Beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1

This is a special day for two reasons - (1) Today is my birthday. Wow! I can't believe I'm turning 34 today.  God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, great family and friends and with a renewed Faith. (2) Today Pope John Paul II is being beatified today.  The Catholic Church is to declare Pope John Paul II "Blessed" today which is a step on the way to becoming a saint. It is kinda cool, awesome, and I am honored to share my birthday with a very special event which honors such a great, inspirational, spiritual, faith-filled person such as Pope John Paul II.  Then, in addition to all that wonderfulness it is also Divine Mercy Sunday.  Here is the background of the Divine Mercy devotion.  Here is some information on the Feast of Mercy.  
I found this article via Gateway Pundit 
(CNA)
Pope John Paul II called upon the young, and all of us, to build a “Culture of Life” with tremendous hope. He said, “Have no fear. The outcome of the battle for life is already decided … You too must feel the full urgency of the task … Woe to you if you do not succeed in defending life. …This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops.”
Father Frank Pavone helps us to understand why Pope John Paul II was and is so beloved and revered.
On Sunday, May 1 the Catholic Church declares Pope John Paul II to be “Blessed,” a step on the way to being declared a saint. This is done not as a judgment on the effectiveness or influence of his pontificate, nor on the depth of his knowledge of theology, but rather on his fidelity in living the Christian virtues.
The Church says, in other words, “If you want to follow Christ, look to John Paul II as an example.”
Each person whom the Church beatifies or canonizes, moreover, has his or her special theme, some aspect of discipleship that marks his or her life. For Pope John Paul II, it is the theme of pro-life. Not only was this a theme he spoke and acted upon continuously, but he gave the Church and the world a new way of understanding and practicing it.
This pope did not simply repeat the longstanding teaching of the Church that abortion is wrong. He did not simply hand down dogmas about what we can and cannot do, and how we are supposed to live up to the principles and the commandments, such as “Thou shalt not kill.”
John Paul II was able to join traditional, objective thought with the patterns of modern thought in what came to be known as his “personalism.” He focused on the dignity, the uniqueness, of each individual human person and affirmed their subjective insights and experiences. He taught that in each person we have a unique and unrepeatable being. And that uniqueness is precisely a reflection, or image, of God himself. Here is where the two worlds merge. Individual experience is not crushed, lost, or absorbed by the recognition that there is a God who has revealed universal moral norms. On the contrary, when God reveals himself to us in Jesus Christ, he reveals us to ourselves. 
The whole post is here.

The Washington Post has a slideshow of pics on the life of John Paul II. You can see them here.

Raymond L. Flynn explains how Pope John Paul II changed his life.

George Weigel on Remembering Pope John Paul II :





Strange as it may seem, I've been vaguely worried about today's beatification of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life.
My worries don't have to do with allegations of a "rushed" beatification process - the process has been a thorough one, and the official judgment is the same as the judgment of the people of the Church.
I'm also unconcerned about the fretting of ultra-traditionalists for whom John Paul II was a failure because he didn't restore the French monarchy, impose the Tridentine Mass on the entire Church, and issue thundering anathemas against theologians and wayward politicians. (See the "beatification catechism"below for my responses to the objections most frequently raised by John Paul's critics.)
No, my worries have to do with our losing touch with the qualities of the man himself.
When the Church puts the title "Blessed" or "Saint" on someone, the person so honoured often drifts away into a realm of the unapproachably good. We lose the sense that the saints are people just-like-us, who, by the grace of God, lived lives of heroic virtue: a truth of the faith of which John Paul II never ceased to remind us.
So what would I have us remember and hold fast to about John Paul II?
First, I hope we remember that everything he did was the accomplishment of a radically converted Christian disciple. His resistance to the Nazi occupation of Poland; his abandonment of his youthful plans in order to enter an underground seminary; his dynamic ministry in Krakow as priest and bishop; his philosophical and literary work; his efforts at Vatican II; his epic pontificate and its teaching; his role in the collapse of European communism and in the defence of the universality of human rights - all of this flowed from his radical conversion to Christ.
Why is this important to stress? Because it's his connection to the rest of us. There are over a billion Catholics on this planet; very few of us will enjoy the range of intellectual, spiritual, literary, athletic and linguistic gifts that God gave Karol Wojtyla. Because of our baptism, though, all of us share with him the possibility of being radically converted Christian disciples.
All of us can be Christ's evangelical witnesses in our families, our work, our neighbourhoods. All of us can live as though the truth John Paul II taught - that Jesus Christ is the answer to the question that is every human life - is at the very epicentre of our own lives.
The second thing I hope the Church holds onto, as it enrols John Paul II among the blessed, is the significance of the date of his beatification: Divine Mercy Sunday. John Paul's fondness for the Divine Mercy devotion, and his designation of the Octave of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday, struck some as a Polish imposition on a universal Church. Those who thought this were mistaken.
John Paul II had an acute sense of the gaping holes that had been torn in the moral and spiritual fabric of humanity by the murderous cruelties of the 20th century. A century that began with a robust human confidence in the future had ended with a thick fog of cynicism hanging over the western world.
As he wrote in his striking 2003 apostolic exhortation, "The Church in Europe," Christianity's historic heartland (and, by extension, the entire western world) was beset by guilt over what it had done in two world wars and the Cold War, at Auschwitz and in the Gulag, through the Ukrainian hunger famine and the communist persecution of the Church. But having abandoned the God of the Bible, it had nowhere to turn to confess this guilt, seek absolution, and find forgiveness. 
That, John Paul II was convinced, was why the face of the merciful Father had been turned toward the world now. The insight came from Poland; the need was universal. That was why he created "Divine Mercy Sunday." That is why we should remember that he was beatified on that day.  CONTINUED


























