anyone that he was alive. We talked about AA and places for help, but he admitted he still loved alcohol too much to give it up. I told him unless he controlled it in the end it would win. Briefly, slightly wistfully he acknowledged the demon but then changed the subject. Although I was 10 minutes passed giving him a few bucks, I was drawn to give more even though he didn't ask for it. I told him that God didn't forget his birthday and gave him 20 dollars. He was someone and he got a birthday present no matter what he did with it. His joy was intense.

So there we were on the Walmart parking lot surrounded by people buying more stuff. It was strange to find a man with nothing at a place that boasts it has everything. I wondered who was richer Joey or the shoppers. I reminded Joey that Jesus had little of this world just like him. They were friends, Jesus and him, travelling the cruel way of the cross. But now and then He uses someone to remind the crucified that are not forgotten and are so loved in their passion and suffering. Joey and I parted as friends and he went off to Burger King for dinner. The sun was setting over all of the franchises and the cars continued their endless suburban parade. America 2010.

A Prayer For Now

2010-03-20T11:41:00.004-04:00

A winter's night awaits the Spring. Blue sky...black trees...a guardian moon, God's universal plan continues despite the noises of humanity and its wasted energies. We are less than ants in the grand scheme and yet mysteriously loved by the Creator. What was important is not important, what should be important is too often ignored. To be alone with creation is to be in the presence of the Creator. Pause and ascend above Walmarts, car troubles, and American Idol. Discover you are loved and your return home is always waiting if you find the way. Be careful of the detours and realize when you are in a dead end.

Industrial Winter

2010-02-15T21:52:00.001-05:00

Waiting to be Buried

2010-01-26T09:08:00.003-05:00

It is a strange morning for winter, the temperature has reached 60 degrees. Although it is approaching noon the sky is dark. Winds are powerful and the rain is tropical. It is my job to make a delivery. The majestic church stands as a mighty reminder of a past. The thousands are gone. Their school is closed. Their convent is empty of nuns. A rectory built for many priests has but one. Crumbled sidewalks betray a maintenance abandoned. Surviving trees mix with their long dead brothers. Rain drips from rotten gutters. I have breached the barbed wire fence through the hidden entrance and made my delivery. A gentle soul has quieted the old dog long exhausted from his guardian duties. The task is done. I wonder where did all my people go. In suburbs perhaps where they harvest wonderful memories of another time...reciting creative names of celebrity nuns long buried? Memories...crowds of worshippers bustling home for a Sunday breakfast...altar boys extinguishing candles...ushers closing doors. Sunshine always paints memories. But today is not such a day. I know I am really looking at many Catholic churches in many American cities. The tribe has moved, and left behind their monuments. Their new churches are pitiful imitations of a majestic disciplined past. Perhaps they reflect the depth of their new century faith. I hope not. But now, here in the city it is raining. This wondrous church stands alone looking down on the collapsing houses of its ghostly congregation. Across the street a new African American Baptist church glares with the arrogance of victory. My church stares back waiting to be buried.

Anglicans Coming Home?

2009-11-02T15:21:00.005-05:00

After almost 600 years the Anglicans are on the verge of a massive return to the Church of Rome. In the 16th century King Henry VIII declared himself head of the church in England. Some of his official acts included granting himself a divorce, confiscating all church wealth and closing the monasteries. Suddenly, he was the richest man in England. Church lands were given to his supporters. Church bells were melted down into cannons and church lead roofs were melted into bullets. Those who supported him were rewarded. Those who defied him were killed. Their number included Thomas More who was later declared a saint by the Roman Church. All priests and bishops were ordered to renounce their allegiance to the Pope, and slowly began the evolution of a schismatic faith, the Anglican church. But Catholicism was hard to destroy, and now the church of Rome has officially welcomed them back. Allowing them to keep their married priests, create new married priests, and retain their Anglican traditions and rituals. Many are said to wish a return since the Anglican church is increasingly ordaining women , practicing homosexuals and flirting with the concept of homosexual marriages. These are historic times for both the Roman and Anglican churches. Rome numbers 1 billion souls, the Anglicans 77 million. The numbers returning should be interesting. If it is a flood it could be common to see married priests in the church of Rome who are Anglican. Where is Henry VIII and what must he be thinking?

