Video surveillance showed the suspect waving a gun inside the Madera, California, Walgreens, police say​

The suspected gunman who opened fire inside a California Walgreens on Tuesday night had a grudge against pharmacies, according to police.

Video surveillance from inside the Madera, California, store allegedly shows 30-year-old Narciso Gallardo Fernandez waving a gun before he opened fire. The shooting left 34-year-old Erick Velazquez, an employee of the store, dead.

Madera Police Chief Giachino Chiaramonte said that while the motive for the shooting has not yet been declared, Fernandez made comments about large pharmacies.

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Audrey Hale kept multiple journals about motive, but no highly anticipated 'manifesto,' police say​

Nashville police have released their final report on the Covenant School massacre– a targeted March 2023 attack on a Christian school by a transgender shooter who killed three third-graders and three adults.

Rather than a highly anticipated manifesto, the report found that killer Audrey Hale left behind numerous notebooks, art books and computer documents about her plans to commit the attack and gain notoriety, partly inspired by the Columbine school shooting in 1999.

Hale, the 28-year-old attacker and biological female, began "fantasizing" about and researching mass shootings as far back as 2017, according to investigators. A year later, she wrote "detailed fantasies" about shooting up the Isaac T. Creswell Middle Magnet School for the Arts, killing her father and killing her psychiatrist.

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tonychanyt said:

Can Satan speak a propositional true statement?

Yes, in fact, the devil told a logical truth to Jesus in Matthew 4:

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The scripture he quoted is true, but he took the scripture out of context and misapplied it, so in that sense he was not telling the truth.

In parishes which have active RCIA (now OCIA*) programs, there is a fascinating moment at Mass on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent. The elect—adult candidates for baptism and confirmation (and sometimes those to be received into full communion)—are called forward to undergo what are called the three scrutinies. In the OCIA process, this is the period of purification and enlightenment. The scrutinies follow upon the Gospel readings (from Year A): the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42), the man born blind (John 9:1-41), and the rising of Lazarus (John 11:1-45). “Their purpose is to deliver the elect from the power of sin and Satan, to help them resist temptations, and to find strength in Christ” (OCIA, para 141).

The theme is deliverance: from thirst, from darkness, from death. We thus learn that catechesis is more than simply knowing what the Church teaches. We must also incorporate the truth into our lives. For the mind to receive the truth, the soul must be pure. And so the elect come forward and kneel or bow, when all the faithful pray for them. Then they receive a prayer of exorcism and the laying on of hands, to cleanse their souls from evil so that the Holy Spirit would enter. The exorcism prayer invokes the three Gospel events – thirsting for the living water, moving from darkness into the light, freedom from the tyranny of death.

The origin of the three scrutinies dates back to the early Church, but these preparatory rites had come to be incorporated into the one rite of baptism itself. It was the Second Vatican Council which called for the restoration of the ancient catechumenate process (including the handing on of the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer after the third and fifth scrutinies). There is abundant testimony to what this journey encompassed.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the relatively young age of 27, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt approaches the podium with confidence and a smile. Don't let her age fool you, though. She has proved to be unflappable and, as those in the press room can attest, her approach is no-nonsense and fearless.

When recently facing a reporter who tried to tout his personal ideas about the impact of tariffs, she replied, "I think it's insulting that you're trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made."

In our one-on-one sit-down, Leavitt told CBN News how she draws that strength immediately before each briefing.

"I think that team prayer before is just a moment to be silent and still and ask God for confidence and the ability to articulate my words, knowledge, prayer, protection, and it is a nice moment to reset. It's the last thing I do before I go out there, and then it just gives me the confidence to do a briefing," she says.

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All of us humans, who live on the earth, were born with sin natures, in the image of Adam, the first man created by God, and the first man to sin against God. Ever since Adam and his wife Eve sinned against the Lord, all humans have been born with sin natures, separate from God, unable within our own flesh to be approved by God and to share in his holiness and righteousness. And the only reason that any of us can be delivered from our slavery to sin and have eternal life with God, is all because of God’s grace.

