Should warning labels, for children, on social media sites, be more like
"junk food" or "cigarette" warning labels.

I would like to see warning labels that identify...

1 sites without fact-checking
2 sites that engage in endless rage discussions
3 sites that are "religious", without having been sanctioned by any
religious group that is legal in America
4 sites that offer fact-checked news articles
5 sites that offer fact-checked scientific articles
6 sites that are improper for under-adult readers
....

An adorable dog was adopted by a kind-hearted pub manager after the pooch’s owner died in a car crash.

The two-year-old Shih Tzu named Rex dashed into the busy bar after surviving the tragic car accident.

Regulars at The Leaping Wolf in Wolverhampton, England, were left startled when the lost pooch ran into the pub during a football match.


Manager Dan Morris caught the runaway pup and took him to the veterinarian to see if he was OK and inquire about where he could have come from. But, Dan was shocked to learn that Rex’s owner had passed away.

Continued below.

This seems to follow on from another thread dealing with alleged abuses by Fr. Rupnik.


I don't know about other parishes but reconcilation in our parish usually takes place in full view (but not hearing) of other parishioners. I don't know if that's always the case, but such public visibility protects both the priest and the penitent.

The final day of the Jubilee of the World of Communications, which ran from Jan. 24–26, coincides with the one-year anniversary of Pope Francis’ meeting with participants of the plenary session of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) following the release of Fiducia Supplicans — the Vatican’s declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings.

Though the initial tidal wave of controversy surrounding Fiducia Supplicans has largely died down, for many, the Vatican’s document on “pastoral and spontaneous blessings” caused more confusion than clarity on the Church’s long-standing teachings on human sexuality, morality, and the sacrament of marriage.

The close of the special jubilee for communicators provides an opportunity to reflect on the impact of Fiducia Supplicansand Vatican communications — particularly sensitive communications delivered by the office responsible for defending and promoting Catholic doctrine — to people living in various historical, socio-cultural, and political contexts around the world.

North America​

Continued below.

On Saturday evening, as his plane headed from Las Vegas to Miami during a whirlwind, coast-to-coast first trip since returning to office, US President Donald Trump made his way to the back of Air Force One to talk to gathered reporters.

On the in-flight television screens, Fox News was back, having replaced CNN - and the president, fresh from a week in which he upended America's government and ripped up its immigration policies, was feeling confident.

"We're getting A-pluses on the work done - and also the amount of work done," he said in response to a question from the BBC.
"People are saying it was the most successful first week that anybody can remember a president having," he went on.

Continued below.

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Traditional Hymn

1. Come, O thou traveler unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with thee;
With thee all night to stay
And wrestle till the break of day.

2. I need not tell thee who I am,
My misery or sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name;
Look on thy hands and read it there!
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.

3. In vain thou strugglest to get free;
I never will unloose my hold.
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold;
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

10. My pray’r hath power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive,
Through faith I see thee face to face;
I see thee face to face and live!
In vain I have not wept and strove;
Thy nature and thy name is love.

Pommer said:

Would that moot their point?

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No. But if you actually look at the sources that took her months to locate and post, they nither prove her point or disproves my statement.

It is only a hard message to the children of disobedience brother but those who walk in truth in love are encouraged that they are not alone and that the Spirit still works in the remnant.

That you feel the need to say that you will not apologise for your words is only confirmation of the truth of them, for the obedient find nothing objectionable in your assessment.

Nevertheless we know that many shall be offended by your doctrine;

2 Peter 2:1-6 KJV
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. [2] And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. [3] And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. [4] For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; [5] And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; [6] And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

But the righteous who walk in truth rejoice in your counsel, for which I thank God.

Time is not on our side. We cannot presume that we have tomorrow or even today. Life could be snatched from us in an instant without us even having the time to make things right with God or with any other human, if that is what is needed. Should we plan for the future? Yes, to a certain extent we need to. But we should never count on us having tomorrow or today. We should look at every day as a blessing from God and every tomorrow the same. And we should plan according to the will of God, not our own will.

But what is the greater risk here with assuming that we always have tomorrow? Largely it depends on where we are in relationship with Jesus Christ. The multitudes are not followers of Jesus Christ. They deny his name, for He is not Lord and Master of their lives. They are still the ones running their own lives and following after the gods of this world. And among them are many who give lip service to Jesus Christ but who deny him by their actions, for they are still giving homage to their flesh and not to God.

