The regular “little of this, little of that” feature from Like Mother, Like Daughter!
Bridget's just finished up Fiddle Camp week here, so after last night's gala performance and pot-luck dinner out in the yard, we're a bit slow to get started this morning. What fun we had with great kids running around and learning new tunes and dances for days! I highly recommend this way of spending some of your summer! I will give you more snapshots next week, perhaps.
Important note: If you have written Asking Auntie Leila, and I have not responded, and it's been more than two weeks, please re-send your email. I'm sorry — sometimes, despite my best efforts at keeping the many emails sorted, they do get marked as read and then, poof, they're gone.
Today's links!
- For you sports fans, and because this just wasn't loading on my phone yesterday for Bridget and the Chief, a 3 run home run accomplished in a way you may never see again... “this man, this Renaud Lefort of Montreal’s Les 4 Chevaliers [softball team], this hero, dared to dream.”
- As you know (especially if you read The Little Oratory — “Mom, you talk a lot about shelves in this book” — Sukie), I love shelves. I think you will be inspired by dear Ginny's make-do attitude in this post about fixing up her storage in the kitchen (but don't feel you must start with cutting down a tree, like she does, bless her heart! Love it.)
- Because of Eric Metaxas' book (which I have read) Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the one we usually advert to these days when we are looking for a model of how to oppose “settled law” and rapidly deteriorating practices in our society, and certainly there is much food for thought in his life and witness. I submit to you this short essay by Joanna Bogle: Bishop Clemens von Galen for a model of what a strong man and cleric can do in the face of evil. “Bishop von Galen’s approach was to hold firm to every local tradition and to circumvent every attempt to abandon old ways or cancel long-held celebrations.” “Blunt, forthright language—backed by facts—meant that the bishop was a formidable opponent for the Nazis.”
- I don't think I've posted this before (and I did look), but it's so worth it. Fr. Schall has been on a roll recently, and this essay is a must read: On the Boys in the Boat. I'll be getting this book, but most of all I just loved Father's take: “What kind of strange doctrine do we have here? A boy needs a mother, his mother?”
- St. Louis has a new seminary rector, Fr. James Mason. A while ago he wrote this piece about “The Forgotten Vice in Seminary Formation,” which the Chief forwarded to me, remembering a post of mine on Facebook in which I recommended that our seminarians go to boot camp. This suggestion wasn't completely understood by some commenters, who thought I was saying that priests ought to be military officers. Nope, just go to boot camp. Or perhaps a service trip to a needy country? Well, fine idea, but still, boot camp. Seven weeks of slogging through mud, lacking sleep, long runs, tough climbs. They can even fail at it and get kicked out at week six-and-a-half. They just have to do it, because our seminarians need to become priests with whom the fathers of families are comfortable speaking and interacting. They need to be men.
- Men and women are different. I loved this article, “Superheroes, just for each other,” about what this man brought to his marriage, and what his wife did to direct his manliness.
- Sometimes I wonder if this new generation knows the fights that were fought before them. This remembrance of Robert Conquest might pique your interest in the old battles. They are still relevant.
- You may not realize how deeply minds have to be changed to accomplish progressive goals such as transgender acceptance. Read this Rod Dreher post, reprinting a longish email from a medical student on how brains are washed in medical school.
- Not sure how to describe this article to you, but it's quite amusing in a nerdy way, and illustrates how bad ideas spread: John B. Shannon exposes a made-up book by Aristotle in a language he (Aristotle) didn't speak proclaiming on a matter of economics that he (Aristotle) did not profess — all found in the Journal of Clinical Oncology!
The internet is exploding with good articles about the new conversation about abortion. Here are just a few I will bring to your attention this week. Follow me (and the others of course) on Facebook and Twitter (links at the end of this post) if you want constant, relentless updates!
- Watch the summary videos exposing Planned Parenthood (they are summaries, but of course you can watch the full versions as well, which you wouldn't be able to if they were trying to lie).
- Phil briefly explains why Planned Parenthood cannot do without its abortion business.
- He's responding to this excellent and thorough article by Ross Douthat that shreds any defense one could have of Planned Parenthood — particularly the lie that contraception reduces abortion rates.
- Why is it that “women's health care” means abortion and contraception? That's dumb. Women need regular health care like everyone else, at a modest rate not requiring vast amounts of federal funding — if you remove the whole “control fertility” aspect. What about this? Midwives can be a perfect solution for child-bearing women's health care.
Happy Feast of St. Dominic! Go preach against some heretics and pray the Rosary! And have an extra scoop of ice cream!
~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~
Michele says
My husband works at the seminary where Fr. Mason just became rector, and he truly is SUCH a blessing to the community! Thanks for sharing his article!