Empathy is widely celebrated in our public life. We are told it should guide our politics, shape our policies, and soften our judgments. To lack empathy is considered a moral failure; to appeal to it is often enough to settle an argument. Increasingly, empathy is not treated merely as a virtue, but as the highest moral authority — one before which all other considerations are expected to bow.

Empathy itself is not the enemy. Properly understood, it is a gift from God. Scripture calls us to “weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15) and to bear one another’s burdens. A hard-hearted people is a dangerous people.

But there is something more dangerous still: empathy divorced from truth.

When empathy translates into compassion severed from sound moral judgment, responsibility, and long-term consequence, it ceases to be a healing force and becomes a tool — easily manipulated, emotionally charged, and politically weaponized. Feeling deeply is no guarantee of acting rightly. History offers sobering proof that when empathy and compassion are untethered from truth, they do not heal. By “truth,” I mean the moral reality God has revealed in Scripture, not the shifting sentiments of the age.

One life offers a clear illustration of this principle.

Continued below.

An interfaith coalition has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its Religious Liberty Commission, an entity within the U.S. Department of Justice, it contends, is unlawfully biased toward Christianity.

The complaint was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of The Interfaith Alliance, the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, Muslims for Progressive Values, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Hindus for Human Rights.

Defendants named in the case include President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Religious Liberty Commission, and Mary Margaret Bush, the commission's designated federal officer.

Continued below.

At the end,
Matthew 22:21
They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

ICE = measures from Caesar. They found it necessary to drive the illegal immigrants out. They employed ICE to do the job, it however doesn't seem to be well trained to deal with civilians.

To me, it's not an uncommon scene in the US. It's just another "I can't breach" occurred. It happened in the past, it's happening now and will happen in the future. It somehow fits the pattern that "people define their society". In the US culture everyone carries a gun, policing is under high pressure and mistakes are inevitable.

Pray The Holy Spirit guides Yumnam Khemchand Singh who is the new chief minister of Manipur, India as he deals with ethnic & racial tensions between different people groups in Manipur

sjastro said:

Your description comes across as Sabine being the female version of Max Headroom.

View attachment 376377​

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shudder~~~~~

Something just feels off about the last couple videos I have seen linked from her. It is as if she has made an AI version of herself...

Richard T said:

13For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.

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Amen!

When I first tried to get my site to rank better, I’d get stuck trying to prioritize which SEO tips were actually useful and which ones were just trendy. What really helped was focusing on meaningful content, speeding up site load times, and making sure my keywords were actually what people searched. I also noticed backlinks made a real difference, especially from industry-relevant places instead of random directories. If you're looking for more in-depth and up-to-date info, there are agencies offering personalized advice and strategies that adapt as search engines evolve. I learned a lot from reading what works for others at places like Premier Digital Marketing Services, Internet Marketing Agency and found their approach to tailored SEO tips pretty practical.

Nigeria
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Persecution Rank
#7
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World Watch List
- opendoors.org

So we finally got an answer... its not a very good or positive one... the doctor had ordered a prolactin test because we suspected that we had created something and that she was pregnant and the results came back late last night.

It turns out? They were high enough to definitely prove that we weren't crazy. We did in fact create something. The bad news? They were also low enough to definitely prove that Jeanette likely lost the baby...

I don't know how to process this news... I created a life for the first time in a decade and my first child God decides to take away? I.. dont understand...

Did ICE kill anyone in WV? That may contribute to the lack of cooperation.

At the bottom of the article Bishop Umbers quipped about priests possibly not turning up if the "Doggies" were to make it into the Grand Final at the same time in 2028.

While dates are yet to be announced, there has been some suggestion that Eucharist28 could coincide with the Rugby League Grand Final.

But Umbers is optimistic that this logistical wrinkle can be ironed out. “Sydney is a great international city, and will do everything we can to facilitate attendance at the Mass. A lot of Catholics love their footy — and if the Doggies were to make it into the Grand Final, I could have trouble trying to get some of my priests along to the final Mass,” he quipped.

