Catholic Family Campaign

Sam Brownback writes of ‘hatred’ of Clintons in  a book to be published on July 3rd.

“I was considering what I should say when I confronted all the anger that I held for the Clintons,” the Kansas senator writes in the book, “From Power to Purpose: A Remarkable Journey of Faith and Compassion.”

“I thought, I hate them for what they are doing to the country and I feel justified in hating them for it,” he writes.

Senator Brownback now knows that there is no justification for hating anyone regardless of what they do.   This looks like a great book about how his faith influences every part of his life.  I can’t wait to read a copy.

Tags: Family Values, Religious Freedoms
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ForYourMarriage.org

Tags: Marriage Resources
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from the National Catholic Register…

by Donald DeMarco

There is a certain immediacy about motherhood that cannot be said of fatherhood. Nature goes a long way in helping a mother know what it means to be a mother. Ovulation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation and breast feeding are natural and immediate experiences that teach a mother a great deal about the meaning of her motherhood.

Motherhood is eminent, but fatherhood is transcendent.

If nature does comparatively little to teach a man the meaning of fatherhood, his wife, his children and his culture must help to fill in the blanks.

Nonetheless, secular feminism, the high divorce rate and abortion most emphatically do not help a man to understand the meaning of his own fatherhood. In fact, agencies are busy at work trying to “deconstruct” fatherhood and “deculture” paternity.

Yet, fatherhood and good fathers are of inestimable importance to society. David Blankenhorn, in his book, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Problem, provides evidence that fatherlessness is the leading cause of the declining well-being of children and the engine that drives our most urgent social problems from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women.

The following 10 distinctions shed light on the critical yet subtle, nature of fatherhood. Whereas motherhood is unmistakable because of the power of nature, fatherhood requires no small degree of sophisticated understanding.

Fatherhood means being:
1. A leader without being a frontrunner.

Our prevailing notion of leader comes from the worlds of sports and from politics. In this sense, in accordance with the “leader board” in golf, the leader is the one who is ahead of the rest of the field. Or he is the one who is leading in the political polls by outpacing his rivals.

But a father is not a leader in this way. He does not try to remove himself from his family. Nor does he regard the members of his family as rivals. On the contrary, he leads in a manner that fulfills each member. His leadership is inseparable from those he leads. What he leads and “fathers” into being is the good of those whom he loves.

In other words, fatherhood requires that a father leads by being there, rather than being “ahead of the pack.”
2. A visionary without being arrogant.

Every home must have a hearth and a horizon. The father is a visionary in the sense that he has an eye on the future. He has a keen sense of the importance of time. But he has this without presumption or arrogance. He is providential in his fathering. He knows instinctively that his children will grow up and lead independent lives. He provides for them a future vision of themselves.
3. A servant without being servile.

The expression servus servorum Dei (servant of the servants of God) adopted by John Paul II, comes from Pope Gregory the Great. Paradoxically, this servant of the servants of God earned the appellation “Great.” He who humbles himself shall be exalted. The father serves all the members of his family without being in any sense inferior. One might say, in this respect, that a father is like a tennis player: When they serve, they both enjoy an advantage.
4. An authority without being authoritarian.

The father, like God, shares in the authorship of life. He is an authority and therefore someone to learn from and be guided by. But his authority does not restrict the liberty of others. In fact, fatherly authority is to cultivate and enhance liberty.

St. Thomas Aquinas wisely pointed out that “the respect that one has for the rule flows naturally from the respect one has for the person who gave it” (Ex reverentia praecipientis procedere debet reverentia praecepti). A person best understands fatherhood by knowing someone who is a good father. One must begin with the real experience and not the inadequate abstraction.
5. A lover without being sentimental.

The love of a father is strong and unwavering. Love is not bound by a feeling, and hence prone to sentimentality. It is strengthened by principles that always focus on the good of others. Love means doing what is in the best interest of others. Sentimentality means always being nice because one is fearful of opposition.
6. A supporter without being subordinate.

A father is supportive. He holds people up, keeps them going when they are inclined to be discouraged. His encouraging role does not imply subordination, but reliability and trustworthiness from someone who is strong. He is not supportive in the Hollywood sense of being a “supporting actor.” His supportive role is played out as the leading man.
7. A disciplinarian without being punitive.

A good father knows the value of rules and the consequences of disregarding them. He wants his children to be strong in virtue. Therefore, he knows the importance of discipline, restraint and self-possession. He is not punitive, nor is he overbearing. He makes it clear to his children that there is no true freedom without discipline, that discipleship re–quires training. He is wary of punishment as such, since it can strike fear in the heart of a child.
8. Merciful without being spineless.

