Oil and Water Can Mix



God is a fixed point. As we grow closer to
God, we grow closer together.

 During our recent wedding in the Catholic Church, my wife and I had chosen a reading from the Book of Tobit...Tobit 8:4-8 to be exact.

This is where Tobiah told his wife, Sarah, to get up out of bed and pray with him.  We chose this reading for our wedding because we have always prayed together and we thought it fit us.  We had told our priest about our prayer life, so when he came to the sermon during the wedding, he focused on this reading.

He told us of how if you were to take a bottle and fill it half full of water and then fill the other half with oil, the two would remain separated.  If you shook the bottle, the oil and water would mix together temporarily, but if you let it rest, the two parts would once again separate.  But if you added a few drops of glycerin, the water and oil would join together and become the same liquid.  Three liquids become one.

God is the glycerin in a marriage.  Without him, a man and a woman are like oil and water.  They never truly come together in the most intimate way.  Add God into the marriage, and the man and the woman will form a bond together that truly cannot be broken by any man.  Three people become one.

It felt good to hear the priest say that he truly believed this marriage would be a strong one...because it was being held together by God.

If your marriage is in need of some glycerin...it is free and plentiful...you only need to ask for some.

I Saw God Today...and Ignored Him

We are constantly told that we should look for God in everyone, everywhere, and in everything.  Recently, God showed up in my life, and even though I had heard the sermon about serving others just a short time prior, I missed my chance.

When Selena and I had gone up to Philadelphia for a presentation, we ran across a guy in a wheelchair who asked us for a couple dollars.  I told him I would give him some money if he could tell me where to find the best cheese steak sandwich.  He told us where to go and as we got a few blocks down the road, it was like a lightning bolt hit me.  I asked Selena, "Why didn't we just ask him to show us where to get one and then buy him a meal"?  I completely blew my opportunity to treat that man like one of God's children.  I saw God...but not until he had already left me.

Again, more recently, while we were in a Barnes & Noble having some coffee, a man came through the Starbucks area and was asking people for change.  My first reaction...how inappropriate for someone to be panhandling in here and harassing customers.  Management should do something about it.  When he came to me, I gave him nothing.  Of course, I also had nothing in my pockets to give him, but that is not the point.  I probably would not have anyway, because after all, he had interrupted our coffee to beg for money.  It was not until after he had left the store and Selena and I were talking that we realized that we had once again had a visit from God in our lives...and we had told Him to go away.

This had happened the Sunday of the Gospel reading where Jesus told the people that "whatsoever you did for the least one of my people, you did it for Me".  The least of His people had visited us and instead of asking him if we could buy him some food or a coffee, we sent him on his way with nothing.  After that day, we decided to make a concerted effort to never allow that to happen again.

During this Advent Season, as we prepare for Christ's birth...look for God in the people you meet as you go about your business.  Yes, people can be mean and rude this time of year, but God may be the person you talk to after your run-in with the rude shopper.  Don't carry the rudeness over to Him...and maybe offer Him a cup of Pumpkin Spice!

Obama turns his back on Catholics

This story was published in the Washington Post:

By Michael Gerson, Published: November 14

In 2009, the University of Notre Dame set off months of intra-Catholic

controversy by inviting a champion of abortion rights to deliver the

school's commencement address. When the day arrived, President Obama

skillfully deflated the tension. He extended a "presumption of good faith" to his pro-life opponents. Then he promised Catholics that their pro-life convictions would be respected by his administration. "Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion," he said, "and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health-care policies are grounded not only in sound science but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women."

Catholics, eager for reassurance from a leader whom 54 percent of them had supported, were duly reassured. But Obama's statement had the awkward subordinate clauses of a contentious speech-writing process. Qualifications and code words produced a pledge that pledged little.

Now the conscience protections of Catholics are under assault, particularly by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). And Obama's Catholic strategy is in shambles.

Shortly before Obama spoke at Notre Dame, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts brought suit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), seeking to eliminate a grant to programs that aid victims of human trafficking. Because Catholic programs don't refer for abortions, the ACLU alleged that public support amounts to the establishment of religion.

The Obama Justice Department defended the grant in court. But last month, HHS abruptly ended the funding. It did not matter that an independent review board had rated the bishops' program more effective than those of its competitors - or that career HHS employees objected to the politicized handling of the grant. HHS announced it was giving preference to grantees that offer "the full range of legally permissible gynecological and obstetric care." This was described by one official as "standard procedure." So it is now standard procedure in the Obama administration to deny funding to some Catholic programs based solely on their pro-life beliefs.

The process that produced the HHS decision remains murky. The USCCB has

filed a Freedom of Information Act request for more details. But it is

difficult to imagine that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was not involved in a matter of this much obvious controversy. Sebelius - an outspoken pro-choice Catholic - has a long history of conflict with Catholic authorities.

Broadly applied, the HHS policy would amount to systemic anti-Catholic bias in government programs. And the provocation is one in a series. HHS has drawn conscience protections so narrowly that Catholic colleges,

universities and hospitals - any Catholic institution that employs and

serves non-Catholics - will be required to offer health coverage that

includes contraception and drugs that cause abortion. In global health

grants, new language is appearing that requires the integration of family planning and "reproductive health" services, effectively barring the participation of Catholic institutions. Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB, calls these policies an "assault which now appears to grow at an ever-accelerating pace in ways that most of us could never have imagined."

The main victims of this assault are not bishops but the poor and

vulnerable. USCCB-sponsored human trafficking programs, for example, provide employment assistance, legal services, child care and medical screening. But because case managers won't refer for abortions, HHS would rather see these programs shut down in favor of less effective alternatives. This form of anti-religious extremism counts casualties.

It is also politically incomprehensible. Obama's Catholic outreach is being revealed as a transparent ploy a year before he faces reelection. A portion of the Democratic coalition - including civil libertarians and pro-choice activists - has decided to attack and marginalize Catholic leaders and institutions. And HHS is actively siding against Catholic organizations.

"We are in a war," Sebelius told a recent pro-choice meeting. Opponents of the administration, she said, are trying to "roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America." This is no longer the "presumption of good faith." It has all the hallmarks of a vendetta.

How will the White House respond? More specifically, how will the Catholic chief of staff and America's first Catholic vice president respond? They gave up their own adherence to Catholic teaching on abortion long ago. But are they really prepared to betray their co-religionists who still hold these beliefs?

Sebelius is becoming a political embarrassment at an inconvenient time. It will be significantly harder for Obama to repeat his appeal to Catholic voters while a part of his administration is at war with Catholic leaders and Catholic belief.