Ash Wednesday Starts the Season of Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season of preparation for the glorious celebration of Easter. Pope Benedict XVI calls Lent a time for reflection in preparation for Easter.

The Lenten season offers us once again an opportunity to reflect upon the very heart of Christian life: charity. This is a favourable time to renew our journey of faith, both as individuals and as a community, with the help of the word of God and the sacraments. This journey is one marked by prayer and sharing, silence and fasting, in anticipation of the joy of Easter.

One recent activity that has become aligned with Lent is the 40 Days for Life campaign, which organizes prayer vigils at local abortion facilities. I'll be participating in the event here in Silver Spring, MD.

Fifty Years ago: First American in Orbit

NASA

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of John Glenn's pioneering orbital mission. NASA provides a multimedia presentation on the mission. A video marking the anniversary of this historic mission is linked below.

Contraceptive Obsession

In his delightfully pithy way, Mark Steyn points out that it is the Obama Administration that is obsessed with contraception, especially given the long term cause of our economic trends.

Americans foolish enough to fall for the Democrats’ crude bit of misdirection can hardly complain about their rendezvous with the sharp end of that page-58 budget graph. People are free to buy bacon, and free to buy condoms. But the state has no compelling interest to force either down your throat. The notion that an all-powerful government would distract from its looming bankruptcy by introducing a universal contraceptive mandate would strike most novelists as almost too pat in its symbolism. It’s like something out of Brave New World. Except that it’s cowardly, and, like so much else about the sexual revolution, very old and wrinkled.

Up and Running

My activities have been limited the last few weeks because of problems with my main computer. I brought it home Friday from Geek Squad intensive care and it now seems to be working fine.