Again, I haven't read West's own stuff at any length. But from what I can tell, he seems to be a good Catholic teacher, very much on the right side of the culture wars, whose courage, charity, and intelligence have borne much fruit.

I doubt that anyone should deny this, and certainly no one should otherwise attack West the person (indeed, in general, we ought not attack other persons), or be jealous of him (that would, perhaps, be especially stupid).

None of this means, however, that there's anything wrong (either in principle, or even as a matter of prudence) with thoughtful and charitable public criticism of some of what he says.

Indeed, I would argue that precisely as part of giving authentic support to each other in the situation in which we find ourselves in our contemporary world, we who are sincerely trying to convey the Church's message regarding the human person, human life, marriage, sexuality, and so on ought to be willing to take part in the sort of conversation with one another that includes such constructive criticism (and that responds to it by engaging its substance).

A reader emails:

My parents went to Bermuda on their anniversary 10 years ago. My Dad loved the Dark and Stormy. Finding ginger beer stateside can be a challenge, but is worth the effort.

Fortunately, Kim and I found some fairly easily. We were having a few people over yesterday and I wanted to do sort of a Bermuda/Caribbean-themed meal. I marinated and grilled some skinless chicken thighs, tossed a salad (with romaine, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, mushrooms, and avocado, and ranch dressing), and cut up some French bread. The accompanying beverage was the Dark and Stormy. While shopping at Heinen's for other groceries, we found ginger beer. We ended up buying Reed's Premium. It worked well, I think. We also bought a bottle of Vernor's ginger ale - possibly the strongest ginger ale out there, from what I've heard - and tried it in a Dark and Stormy the night before. That was okay, but I don't think as good as with the Reed's. Heinen's also had Saranac Ginger Beer. I've had (and liked) Saranac beer; I hadn't known that they make a ginger beer. Sometime we'll give that a try. I'm not sure what other brands would be available around here. We had figured that if we couldn't find anything at Heinen's, we'd go to Trader Joe's - which, I've heard, sells Reed's. I wonder if they have Reed's Extra - does anybody know?

Oh, and the rum for the Dark and Stormy was Bacardi Select dark rum. In Berumda, they use Gosling's Black Seal, but I've heard that Gosling's isn't available everywhere in the U.S., and they didn't have it at the one liquor store we checked, and the waiter at Spring Garden had told us that Bacardi dark would work fine.

Dessert, by the way, was strawberry shortcake - using sliced pound cake, sliced fresh berries (no sugar; I've heard that some people mix the berries with sugar ahead of time, but I prefer the clean taste of plain berries), and whipped cream (again, with no sugar added - I like the clean taste of plain whipped cream).

ACTION ALERT – Mead Johnson’s “Breast Milk Formula”

Formula company Mead Johnson has sunk to a new low with the launch of a website promoting its Enfamil brand. The website, targetted at U.S. consumers, is entitled “The Breast Milk Formula – Enfamil” and uses the slogan “Our closest formula to breastmilk.” The company claims that its formula produces health outcomes “similar to breastfed babies”. As evidence, Mead Johnson cites a study conducted in 2007 that supposedly showed that babies fed on Enfamil had eye development virtually identical to breastfed babies. The company calls this study “independent” research, and yet the study was carried out by the Retina Foundation of the Southwest in Dallas, TX. According to the Retina Foundation’s 2007 annual report, Mead Johnson gave the foundation over $100,000 the year that the study was published. How is this independent?

This marketing campaign is a blatant case of false advertising. Because this is a site originating in the United States and aimed at American consumers, it is regulated in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission. Anyone (including Canadians) can lodge a complaint with the FTC by visiting https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/. They have a quick online form set up which only takes a few minutes. Most of the fields will not apply to this particular complaint, but at the end you can make your case against Mead Johnson.

Please take the time to lodge a complaint with the FTC and help stop this aggressive and misleading marketing. You might want to adapt the following text for the final section of the form:

Mead Johnson Nutritionals is engaged in flagrant false advertising. They have launched a website that calls their Enfamil brand the "Breast Milk Formula", claiming that babies who are fed on it are as healthy as breastfed infants. Scientific evidence points to the fact that formula-fed  babies are at increased risk for infections and long term ilnesses such as cancers, obesity, diabetes and cardiac disease. Contrary to what Mead Johnson’s website states, the negative effects of artificial feeding include decreased visual acuity and reduced cognitive development. Aggressive and false marketing like this has resulted in only 13% of U.S. mothers meeting expert recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for the first 6 months of their child’s life. Please take action to stop Mead Johnson’s deception.