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A Grandpa's Enduring Love

This story is very inspirational.  Raymond L. Flynn, the former mayor of Boston, truly has a heart of gold.  Both he and his wife are devoted to their grandson Braeden, who has a rare neurological disorder.  This story brings a potpourri of emotions to the surface for me. This true life story is both heartwarming and heart wrenching.   My thoughts and prayers go out to both Braeden and his family.  I will be praying for scientists to find a cure for Braeden's neurological disorder and intercessory prayers for Pope John Paul II to intercede and provide a miracle for this little boy.  Here is the story.   




Raymond L. Flynn, the former Boston mayor, walked through the North End, shaking hands and saying hello to those who recognized him. At Hanover and Parmenter streets, Flynn and his wife, Kathy, paused to share a laugh with an old friend about his days in office and his presidential connections.


But this stroll wasn’t about politics. It was about Braeden, the Flynns’ grandson.


Flynn has no shortage of grandchildren — his two sons and four daughters have brought him 17. But Braeden gets most of their attention, and has become the private preoccupation of a man who had devoted his days to public service. The 4-year-old has a rare neurological disorder, called a small cerebellum, which means he can’t walk without falling and is unable to speak. There is no cure.


“Mr. Mayor, how are you? Is that your kid?’’ asked a police officer directing traffic near the Greenway carousel as Flynn pushed Braeden’s ocean-themed stroller from the New England Aquarium to Galleria Umberto pizzeria.


“My grandson,’’ Flynn responded, as Braeden smothered a newly purchased stuffed animal with hugs and kisses. “I like the Red Sox, and he likes penguins.’’


Flynn, 71, was mayor from 1984 to 1993, when he resigned to become the US ambassador to the Vatican and moved to Rome. He returned in 1997. A year later, he lost his bid for a seat in the US House and retired.


During his time in office, Flynn was a populist mayor. He rode snow plows, jogged to every neighborhood, and advocated for the homeless as well as the parents of special-needs children. His hardscrabble Southie roots as the son of a dock worker hospitalized for years with tuberculosis shaped many of his public policies.


Health care, Flynn said, has always been a passion. As mayor, he worked to ensure that Boston City Hospital stayed a place where people could receive medical care, regardless of their ability to pay. “I don’t think it should be a political question,’’ he said. “You should do everything you can to help people with sicknesses.’’


But health care has become a personal mission. Much of Flynn’s retirement is consumed by Braeden.


The toddler, with bright brown eyes and a mischievous smile, spends almost every Tuesday night at Nana and Papa’s house, and most Wednesdays they do something together, usually a trip to a South Boston park. Braeden is the only one of Flynn’s grandchildren with special needs, and Flynn is constantly searching for scientific answers for Braeden’s medical problems.


The cerebellum is the part of the brain that controls balance, coordination, and muscle control. Since Braeden’s is too small, he can’t talk, and falls when he walks.


He wears blue leg braces, but his grandmother said they don’t help much. He wears a body brace, too, but she said it doesn’t help much either.


The helmet he wears to cushion the impact when he falls doesn’t always stop the hurt, evident by a small, deep-blue lump healing over his right eye.


“Every night and every morning, I just say my prayers to God that they find a way for Braeden to walk, because it’s heartbreaking every time you see him fall,’’ Kathy Flynn said.


