Monday, December 31, 2012

Good Bye 2012 - Final Thoughts

Well that year just flew by. 

Don't get me wrong there were some days I thought would never end and some crosses that were quite heavy but, through the grace from above the year as a whole was filled with good memories and I thank God for every day of it.

Some final thoughts as we (in Los Angeles) tick down the final hours of 2012.

1) I am so thankful for my family. They are my life and God has been most generous in helping me provide for them and keeping my inner circle so close. He has blessed us many times over this year.

2) Thank you for friends and acquaintances...yes I get by with a little help from my friends.....

3) I haven't been able to blog as I want to and well I'll probably never have the complete amount of time I need to. However, I do enjoy sharing my thoughts. I promise to post more positive than negative post, but I'll still be honest in my post of what I believe and welcoming to different opinions that I both agree with and disagree with. Please share your thoughts with me?

4) Well, Oh, Oh right. I'll make it a point to get back to the gym. I'm not over weight or completely out of shape. Thank God for a good gene pool but I do need to exercise more than I have this past year.

5) I plan to be more vocal about my faith.Not to be 'in your face' however it seems to be the trend of today, to silence the voice of faith in the public forum. I plan to be a counter weight to that in my actions as well as  what I say.

6) Patience, I noticed a slip in my level of patience. Call it age in regards to stubbornness, but I must be more aware of my short comings here and exercise more patience.

7) It's hard to admit this but as some Catholic scholars and bloggers have pointed out, we now are living in a post Christian nation. ....very sad.

But that could mean a stronger church with those of stronger faith. The Catholic Church has always become stronger making its way through tough times. In it's long history of ups and downs, this fact has been quite evident.

When Rome persecuted Christians, Rome became a Christian nation. When the Renaissance produced faults with individuals in the Church which eventually lead to the 1500's and the birth of the Reformation, the Catholic Church corrected its wrongs and once again flourished. The recent Church scandal set the church in a bad light but now it seems to be coming around again.

Now though, the public forum seems to be excluding the voice of the Church and many self proclaimed faithful seem to agree with this exclusion.

Now is the time to double down on our faith. We know what the final out come is and we have nothing to fear. The Catholic Church will prevail as promised by Jesus.

So lets be bold together and "Not be afraid!"

This is the year of Faith as proclaimed by Pope Benedict. Let's make this next year a growth year for our Church by bringing back those in our families that have fallen away. Let's correct those who proclaim what the church is Not. Let's increase our prayer life daily.

God Bless all who have shared in this small unimportant blog. I thank you for your visits and what comments I get

Happy New Years!

WestCoastCatholic    

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

School Tragedy Loss of the Innocent - What About Abortion

The tragedy of this past week has left the nation on bended knee. There's not a channel on TV, not a News show in the past few days, not a politician raising his or her voice in anger over the loss of  the 20 precious innocent lives in the school shooting as well as the adults.

Rightfully so, many have wondered why this has happened and many more are wondering how we can prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

Huckabee of Foxnews expressed it as having a nation that pushes out God at every opportunity and then, we're surprised when un-Godly things happen. Well that's a view point that won't get express much.

With all this outrage about this loss, the cry for Gun laws is the primary call for remedy and it seems the solve all for this kind of event. Stronger gun laws ...no one gets shot right?

I don't think so. Evil exist and will always find a way to raise it's ugly head.

The only remedy for evilness is Godliness.

We can be outraged and again rightfully so, with the loss of the 20 innocent lives but we can kill 1 Million babies through abortion every year and that's okay.

Where's the outrage to that?

"Lets get rid of all guns to stop the killing of our children!"

Okay, lets stop Abortion and the murder of innocent babies.

Seems like on one hand killing children is unacceptable and on the other it's a right.

Doesn't make sense to me. You can't have it both ways

My heart was breaking looking at the faces of those lost in the shooting. These young lives that were just beginning with futures ahead of them that could have benefited our society, that could have enriched everyone around them were cut short and not allowed to flower.

This is the same thing with those innocent children who get aborted everyday without fan fare or community outrage as their live are cut short, never given a chance to benefit our society or enrich everyone around them. I wonder what their faces would have looked like, the smiles, the eyes with life shining from them.

Yes we need to address the present tragedy and yes lets look at gun laws without violating our constitutional rights and lets look at mental illness and school safety. Let look at all of that.

...AND lets look at a real stopper to killing children...ABORTION !

Got Bless the innocent children.

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Hobbit Movie - What is the Author's Intent?

The well advertised movie "The Hobbit" will hit the theaters shortly. Before you see it read the enclosed article to get the author's perspective...its a lot more than number of movie frames, 3D effects and great New Zealand 

The Hobbit and Virtue 

...then view the trailer