Mercy must be grounded in justice. Otherwise it is dissipation and weakness. In fact, it is unjust. A father, because he recognizes the uncompromisable importance of justice is anything but spineless. He is merciful, but his mercy perfects his justice. Mercy without justice, is mere capitulation to the desires of others. Justice without mercy is cold legalism.
9. Humble without being self-deprecating.

Humility is based on the honest recognition of who one is. It takes into account one’s limitations and weaknesses. The humble father, when he encounters difficulties, has enough humility to ask for help, even at times from his own children. Yet, he never gets down on himself. He knows that remaining self-deprecating at a time of crisis is utterly futile.
10. Courageous without being foolhardy.

Courage is not fearlessness, but the ability to rise above fear so that one can do what needs to be done in a time of danger or difficulty. A father does not fall apart when he begins to feel the pressure. Foolhardiness is not courage but an unfocused and unhelpful recklessness. Moreover, courage, as its etymology suggests, requires heart. The father, above all, is a man of heart.

When we consider the meaning of fatherhood, we should do so with humility, gratitude, and love. But we should also do it with refined accuracy. Fatherhood may be a paradox. But the poles of the paradox can be brought into balance with a little bit of wisdom and effort. Or, as some wise person said, “A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.”

“Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). “We are children of God by adoption. By the gift of the Holy Spirit we are able to cry ‘Abba, Father’” (Galations 4:6).

Tags: Family Values, Marriage Resources
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from Stephen at For God, For Country and For Yale

 What Every Christian Must Know.

1. There is but one God.
2. God rewards the just in Heaven and punishes the wicked in Hell, for all eternity.
3. There are Three Divine Persons in God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
4. The Second Person, the Son of God, became Man, and died on the cross to redeem us from sin and hell.

Christian, only one thing is necessary, SAVE YOUR SOUL.

Tags: Family Values, General
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Ran across this website and thought that I would share it with you all.

 Robust and heady, the scent weaves together the mysterious elements that make up a man. Made of the basic elements of scent that have been used for millennia: frankincense, myrrh, and sandalwood. Archangel is a full bodied cologne made to pour into your hand and splash on. This is not some weak poor quality spray on, but then again you wouldn’t wear such a frivolous thing. Our scent is for you; the man who has a bold approach to life and resolves issues on his own terms.

Tags: General
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Tags: Family Values, Pro-Life
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Here is a good reminder from Catholic Online for all us fathers

By Mike Aquilina
6/8/2007

Our Sunday Visitor

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (Our Sunday Visitor) – I’m often jealous of my wife. She’s wise in a way I’m not. Her instincts for parenting are like Derek Jeter’s instincts at shortstop. She can diaper a baby with one hand while tying a toddler’s shoe with the other, all the while consoling a teenager in the midst of an emotional crisis.

And she never seems to lose eye contact with any of them. You figure it out.

I, on the other hand, am incapable of multitasking. I have the one-track mind and tunnel vision that are standard equipment in a certain type of male. When I’m driving, I want to arrive, not enjoy the scenery. When there’s a problem, I look for the quickest fix possible. (There are good reasons why duct tape has become the most recognizable symbol of maleness.)

But I’m not here to beat up on myself, or betray my fellow males. All those things I mentioned – including the duct tape – serve the family well, most of the time. But, like all things human, they have been knocked out of whack by the sin of Adam, that first imperfect dad. And it’s our job to restore them to order.

I can’t say that I’ve returned my fatherly skills to their created perfection. But I had the rare blessing of growing up under a true hall-of-fame father – a master of his game – a dad whom other dads sought out for advice. I am the youngest of his seven children, so I got to see him when his game was at its most refined.

Pop died in December 2002, just a few months before my sixth child was born. So I can no longer call him on the phone to ask his advice. But I have a rich store of memories to draw from. So, I find myself learning this business of fathering as I roll tape in my mind – as I watch the game films. This Father’s Day, I’m drawing the lessons I’m still learning from Pop.

Lesson one

Love your wife, openly and unstintingly. No one who knew my parents ever doubted or questioned whether my dad loved his wife. You could tell by the way he looked at her and spoke her name. If he lived with any persistent temptation to sin, it must have been idolatry.

In matters of preference or taste, he always deferred to mom. Over years of marriage, he formed a neat coincidence of thought, word and deed: What pleased him most was whatever brought her the greatest pleasure. He was happiest when he saw her happy. Her happiness was the barometer of his own. Thus virtue was its own reward.

Even though my mother was an accomplished mind reader (we men are easy reads), and my father was an almost silent man, he daily spoke his mind on certain subjects: my mother’s beauty and his love for her. We should all take a lesson, and speak up in matters of love. And we should back up our words with great deeds, heroic deeds.