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For the record the "Doggies" in this context are the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, a rugby league team based in Sydney.

It reminds me of another joke by one of our parish priests a few years ago. There were a fair few news items being read out at the end of the mass, and he wanted to finish. The Broncos (their real name) are a Brisbane based team, and the Rabbitohs are South Sydney.

So he asked "Anybody else? Broncos? Rabbitohs?"

Excellent, you would think in the law they would better define temporary status. Glad the court ruled "years ago" is not temporary.

FireDragon76 said:

Then why shame those that look at their meager finances and the precarity of the current social and ecological arrangements and conclude they cannot raise a child? People like Vance want to turn 21st century realities into culture war talking points divorced from the material basis of family life in the first place.



Most Americans say the economy continues to be a pressing concern. Housing affordability hasn't really budged downward. And all the proposed remedies of the Trump regime do little to address underlying causes, which is the hoarding of wealth in speculative investments in real estate.

The way JD Vance and Donald Trump talk about “family values” is mostly about appearances. They parade images of happy children and families and talk about moral duty, but their policies don’t actually make family life any more sustainable. The things that used to make stable families possible—good wages, affordable housing, reliable healthcare, accessible childcare—are nowhere to be found. What they’re really doing is demanding people have more kids while pretending economic insecurity is a virtue.


The way the Right talks anxiously about who is “having kids” exposes the same problem. They point to Latino or immigrant families as proof that Americans could just choose to have more children. But those families are often living in conditions that would be considered illegal, unsafe, or unacceptable in mainstream society—overcrowded housing, informal work, stretched social networks. Treating that kind of struggle as a model for everyone else is cruel and dishonest. It normalizes hardship and pretends that enduring precarity is somehow virtuous.

What Vance and Trump are really offering is not a path to prosperity or flourishing families, but a managed decline dressed up as moral duty. They want people to accept tighter margins, less security, and more stress, and to feel virtuous for doing it. Strip away the smiling children in the ads, and what’s left is austerity sold as a moral project.

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I don't know if you have ever been a parent. If not, I have a secret to tell you: If you wait for the "perfect" time to have children, you'll never be a parent. This people once knew and counted children as a joy. The reason people don't want to have children now is that instead of a joy, children are seen as an inconvenience. Period. Children means someone's life permanently changes. Children mean someone can no longer put themselves first.

It's perhaps no surprise that a culture that encourages people to put self first also supports abortion on demand. Nor is it surprising that such a culture harbors a hatred for children and mocks parents who have more than one child.

Day 9 - 2/10/26

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, we call upon you as Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, and Comfort to the Afflicted.

You know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Deign to cast upon me a look of mercy. By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a sanctuary whence you dispense your favors, and already many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and physical.

I come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain, O loving Mother, the granting of my requests

(mention request here…)

Through gratitude for favors, I will endeavor to imitate your virtues that I may one day share your glory.

Immaculate Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, to you we raise our hearts to implore your intercession in obtaining from the benign Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for our spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly for the grace of a happy death. O Mother of our Divine Lord, graciously pray for us as we conclude this novena for the special favor we seek at this time.

O star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious in your assumption, triumphant in your coronation, show unto us the mercy of thy Son. Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother, be our comfort, hope, strength, and consolation. Amen.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

What’s this in reference to? It is in reference to the teaching in the previous chapter which ends with “And I show you a still more excellent way.” For when this was written, there were no chapters and verses. This was all one continuous letter from the Apostle Paul to the church of God in Corinth, in which he gave them all kinds of exhortations. So, it is good for us to know the context here, which was Paul teaching on Spiritual gifts. And, the previous chapter, chapter 12, is a preface for what he taught in chapter 13.

The main point I get from chapter 12 is that, by the Spirit, we are all gifted in different ways, so we won’t all be the same. Even if we have the same gift category, we may not all exercise it the same way. All should be exercised in the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the teachings of the Scriptures on Spiritual gifts. But none of us should operate in “the gifts” from a worldly or fleshly perspective. And all of us who have been assigned by God our specific “body parts” in the family of God, we are not all going to be the same.

For, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons, i.e. in all people of genuine biblical faith in the Lord Jesus whose lives are committed to the will and purposes of God, who have the Holy Spirit living within them, gifting them, and using them for the glory of God to minister God’s love and grace to the rest of the body of believers in Jesus Christ, and to share the gospel with the world.

Therefore, not one of us is to say to another part of the body of Christ that we have no need of them. Now, if they are living in sin, that is a totally different situation which must be addressed and resolved for them to be active parts of the body ministering to the rest of the body. But that is not the issue here. The issue here is body parts, operating in the power of the Holy Spirit, who are being told that they “don’t fit,” and they should go “someplace else where they will be a ‘better fit’.” This should not be!!


And this then takes us to chapter 13. We who say we love God, and that we are filled with the Spirit of God, and that we are operating in the gifts of the Spirit, are not to be those who treat the other body parts with disdain and disapproval just because they have different body parts from us, or because the manner in which they exercise their spiritual gifts does not meet with our approval. Their exercise of their spiritual gifts, though, needs to meet with God’s qualifications, and his approval, and that should be enough for us.

For our approval of one another should not be based in human thinking and reasoning, nor in marketing schemes and goals, nor out of fear that the ungodly of this world might be offended by our actions. But how we view one another, and how we treat one another, should be based in the teachings of the Scriptures, and in the model set before us in the person of Jesus Christ. But I will give this one caution. The fruit of the Spirit is “self-control,” so if our “gifting” is “out of control,” it is not of the Holy Spirit.

And, lastly, this love we are to have for one another is not based in human feelings and emotions which fluctuate, for we are to love even our enemies, and those who do evil against us, and even those within “the church” who reject us and cast us aside as unwanted because we don’t fit in with their modern-day marketing schemes and goals on how to “draw in large crowds of people from the world” into their gatherings. But just because someone else’s gifts are different from ours, it doesn’t make them wrong or us right.

[Matthew 5:43-46; Luke 6:27-28; Luke 10:27; John 13:34-35; John 15:12]

Love Never Fails

Based off 1 Corinthians 13 NIV
An Original Work / August 20, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

If I speak
With tongues of men and angels,
But do not have love,
My speech is but noise;
It sounds like thunder from above.
If I have the gift of preaching,
Knowledge, faith and prophecy,
But I do not love my brothers,
Oh, what vanity!
If I give all I possess
To help a neighbor who’s in need,
But I do not love my sisters,
I gain not a thing.

Love is patient; love is kind;
It does not envy; is not proud.
It is not rude; not self-seeking;
Selflessly gives out.
Love does not delight in evil,
But rejoices with the truth;
Protects always; hopes and trusts,
And always perseveres.
Love is not easily angered;
Keeps no record of the wrongs.
It forgives when wrong’s intended;
Returns hate with love.

Love will never fail when it is
God’s love reaching out through us,
Selfless in its care for others;
Yielding to the cross.
Prophecies and tongues
And knowledge,
Wisdom, teaching, miracles,
Gifts of healing, helping others –
These will all be stilled.
When perfection comes
The imperfect will surely disappear.
Faith and hope and love remain;
The greatest of these, love.

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Are We Lacking in Love?
An Original Work / February 10, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Maybe Mike Johnson should just say that we live in a fallen world in which things go to extremes ( Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 etc.). As a governing official, he applies Romans 13:1-14 as best he can. We have legal immigration and try to deal with illegal immigration. If we collapse from illegal immigration, then I guess we collapse

Exodus 20:13 ( Douay & KJV) says we should not kill; there are no just wars but at times we fight & kill in this fallen world. I don’t think the Lord gives us some allowance in Matthew 19:18. Is a soldier who does their duty to their nation any better or worse than a conscientious objector? The Lord accepted the centurion ( Matthew 8:5-13) as he was.

I just realized this was the Catholic sub forum. If I am out of line, let me know & I will delete.

Lord have mercy!

It's the West that helped PRC to become so strong and arrogant today, under the pretext to have an ally in "fighting against Soviet Russia".

