Am I missing something......

here?

On the saints for pilots and more on dear St. Joseph Cupertino

Flying Saints: Who is watching over pilots?

Repeat from 2009

By ERIC CHANDLER, For General Aviation News

Like every cheapskate pilot on a layover, I grabbed the free newspaper, which featured an article about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron saint of pilots.

I was glad to find out who’s on my team. I safely finished my trip and decided to thank the patron saint of my profession by learning more about her.

Thérèse was a French woman from Lisieux who became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15 and died young from tuberculosis. She was known as the “Little Flower” and canonized very soon after her death. She felt she could best serve God with “the little way” — doing what she could for people in the small details of life. Mother Teresa of Calcutta even took her name to honor her. That’s all very interesting, but unsatisfying. I resolved to learn why she was connected to flying.

I got more than I bargained for. It turns out there are actually three patron saints of aviation: St. Thérèse, St. Joseph of Cupertino and Our Lady of Loreto. The latter two were a lot easier to figure out.

St. Joseph was an Italian Franciscan priest who lived in the 17th century. He levitated. Poking him with pins and burning embers wouldn't stop his soaring. “The Flying Friar” would only land when his superiors ordered him down. Like a lot of pilots, he was very dedicated to flight. Okay, St. Joseph, I understand why Pope Clement XIII gave you the nod in 1767.

Our Lady of Loreto also makes a good aviation saint. There is a humble house in the Italian city of Loreto that’s enclosed inside a cathedral. This house is supposed to be where the Annunciation occurred when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear the son of God. Angels reputedly carried this house from the Holy Lands through the air to Italy in 1294. All of these events, combined with some good lobbying by the Italian Air Force, made her a shoo-in to be the patron saint of air travelers by order of Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Photo from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. This oil on canvas painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo depicts “The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto.” Our Lady of Loreto is just one of three saints looking out for pilots.

Our Lady of Loreto flies the highest of the three saints. Many references claim Charles Lindbergh carried her medallion across the Atlantic. Italian Umberto Nobile carried her medallion over the North Pole in the dirigible “Norge” in 1926. He visited Loreto to thank her and paid her back by helping put out a fire in the basilica while he was there. Astronaut James McDivitt carried her medallion on the Apollo 9 space flight in March 1969.

There is a chapel in Loreto that has a painting depicting American astronauts and an image of the angels bearing the Holy House of Loreto. This building is sometimes called the American chapel or the aviation chapel.

St. Therese even visited the cathedral of Our Lady of Loreto on her way to Rome to seek an audience with the Pope to plead her case to become a nun.

None of this gets me any closer to my answer about Thérèse of Lisieux. She describes herself as a “little bird” in her autobiography and she’s also the patron saint of the missions. In the early 20th century, flying would’ve been one of the ways missionaries traveled to the far-flung outposts of the church. Maybe that’s the reason.

I’d like to follow in the footsteps of previous visitors to Loreto, including Mozart, Descartes and St. Thérèse. Maybe the images of flight in the American chapel there would give me a clue about her link to the sky.

Lately, I fly military airplanes. While I still don’t know why St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a patron saint of aviation, I do know one thing: When it was a dark night over Iraq, I was glad there were three flying saints checking my 6 o’clock instead of just one.

Eric Chandler flies F-16s with the Minnesota Air National Guard in Duluth. He’s made two trips to Iraq with the 148th Fighter Wing Bulldogs. He has been on military leave from United Airlines since Sept. 11.

St. Joseph Cupertino, pray for us

Today is the feast of one of my personal patrons, St. Joseph Cupertino. He is one of the patron saints of pilots and one of the patron saints of those students taking exams.

Prayers to him work. I know this from experience. He was "mentally challenged" and I love the story of his examination to be allowed to be a priest.

Apparently, seminarians of religious orders would meet with the Bishop and his team of examiners before Ordination. The examiners would open the Scriptures several times at random and the students would have to give the age-old four-fold interpretation of the passaged pointed to by the examiners. This four-fold interpretation would include a theological interpretation, a pastoral interpretation, an allegorical interpretation and an eschatological interpretation, that is pertaining to the end times.