So not one of us has the right to see ourselves as superior to others, nor should we ask of God that we should be treated as more special than others. Are there people approved by God, and some who are not? Surely, yes. But even that is all because of God’s grace to us that any of us are approved by God. For even the faith to believe in Jesus Christ comes from God, and it is persuaded of God, and it is gifted to us by God, and it is not of our own doing. And we can only obey God in his power and not in our own strength.

So, rather than any of us thinking that we should be given special honor in heaven over other humans, we should be humbled and thankful for God’s grace to us, that he loved us enough to send his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ (God the Son) to die on that cross for our sins. And we should be thankful that, in Jesus’ death, he put our sins to death with him so that, by God-persuaded and God-gifted faith in him we can now be free from the control of sin and now walk as servants of righteousness, obeying our Lord.

Now, when Jesus asked the “sons of Zebedee” (James and John) if they were able to drink the cup that he was about to drink, and they responded with, “We are able,” it soon became apparent that they had no idea what that meant, what they were agreeing to. For when Jesus was arrested on false charges, and when he was given a mock trial, all of his disciples initially deserted him. And prior to this, his disciple Judas Iscariot betrayed him to the death. And Peter ended up denying the Lord three times after his arrest.

And what was this “cup” that Jesus was about to drink? It was his arrest, his trial, all the beatings he received, and his crucifixion on a cross, although he had done no wrong and only good. And all of us who follow Jesus with our lives, in sincerity, in walks of obedience to his commands, and no longer as slaves to sin, who walk the walk that Jesus walked in sharing the truth of the gospel with the people, we will share in that cup of suffering with Christ. We will be hated and persecuted as he was, and many will die for their faith.

So, believing in Jesus Christ is no “picnic.” It isn’t this, “profess faith in Jesus Christ and now all your sins are forgiven, and now heaven is guaranteed you when you die,” but regardless of how you live. Faith in Jesus Christ is death to self and to sin, and it is surrender to Jesus as Lord, and it is following him in his footsteps in doing what he requires. It is obeying him and his commandments, and being his witnesses, and living the lives that God had planned out for us to live even before he created the world we live in.

If we are of genuine faith in the Lord Jesus, and if we are walking the walk he has for us to walk, and we are not living to please ourselves and for the approval of other humans, but we are going where he sends us, and we are saying what he gives us to say to the people, then we should expect to be cast aside as unwanted and as unnecessary, and to be called “crazy,” as he was called, and to be persecuted and rejected even by others who profess faith in Jesus Christ, but who are not walking in his ways, in truth.

But this is what it means to be a Christian, to be like Christ, to walk in his ways, according to his commands, and according to the individual callings that he places on our lives. Our lives are to be fully surrendered to him, to doing his will, and we should no longer be living just to please our flesh. For if sin is what we practice, and not walks of obedience to our Lord, it won’t matter what our lips profess. We will not inherit eternal life with God. Jesus said it! His New Testament apostles taught it! And we need to believe it!

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

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Are You Able to Drink the Cup?
An Original Work / April 2, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

After I was saved, I became disgruntled with life, and returned to a sin I had before I was a Christian. This resulted in around 10 years of wandering through a wilderness of curses. I believed in my heart that my sin was unpardonable, and lived in daily terror of hell. It was only after some time that God rescued me from my life of pointlessness and restored me to obedience. I now once again have a full life blessed by God.

But God has a reason for these troubled times.

In the 26th Book of Leviticus, we see God’s ever-extended mercy. It starts with saying the blessings that come through obedience. Then lists the curses that come through disobedience. But the interesting thing is the number of times God says, "But if you consider your way, confess your guilt and return to God, He will pardon". He initially only sends trouble to help restore us to obedience. He does not delight in our death.

Lev 26:18 'And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

Lev 26:21 'Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins.

Lev 26:23 'And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me,

Lev 26:27-28 'And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

Lev 26:40-42 'But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt— then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.

AKAE777 said:

I presume that for the Catholics it is "The Virgin Mary."

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Not only for Catholics but in reality
Lack of belief or an alternative view does not alter reality. If it did, then God would be subject to us, rather than us being the Children and servants of God

Yours was an act excellent post to ask the question

Say it aint so said:

I hear no opposition to any forms nepotism which is far more rampant and harmful to others than the idea of opening up opportunities for everyone. DEI is the opposite of nepotism.

