Unearned Luck

Photo by  Jackson Hendry  on  Unsplash "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge  of God, rather than burnt offerings." -Hosea 6:6 In relating the narratives surrounding Christ's Passion and Resurrection, all four Gospels point out "...the women who had followed him from Galilee..." (Luke 23:49), namely, Mary , the mother of Jesus, Mary , the wife of Clopas and the mother of James (the lesser) and Joseph or Joses, Salome , the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James (the greater) and John, and Mary Magdalene , "from whom he had cast out seven demons" (Mark 16:9). These women "had followed Jesus...ministering to him" (Matthew 27:55). Now they were witnesses to his death and, soon, would witness his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven. There is more to glean from the Sacred Scriptures about these women. The Blessed Virgin Mary was the widow of Joseph, a carpenter in Nazareth. Her son is the Son of G...

The HHS mandate is about curtailing religious freedom.  More specifically, this current administration seems most interested in curtailing the Church's evangelization efforts and acquiring for itself a nation-wide health care network. With the HHS mandate, the current administration and its adherents are revealing that they know as well as we do that the separation of Church and State is a fallacy.  As long as the Church exists, it will always be involved in evangelizing the State and its citizenry.  The Church, or more broadly, religion cannot be separated from the State and in the history of the world, there are very few, if any, examples of such a separation.  To effect a separation requires the elimination of the Church. Over these two and a third centuries the Church has worked hard to appease the State in the hopes that the State will allow her to maintain her tax exempt status.  Appeasement has taken many forms from carefully wording homilies and sta...