October 5, 2006

Marian Meditation of the Day:

Verse
Reflect on what I am telling you,

for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

-- 2 Tim 2:7

Reflection
Happy are those who recite the Holy Rosary with understanding.

They will learn all that is of faith, light, hope, and love in it.

-- St. Clement Hofbauer

Prayer
O Mary, your Rosary is a School of the Faith. Let me recite it with understanding, so that I may grow in faith, light, hope, and love.

Amen.

News Stories of the Day:

"That's my Dad" on BagnewsNotes.com This story is very sad, and illustrates the harm that the Iraq War is causing here in America. From the story:

"The real emotional cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts on U.S. military personnel and their families can never be truthfully told by warm and fuzzy Flat Daddy feature stories found recently in the Boston Globe and The New York Times. The media, in typical fashion, is masking the reality and angst these families now face. In other words, the pictures and words turn tumult into triviality.

"What gives this Flat Daddy picture news value is not relevancy in terms of the cost of war, but quirkiness and novelty.

"What boils beneath the warm and fuzzy, feel-good, “I miss daddy or mommy” story is more alarming. The war is becoming trivialized.

"Beneath the surface of a boy and his Flat Daddy is the reality that daddy exists in a liminal state. Flat Daddy is caught in the vice grip of human memory. Flat Daddy and his real-life double somewhere in the desert exist in an ominous position between ambiguity and indeterminacy -- no news story can ever speak truth to this sort of power.

"What appears at first a light-hearted picture of families coping with loss is in fact, a decisive and profound image of sadness and despair."

Thank you Dennis for posting such a thought-provoking and moving article.

More about the war in Lebanon: warning, the picture contained in this article is a real picture of the aftermath of the bombing of Cana. It is very graphic. If you are sensitive to picture of death and loss, please don't click here. It is disturbing to me that the very town where Jesus performed his first miracle at Mother Mary's urging is the site of such horrific loss.

Remember to Pray the Rosary for Peace!

Today's Mystery - Luminous Mysteries