That sound stops me in my tracks everytime

D A G A play it twice and I will stop dead in my tracks. It is the beginning of the song (tab format) that my wife sang to me at our wedding reception.




At my brother-in-laws wedding this weekend I heard this song and it stopped me dead in my tracks. Unfortunatley, we couldn't dance due to the nursing baby but that didn't stop me from sitting with my wife and enjoying her company. I love you Dawn, my dearling, my Davy. Thank you for the wonderful weekend.



Under the Mercy,
Matthew S

Stand up Philosophy time, your thoughts below please!

Ok, recently (past several years anyway) people have been making the argument that homosexuality is a right or that under equal protection of the law its a right. Now, by homosexuality being a right they mean that they get to live life as they wish and living an active lifestyle.

Specifically, the argument is made that under equal protection homosexuals should be allowed to marry each other because hetrosexuals are allowed to marry each other. I would easily make note that any person who self-identifies themselves as homosexual has as much right or ability to marry anyone as someone who self-identifies themselves as hetrosexual. Let me clarify by saying that as a man I can't just go out and marry anyone, I have to get their consent and the consent of the governing authorities over me.

The term consent leads me away from believing that marriage is a right for anyone. A right is something that I can compel someone to allow me, something that is due to me without the permission/consent of anyone else. It would always be so that we would have to have the consent of at least one other person to get married you could never consider it a right. The other thing is that society and governing authorities make sure their is proper disposition. Legally, we make sure you aren't related and a few other facts, you pay a fee and suddenly you have a licencse to allow you to get married.

In some respects the Church's role falls into one of two lines of reasoning. 1) after being assured of proper disposition of the two involved parties they as a collection of two have a right to the sacrement. 2) after being assured of proper disposition of the two involved parties they are given the consent of the Church to be married.

The whole area of the sacrementality of marriage further makes me need to scratch my head as marriage as a sacrement dispenses grace, an unmerited gift of God from God that has to be received by the receiver. At this point my head is starting to spin when I try to put marriage into the context of being a right or not being a right. What I am thinking and trying to define is that their is something that when you meet all of the conditions that are in the order, that it is defined by the nature of the thing that you get it. Is this already defined and called something or can I make up a new word?

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S



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Aid Marriage by Heeding Nature, Says Pope [2007-07-25] and Commentary On Pope B XVI

With the recent release of the Motu Proprio and the CDF statement I have heard mentions that the real Ratzinger is back. Some of these comments are spoken favorably and some are unfavorable. I think these comments miss the whole point of who Pope Benedict XVI truly is as a person.

In his prior duties as the head of the CDF the only thing we saw of him was him fulfilling his role as "the Papal Rottweiler." Now that he is Pope he has not changed but his role has. He is more freely able to express not only his theologcal considersations but he is also expressing his pastoral side. That is what I think was the best part of Summorum Pontificorum, the pastoral side. The article linked to and quoted from below I think is an example of the Pastor and the Theologian. It also shows the influence of his predecessor on him.

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S

BXVI Pope+Benedict Pope marriage divorce Catholic

Sent to you by Matthew via Google Reader:

Aid Marriage by Heeding Nature, Says Pope [2007-07-25]

via ZENIT RSS-Newsfeed on Jul 25, 2007

Calls for a Return to Creator's Design

Some Quotes that I find to be powerful from Pope BXVI on this are included here:

"Nature invites us, in fact, to marriage for life, a lifetime of faithfulness, along with the suffering of growing together in love."

"But preparation is not enough, the big problems come after that," he said. And he highlighted the importance of accompanying couples, "at least in the first 10 years" of marriage.

"To help couples truly prepare for marriage, not only as the Church intends it, but as the Creator intends it, we must recoup the ability to listen to nature, to rediscover what lies behind what everyone else does, and what nature itself tells us, which speaks in a way much different than this modern way. "

"This model of 'what everyone else does' becomes a model in contrast to that dictated by nature."

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