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Ok?

The Vatican in collaboration with the Camille and Sandy Kress Project launched the first in a series of conferences titled “Jews and Catholics on Ethics: A Light to the Nations” this week, highlighting the significance of faith traditions in the world today.

The April 1–2 conference in Rome brought together Catholic and Jewish scholars from around the world to the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the “Angelicum,” to deepen the theological foundations of Jewish-Catholic dialogue as proposed by Pope Paul VI in his 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate.

In a message to conference participants, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, said joint reflection on ethics is more urgent now than in the past as both religions — “which have their common origins in revelation” — face being undermined in societies that “marginalize our moral values.”

“As Pope Francis stated: ‘Jews and Christians share a rich spiritual heritage which allows us to do much together. At a time when the West is exposed to a depersonalizing secularism, it falls to believers to seek out each other and cooperate in making divine love more visible for humanity,’” Koch said in his April 1 message.

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A former abortionist and a pro-life policy expert highlighted the flaws in Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie’s claim that taxpayer-funded abortions for low-income women could save the state money.

Rep. McCluskie, D-Dillon, is one of four Democratic sponsors of Senate Bill 25-183, which would require Colorado residents to fund abortions for women enrolled in Medicaid or the state’s Child Health Plan Plus program.

“A birth is more expensive than an abortion,” McCluskie claimed during a House Health and Human Services Committee hearing last week. The Colorado House Speaker argued that the bill could lead to cost savings for the state and its Medicaid program due to “the averted births that will not take place.”

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Description:

Several purposes to this video: One point I want to make to those who are not victims is to illustrate to you this violation of human rights exists and functions on a daily basis right in front of you. It is amazing what the naked eye does not see. Also,one of the key components of gang stalking is government disinformation, plain and simple. Civilian spies, snitches, etc... who have no prior training whatsoever who are involved with this illegal surveillance are used to help with stalking and monitoring innocent people. Also involved are informants performing these illegal services in exchange for early release from prison. Many large corporations have these underground programs they use as well as weapons for revenge against whistleblowers. Gang stalking can be found in every level of society. People of all ages, genders, and race participate. Participants in this community harassment agenda work in every occupation, from police officers to waitresses to doctors. No place is immune to these criminal activities. These crimes can take place anywhere.

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Christian actress Candace Cameron Bure celebrated on social media after revealing her “Full House” co-star, Dave Coulier, is now cancer-free after battling stage 3 non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

“DAVE IS CANCER FREE!!!! Join me in celebrating this AMAZING news,” the 48-year-old actress wrote on social mediawhile sharing a photo of herself with Coulier. “Let’s shower him with all the love in the world!”

"Love you so much, poopoo," he replied in the comments section.

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Idaho is so based, I love it. I think this will have a noticeable impact, when people realize the truth that a baby is indeed alive from conception and that it can feel and sense things, the idea of killing it just becomes that much more horrific.

Leviticus 4:

22“ ‘When a leader sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the commands of the Lord his God, when he realizes his guilt 23 and the sin he has committed becomes known, he must bring as his offering a male goat without defect.

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27“ ‘If any member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, when they realize their guilt 28and the sin they have committed becomes known, they must bring as their offering for the sin they committed a female goat without defect.

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For unintentional sins, the gender of the sacrificial animal depended on the type of person who committed the sin. Those in the higher echelon sacrificed a male, while common people sacrificed a female.

Leviticus 27:

1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate a person to the Lord by giving the equivalent value, 3set the value of a male between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels a of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel; 4 for a female, set her value at thirty shekels.

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Males were valued more than females but both were acceptable as dedicated to the Lord.

Matthew, Zaccheus, Mary Magdalene, the woman at the well, the one caught in adultery, the sinful woman at the house of Simon the Pharisee, tax collectors, sinners, and Samaritans: the list of first-century undesirables — named and unnamed — is long. And yet, Jesus of Nazareth was seen with them all. In fact, Jesus made a habit of associating with lowlifes. So much so that sincere and upstanding Jews could not overlook it.