St. Michael the Archangel be Our Protector...

2009-09-29T08:56:00.004-04:00

Today, September 29, is the Roman Catholic day to honor Saint Michael the Archangel. He is portrayed as a warrior saint slaying Lucifer shown in the form of a deadly dragon. Lucifer whose beauty was once so stunning that he challenged God, and was thus caste into Hell by Michael whose name is really a question he shouted across the heavens as he prepared to slay the dragon, "Who is like God?" . As Lucifer and his angels fell into their kingdom of fire they transformed from beauty to ugliness, thus beginning the strange bait of evil which often appears so beautiful but becomes so ugly. Defeated by God and His angels, Lucifer then set his target on God's wonderful creation, man.

With this as a background it is interesting to see the church on the coast of France (see picture) dedicated to Saint Michael who was proclaimed by the church as the protector of Europe. The 21st century finds Europe spiritually adrift after a brutal century of warfare. Its churches are empty. Some are turning into mosques. In Glasgow, Scotland there are now 33,000 Muslims. This week the Pope visited the Czech Republic the first atheist majority nation in Europe. The last century was a tough one for Europe: imperialism, fascism, Communism, materialism have taken their toll on its soul. Saint Michael the Archangel still stands on the coast of France, and the church, freed from its oppressors and pedophiles, begins the task of again converting Europe. We will not live to see the results, but I believe Michael will again prevail over evil.

Christ in Christmas

2009-09-19T14:45:00.003-04:00

Well its the last days of summer and the bees are still visiting tired flowers. Nevertheless, today's mail produced another supply of Christmas cards from competing Catholic religious orders eager to beat the other for your money. Sometimes it seems the orders should just be done with it and just change their names to Sisters of Hallmark or Gibson Brothers of the Holy Post. What started as a unique oddity has mushroomed into a card industry: Christmas, Easter, birthday, death, and illness keep a steady flow of cards to our homes. Sometimes they include medals, rosaries, and holy cards. Some even send coins and postage to stir your conscious. Today's mail came from the Maryknoll Order, once the great American missionaries of China now reduced to a trickle of vocations after truly embracing a liberal approach to Catholicism. It contained the usual manger scene cards. The envelope said, "Keep Christ in Christmas". Surely a nifty reminder in the hustle and bustle of summer Cristmas season. How many shopping days to Christmas, Father ? Perhaps we can begin to keep Our Lord in Christmas by having His Church get out of the card business and stop competing with malls decorating for His birth in September in the hope to make the most bucks. Fathers, Sisters and Brothers consider remembering what Chaucer said in the Canterbury Tales, "If the gold rusts what will the iron do"?

Chesepeake Bay in Late Summer

2009-09-07T20:23:00.003-04:00

...a morning I recently captured at the harbor of Saint Michael's Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.

Hibernation

2009-09-01T10:09:00.001-04:00

Time for our brother bears to sleep for the winter. Is it necessary to say "Do Not Disturb"?

Moon at Dusk

2009-08-26T08:24:00.004-04:00

I discovered the beauty and calm of the desert while in Arizona last year, and captured the early moon from the driveway of Frank Loyd Wright's home, Tailsman. Religions speak of spiritual encounters with God, angels, Satan and demons in the desert. The peaceful void, lack of distractions, and absence of man's presence there makes it possible to hear and perhaps even see the spiritual world about us which is so clouded by noise and visual pollutions of the mind. In the desert we discover ourselves.

Tolerance?

2009-08-23T08:19:00.010-04:00

In the 15th century when the Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople they entered its most sacred church, the great Hagia Sophia, Church of the Holy Wisdom, women were violated, men killed, holy objects looted, and the sacred altar desecrated as the conqueror stood on it and faced Mecca with a prayer of thanksgiving. Hagia Sophia was not just another church. It was the seat of the entire Orthodox church rivaling the Vatican in size, age and beauty. The Muslims covered its great mosaics with plaster, removed its cross, and declared it a mosque. Later, they made it a museum. Recently, it was announced that a church in Tarsus, Turkey, birthplace of Saint Paul, would no longer be recognized as a church and was now also a museum. People wishing to pray there were to make an application weeks in advance, secure tickets, and wait for final governmental approval. When Hitler was certain he would win World War II and all of Europe's Jews would be killed, he decided to build a museum dedicated to Judaism. Prior to that Stalin, after destroying 35,000 of Russia's 45,000 churches decided to make surviving buildings (not needed as warehouses or trash dumps) museums as well. Apparently, placing a faith considered an enemy of the state in a museum is an official government declaration that a people and their faith are dead.