But Braeden is far from helpless.  


CONTINUED   






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Al Qaeda's War Against The Catholic Church

Dave Hartline from The American Catholic has written both an outstanding and a very informative article on Al Qaeda's war against The Catholic Church and I am passing it along to you.

From The American Catholic:

While most of the world mourns the nearly three thousand who were brutally murdered by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, many assume all of Al Qaeda attacks stem from a warped political motive. Most may not be aware that since the day of its inception many of Al Qaeda’s targets have involved the Catholic Church and her holy sites.


Less than one year before the September 11, 2001 attacks Al Qaeda was planning a spectacular Christmas attack at the large and historic Strasbourg Cathedral in France. While this attack was foiled, an attack on the Catholic cathedral in Jakarta, Indonesia was not thwarted, resulting in the deaths of several churchgoers and those on a nearby street.

Yet, five years before this brazen plan, an even more sinister plan was nearly carried out by the chief planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheik Muhammad, which he coordinated to coincide with the visit of Pope John Paul II to Manila for World Youth Day in January of 1995. The plan called for the pontiff to be killed along with countless of the faithful who was planning to see him in Manila that day. Incidentally, some speculate that the crowd that came to see the Polish pontiff that day was nearly the same size that came to see his funeral some ten years later. Some speculate it may have been the largest religious gathering at one place in our known history, some five to seven million strong.

Thankfully this plot was uncovered by sheer coincidence (providence for those who of us who are believers) The Manila fire department was called after apartment dwellers reported a kitchen fire, which turned out to be bomb making gone awry. Khalid Sheik Muhammad had already left Manila for the Middle East. However, it was due to evidence uncovered at the scene of the fire that security officials began to understand the emerging terror network that would be known as Al Qaeda (the base.)


Though it would be quite some time before terror officials around the world would come to understand Al Qaeda, there were faint glimpses beginning to emerge of the nefarious plans the network had in store for all those, including many Muslims, who would not fit into their ideology. Several smaller attacks others around the world, most notably in the Arabian Peninsula seemed too small or too unprofessional for terror officials to think that Al Qaeda could ever top something of the caliber of an Imad Mughniyeh plot. Mughniyeh was believed responsible for the nearly simultaneous Beirut attacks on US Marines and French paratroopers in 1983 that left hundreds dead. He was believed to live under the protection of the Syrian and Iranian governments, until his reported violent death in February, 2008. No one imagined that Al Qaeda could ever top a plot devised by Imad Mughniyeh.  CONTINUEDSource URL: https://outlawrepublican.blogspot.com/search/label/Pope%20John%20Paul%20II
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My Rant on the Ground Zero Mosque

Newt Gingrich is spot on!! We are asked or told to bend over backwards for Muslims and Islam, which is a so-called religion, and yet they won’t respect a majority of the 9/11 families' wishes to stop the building of this mosque, along with a majority of the citizens of the United States who are against this mosque being built so close to Ground Zero  -- 2 blocks from Ground Zero -- where Islamic extremists murdered close to 3000 innocents. If these Muslims really wanted to build bridges and truly respected people of other faiths then they would offer to build the mosque at a different location, further away from Ground Zero or just abandon the building of the mosque altogether. This is pouring salt on the wounds of the 9/11 victims’ families.  This is totally making my blood boil and has me crying inside for both the 9/11 families and our country. This is going to cause many families mental anguish. These Muslims are claiming that they are building this mosque so that they may build bridges with citizens of other faiths but by forcing this mosque down our throats and having this mosque built so, so, so close to Ground Zero they are doing the exact opposite -- breaking bridges and causing tensions to mount.  If these Muslims really respected American citizens they would follow Pope John Paul II's example of how he strove to build bridges in Auschwitz and across Europe.  While I disagree with the notion that there is a similarity between Carmelite nuns and Muslims or Islamic extremists since I don't think any Carmelite nuns murdered innocents, I do think that there is an apt comparison between the Ground Zero Mosque and the abandoned building which was used as a convent in Auschwitz. The Muslims who want this mosque to be built need to reveal all sources of funding and prove that they are getting absolutely NO funding from any terrorist organization.  Then, in my book, it would also be a must for them to change their date that they have planned for opening the mosque, from September 11 to any other day of the year. Just because these Muslims may have a "right" ( which I don't think they do, since they would be building this mosque in a war zone) to build a mosque in this particular location doesn't mean that it is necessarily the right thing to do.  It is simply not right for a mosque to be built so close to Ground Zero.
















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