The website in question is: http://

Sigh.

Let me ask the other women here (and reading here) - Rachel, Gina, Lisa P., Kim M.... have you ever thought of yourself as merely a "sophisticated rectory housekeeper" before?

I know I haven't. 

Anyway, don't feel bad. Kissling classes Mary Ann Glendon and Helen Alvare in that same "rectory housekeeper" category.

John Paul II New Feminists Unite!

I have to admit, when I first read that this was to be the "Year of the Priest" I had an  unpleasant knee-jerk reaction.  I'm not sure why, but I expected some "rah-rah" document that pushed vocations and reasserted the inestimable value of the clergy and left it at that.

I shouldn't have doubted.  B-16's announcement is a very muscular proclamation insisting that the priesthood must be "cleansed of filth."  I have to say, it's refreshing to hear.

Frankly, I hate to say it, but I have to admit that I am Catholic largely in spite of the priesthood.  I don't mean the priesthood as a concept. I grately admire the Catholic sense of the ministerial priesthood. I am proud of, and value our emphasis on apostolic succession and the sacraments.  No,  I mean the actual priesthood.  Having spent my life in ministry, first on the parish level and later on the national and international stage, I have found that priests, and even many bishops, are often more of a hindrance than a help.  As a long time veteran of Church politics (and confidante of not a few bishops) once shared with me, "Chanceries are where good ideas go to die."  More particularly, in my experience, chanceries are often the places where good ideas that were nearly beaten to death on the parish level go to finally be euthanized.

Another example of the source of my frustration. Last night on the Sirius/XM radio program, we had a call from a priest who was working with a young woman who had an eating disorder.  She was in counseling but he was doing some "pastoral counseling" as well.  He wanted to know if there was anything he could say to mive things along.  I offered some general counseling comments, and then I asked, "Have you administered Annointing of the Sick?"  He said, "I haven't.  I hadn't thought of that."  He was grateful, and I was happy I could be helpful, but to be honest, I left the call thinking, "WHY DID I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU TO ACTUALLY MINISTER TO THIS WOMAN AS A PRIEST AND NOT JUST AS SOME SECOND RATE ROGERIAN COUNSELOR?"

Don't get me wrong.  I have no doubt this priest was a good, faithful man who really cared about the Church and the souls in his care.  But that makes it even worse for me. This was a good priest I had to remind to be a priest.  It would be like me talking to my pastor about what I could do to help my clients better and being struck by a bolt from the blue when he said, "Well, have you tried doing therapy?"   Sigh.

Although Pope Benedict, in his proclamation of the Year of the Priest is referring to the filth of the sexual abuse crisis, I hope that seminaries and the clergy will get the message and start addressing the filth of clericalism, lazy catechesis, narcissism, and the revisioning of the priesthood as "therapists-of-the-cloth." 

It would be nice to be proud of the priesthood.  Not just as a concept but as a lived reality.  Until that changes, I'm afraid that there will always be a huge vocation crisis--even if the seminaries were to fill to overflowing.

Rachel - Since they don't seem to have agreed upon a name for it yet, maybe you could push to have it named after your daughter?

And maybe she should also be in touch with the HMS Meteorologist regarding her interest.

I actually wanted to be a meteorologist for a while when I was a kid. I can't recall exactly why or when (or to what - I think I wanted to be one or two things between then and wanting to be a lawyer, which preceded wanting to be a physician, which preceded wanting to be a molecular biologist, which preceded wanting to be a political scientist or philosopher, which preceded wanting to be a theologian) I changed my mind.

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says women should start their families in their 20s and end by age 35.  Urge women over 35 to have contraceptive counseling. (Arrrgh.)

The college fears too many women still do not understand that their fertility declines after 35. It wants the NHS and the Department of Health to start alerting the public to the fact that deferred childbirth can mean fertility or pregnancy complications. Schools, colleges, GPs' surgeries, family-planning centres and sexual-health clinics should all issue information to help "ensure that women are aware that, biologically, the best age for childbearing is 20-35 years", said the college.