Today, apologists for Islam and proponents of Turkish membership in the European Union speak often of the peaceful tolerance of Islam. I find such evidence rare. Islam in total power erases all it opposes one way or another. Western liberal atheists, unceasing in their attacks on Christianity and the state of Israel, would be wise to read history. Surely, after the Christian and Jewish believers are erased they would be next.

False Faith

2009-07-18T14:21:00.003-04:00

The President and his political party continue to withdraw from the war on terror. Indeed, in the truest of Orwellian speak they say there is no war on terror, just fading military operations in Iraq and a "joint" military mission in Afghanistan. Searching CIA files, Democrats seem more obsessed with attacking the previous administration than with American security. As they continue to free prisoners from Guantanamo prison it might be wise to consider history. Britain declared "peace in our time" with Hitler as he continued to prepare for war and nearly defeated them a few years after their declaration of a false peace. The following revolutionaries were once imprisoned and later freed to wreck destruction: Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Castro. How would the world have been different had they never been freed. Again, America, ignore history at your peril, it is sure to repeat itself.

Iran...Fatal Decision

2009-06-25T08:32:00.008-04:00

History has shown that when a nation attacks its citizens something happens to its relationship with its people. The side that supports the attack feels empowered and justified. The side that is attacked ceases to feel loyalty to the state. Thus the state, by its actions, has abandoned a portion of its population and begins a program of repression of its own. This is the reality of Iran in June of 2009. In other places and at other times in history here is what happened next.

In 1776 the English King's troops fired on his subjects in Boston and it was called a Boston Massacre even though only a few people died. Branded as rebels and "put in their place" England proceeded with business as usual, and economically continued to punish rebels. Seven years later the "rebels" ruled the land.In 1790 the soldiers of Louis XVI fired on his citizens of France at Bastille prison. Within a few years they beheaded him.In 1907 the Czar's soldiers fired on their fellow citizens demonstrating for food. In 1917 the Czar was deposed, later executed and the Communists ruled Russia.In 1979 the Shah of Iran fired on his people demonstrating for changes. He was deposed and exiled, replaced by an Islamic religious state.In 1989 Chinese Communists fired on citizens demanding more freedom.2009 China has an emerging middle class and has become the leading capitalist nation in Asia, and soon the world.

I am sure history can also show examples where the state survived attacking its people, but these are examples when the gamble resulted in the state ceasing to exist after the ominous decision to kill its own. After such a decision nothing is ever the same.

Turkey Point

2009-05-04T20:50:00.005-04:00

The rains keep coming day after day with dramatic skies of massive black boulder clouds sweeping across the horizon. Below the earth drinks heartily knowing that bone dry days are but months away. Here, at Turkey Point, population zero humans, a glimpse of how it will all look once brother Sun returns. Few can find Turkey Point but for those who do there is the blessing of silence, peace and solitude...a secret place is necessary to at least dream about when the "machine tells us how to dream" Pink Floyd

Agincourt

2009-04-17T07:54:00.004-04:00

Bernard Cornwell's "Agincourt" is an excellent novel of that historic battle in the Hundred Years War. It captures a view of history from the eyes of a common archer, and as such, is a refreshing alternative to the telling of history from the eyes of the ruling class. The novel's graphic prediction of the violence of the Middle Ages clearly shows how far the old civilization of Rome had collapsed into the barbarism of its invaders. The fusion of the Germanic tribes into Roman order was truly catastrophic considering that indoor plumbing was just one benefit of the old empire which did not reappear for 1,500 years, even after a devastating plague wiped out more than a third of Europe. Reading Cornwell's work I wondered if the current situation in the West is but the early stages of another collapse in which the enemy this time is not across the Rhine but within us. Destruction is so much easier than building and recovery is almost impossible to achieve. "Agincourt" reveals the totality of violence 1,000 years after the collapse of Roman law. It shows a world in which children and women have absolutely no rights. Their abuse and murder is permitted despite the cries of the Church. It is a world of illiteracy and diminished life span in which each generation takes with it to the grave a piece of the culture and civilization that once was. I once spoke to an African-American parent in a poor urban zone. She told me that in her world the grandmothers were raising their grandchildren because a generation had been lost to drugs and violence. She wondered what would happen when the grandmothers died. When that moment came in the Middle Ages the rich fled to castles, and some people fled to walled cities. In our times we have opted for gated communities. Eventually, medieval castles collapsed and cities were sacked.