And many of them have been fed a false gospel of salvation which is tickling itching ears and which is appeasing human flesh, and which is making room for the ungodly to continue in their ungodliness. And so they have become convinced that once they make that profession of faith in Jesus Christ that now all their sins are forgiven, and heaven is guaranteed them when they die, but regardless of how they live, and regardless of how they treat the Savior of the world while they are still living on this earth.

But what did James teach here in his book?


And then compare that to the words of Paul:


And then we have the words of John:


So, please don’t count on you having your next breath, and please do not think that a mere profession of faith in Jesus Christ will secure you heaven for eternity. If sin is what we practice, and not walks of obedience to our Lord and to his New Covenant commands, then we do not have salvation from sin nor eternal life guaranteed us. So repent and obey God today.

A Missionary Cry

By Albert B. Simpson
Melody by J.H. Burke

A hundred thousand souls a day
Are passing one by one away
In Christless guilt and gloom;
Without one ray of hope or light,
With future dark as endless night,
They’re passing to their doom,
They’re passing to their doom.

O Holy Ghost, Thy people move,
Baptize their hearts with faith and love
And consecrate their gold.
At Jesus’ feet their millions pour,
And all their ranks unite once more,
As in the days of old,
As in the days of old.

The Master’s coming draweth near;
The Son of Man will soon appear;
His kingdom is at hand.
But ere that glorious day can be,
This gospel of the kingdom we
Must preach in every land,
Must preach in every land.

Oh, let us then His coming haste,
Oh, let us end this awful waste
Of souls that never die.
A thousand millions still are lost;
A Savior’s blood has paid the cost,
Oh, hear their dying cry,
Oh, hear their dying cry.

They’re passing, passing, fast away,
A hundred thousand souls a day
In Christless guilt and gloom.
O Church of Christ, what wilt thou say
When, in the awful judgment day,
They charge thee with their doom,
They charge thee with their doom?

They’re passing, passing fast away
In thousands day by day;
They’re passing to their doom,
They’re passing to their doom.

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Time Not on Our Side
An Original Work / January 26, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Moses ascended three times, first time to fetch Torah, second time because he smashed the tablets when he saw they had made a golden calf,

had to ascend again, and the third time to recieve the Oral Torah, the hows and whys.

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13 Therefore, correct them severely, so that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not paying any attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
Titus 1:13-14

I was born to and raised in Jewish myths, by which they set the Law and the Prophets to no effect as much as they can. Christ the Lord has freed me from them. I call upon all similarly bound readers of these words, to repent in the Name of the Lord.

So it is Ok to ignore laws about blocking entrances of abortion providers but not ignore laws about immigration. I am against abortion but it does seem hypocritical to pick and choose what laws to follow and what criminals to release. Biden did that and now Trump/Vance just chooses another subset. Might be worth a try for an illegal in the USA to block a clinic. Perhaps they too might be forgiven?

From the Online Prayer Event on the 22nd January:

Here are the prayer points from this evening’s webinar:

• For Bangladesh - converts who are most at risk of persecution, for communities experiencing greater restrictions, violent attacks and discrimination and for Open Doors partners coming alongside to encourage and strengthen them.
• For Bangladeshi believers who risk everything to be salt and light to their communities and persecutors.
• For political stability in Bangladesh, and that Christians will be seen as ambassadors of God’s love and peace.
• For the persecuted church to be strengthened in their faith and to continue to be salt and light in their communities
• For the persecutors, particularly leaders of extremist groups, that they would meet Jesus and be transformed by his love
• For the government and foreign office to understand the importance of FORB (Freedom Of Religion or Belief - the Minister for this is a Christian)
• For new Christian MPs – that the Lord will show them how to stand strong in their faith in their new roles. (That is UK MP's election was last summer).
• For peace in Sudan this year and an end to the terrible conflict. For protection, comfort and provision for Christians who have no safe place to go.

Thank you for praying and continuing to stand with our persecuted family.