In addition, GPs and other health professionals should talk to all women over 30 about the effects of ageing on fertility when they talk to them about contraception, for instance, it said.

Royal College of Midwives

defended women's right to have children as late as their 40s. "We support women in their choice to have a baby in their late 30s and 40s, although pregnancy complications can be more common in older women. They have higher rates of induction of labour and Caesarean births, which present greater risks to both mother and baby. Despite this, we support a woman's decision to choose when to embark upon a pregnancy."

And Susan Seenan of Infertility Network UK, which supports couples who have fertility problems, said: "Delaying having children until you are in your 30s is a choice many women make, and in fact often they are not in a position to have children earlier in life."

The RCM's statement still strikes me as fairly negative ("DESPITE this..") but at least they acknowledge that the age at which to end childbearing (naturally at least) need not be arbitrarily set at 35.  Women in their late 30s and early 40s can do just fine, and there are benefits to childbearing (and breastfeeding), especially bearing and breastfeeding many children.

I have no problem with encouraging women to be open to life earlier.  I certainly wish I had been, so I could have had a larger family.  Nevertheless, all of my sons were born in my 30s and we continue to pray for the blessing of more children as long as I am able to have them (and my friends and co-bloggers could add this intention for me to their prayer lists... ;) - at my age I do need all the help I can get...). 

 This emphasis on the decline of fertility is useful in terms of helping women not assume that if they put their career first all their lives that they will have uncomplicated childbearing if they start at 45. 

But of course insisting that all women should be done with childbearing by the age of 35 and use artificial contraception for the remaining childbearing years is extreme. Besides the health risks to older women from hormonal contraception (which I'm sure the RCOG thinks is perfectly fine for women at any age),  there are plenty of healthy women who have children but want to continue building their families into their 40s.  Each pregnant woman is different and many women in their late 30s and early 40s are in excellent health - many in better health than some women in their 20s before they become age- and health-conscious.

Women should remember that fertility does decline, but all women should lead healthy lifestyles, and continue to be open to life as long as the Lord is calling them.   An arbitrary cut-off of age 35 would limit many Catholic mothers who remain open to life for the full extent of their childbearing years and this is in no way necessary.  Instead, women should be encouraged to practice excellent nutrition, exercise and stress management - this would do much more for maternal and child health overall.

Greg, Magister has a way of making things up, and I think he's done it again. Neither the Bruguès speech he reprints, nor the Benedict XVI address he links, seems to mention the matter of "filth." He's probably recalling the reference to this problem that then-Card. Ratzinger made when he wrote the meditations and prayers for the Good Friday 2005 Way of the Cross at the Colosseum (see meditation for ninth station).

See the press release from The Big Push organization (promoting access to the care of Certified Professional Midwives in all 50 states).

AMA and ACOG are drafting model legislation that would eliminate home birth and birth with Certified Professional Midwives (who specialize in out-of-hospital birth).  The safety of out-of-hospital birth with CPMs has been demonstrated with good research evidence, and at the same time that it offers good safety (especially to low-risk mothers and their babies), it greatly reduces maternal morbidity, and the incidence of labor induction, pharmacological pain relief and unnecessary C-sections.

Physicians should work collaboratively with CPMs (and CNMs who attend home births) to ensure seamless transfer to high-quality obstetrical care when needed.  This would do much more to enhance the safety of mothers and babies than trying to outlaw all home births or all non-nurse midwives.  Before many states had legalized and licensed non-nurse midwives, women who were committed to home birth simply used illegal midwives or gave birth unassisted at home.  A well-trained CPM, backed up by a qualified physician ready to meet her and her client at the hospital at the first sign of a difficulty is a much safer scenario, and an option that all women should have the right to choose, even if only a few women would prefer it.

A reader sent me this - it is absolutely heartbreaking - and outrageous for the NYT to do this!! 

A 22-year-old wrote to a NYTimes blog asking for advice about her unplanned pregnancy and her upcoming 2-year, intensive graduate school program.  With help from the readers of said blog, she chose to abort.  Her final letter to the blogger is particularly painful.  She writes that she ruled out giving the child up for adoption because she was already to attached to it.  It's hard to comprehend the mindset that views giving the child away to loving parents is worse than having the child killed.  After repeated that she's done nothing wrong, made the right decision, felt relief as soon as she reached that decision, etc., she ends her latter with a miserably hopeful plea that she will, one day, do something right.