Being Stained Glass in the New Century

2009-04-07T21:14:00.004-04:00

Stained glass is mute, perhaps ugly, without light. However when the burning sun radiates through it, often a beautiful picture fills the room with vibrant colors and a message. Gothic churches of medieval Europe allowed for wide windows of stained glass because of their architectural supports of flying buttresses and vaulted ceilings. Suddenly, the dark and mysterious Romanesque churches were now competing with the brilliant colors of Gothic churches. To a people with little literacy the windows told the stories of the bible in a clear almost comic book style. Now the peasants could see Adam, Eve, Abraham, Christ and Mary. The new cathedrals had their altars showered by light from the east in honor of Jerusalem as they silently waited for the return of Christ to that sacred city in the end times. People were buried on their backs facing Jerusalem waiting to face Christ on the promised day of the Resurrection of the dead in glorified bodies when the archangel Gabriel would sound his horn across the heavens on that last day. The windows and the dead still wait.

In our times perhaps we are all stained glass windows in the sense that God can shine through us and make his presence known with the warmth and dazzling colors of His love. Perhaps this happens when we know we just did something good for someone, or when we really did a good job in our vocation. As the moment passes, and we and our little world retreats to its sadly familiar darkness, it is good to remember that we did not provide the light that radiated but that He was the light and that He used us to show His love. It is good to be the stained glass.

Notre Dame 1789, 2009

2009-04-03T07:02:00.010-04:00

During the French Revolution Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was desecrated and renamed the Temple of Reason. Statues of kings were beheaded and pagan ritual dances on the high altar replaced the holy sacrifice of the Mass as priests and nuns were beheaded in the massive square outside the cathedral. Today, Notre Dame University in America has also embraced the current secular culture of its time. By inviting Obama (an avowed champion of abortion and stem cell harvesting) to receive a degree, Notre Dame University has now officially renounced its Roman Catholic identity despite its claims of denial and has joined an Episcopalian style embrace of the secular culture in a pseudo-Christian disguise. Honesty should follow with a new name for the school since it is not Catholic. Perhaps it should be called the Notre Dame Episcopalian University, or Notre Dame Secular University. Such an action would indeed be truth in advertising to perspective students and their parents. Likewise, officially leaving the Catholic church would free the university of its current strange dual personality, and most definitely purify the church it currently infects with confusion. Those choosing to become or remain Catholic would have a clarified understanding of their faith and the educational opportunities available under the title of a Catholic University. Notre Dame could be free of controversy and impediments in its developing secularization. Nostalgia for a lost past is a waste of time. The church of Bing Crosby in "Going My Way" has long left Notre Dame. Leave with God's blessings. Allow American Roman Catholics to be about the business of their faith to build and feed Roman Catholic higher education. It is obvious that the marriage of Notre Dame University and Roman Catholicism is over. Lets not stay together for the children. This farce has confused and damaged them enough.

War of the Worlds

2009-03-25T10:51:00.005-04:00

Homosexuals cover the plaza in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Looking to the sky and holding derogatory photos of Pope Benedict over their groins they chant slogans of protest against the Catholic church. Inside the cathedral, worshippers are trapped and cannot leave. Young pagans distribute condoms to onlookers and verbally attack the church for refusing to conform its dogma to their sexual mores. They claim they speak for the new century. They claim that condoms are the only answer to the aides epidemic. They claim they are tolerant of religion as long as it agrees with them.

In other times British pilots used the twin spires of Cologne's cathedral as directional markers for their bombings of the people of Berlin. Communists used cathedrals as museums to support their claim that religion was dead. Napoleon used cathedrals as stables for his armies conquering Europe. Henry VIII of England stripped the cathedrals of their wealth to reward those who broke from the Pope and acknowledged him as head of the Church of England. God's cathedrals and His people survived all of these blasphemers and they will survive the spiritual Vandals of 21st century Paris as well.