Being mentally challenged, barely able to read and knowing little Latin, Joseph was put at the end of the line by his fellow seminarians, who thought perhaps, the examiners would give a little slack to the last participant.

However, when Joseph was standing before the team of examiners, the first passage they randomly selected was the Annunciation.

Joseph had an idee fixe about the Annunciation. There was nothing humanly possible he did not know about that passage in Luke. He spoke for 45 minutes.

The examiners said something like this, "Well, it is obvious you are an excellent Scripture scholar, so we are not going to ask you to interpret another three passages."

Joseph would elevate at the Consecration. Some of the brothers in his Franciscan monastery thought he was possessed. So, they got the priest to start an exorcism on him and during the prayers Jesus, Joseph and Mary appeared to all in the room, confirming that Joseph was full of the Holy Spirit and not demonic ones.

Pilots, pray to him and students taking exams, pray to him.

He is a dear, dear saint.

If the American Bishops Were Doing Their Job, I Would Not Have to Blog

This takes time and thought, but please watch the whole thing. This is about Shadow Parties. Pay attention to language on politics. Facts, not fiction.

Learn the truth behind the fake Catholics who have helped an atheist billionaire dominate the Democratic party

Was important in 2010, and is more important now...For those who are not Americans, watch this anyway, as the same thing is probably happening in your country as well. And how America goes, the West goes...

A few reasons why you must watch this; Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, (not Catholic), chairman Fred Rotandaro in 2010 on the Huffington Post online stated that "gay sex comes from God", "I have never seen a rational reason why a woman should not be a women priest", and a stark statement against the Church's stand against contraception.

You will notice the George Soros Network segment. Our bishops should be paying attention to this information and stop holding hands with these many influential people. Saul Alinsky groups are mentioned. Pay attention to the graphs.

I am also concerned with the number of former USCCB employers who worked full-time for the Obama campaign. Catholics United, (not Catholic), is another group with which we must be concerned. The Planned Parenthood Interfaith Breakfast mystifies me--one of the speakers there is connected to the leftist, anti-Catholic groups outlined here.

54% of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008. The last 20 minutes are essential viewing. The Pope is highlighted at the end.

"The Catholic Bishops need to put an end to this and put an end to this now," stated Voris.

You must watch the whole thing, all the way to the last few minutes. Watch, pray, reflect, act.

Like Voris states about his own media work, I say, if the Bishops were doing their job, I would not have to blog. "Souls are at stake."

We are the mustard seeds.........

Watch Michael Voris and subscribe to him.

Read JihadWatch and subscribe to that.

Read Courageous Priest and subscribe to that.

Read LifeSiteNews and subscribe to that.

We are in a battle and those who deny it will be swept away.

Learning the Truth is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Richard the Lionhearted outside Parliament in London

So, a child in France has no right to a mother and a father....

No one is happy in France about the gay-marriage bill. France 24 gives an interesting view on this legislation.

There seems to be two sides which clash, while the government plans some type of compromise. Maybe...

Here is part of the article, but the entire approach is a mess.

 (Mr.)Quinqueton heads the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) reflection group, “Homosexuality and Socialism,” which has been working with the Socialist Party on LGBT rights issues since 1993, when even civil unions seemed like a pipe dream. Today, the PACS civil union pact has been in place for 13 years, and Quinqueton and his fellow campaigners are nearing the final step in their battle for the same legal rights as their heterosexual counterparts.

Gay marriage was a hot topic during the run-up to the presidential election in May this year. While incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy laregly evaded the issue, François Hollande pledged to bring France up to date with many of its Western counterparts by making marriage available to all, thereby attracting a large chunk of the LGBT electorate.

Hello, so why does one think Hollande pushed for that vote?

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira unveiled a rough outline of the Socialist government’s proposed bill, pencilled in for spring 2013. The new law “will extend the current arrangements of marriage to members of the same sex,” Taubira told Catholic newspaper La Croix. That means that a gay person can marry, adopt children and become a 'parent' of their partner's biological child in the same way that a straight person can today, she explained.