ThatRobGuy said:

Conspiracy would imply that it's something that's being kept secret.

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The conspiracy would be that there is any unknown influence or secret instructions to police and prosecutors to not start a case against a french AI startup even if they thought they could get a conviction.

ThatRobGuy said:

When the president of France has openly stated they're seeking "Euro tech/AI Sovereignty" and "European preference" over American companies...

And there are two companies (one American and one French) that both have similar issues...and both with CEOs that have expressed a hands-off philosophy with regards moderation and both asserted "it's a tool, it's on the users what they decide to do it".

And he takes one to court, and takes the other one out to dinner...

It doesn't exactly take Columbo to solve that mystery.

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Neither of that is evidence of that the french police and prosecutors are looking the other way.

ThatRobGuy said:

Contrary to popular belief, Americans aren't the only ones that are susceptible to tunnel vision with regards to nationalism and global supremacy-based economic goals.

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan will work part time as co-lead of the NYPD’s chaplain unit, the archdiocese confirmed.

Continued below.

The Apostasy

The day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first. So, what is “the apostasy”? What does it look like? Well, it means to depart from the faith of the gospel of our salvation and from obedience to our Lord. It is a defection, a falling away from true faith and true biblical worship of God to go after the gods of this world. It is a defection or a falling away from the truth of the gospel to go after the lies that this world and the enemy of our souls are offering. And has that already come? In the USA it certainly has!

For, in the USA, where I live, a cheapened and altered and diluted “gospel” message has largely taken the place of the gospel taught by Jesus and by his New Testament apostles, taught in the correct biblical context. In the USA the most popular “gospel” message is teaching that a mere verbal confession of Christ as Lord, and of his bodily resurrection, is enough to secure for the “believer” salvation and forgiveness of all sins, and eternal life with God, but regardless of how the person lives in lifestyle, by habit.

But…

Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

For by God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Acts 26:18]

The Man of Lawlessness

Now, I make no claims to being a prophet of God. I am a servant of the Lord, as all should be who profess faith in Jesus Christ. And my assignment from God is just to write down what I am learning from the Lord each day during my times with him in his word, and then to post these writings on the internet for the encouragement and strengthening of the body of Christ in their walks of faith, to inform of world events which are or may be impacting the church, and to share the biblical truth of the gospel of our salvation.

So, what I am sharing here are just my observations, and you can take it from there and pray about it to see what the Lord is revealing to your spirit. This “man of lawlessness” could, indeed, be just one man who raises himself up to god-like status to be worshipped by other humans, who makes golden statues of himself to put on display, who is loud mouthed, hateful, boasting of all his accomplishments, egotistical, arrogant, blasphemous, immoral, and who thinks he owns the world and that the world should bow to him.

Or the man of lawlessness could be more than one person…

Now, first of all, “the temple of God” is not a physical building, and it will never again be a physical building. For God does not live in buildings built by human hands (Acts 17:24). Ever since Jesus Christ died on that cross in taking upon himself the sins of the world, and he was resurrected from the dead, the temple of God has been the people of God who have, by faith in Jesus Christ, died with Christ to sin, and who are walking in obedience to him and to his commands, by God’s grace, in the power of God within them.

So, we need to translate this passage in 2 Thessalonians in that light. This is speaking about the “man of lawlessness” taking his seat in the hearts and minds of the people of God who by faith believe in Jesus Christ. Collectively we are the church, so the man of lawlessness is taking his seat in the gatherings of the church, the body of Christ, the temple of God, God’s only temple. And this man of lawlessness is displaying himself as being God, to be worshiped as though he is a god. And he is deceiving many people.

When I was a young child in the 1950s, those who professed faith in Jesus Christ (plus family) met together in a building which they called “the church.” There was a large room in this building which was then called “the sanctuary,” which is where the church services were held. And we were taught that coming into that building meant that we were now entering “the house of God.” And the room called “the sanctuary” was regarded as “holy ground.” So there were some definite carryovers from the Jewish temple.