To Witness

2009-03-13T19:29:00.000-04:00

Recently, I visited a low security prison on a Saturday afternoon. In the waiting room were many women. Some brought food...some brought children...some were dressed sensually...all seemed materially poor but rich in love. One by one we were called to the registration desk, scanned, inspected and escorted to the cafeteria waiting until the inmates were called on the public address system. As the men streamed in, each intensely searched the room until a familiar face was spotted and a light flickered in their eyes. Familiar foods were shared and the room filled with positive noise. At one table a black Muslim and his white wife stared at a small video. At another table a mother fed her crippled son. Nearby a young inmate rested his head on the breast of an older women and seemed to sleep like a contented baby. I wondered what the future held for all of them. Why did these women surrender a Saturday and make long journeys to visit them? What did these children think about this world when they returned to school on Monday and joined other kids? Where were inmates and families of the rich? Since so many inmates were addicted to drugs that was the reason most were here. Were these men criminals who were addicted or did their addiction cause them to become criminals? I wondered do we punish the sick for being sick? Would we imprison a person who stole drugs to relieve their cancer? Are these people in an endless descent into a final defeat? When we love someone who is terminally sick we often are just reduced to being witnesses of their suffering, and in that sense we become the martyr. The word martyr means "to witness". It is associated with suffering, and indeed, we do suffer when we helplessly watch the journey of the terminally ill. For these men I wondered if their drug addictions were terminal, and if their visitors, adult and child, were called to be their witnesses..their martyrs. Such was the world of drugs in America that Saturday at the prison.

Urban Prairies

2009-03-09T21:58:00.000-04:00

Detroit...half of the people have left...the auto industry has collapsed...25% of the people are unemployed...houses can be bought for a few thousand dollars...one was sold for a dollar...entire zones have been abandoned...looters climb telephone poles to steal copper wire...an urban prairie of crushed bricks emerges. The first American city has died.

21st Century Europe

2009-03-01T12:13:00.000-05:00

The Vikings perished in Greenland for a number of reasons, but perhaps the main reason was their persistence in trying to establish a European model of civilization in a land quite hostile to the idea. They quickly destroyed a fragile environment through deforestation, soil erosion, and Euro-ethnocentrism which attempted to destroy an indigenous culture, the Inuit, since it was considered inferior. Had they learned from the Inuit, instead of trying to destroy them, Vikings would have discovered the advantage of building with snow instead of stones and lumber, heating with whale instead of wood, eating fish instead of failing with cows and sheep. After a few hundred years of a failed attempt to reproduce Europe in Greenland, they were eventually defeated and erased. However Vikings did what European colonialists have always done...try to recreate Europe. Thus, we have today the European culture in the Americas, India, and Australia. Areas late for colonization...Africa and Asia still have a slight European aura such as the British in South Africa and the French in Vietnam.

All of this makes today a very unusual moment in European history. Now its culture has ceased dominating the earth and has retreated. Indeed, it is now actually being overwhelmed on its own continent with a large Muslim minority reproducing at incredible rates through migration and birth.
A disturbing time for the European identity...an exciting time for Islam. Is Europe the new Byzantium of the 21st century? Will its culture be as invisible in a century as the Byzantine culture is absent in modern Turkey? Or will there be a Christian religious and politically enlightened renaissance?

Approaching Moment of Decision

2009-02-24T10:41:00.000-05:00

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, a Catholic, has been advised by her bishop and now, privately, by the Pope, on the subject of her church's position of abortion. The message was simple. Catholics agree with science that life begins at conception. The church requires its members to accept that the taking of human life is wrong, and thus abortion is morally wrong. The Vice President of the United States is a Catholic. Likewise many in Congress are Catholic including Senators Kennedy and Kerry. Most of them are pro-abortion. The President, chosen by millions of Catholics, has already within hours of his oath of office begun an abortion friendly administration. Polls indicate that non-practicing Catholics are somewhat abortion oriented as well. However the same polls claim that practicing Catholics are not. Cardinal Eagan of New York has retired and will be replaced by Archbishop Dollan who will eventually as cardinal, be the leader of the Catholic hierarchy in America. It is probable that he will publicly call on the church to deny communion to Catholic politicians who refuse to champion the lives of the unborn. His point will be that they have removed themselves from communion with the church, and therefore, should not participate in an act of communion at Mass since it is both invalid and sacrilegious. Perhaps, the American Catholic church is finally coming to a moment of decision...a line in the sand...a litmus test as to who is, and who is not a Catholic. Indeed, the abortion issue may be to the Catholics what the gay issue has become to the Anglican / Episcopalians...a passport in or out of the faith. There are indications that global Christian traditionalist are seeking reunion with the Roman church while those attempting dogmatic accommodations to current secular morality are either leaving privately or en mass once the issue truly becomes a media platform.