As to be expected, Taubira’s comments ruffled feathers among French hardline conservatives and Catholic advocates, who used the opportunity to reiterate their belief that marriage should only constitute a union between man and woman and that children should be brought up within a mother-father family unit. Christine Boutin, the leader of France's Christian Democratic Party and one of France’s most vocal conservatives, called for a referendum on the issue and warned of “heavy consequences for society” if the law were to go ahead.

So, as in America and Great Britain, Catholics who follow the teaching of the Catholic Church are called "hardliners".  Sigh, one cannot be a follower of Christ without being pilloried this days. And, the problem with the lgtbs is that they are not getting aid for artificial birth techniques.

What bothers me greatly is the quotation here below, that a child has NO RIGHT to a mother and a father.

What? Who decided that? Not God.

Judith Silberfeld, editor of LGBT magazine Yagg, told FRANCE 24 that the website’s readers were “incensed” by the Socialists' apparent change of tune. “We didn’t know exactly what to expect [concerning the precisions of the bill], but we had, nonetheless, been promised medically assisted procreation (MAP),” she explained. “Ms Taubira’s comments on Tuesday threw everyone into confusion.”

Confusion is the word of the day here..................

MAP, which involves methods such as artificial insemination, is popular among lesbian couples starting a family in countries where they are able to access services legally (such as Belgium and Spain). In the run-up to the May election, in which Hollande was elected president, the Socialist Party promised to make MAP – already available to straight couples in France – accessible to lesbians too. “Whether someone is heterosexual or homosexual, for us that doesn’t matter,” Paris MP George Pau-Langevin said during a debate in February. “What counts for us is prepared, stable parenting.”

Well, people God gave us the paradigm for stable parenting....these people are so self-righteous. 

Catherine Michaud, who heads GayLib, an LGBT movement associated with the conservative UMP party, agrees. “A child doesn’t have the right to a mother and father,” she told FRANCE 24. “It has the right to two loving parents.” Michaud, 28, argued that the very process same-sex couples are forced to go through proves their commitment to parenting. “As a lesbian couple, me and my partner can’t just wake up in the morning and say, we’re going to have a baby,” she said. “But without MAP, procreation is near impossible. It would be terribly hypocritical for the Socialists to introduce an ‘equality’ bill without allowing us the same parenting rights as our heterosexual peers. Half-hearted equality is not equality.”

Once homosexuality became part of the civil rights argument, people have become more and more confused. 

A snippet from Pat Buchanan

Part of an article from Pat Buchanan:

The Islamic word, especially across the Arab region, is undergoing a transformation, a Great Awakening. Muslims from Nigeria to Mali to Ethiopia to Sudan to the Maghreb and Middle and Near East are growing more militant and more hostile toward Christianity and other faiths.

And as we are not going to change our position on Israel, or our culture, such as it is, or our First Amendment, clashes between us are inevitable.

Perhaps the best course of action for America is to lower our profile in that region, bring most of our diplomats and troops home, and let these people work out their destiny themselves.

Second, given the costs and consequences of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and intervention in Libya, let the Syrians settle their war themselves. There is no guarantee the fall of Bashar Assad, given the jihadist and al-Qaida presence in the forces seeking his overthrow, will be an improvement for the United States.

Third, the United States should tell the Egyptian government that its failure to provide security for our embassy was an outrage, that if we cannot see them as a friendly government with common interests, we will not hesitate to cut off aid and warn U.S. citizens not to travel to Egypt.

From Courageous Priest and if you do not know this site check it out...