This is a perfect example of the phenomenon explained in Abortion:  A Failure to Communicate.  This young woman feels "attached" to her "zygote", whom her friends name "Ziggy", and she meets with an adoption agency.  All expenses will be paid, she will receive so much support, but she is "TOO ATTACHED" to her baby to give it up for adoption.  That would make her a "bad mom."

So she - influenced by the readers of this NYT blog - decides to abort the baby instead. 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR SOCIETY WHEN WE DECIDE THAT BECAUSE WE ARE TOO ATTACHED TO SOMEONE TO LOVE THEM THAT WE THINK GETTING RID OF THEM IS THE BETTER OPTION!?!?

In our society a "prestigious and rigorous" graduate program is prioritized over the life of a child (and a grandchild)!

Readers -everyone, every single one of us, should read this link where the 22-year-old woman who chose an abortion with the support and encouragement of 700 NYT blog readers, and her family and friends, explains her decision.

This should be required reading for every pro-life activist everywhere. 

Read the laundry list of the ways this mother - and this baby - have been failed by society and individuals.

1)  The adoption agency people were wonderful, offered tons of support but Mom was "too attached" to the baby to give him or her up for adoption.

2)  Mom began to consider keeping the baby but GRANDMOTHER - according to the Mom for "the first time" - expressed her "vision" for Mom's life  - a happy and healthy pregnancy "surrounded by family and friends" - "not this."  Mom was moved by the first time Grandmother had ever expressed a "vision" for Mom's life. 

READERS:  PLEASE GO EXPRESS YOUR VISION OF YOUR CHILD'S LIFE TO THEM RIGHT NOW! AND EXPRESS IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!

3)  Graduate program is so rigorous - no flexibility, no incompletes - no room for a baby.  Professors allegedly are especially harsh to pregnant women in the program.   Mom can't miss a single class, much less give birth or care for a baby or the "whole program" would be risked.

4)  Graduate program works with the Gates Foundation (!) and will help children in the developing world get mosquito nets or children here get child support checks - this program "matters"  - i..e. is worth the sacrifice of giving up this child.

5)  Needs friends to rally around but friends are evaporating, and Mom feels that she shouldn't be so "needy" anyway - her "village" of college graduates are "vulnerable and scared" themselves (all of them headed off to prestitgious graduate schools!?!?) and the last thing it needs is to raise a baby (the village, that is).

6)  Mom is too well-off financially to get food stamps, WIC, subsidized child care - but "too poor" to go to school and raise a baby .

7)  Father of the baby won't "step up" financially, but has "stepped up" emotionally - is "desperately trying to do the right thing" - has offered a ride to the doctor for the abortion.

8)  Mom and Dad didn't do anything wrong - "birth control fails."  This abortion is just a necessity in a world where, you know, birth control fails.

9) By going through this process Mom is now reminded of how extremely important graduate school is - she can enter her program with renewed appreciation for it.

10)  Mom admits (with admirable honesty) that after 3 tough years in college, she "selfishly and childishly" wants to do something "I enjoy for a change - something for me".  A baby would interfere with this goal.

11)  Mom feels so happy now that she's made this decision.

12)  Mom is focusing on the wanted child she will have  "in a few years" with a man she feels better with.  The life of THAT child will be so much better because of what she is doing now.

13)  Mom wonders if she is even capable of HAVING a healthy child right now - "there is so much more to being a good birth mother than avoiding alcohol and eating right" - Mom feels it is more responsible to have the abortion and not "put too much on" herself, rather than not do everything that goes into growing a healthy child.

14)  Mom feels bad that she's "given up" - she wanted to be a "tough mother who braved the world for her child" - but now wonders if that isn't really the "selfish decision". 

15)  Concludes a baby is "too precious and wonderful to not plan for."  She owed it to her children not to have this baby.

16)  By completing this graduate program, this Mom may be able to "work on women's issues" and make a million dollars and "start a scholarship program for pregnant graduate students."  (Why would such a program be needed, if abortion is such an excellent solution to the problem of pregnant graduate students...?)

17)  Mom believes that something good can come of this.

18)  Mom reflects in closing, "I know I'll do something right one of these days."