But when they challenged Christ openly about it, he challenged them in return. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:31-32). “Today salvation has come to this house” (Lk 19:9). “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (Jn 8:7). “The one to whom little is forgiven loves little” (Lk 7:47).

Unlike the other religious teachers of his time, Jesus did not treat people according to their merit. Instead, he separated sinners from their sins. That is, after all, what a savior must do. Separating the sinner from his sins is, in the basic sense, the definition of salvation.

Loving sinners is hard. That’s why so few of us commit ourselves to doing it. Even more, there are plentiful facsimiles and alternatives that demand much less of us. Two-thousand years ago, it was much easier for people of faith to keep sinners at a safe distance and tell themselves that holiness and virtue required them to do this. Sinners were the spiritual equivalent of lepers. Anyone who associated with them was risking contamination. But there was also an element of pride in play. Those who kept the law were likely to consider themselves superior to those who did not. For these, Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the publican must have been jarring.

The saving grace of conversion​

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California man to plead guilty to attempted assassination of Brett Kavanaugh in 2022​

lawyers' letter

While a Catholic shrine in Lourdes, France, announced on Monday it is covering mosaics by alleged abuser Father Marko Rupnik on the doors to one of its basilicas, another of the world’s most popular sites of Marian devotion said it is not considering removing its own Rupnik artwork.

A spokesperson for the Fátima shrine in Portugal told the Portuguese news outlet 7Margens via email this week that the international shrine is not taking down the mosaic installation but has stopped using its image in any distributed materials.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, which receives over 6 million visitors a year, is located on the site of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to three shepherd children in 1917.

The back wall of the shrine’s largest and most modern worship space, the Basilica of the Holy Trinity, is covered in an enormous, floor-to-ceiling work by Rupnik and several of his artist collaborators.

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NewSpring Church has announced that its leaving the Southern Baptist Convention over the South Carolina-based megachurch’s support of women serving in pastoral leadership roles.

The church recently noted in an “SBC Withdrawal Update” on its website that “our involvement with the SBC has been questioned, particularly regarding our stance on women in ministry.”

According to the church, the SBC Credentialing Committee reached out last September about “concerns that we didn’t ‘closely identify’ with the SBC’s statement of faith, particularly on the role of women in ministry.”

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Convict’s relatives continue to threaten slain man’s family

LAHORE, Pakistan — A judge in Pakistan sentenced to death a Muslim who murdered a 20-year-old Christian in the presence of his family, sources said.

Saima Riyasat, additional sessions judge of Pasrur, Sialkot District, handed the country’s maximum punishment for murder to Muhammad Zubair for killing Farhan Ul Qamar on Nov. 9, 2023, said Christian attorney Lazar Allah Rakha. The court also imposed a fine of 500,000 Pakistani Rupees ($1,785 USD), he said.

“The convict is a hardened criminal and was already involved in several cases of a heinous nature,” Rakha told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “However, he managed to escape punishment every time because of his family’s political influence and criminal history, which had emboldened him to the extent that he started targeting Christian residents without any fear of punishment.”

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Compared to what our brethren are going through in northern Nigeria, Pakistan and the Arab countries, anti-Christian incidents in Israel are nothing.

An experimental program to NOT allow cell phones in classes, is pointing out the
dependency, and even addiction, that the "electronic screen" generations have,
for their handheld computers.

But teachers who don't have to deal with cell phone use in their classes, are
finding out that banning cell phones inclasses, is freeing.

Maybe the electronic screen generations will discover those things called
"books".

Reports from Gaza indicated that Hamas’ grip on the population may be weakening following the resumption of Israeli operations there and the blockade on humanitarian aid.

On Tuesday, a young man, Abd al-Rahman Sha’aban Abu Samra, was shot and killed by a Hamas operative after refusing to leave his position in a line for flour in Deir al-Balah, according to Palestinian social media reports.

Hamas operatives reportedly attempted to disperse a crowd waiting in line for flour after supplies had run out. When people refused to leave, some operatives allegedly fired into the air and shouted at the crowd to disperse.

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