Orthodoxy is Indispensible and Inseparable to Ordained Ministry Posted: 17 Sep 2012 11:44 AM PDT Dissenting Clergy Have No One To Blame But Themselves Father John Trigilio, Jr., President of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of more than 500 priests and deacons), publicly repudiates the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, “Call to Disobedience.” Recently, Msgr. Helmut Schüller gave an interview to CNS (Catholic News Service) where he reiterated his group’s dissident agenda: making clerical celibacy optional, allowing Protestants and divorced and remarried (without annulment) Catholics to receive Holy Communion, accepting same-sex unions, and ordaining women to Holy Orders. The CCC, on the other hand, “unequivocally and completely renews the sacred promise of obedience taken by every cleric. Orthodoxy (assenting to all Magisterial teachings) and orthopraxy (obeying the lawful disciplines of church authority) are indispensible and inseparable to ordained ministry.” Confraternity of Catholic Clergy The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in the U.S.A. (www.catholic-clergy.org) has fellow associations in Australia (ACCC) and the UK (British CCC) with more than 300 and 100 members, respectively. All three branches espouse fidelity to the Roman Pontiff and to the full deposit of faith as taught by the Pope and Bishops in union with him. “It is incomprehensible how the Austrian Priests’ Initiative can blame Rome for their dissent. Such an act of rebellion against church doctrine is nothing less than heretical and rebellion against church discipline is just plain schismatic.” Thomas McKenna, Executive Director of the Confraternity said, “The Catholic faithful need to know that these miscreants are not by any means representative of the majority of clergy. Most priests and deacons are faithful sons of the Church but they do not get the same publicity and attention the secular media lavishes upon the vocal minority of dissidents.” Father Trigilio is asking all members of the CCC to renew the Oath of Fidelity every Thursday (in honor of the Last Supper when Holy Orders was instituted by Christ) during the upcoming YEAR OF FAITH (Oct. 11, 2012-Nov. 24, 2013) to show solidarity with the Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church

From men to women on modesty: "My greatest temptation... was in church".

Kristine Cranley has an excellent article on the blog, http://marysaggies.blogspot.sg/2012/05/reflections-on-questions-of-modesty.html, which is a group of Catholic students from Texas A and M. Smart kids.

She asked men about modesty and her article is revealing in many ways. To be honest, I am tired of fighting the modesty battle with Catholic women, and even some priests who do not want to deal with this serious problem and it is serious. Leading people into sin is sin. One good priest I know said it was a terrible thing to see girls dressed as they are. But, this needs to be said from the pulpit.

Read what Kristine writes here. You can follow the link to the entire article.

I’ll never forget my shock when in college a friend admitted to me that he found it difficult when women wore white shirts to Mass because you could often see one’s bra straps through them. I had never thought to check! I thanked him for the information, and thanked God I wasn't wearing a white shirt at that moment! 

Or when my own brother discretely told me that my smashing new white pants were … well … see through. “When girls wear white pants” he informed me authoritatively, “guys check”. 

Or, perhaps most embarrassing of all, the time a man asked me to stop wearing ‘midriff shirts’ to Mass. I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know what a midriff shirt was. (I have since googled it and am quite certain that I have never owned a midriff shirt, but my pants that fateful day had been a little loose and fallen below my shirt line, and he had noticed). 

Too loose. Too tight. Too low. Too high. Who teaches us about these things anymore?

I thank God for the men who have been courageous enough to share with me the ways my clothing has affected them. Certainly we are all responsible for guarding our eyes from what might cause us to sin. And yet I’m confident that most of you ladies reading this desire to help our brothers in Christ to live purity of heart, just as we are grateful when they help us to do the same. But how are we to learn to love each other well in this regard?

...

Why Modesty?

First of all, I want to assert that the reason we dress modestly is NOT because our feminine bodies are bad or ugly or intrinsically ‘occasions of sin’. Simultaneously, it is NOT because all men think about is sex, or that they are incapable of looking at us without lust. Rather modesty involves speaking the truth with our bodies. While women are generally aroused through emotional warmth or physical touch, men are aroused through visual stimuli. Whether we intend to or not, revealing too much of our bodies sends a message that we are sexually available to them. As one young man recently explained to a group of women here at St. Mary’s,“there are two steps to having sex. Taking off one’s clothes and actually having sex. If someone is already half undressed, it’s difficult for one’s mind not to go to the second step”.

But meanwhile, the world seems ‘hell-bent’ on destroying in women a proper sense of what is and is not modest. Has not modern day fashion slowly desensitized us to exposing almost every part of our body that can possibly be exposed? One style may show off more and more of the leg, another the chest, the navel, the back, etc., so that slowly we’ve become increasingly comfortable with having any or every part of our bodies revealed to the public. Is it possible to wear any less clothing than a string bikini? Even being clad in solely our undergarments would cover more than many swimsuits do nowadays. 