Gnarwhal said:

My second born arrived unexpectedly on Tuesday 1/14 around 7:30 by cesarean. My wife had gone in for a routine monitoring and the doctors saw some stuff that concerned them a bit, baby’s heart rate was dropping off and then coming back up. My wife was also showing preeclampsia.

So they wheeled her across the street to the hospital and performed the procedure. Turns out he was transverse, breeched and his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. He freaked out the OB too cause when she went in and got him he actually grabbed hold of the surgical tool that holds the incision open in the abdomen like he didn’t wanna be taken out.

In the end his and mom’s health were both perfectly fine. He was small (4lbs 4oz) but completely healthy. He stayed in NICU for about six nights and came home on Monday 1/20 and he’s already gained back what he lost and is past his birth weight (he’s eating a lot more than expected which is great).

We’re gonna try to have him christened as soon as possible, our parish does classes for the parents before baptism but I feel like we don’t need to do those. So I’ll see what my priest says.

Anyway, I never thought I’d be a father to two boys but here he is, Joseph Cole:

View attachment 360140

View attachment 360143

I also didn’t think I’d have a family of six but when you include my step kids, there we are!

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Congratulations! He’s adorable!

jas3 said:

One good online resource I liked was a podcast called "At the Intersection of East and West," which has some older episodes from around 2010, if I remember correctly, where Dn. Michael Hyatt goes through the history of the ecumenical councils in an easy to understand way.

Another with lots of reading material is Home :: Orthodox Christian Information Center

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I like to avoid that last one because its run by Old Calendarists and some of the articles on it do not reflect the current state of the canonical churches.

{ Matthew 16 : Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven.}

And of course Jesus did not , but in Revelation 13-11 there comes someone who does.

{ Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14And he deceives [f]those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast }

So im thinking maybe a fake Elijah. Your thoughts..?

Lord have mercy!

Why do people find salamanders annoying?

Because they axolotl questions.

When I lived in Winnipeg, I heard about a pastor's wife in Saskatchewan who spoke in Swahili as verified by an African visitor who spoke that language. The pastor and his wife were worried about their missionary daughter who was trying to escape a dangerous part of Africa where Swahili was spoken. the interpretation of the message in tongues was that she had passed through the danger zone and would soon be home, The African visitor confirmed the accuracy of this interpretation as an accurate translation of the Swahili message in tongues.

I haven’t been feeling well for several days. Some of it is sinus congestion, but most of it is fatigue. So I have been resting a lot. And when I don’t feel well I am not as strong emotionally, either. So I cry more easily. And some of what I cry over is the spiritual condition of my nation and of the church in my nation and over the hearts and lives of so many who are professing faith in the Lord Jesus but whose lives do not reflect that he is Lord of their lives.

And I was taking some of these situations to the Lord in prayer this evening when he put in my mind the song, “Breath of Heaven.” The song is about Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she was pregnant with Jesus. I think this is the author of the song imagining what it must have been like for Mary, and some of the thoughts that might have been racing through her mind. And the author imagined Mary wondering what she did to deserve this honor.

And the honor was that she was chosen to carry inside her body the Son of God, God the Son, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. And when I heard those words I began to cry. Why? Because when we believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord of our lives, he, in the person of the Holy Spirit, comes to live within us, and so we carry within us the Son of God who is God, God within us. Oh, what an honor!!

Are we deserving of such an honor? No, we are not. Why? Because we are born into this world with sin natures, in the image of Adam, the first man to sin against God. So not one of us is deserving of our Lord’s salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that we would get to carry the Son of God within us, not physically, but spiritually. And we cannot even come to faith in Jesus unless God the Father draws us to him and he gifts us with such faith.

Now Mary was a young girl, and she was human, so she probably was frightened to some extent by the awesome task of carrying the Son of God within her. And she probably did feel very alone at times because most people would have considered that she got pregnant out of wedlock and so they would not have thought highly of her, and many may have shunned her and mistreated her, and maybe some friends deserted her, too.

And when we carry the Son of God within our lives spiritually, and so we now live for him and no longer for self, and we follow his plan and purpose for our lives in going where he sends us, and in doing what he commands, and in speaking the words he has for us to speak, it can be overwhelming at times. And we may, at times, find ourselves a bit frightened by the awesomeness of the responsibility and by the mistreatment we might receive from others because we follow Jesus with our lives, for it can hurt.

