Prolife Piety

Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham

Also known as Virgin by the Sea, site also known as England's Nazareth

Shrine established in 1061, priory in 1150

Commemorated September 24

In 1061 Lady Richeldis de Faverches, lady of the manor near the village of Walsingham, Norfolk, England, was taken in spirit to Nazareth. There Our Lady asked her to build a replica, in Norfolk, of the Holy House where she had been born, grew up, and received the Annunciation of Christ's impending birth. She immediately did, constructing a house 23'6" by 12'10" according to the plan given her. Its fame slowly spread, and in 1150 a group of Augustinian Canons built a priory beside it. Its fame continued to grow, and for centuries it was a point of pilgrimage for all classes, the recipient of many expensive gifts.

Until the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury in 1170, Walsingham was England's most celebrated and visited shrine. Many miracles were attributed to Our Lady of Walsingham, including one in which Kind Edward I was saved from a piece of falling masonry. There constructed shrine was recently voted England's favourite spiritual place in a poll of BBC Radio 4 listeners.

You'll find more at the Shrine's CofE and RCC jointsite.

The Prayer of the Feast: Lord God, in the mystery of the Incarnation, Mary conceived your Son in her heart before she conceived Him in her womb. As we, your pilgrim people, rejoice in her patronage, grant that we also may welcome Him into our hearts, and so, like her, be made a holy house fit for His eternal dwelling. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

The Feast is also a time of strong intercession for Pro-Life, so join us in praying for the cause.

ROCK - N - spROUL

If you haven't stopped by one of Alice Cooper's favorite preacher's (R. C. Sproul) website lately, you should.

Tim Challies is doing some whiz-bang writing on the Ligonier Blog.

Brian McLaren sings the Sacred

This is what happens when you substitute human religious impulses for God-revealed truth. This man has forgotten the power of the gospel.

As far as gospel-truth, McLaren is no different than other anthropocentric panderers like Joel Osteen.

Singing songs like this, I'm not surprised he doesn't have the doctrinal fortitude to resist sycophantic submission to Islam. Now if he'd sung something like this, he would have known better.

	Clyde McLennan - Stand up, stand up for Jesus (Webb)
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

False starts in False Bay

An ad absurdum response to upcoming considerations in the Synod of the Diocese of False Bay, Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Scheduled to meet 23-26 September, on its agenda is the following resolution:

“That this Synod

• Affirming a pastoral response to racist land-owners in our parish families.
• Notes the negative statements of previous Provincial Synods that racist white members of our Church share in full membership as baptised members of the Body of Christ, and are affirmed and welcomed as such;
• Affirms our commitment to prayerful and respectful dialogue around these issues, mindful of the exhortations of previous Lambeth Conferences to engage with those most affected.
• Commends giving serious and prayerful consideration to the acceptance of racist white landowners as valued members of our parish, bearing in mind the long standing tradition within the Anglican Communion of respect for individual conscience, in seeking to be faithful disciples of Jesus;
• Asks the Bishop to request the Synod of Bishops to provide pastoral guidelines for those of our members who are seeking to restore Apartheid structures as faithful members of our parish families.”

At the end of August the Diocese of Cape Town passed a similar resolution asking the Bishops “to provide guidelines for the pastoral care of racist white landowners”.

h/t Anglican Mainstream

Jedi Tesco Fiasco

Reported in the Guardian:

Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.

Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor.

Yeah...I'll bet this aint the first time he's ever been humiliated and victimized over his hoky religion.

The 23-year-old, who founded the International Church of Jediism, which has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules.

But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.
"It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head," he said. "You have a choice of wearing headwear in your home or at work but you have to wear a cover for your head when you are in public."

Tesco said: "He hasn't been banned. Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores although we would ask them to remove their hoods.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all appeared hoodless without ever going over to the Dark Side and we are only aware of the Emperor as one who never removed his hood.

"If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they'll miss lots of special offers."

Word has it that President Obama stands ready to extend American freedom of religion to the UK - and you can see whose side he's on!


Hmm...the Force is strong with That One.

In all seriousness, I think Tesco was brilliant in their response.

Now...I wonder if NHS will cover the expense of having a clinical psychologist have a look under Mr. Jones' hood.

Sanity from the Global Warming Crowd

A recent study in Climactic Change offers one of the most hopeful solutions to the production of green-house gases: Bring the Green Revolution to the earth's great deserts.

Unlike many of the half-baked ideas (in both economics and science) for dealing with emissions, this is one that has a feasible pricetag, and is based on achievable methods.

Moreover, we could learn how terraforming changes ecologies, and how to take long-term incremental steps to revamping bioshperes - information that will come in useful when we look to colonize other planets. So this is a win-win: present help, future progress.

Now if only we can keep the greenieweenies from ruining it.

h/t PhDiva