It is true that norms of modesty do shift somewhat from culture to culture. There have been cultures where women have never worn shirts and therefore their being topless was not considered sexually suggestive for the men in their society. But question of importance for us today is what message do our outfits, in our present culture and day, send to the men we are blessed to know and love?

Survey Says

Personally, I have found the responses given on the ‘modesty survey’ extremely enlightening in this regard. This survey anonymously interviewed men seeking to live chastity on their views regarding women’s clothing. Their answers were astounding. The following is a sample of some of the survey questions, followed by the men’s responses (emphasis original):

• Girls can dress attractively without being immodest. 98% agree/str. agree
• Age 20 - I actually had a T.A. in one of my classes who was a beautiful woman who dressed modestly, and I had trouble paying attention to anyone but her! Her clothing never caused me to stumble and never once did I have a physical reaction to her. Instead, my heart warmed (maybe even fluttered a few times hehe) and it just made me smile. There's also a young woman from my home town who I've known for some time who has MASTERED this art. She is just gorgeous....wait, I'm rambling.... sorry. But see what I mean? The women who dress modestly AND attractively leave a much longer lasting impression on men.
• Age 20 - There is a huge difference between being beautiful and being hot. Beauty is being attractive for who the girl is as a person. Hot is being attractive as nothing more than sex appeal.
• Showing any cleavage is immodest. – 70% agree/str. agree
• Age 40-49 - I find it totally distracting. It's EVERYTHING I can do to keep my eyes on her eyes when cleavage is showing.
• Age 22 - Why? Why must you? What is your reasoning for doing it? You can be fashionable with out doing it, so why?
• Age 20 - This is the biggest thing which causes me to fall.
• Immodest clothing is not a problem (for you) when a girl in your own family wears it. – 21% agree/str. agree
• Age 24 - Maybe I am alone in this, but my "Hey! Female skin!" radar doesn't stop to check DNA first
• Age 16 - I radically disagree. It does not matter if the girl is my sister or not, it is still an assault on godly beauty, and my chastity. You see, what lust (and the whole industry that is producing all the magazines you see at the grocery store and worse) does, is it takes away the personhood of the object of lust. So then, immodesty in a mind surrendered to evil turns the woman into a thing -- it removes personality, true beauty, being made in God's image, and leaves only a thing that satisfies evil desires. Therefore, because of how destructive lust is it does matter that my sister and my best friend dress modestly.
• Bending over so that cleavage is visible down the front of the shirt or dress is a stumbling block. 90% agree/str. agree
• Age 16 - Um... Yes. That image usually sticks in my head for weeks.
• Age 21 - I cannot agree stronger. This is a big one for me. It would appear some shirt are MADE to do this. I appreciate it when girls hold there hand to their chest as they bend over. It demonstrates not only a respect for themselves, but also to me.
• Age 16 - STRONGLY AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GAH! THIS IS SOOOOOO DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH!!!!
• General comments to women
• Age 24 - Sisters in Christ, you really have no concept of the struggles that guys face on a daily basis. Please, please, please take a higher standard in the ways you dress. True, we men are responsible for our thoughts and actions before the Lord, but it is such a blessing when we know that we can spend time with our sisters in Christ, enjoying their fellowship without having to constantly be on guard against ungodly thoughts brought about by the inappropriate ways they sometimes dress. In 1 Corinthians 12 the apostle Paul presents believers as the members of one body - we have to work together. Every Christian has a special role to play in the body of Christ. That goal is to bring glory to the Savior through an obedient, unified body of believers - please don't hurt that unity by dressing in ways that may tempt your brothers in Christ to stumble.
• Age 26 - In high school, the place of greatest temptation toward lust was my church. Girls wore things to church that they thought were fashionable and dressy, but they would not have passed the dress code at my public high school. Church should NEVER be a guy's greatest source of temptation, in any way. Please, be especially careful when picking out your dress clothes for church, and make sure they are modest when sitting and kneeling (if you kneel in church), not just standing in front of the mirror. 

In summary: cleavage, tight pants, short shorts, the infamous ‘midriff shirts’, exposed backs or bra straps: all these things compromise the grace-filled beauty of our feminine presence to our brothers in the Lord.