Safe Haven

Though I support the right of people to bear arms, and sometimes in lethal self-defense, it seems to me that these bills are a grave mistake. The reason to require a permit to carry a concealed weapon is that legitimate concerns of public safety with respect to training and mental health are addressed by such requirements. The individual right to bear arms, properly understood, is in the service of public safety; that is, the common good. I do not believe that Missouri has become appreciably more dangerous than it was last week. These changes are unnecessary at best. If we forget that individual rights are meant to serve the good of all, we will do foolish things like this.

Sometimes, it's possible to take things for granted. We say, "State of grace! Wooo!" and move on. Yet none of that is our doing. There is grace and mercy raining down on us always. I am not one of those heroic people (yet) who cries out to God and the saints in moments of great temptation. But I realized that good moments can be a time of thanksgiving to God, and asking for more mercy. Being a saint is not about living some absurdly unreal life; it begins by recognizing every moment as a gift of God. Help me to be more thankful, O God.

If you do not have an intuitive grasp for baseball, then numbers and statisticts don't mean anything to you, so it's hard to communicate just how good Albert Pujols is and was. I'll do my best, and it seems only right to do it now. The Cardinals are in California to play the Angels, and their old friend, Pujols. You may have heard of Mark McGwire. He was the first person to break the single-season home run record set by Roger Maris in 1961. If he had not dishonered himself and the game by using steroids, he'd be a Hall of Famer. 583 home runs, including of course the 70 he hit in the single season of 1998. Hold that thought. I used to tell people that Tony Gwynn was the greatest hitter I ever watched. He was the last hitter to seriously flirt with a .400 batting average, which hasn't been done since 1941. Tony was a black Stan Musial, in the sense that he was the perfect ambassador for the game. Always played fair, always had fun, he would never bring shame on h...

God is pretty mysterious, but you'd have to say the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious. He is called the "Comforter" by Jesus, but He also convicts the world in regard to sin and righteousness. He blows where he wills. He changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Whenever I have wanted to understand the Scriptures, I have always implored the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we have a great gift in the Magisterium, who gives the final, definitive interpretation of any matter touching or morals, when necessary. Of course, the infallibility of the Church under certain circumstances is a work of the Holy Spirit. Every time you are moved to pray, (authentically) that is a grace of the Holy Spirit. Every time any true supernatural good work is done, it's the Holy Spirit. One of the deep realities of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is that people are united in the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. We can't say enough, and that makes sense, fo...

If you want to attract a good man, ladies, please remember this: don't make any man feel small in public, especially if he's the one you want. It seems to me that many women today have this completely backwards. They will pour themselves out in private, saying the deepest things on their hearts, but in public, they'll carve that man to shreds, and even seem to enjoy it. I definitely won't tell you that most men are worthy of this kind of deference. And you might be dating an egomaniac, or even a sociopath. I'm not here to fix the world's problems. I do know that a girl who acts like some man would be hopeless without her--in a normal situation with a great guy--deserves to be without him. If he's a genuinely good man, he knows he'd be lost without her. But he needs that same woman to avoid telling the world about it. When a great man reaches the heights of his accomplishments, professionally and otherwise, does he not publicly praise her? Does he not s...