Once or twice a year, do something outlandish for your wife: write a sonnet, build something, search out that perfect doorbell she’s been unable to locate on eBay. If you do this, your children will recognize you as the hero whenever they read the great love stories of the world. You are the knight on a quest for his lady. You are Jacob, who worked 14 years without complaint, so that he could win the heart of Rachel. You are the man.

Why do I begin my parenting lessons with a marriage lesson? Because that’s where everything started for Pop. This is what I saw in his love for my mom: When we love our wives, we’re teaching our sons how to be husbands. We’re showing our daughters the kind of men we want them to marry.

Lesson two

Make contact. When your children are small, hold them close and hold them often. Hug them, give them piggyback rides, roughhouse according to their preference.

God wired our bodies to find fulfillment in loving, physical expressions. It’s no secret, for example, that the chemical oxytocin, released during breastfeeding, helps to relax a new mother.

Recent research at Harvard Medical School indicates that close contact with children does something similar for men. When a man holds a baby (or even a baby doll!), his body adjusts the levels of the hormones largely responsible for aggression, overcompetitiveness and such. Babies domesticate us in a powerful way. It’s the baby who takes a man and makes him a dad, and the transformation shakes him to his constituent chemistry.

This goes a long way in explaining my father’s serenity. I don’t think he ever passed up a chance to hold a baby or a small child. Some of my earliest memories are of pretending I was asleep at the end of a long car ride, so that Pop would carry me into the house. I’m sure he knew I was pretending. I’m sure he didn’t mind in the least.

Once, when he was in his late 70s, he was pacing the floor with my newborn daughter in his arms. She had been asleep for quite some time, but he didn’t put her down. In one of his rare philosophical moments, he told me then that he believed there was a “silent language of love” that passed between adults and children. We didn’t need to speak out loud, and they didn’t need to learn our expressions. That’s the language we dads must learn to speak with our bodies.

Lesson three

Stop. Look. Listen. We men are lousy multitaskers. My wife can accomplish great feats of baking and accounting, all the while making her children feel loved. We men can’t do this, and my father knew it instinctively. So he never talked to me with one eye on the TV. We, too, need to learn to stop what we’re doing, disengage from our tasks, make eye contact and then truly listen.

Since I work from home, this is a constant struggle for me. The only sure cure I’ve found is …

Lesson four

Cultivate a devotion to the guardian angels. They’re powerful spiritual beings who want you to succeed at parenting. Everybody has one (see Ps 34:7; Mt 18:10; Acts 12:15). Your kids do, and so do you.

When you’re beginning to lose your patience, ask your guardian angel to help you. If the situation keeps getting worse, call on your kids’ guardian angels. In fact, the system works best if you greet each child’s angel (silently, in your heart) each time the kid strolls into your presence.

Lesson five

Be grateful. If kids today don’t appreciate anything, it’s because their parents don’t. Model gratitude by thanking your children often, for what they do and for what they are. Catch them doing good things.

If we don’t learn to be grateful, we’ll forget that we’re always on the receiving end of God’s giving. And we’ll soon slide into habits of resentment. Gratitude is the simple road to heaven because it makes life heavenly on earth.

Lesson six

Choose battles. Choose few. As I said before, my father was an almost silent man. He held his rages for very rare occasions. My nephew still remembers how my dad shocked him out of adolescent rebellion. Pop used strong words with him, and even raised his voice a little.

If Pop had been a man given to tirades, another furious rage would have been meaningless. But his few, well-chosen words were all it took to make a teenager raise the white flag.

Another example: When my sisters were in college, they were exposed to the latest theories on every subject under the sun, and they’d sometimes come home and “correct” my father’s mistaken notions. Pop didn’t argue with them. Instead, he praised them for studying so hard and listening in class. Then he’d go right on living as he had lived till then, and as his children would come around to live, once the class was over and the latest theories passed into oblivion.

Lesson seven

Give it all you got. When you’re old, you won’t regret the times you neglected your hobbies. You won’t wish you had logged more hours at work. You won’t care what TV shows you missed. You will, however, wish you had spent more time with your kids.

My father worked long, very hard hours for a coal company. When he came home, he was exhausted. I’ll bet he wanted nothing more than to collapse beneath the newspaper.

But he didn’t. He collapsed beneath the kids. My mom says – and I remember this – that, coming home, he would wrestle with me on the floor, let me crawl on him, pounce on him … let me live the dream of any child who’s read Dr. Seuss’ “Hop on Pop.” Eventually, he’d drift off to sleep, while my game went on with him as a prop. All that my father had, he gave to his children – he gave to me – until there was nothing left. And, now that he’s gone, his memory is worth more to me than the largest mansion or trust fund. I will do well if I pass on what I have received.

Tags: Family Values, Hall of Fame
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