The Meaning of the Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian

Archpriest Alexander Men
Archpriest Alexander Men
by Fr. Alexander Men –
Every day of Great Lent, with the exception of Saturdays and Sundays, the prayer “O Lord and Master of my life” is read. According to tradition, this prayer was written in Syria in the fourth century by the ascetic Mar Afrem or, as we have grown accustomed to calling him, Ephraim the Syrian. He was a monk, poet, and theologian, one of the most eminent sons of the Syrian Church, who entered world literature as a remarkable writer.

The words of the prayer, which were quite accurately transmitted by Pushkin [1], sound as follows when translated from the Syrian: “O Lord and Master of my life,” that is: Ruler of my life, Who gave me life, Who is the center and focal point of my life. “Give me not a spirit of idleness,” that is, laziness, which is, according to the old adage, the mother of all vices. Laziness seems like an innocent thing, but it engenders much that is dark and black.

Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem (St. Ephraim the Syrian)
O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.

“Despondency (Despair).” Christianity is a joyful doctrine; joyful, too, is he who is despondent – for it will leave him. [Read more…]

Pity the Poor Working Chump

Working Taxpayer Punished by Anthony W. Hager –

Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there’s an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life’s essentials at another person’s expense.

Fifty years’ worth of war on poverty has produced little benefit, save for a few valuable lessons.  For instance, we’ve learned about the valiant struggle the disadvantaged wage against capitalist oppression.  The homeless, the hungry, and the downtrodden are victims of free-market greed.  But there’s one participant in Washington’s war on poverty who’s routinely ignored, one whose plight the pointy-headed elites never champion: the working chump. [Read more…]

The Terrible Truth Told by Obama’s Open Mic Slip

Obama Fraud Liar Traitor Hates America by Christian Whiton –
President Obama just gave the world a glimpse into his future foreign policy plans this week, should he win a second term. On tap for Obama II: more faith in our adversaries, more betrayal of our traditional allies and more unilateral indulgence in nuclear abolition fantasies.

Monday, President Obama told Russian President Medvedev that “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Medvedev responded that he would dutifully report that tidbit to Vladimir Putin back in the Kremlin. The men apparently did not realize their discussion was being caught by a live microphone.

Given that the two were talking about missile defense, the implication was clear enough. In order to please Russia, President Obama will use a second term to weaken further the peaceful, purely defensive systems that can defend the U.S. and our allies from missile attacks. [Read more…]

Progressive Inhumanity, Part One: The State against the Family

The State against the Family by Anthony Esolen –
The family is that natural society where individual liberty and the common good are most nearly reconciled. To deprive it of its rights is to rob people of a great part of what it is to be human.
…
The beauty and the divine order of the family is the very soul of his social teaching, because it is there, within the walls of the home, that society begins.  Thus we hear him declare, against the statists of his time, that by the command of God “we have the family; the society of a man’s house — a society limited indeed in numbers, but no less a true society, anterior to every kind of State or nation, invested with rights and duties of its own, totally independent of the civil community.”  This is the doctrine of subsidiarity at its core. 

The Pope does not justify the family on utilitarian grounds.  He does not affirm (what is true in any case) that there are many things the family can do that the State cannot do as well, or cannot do at all.  Instead he founds the rights of the family in nature, and the God of nature.  It is a society both human and divine.  It is within those bonds of love or duty that children and parents both put faces upon law that would otherwise remain abstract, distant, sometimes threatening, sometimes impotent, but always extrinsic, and therefore not quite real.  It is there, and only there, that law and love may be found growing together. [Read more…]

Declaring War on Newborns

Declaring War on Newborns The Weekly Standard by Andrew Ferguson –
The disgrace of medical ethics.
On the list of the world’s most unnecessary occupations—aromatherapist, golf pro, journalism professor, vice president of the United States​—​that of medical ethicist ranks very high. They are happily employed by pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and other outposts of the vast medical-industrial combine, where their job is to advise the boss to go ahead and do what he was going to do anyway (“Put it on the market!” “Pull the plug on the geezer!”). They also attend conferences where they take turns sitting on panels talking with one another and then sitting in the audience watching panels of other medical ethicists talking with one another. Their professional specialty is the “thought experiment,” which is the best kind of experiment because you don’t have to buy test tubes or leave the office. And sometimes they get jobs at universities, teaching other people to become ethicists. It is a cozy, happy world they live in.