So, here is where it gets interesting. In “the sanctuary,” at the very front of the room, largely displayed on one side of the platform (from where the preacher taught his sermon), was the flag of the United States of America. And in some of these gatherings we were taught to put hand over heart and to pledge (vow) our allegiance (loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness) to the US government, as though they were a god to be worshiped. And we were taught to sing patriotic songs of worship of the government and to honor our military as though they were our saviors who protected us from evil.

And as I was contemplating this, then in my mind I heard these words, “the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” And then I remembered that, in such gatherings where we pledged our allegiance to the flag, that there was another flag on display, and it was called “the Christian flag.” But we always vowed our fidelity first and foremost to the government, and the Christian flag second. And all this took place in the gatherings of “the temple of God.”

Then, also in the 1950’s, the church at large (not every congregation) in the USA was talked into incorporating (merging, combining, uniting, partnering) with the state (with the government, with the world) via the 501c3 tax exempt nonprofit organization status, which puts them underneath the rule of the government and answerable to the US government for what they do or don’t do. So, overall, there has been no more separation of church and state, as a general rule. And the government was now put in a position of authority over the church (“he takes his seat in the temple of God”).

So, take this to the Lord in prayer, and ask the Lord to lead you to all truth. Study the Scriptures in their correct biblical context, and then obey them.

The Apostasy
An Original Work / February 9, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The Magi’s response to God can be understood as GPS leading them by another way.

It’s been one month since we celebrated Epiphany. Even though the Magi and all the other statues in our Nativity scenes are now packed away again in storage, we can imagine that if the real Magi had left Bethlehem in January, by now they might be back in their home countries.

We call them Magi, Wise Men or the Three Kings, though we may not know exactly who they were. We may not precisely know their roles in their home countries, but traditiontells us their names were Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior.

These men studied the stars and probably prophecies of their faith traditions, and having identified a star they hadn’t seen before, they decided to see where it would lead them.

They arrived in Jerusalem, a place where they thought the king of the Jews would reside. But from their encounter with King Herod (who was not born a Jew; historians believe his family were converts) and the Jewish leaders there, the Wise Men learned about the Jewish prophecy indicating that the Christ Child would be born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem.

Continued below.

A small group of Lutherans and Catholics are leaving urban society behind to build a close-knit fellowship on rural Lolland.

LOLLAND, Denmark — While many Danes are formally affiliated with the national Lutheran Church (Folkekirken), actual religious belief and practice are much lower. According to the most recent study, only about 35% of Danes affirm belief in God.

Despite the gloomy statistic, some remain steadfast in their faith.

In recent years, several traditional Lutheran and Catholic families have come together in a small rural community, where they — despite their theological differences — have found more common ground with each other than with modern society.

In The Remnant: The Last Christians of Denmark, American filmmaker Matthew Engset out to explore the lives, hopes and challenges of these traditional Christian families.

Continued below.

Meticulous reporting on the Vatican’s complex relationship with the island democracy.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — For decades, Taiwan has watched one ally after another cut diplomatic ties under pressure from China. Since 2016 alone, 10 countries have switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing, leaving only a dozen states that maintain full formal relations with Taiwan today, among them, the Holy See.

The island democracy’s only embassy on European soil looks onto St. Peter’s Basilica from the Via della Conciliazione, making the Vatican one of the most visible places in the world where the flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is flown publicly in defiance of the Chinese Communist Party’s view that Taiwan does not exist as a country.

“The Vatican is the only country in Europe that still recognizes Taiwan,” said Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister François Chihchung Wu in an interview with the Register. “And we need to maintain this kind of diplomatic relation because it is the source of the legitimacy of our government. So we are continuing to work very hard to work with the Vatican and trying to maintain this diplomatic relation, which is crucial for us.”

That political tension surfaced again in the last days of 2025, as China launched its biggest ever military drill around Taiwan after the U.S. announced an $11-billion arms sale to Taiwan. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, told U.S. President Donald Trump in a phone call on Nov. 24 that “Taiwan’s return to China is an important part of the postwar international order,” according to Chinese state media.

Continued below.