Beautiful -- "She gave me 75 years of her life ..."

Not wanting death to "do us part"

A Dayton, Ohio couple, Harold and Ruth Knapke, died in their shared nursing home room only 11 hours apart, just days before their 66th wedding anniversary.  Read the story here.

Grateful to be a priest ...

Looking at tattoos through Theology of the Body

Emily Stimpson has a thought-provoking piece on tattoos, through the lens of Theology of the Body.

3. Last but not least, I have no desire for tattoos because I’m more interested in seeing what God does with my body than I am in seeing what some tattoo artist can do with it.

It goes back to that starting principle: The body expresses the person.

Emily today isn’t the same as Emily 10 years ago. Not on the inside and not on the outside. I have scars now that weren’t there in 2003. I also have lines, wrinkles, and (approximately) three gray hairs. But there’s also a softness to me that wasn’t there a decade ago. There’s more peace, more confidence, and more love. That somehow shows up too. It’s written on my face as much as the years and the pain are.

That’s the story I’m interested in my body telling. And God’s way, as opposed to mine, is the way I’m interested in telling it. Life—joy and suffering, peace and pain, sickness and health, what I love and what I hate, what I do and what I don’t do—will be tattooing my body according to God’s design for as long as I walk this earth. Then, by His grace, when I get my resurrected body in Heaven, those “tattoos” will shine like the sun.

Why mess with that?

Be sure to read the whole piece here.

Having it all ... with or without kids?

Recently, TIME Magazine's cover featured a couple enjoying their childless life at the beach, with the headline, "The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having kids." I haven't read the article, but I can imagine what it says. Still, I can't directly comment on the article until I read it.

So, I was grateful to come across John-Mark Miravalle's take on the article, along with his own calculation system to determine whether children fit into own one's personal goal of "having it all."

Source

I think the first thing to notice about this system of measurement is that nobody applies it once kids are actually in the picture. No one would say to a mother, “Suppose I offered you some great opportunities in exchange for little Timmy?” Somebody who went around making those kinds of offers would be reported to the authorities. Why? Probably because we know Timmy’s not the sort of thing that can be exchanged for goods, services, luxuries or career choices. Timmy’s not like other resources or consumer options, and it’s sick and wrong to pretend otherwise. But if suggesting we trade a KID for COMPETING GOODS is sick and wrong after the kid is born, why is it not sick and wrong before the kid is born?

Of course, the folks at TIME aren’t actually making that offer. They’re simply reporting that couples without kids seem to have a richer experience of life than couples with kids. Apparently (“And we’re just neutral observers,” they say) kids are cost-inefficient when it comes to happiness.

Well, I think we need a little more rigor in our analysis. I think we need some sort of scientific, absolutely reliable system of measurement that can accurately predict whether or not a kid will be an overall contribution or diminution of your own personal happiness as a couple (assuming, of course, that you’re capable of bearing and caring for a kid). And the good news is that I have invented such a calculus, and am hereby sharing it with the world. It will infallibly determine whether kids will make you happier or less happy. It consists in the following question:

Find out the question by reading it here. It's really a great article.

Happy feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe

Three years ago when Kenosis: Teen Disciples for Love and Life began, the high school students chose two patrons -- Bl. Chiara "Luce" Badano and St. Maximilian Kolbe.  Today is the latter's feast, and in his honor, a quote from him:

"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"

Big family now, less divorce later

An interesting new study has found that those with several siblings are less likely to get divorced than those from smaller families.  It's not the kiss of death for only children or those with one or two brothers and sisters.  Rather, it points to the culture of selflessness that large families must foster if they want to live peacefully.

You can read a brief recap of the study here.

When did you know you were called to be a priest?