I am not blaming this young woman.   A crisis pregnancy is shocking and heart-wrenching for every woman who faces it, and she has been failed at every turn by those who should be laying down their lives for her, and the baby, not to mention by a society that is overrun by materialism, and lack of respect for motherhood, and human life itself.

But it is important to realize that this is not the "worst case" scenario that pro-abortion activists always trot out to justify the procedure even late in pregnancy.  This is not an 11-year-old incest victim.  This is an adult, a highly intelligent college graduate, budding professional, with loving family and supportive friends.  This is someone who, even without the support of her boyfriend, would have had a lot to give her baby.  But she, and everyone in her world, are formed by the values our culture promotes.  The strength of society's anti-life values, and their reinforcement at every turn, led this mother, who was at the outset entirely open to giving this baby life, either through adoption or parenting, to embrace abortion as the only really VIRTUOUS choice.  She overcame with considerable difficulty her own instinct to give this baby life (and now clearly is wrestling with the feeling that somehow, even with all the justification, and the accolades of the New York Times and its readers, that she has done something wrong - see her concluding remark below).  

Sad. 

I once wrote to PETA to ask them why they advocated compassion for chickens facing death at the hands of KFC, but not for human infants in utero, and they wrote me back with boilerplate language about abortion being a personal choice.

After the President very publically swatted and then killed a fly during an interview with CNBC yesterday, the outspoken animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said they wished Obama had served a better example.

“We support compassion for the even the smallest animals," says Bruce Friedrich, VP for Policy at PETA. “We support giving insects the benefit of the doubt."

Friedrich says PETA supports "brushing flies away rather than killing them" and was disappointed that the President had gone ahead and squashed the pesky fly.

Obama has no personal choice to swat a fly? 

I guess I am in trouble now too - I've been swatting mosquitoes that land on my 3-year-old who is in leukemia treatment that suppresses his immune system. With low blood counts, he could develop a catastrophic infection through a mosquito bite.  But then again, when ALL life is EQUAL (except human life, which to PETA is worth less)....Yikes! 

Of course, maybe the theologians here can craft some sort of self-defense justification for Jonathan to kill mosquitoes on his person....

I must say that I am by no means a lightweight on animal rights.  It was an animal rights comment that I first submitted to Kevin - my very first EVER reply to a blog post anywhere.  Kevin made a cruelty to chicken joke and I took him to task over it, and he responded seriously, in charity, and won my heart (yes, Kim, he WON MY HEART!!  ;))  AND sucked me into addiction to this blog....but that's for another day.

So if it weren't for animal rights, I wouldn't be blogging here today.

But flies?  We're killing 1.4 millions BABIES a year, and there's public outrage over FLIES?!

Yes, folks.  Not only that but you can now get an abortion courtesy of the NYT as well.  What a progressive and compassionate society we live in!

Starting the summer before my senior year in college, I worked for about fifteen months in a biology lab that studied fruit-fly genetics. We killed a lot of fruit flies in our research - we literally ground them up by the cageful in a blender, and we also killed individual flies. Although PETA and similar groups were already around back then, protesting research on dogs and monkeys and the like, no one ever picketed us. I used to wonder why they didn't care about insects as much as about bigger, cuddlier animals. I guess they must have developed a more consistent pro-animal view sometime in the last couple of decades.

The weekend before last - a week after returning from our honeymoon - Kim and I flew to Minneapolis for the University Faculty for Life conference, which this year was held at the University of St. Thomas law school. I've attended every year since 1995. Kim came along to visit with some of my close friends (including Robert) who were also there, and to meet some of the other regulars, and to experience listening to academic papers - which she found interesting; we had thought that she might want to spend part of Saturday walking around downtown, but between the quality of the papers and the wet weather, she ended up joining me in spending the whole day at the conference.

Several of the talks this year focused on the topic of conscience from philosophical and/or legal perspectives. Two of the three papers in one of the breakout panel sessions I attended addressed this theme: Thomas Cavanaugh, who teaches philosophy at the University of San Francisco and whose book on double-effect reasoning is a favorite of mine, presented "Clarity Concerning Conscience"; and Leonard J. Nelson, of the Samford University law school, delivered "Protection of Conscience" (which I thought was good on the ways in which misuses of the notion of "social justice" have led to attacks on the pro-life conscience, but which was too negative about "social justice" per se).