Leaving the dense forest for a moment it does appear from the sky, that something is happening as Bob Dylan said.

Cowards?

2009-02-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

With a sense of urgency and fear, white America chose as its leader an inexperienced African American instead of one of their own, a war hero crippled by imprisonment and seasoned with years of political experience, and now the new Attorney General calls us a nation of cowards when it comes to the subject of race. Did I miss something?

A Journey Begins

2009-02-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

The American ship of state has launched. All on board sense a journey into uncertain dangerous waters. A short time ago we stood on the dock and listen to the two men who wanted to be captain. Both told us we were in for perilous times, both warned us that ghosts of our parents and grandparents' generations would soon be seen in our world. They would arrive as news clips, books, family conversations and in many other formats. Their common message would be what it was like to live in a time of war and economic depression. Ugly history would become a modern challenge to a new generation, born into material wealth, spiritual poverty, and diversity on a scale never experienced in America. Handicap ghosts America never really knew in World War II and the Great Depression were about to appear. So we chose a captain and set sail. As the coastline of familiar America fades, a fog sets in. Some refuse to look away from the comforts of America past. Some stare across an endless sea of America future and wonder. Some just keep their eyes closed hoping they will not be tossed overboard as the storms intensifies. We have a captain. He was our choice. We study his every word, each decision and wonder...did we make the right choice? Will our nation survive the storms? How many of us will be lost at sea? What part of history will return, and this time beat us? The clouds show ghosts of America past...secession, war, depression, and racial warfare. Human rights seem threatened all over the globe. Asia and Africa systematically abuse them. Europe seems sleeping again as it was before World War II as this, our source of the Enlightenment, slowly dissolves into cultural suicide. America seems strangely alone in the turbulent sea. February 2009, America at sea...

Winter Dawn

2009-02-19T06:19:00.000-05:00

The quiet moment before the noise...the brief reminder that there is a God...

Thoughts of the Executor

2009-02-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

Filing an insurance claim for a dead friend on a rainy day prompts shuffling through old papers which yield photographs and greeting cards of so many happy times. Finally, the death certificates are found, telephone conversations ensue with faceless but kind company representatives, important numbers and spellings are confirmed, and the task is done. All that is left is a grey sky and cold winds of a February rain. A task is done. It has been completed many times by many people. It is the duty of the survivor to bury the fallen. Life always goes on as they say, but for the survivor life is diminished...again.

Traditional Anglican Movement (TAC)

2009-02-17T16:38:00.000-05:00

More than likely, 400,000 Anglicans will return to the Roman Catholic church this Spring with their married priests and bishops ending a 450 year separation from the papacy. TAC is a global religious group which left the Anglican Communion after it allowed women to be ordained to the priesthood. If the reunion happens, it will have a powerful impact on both the Anglican Church of England and Catholics. Anglicans, unhappy with their church's acceptance of a female clergy and the active practice of homosexual behavior, but who love their historic English based religious rituals, will have a place to go possibly resulting in a massive migration from the already fragmented Anglican church including its Episcopalian American branch. For Catholics the returning Christians will also have a potentially powerful impact well beyond their 400,000. With married priests and bishops in union with Rome on a global basis a bridge will have been built for all married men to become priests. This right already exists for the Ukrainian rite of the church, but if the Traditional Anglican Community returns to Rome there will be a universal highway to Rome for a married clergy without the Ukrainian language and culture. The Traditional Anglican Community price for reunion will be Roman Catholic acceptance of married priests and bishops.

2009-02-17T14:50:00.000-05:00

Sun Dial Moments began today, 2/17/2009.