And it can be very lonely, as well, because we live in a world where the majority are not followers of Jesus Christ, not even all who profess to believe in him. We live in a sin-sick world with so much evil happening every day, and with so many people opposed to the message of the gospel which Jesus taught, and which his New Testament apostles taught (in context). And so we may find ourselves walking this path alone, at times, when we lack encouragement and support from other followers of Jesus Christ.

And so we may cry out to the Lord in prayer, and ask him to “hold us together” because, at times, we may not feel like we are all together, for we are hurting. And so we pray for the Lord to be near us and to comfort us and to give us the strength and the wisdom and the endurance to keep going, even in the face of adversity, and even if we don’t have much support emotionally and spiritually. For we know we are called of God to carry His Son, and to take the message of the gospel to the people of the world.

And what’s that gospel message? Jesus said that if anyone would come after him he must deny self, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin and to self) and follow (obey) him. For this is what faith in Jesus looks like. And he said, basically, that if we hold on to our lives of living in sin and for self that we will lose them for eternity. But if for Jesus’ sake we deny self, die daily to sin, and we now walk (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to his New Covenant commands, then we have salvation from sin and eternal life with God.

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


Breath Of Heaven (Mary's Song)

Songwriters: Amy Lee Grant / Chris Eaton

I have traveled many moonless nights
Cold and weary with a babe inside
And I wonder what I've done
Holy father you have come
And chosen me now to carry your son

I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now
Be with me now

Breath of heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of heaven
Breath of heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me your holiness
For you are holy
Breath of heaven

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Hold Me Together
An Original Work / January 25, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

When I read Matthew 6:16, I keep thinking of Jews "disfigured their faces" in the photos in holocaust museums and getting lots of money from Germany as a result. I know it's not exactly the fasting he was talking about, but it's still Jews and a similar mindset. It's interesting how some scriptures can transcend millenia.

This was great news!

Just curious what my fellow Catholics think regarding this question. Who do you think and who would you prefer? The answer to both those questions could be the same or different.

"Be anxious for nothing" > in Philippians 4:6.

Yes, this includes not being afraid to tell the truth.

Also, once I had gotten in love with a lady and I talked with her pastor. He said the Bible says to be anxious about nothing. That helped me to not push her, but be patient and not worry about if she wanted me. Do not be like a beggar for her attention and her wanting me.

Trust God to develop all He desires in each relationship.

"casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." (1 Perer 5:7)

In Luke 10:38-42 we see how Martha got troubled about how she was doing the serving while Mary her sister was sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to Him. Jesus stood up for Mary who was resting with Jesus, and not for troubled Martha who might have been trying to impress Jesus! We, too, can let worry drive us to make impressive gestures in ministry and serving, but not to rest and enjoy the Lord and ones we can be sharing with as His family. People can burn out trying to make many things happen, fearing that God will be displeased if they don't do so much, and feeling they have to rescue everyone and it depends on them.

But Mark 3:14 says Jesus called His twelve disciples >

"that they might be with Him

and that He might send them out to preach".

Part of their calling was to be with Jesus . . . not to only preach and otherwise do things for Jesus. But, I see, Jesus loved them and desired for them to spend time with Him. There was a garden where He went with them and they spent time with Jesus and each other > John 18:1-2.

So, I see that the Lord wants us to rest inside ourselves and enjoy being with Him while we serve Him. And enjoy loving people while we do things for them and each other.

While we do things and relate in God's love and leading, He rests us and refreshes us. We can be creative, instead of getting into anxiety and arguing. He satisfies us to do what He guides us to do.

And so, emotionally, we have rest with Him >

"Be sober, be vigilant; for your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

Here Peter says to be *~sober~*. This does not mean only physically to be sober. But . . . emotionally there are things which can poison us in our emotions and our minds so we are not thinking and reacting right > lusts, anger, unforgiveness, and worry can be ways of being drunk without touching a drop of booze > anxiety can be a way to be spiritually and emotionally drunk; it is not to be trusted and obeyed. But trust and obey Jesus in His "rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28-30).

Submit to God, then, and discover how He makes us clear and creative, and discover how He takes care of us and others.

Glory to God in all things!