There was also a plenary session on conscience, at which the University of St. Thomas law school's Robert K. Vischer presented "Conscience and the Common Good: Rethinking the Pro-Life Movement's Commitment to Conscience." I'll definitely be checking out Vischer's forthcoming book, Conscience and the Common Good: Reclaiming the Space Between Person and State (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009).

Cavanaugh and Vischer each raised the important and provocative question of whether a proper commitment to respect for conscience rights entails rejecting discrimination (in employment, etc.) against the pro-abortion view, as well as against the pro-life view. For instance: Federal law has, for some decades now, forbidden hospitals from discriminating against pro-life physicians. The same law also forbids hospitals from discriminating against physicians who perform abortions elsewhere. Is this as it should be, or is it a mere compromise?

They also raised the related question of whether employment law should always offer full protection to the pro-life conscience. Certainly, the law should permit pharmacies to refuse to cooperate in providing objectionable drugs. Should it also require all pharmacies to refrain from discriminating against employees who which to engage in such refusal? Or should such people look for pro-life employers?

There were other highlights also; I may mention some of them next week.

The other day, Pope Benedict XVI issued the letter proclaiming the special year.

This, by the way, seems to be the closest thing to a mention in the letter of the problem of "filth" in the priesthood. After referring to "the countless situations of suffering endured by many priests" and "all those priests who are offended in their dignity, obstructed in their mission and persecuted, even at times to offering the supreme testimony of their own blood," the Holy Father continues:

There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers. Then it is the world which finds grounds for scandal and rejection. What is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and complete acknowledgment of the weaknesses of her ministers, but also a joyful and renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors, religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful, patient spiritual guides. Here the teaching and example of Saint John Mary Vianney can serve as a significant point of reference for us all. ...

Our Mass readings for this Sunday include some references - explicit or implicit - to God's work of creation. In our first reading, God reminds Job that he alone, the Lord, created the sea and the dry land; he alone therefore confines the sea, stilling its waves at the proper place, so that dry land will remain for us. Our Gospel reading is St. Mark's account of Jesus' stilling of the storm so that the boat will not sink. Jesus is, then, the infinitely transcendent and powerful Lord, the creator of heaven and earth, of stars and planets, of land and sea, the one who holds all things, immense and tiny, in his hand.

Jesus is the Lord God, come among us. This is, of course, worth pondering. The Lord, the Creator of the universe, has come among us in the flesh. Those who were Jesus' disciples during his earthly life, his companions during his time of ministry, were themselves slow to grasp this amazing reality. Sunday's Gospel reading is not the only Gospel passage in which Jesus notes their lack of faith in him. And, of course, those who had not known him, those who even came to hear of him only after his ascension to the Father's right hand and their sending of the Holy Spirit, often thought of him first as only another man; thought of him, that is, only "according to the flesh." In our second reading, St. Paul says that he is among those who once thought of Jesus in this way. He therefore, as we know, had persecuted the Church, the first Christians.

The great mystery of the Incarnation has always been, and will always be, a scandal to some. Today, there are people who consider themselves Catholics but who call this great mystery of our faith into question. This is a problem, especially since the reality of the Incarnation has further important consequences for us.

Our second reading includes another reference, this one explicit, to creation. St. Paul writes that "whoever is in Christ is a new creation." We are perhaps somewhat familiar with this way of speaking; we ought to pause, again, and ponder what it means. We speak of "new creation." Again, we know - somewhat - what "creation" means. God, simply by his own power, made the whole universe and all that is in it from absolutely nothing. When we speak of "new creation," we are indicating that God's saving work in us through Jesus Christ is the same sort of thing. The same power that alone made all things - from subatomic particles to rocks to planets to stars to galaxies; and each of us human persons, too - is at work in us, freeing us from sin and death and giving us to share in the divine nature and life.

It is because Jesus Christ is the Lord God, the Creator, that he is able, through his death and resurrection - through the great actions that we recalled during the Easter season that ended a few weeks ago now - to make us a "new creation," to be our Savior.

When we experience the evils that persist in this fallen world, let us have faith in Jesus Christ, our God, our Creator and Savior. Let us have faith that he will sometimes keep us safe in this world - and that he will, if we cooperate with him, always bring us safely into the peace of his heavenly Kingdom.