But it was painfully roiled last month, when a pair of medical ethicists took to their profession’s bible, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and published an essay with a misleadingly inconclusive title: “After-birth Abortion: Why should the baby live?” It was a misleading title because the authors believe the answer to the question is: “Beats me.” [Read more…]

Lent and the Path to Freedom: Doing Battle with the World, the Flesh and the Devil

Jesus Tempted Desert Satan Battle Lent by Deacon Keith Fournier –
Lent invites us to journey in Jesus, into the Desert. It is there, in that pace of struggle, the field of engagement, where we can learn the root causes of our challenges and be equipped with the weapons of our warfare to fight what the Scriptures and Tradition refer to as the “world, the flesh and the devil.” …

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” (Luke 4:1) “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” (Gaudium et Spes, # 22, Second Vatican Council)

When I was a young man in College I had a priest friend who I now recall every time we begin the Forty Day Observance of Lent. About a week before Ash Wednesday he would say, “I am looking forward to Lent.” The comment would perplex me greatly. In fact, I was dreading Lent, thinking it to be an onerous time with a lot of external practices which I did not really understand. [Read more…]

Why Is Observing Obama as a Marxist Verboten?

Obama Marxist Despot Communism
Obama is a Marxist
by Bill Flax –
The recent release of a tape by Andrew Breitbart’s outfit sparked renewed interest in President Obama’s murky past. In anticipation, conservatives were elated that the president might finally be exposed. The tape showed Obama, then at Harvard Law, orchestrating a protest on behalf of Derrick Bell.
 
Without providing any background on just how radical is Professor Bell, the compliant liberal media derisively dismissed it all as conservative paranoia, even proclaiming presidential vindication. It still appears preposterous to purport that America elected a communist ideologue. The world’s greatest beneficiary of capitalist bounty would never willingly empower a radical socialist to “fundamentally transform America.”

Unfortunately, we did, even if Americans loathe admitting it. And this ought to have been obvious even before Mr. Breitbart’s valiant efforts.

Obama exploits the citizenry’s concerted blindness, cloaking his views under veneers of “social justice,” “fairness,” and “progress.” Unadulterated Marxism attracts few votes. In rare candor, sans teleprompter, Obama lectured Joe the Plumber that his prescription for widespread prosperity is “spreading the wealth around.” [Read more…]

Pope to US Bishops: Evangelize American Culture, Defend Marriage

Pope Benedict Evangelize American Culture by Catholic Online –
Particular mention must be made of the powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage. The Church’s conscientious effort to resist this pressure calls for a reasoned defense of marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons, essentially rooted in the complementarity of the sexes and oriented to procreation. Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage. Defending the institution of marriage as a social reality is ultimately a question of justice, since it entails safeguarding the good of the entire human community and the rights of parents and children alike. …

On Friday morning, March 9, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI addressed another panel of US Catholic Bishops undergoing their ad limina visit. He spoke with clarity and urgency concerning the need for the evangelization of the American culture and their charge concerning what he called the “contemporary crisis of marriage and the family” and presenting a “Christian vision of human sexuality”. We present the full text of the message with appreciation to Rocco Palmo and Whispers in the Loggia: [Read more…]

Eyeballing Design – Biomimetics Exposes Attacks on ID as Poorly Designed

Eyeball Design Evidence of Intelligent Design and Creation by God by Casey Luskin –
At least since the ancient Chinese tried to produce artificial silk, people have turned to biology for inspiration when designing technology. A 2009 article in the world’s oldest science journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, authored by Ohio State University nanotechnology engineer Bharat Bhushan, explains how this design process works:
The understanding of the functions provided by objects and processes found in nature can guide us to imitate and produce nanomaterials, nanodevices and processes. Biologically inspired design or adaptation or derivation from nature is referred to as “biomimetics.” It means mimicking biology or nature. 1

Perhaps the most familiar example of biomimetics is the body shape of birds serving as the inspiration for aircraft design. But the list of fascinating cases where engineers have mimicked nature to develop or improve human technology goes on and on: [Read more…]