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(tone of complete and utter exhaustion) this is the day that the Lord hath made

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let us pray for all those who are standing up for justice and peace. those who, regardless of danger to themselves, till the earth in the trail of destruction left by the mighty, and plant the seeds of a better future there. let us pray that God may bless their efforts and protect them and keep them.

let us pray for those who feel afraid and powerless to act. those who fear the cost of standing up in solidarity with the oppressed, or of standing up for themselves. let us pray that God may bolster them and guide them to right action.

may God grant us all the strength to bear one another's burdens, the wisdom to know where our gifts are most needed, and the courage to put our hands to the plow and not look back.

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anyway you should always remember that all those foreigners you see dying on the news are just as real people as you are who have just as much interiority as you do. there is nothing about you that makes you more important and it is by pure chance that you are not in their position. in fact, this holds for all of history. every person, no matter the horror of the fate that befell them, had just as much interiority as you do. i feel like some people haven't fully internalized this.

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The most horrendous pain of being catholic is when i see the title of a song and THINK we are seeing a version that i am deeply obsessed with, only to realize as we start singing that it is a different version just with similar lyrics. Biting and wailing and burying myself alive

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Please pray for the repose of those that have died in this attack, as well as for the wounded, for their families, for the rebuilding of this Church and the Church community. And for the attackers.

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My favorite of many choral versions:

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Leftists, please stop using the word "Christian" when what you mean is "religious extremist," "right-wing MAGA cult member," or "well-meaning, terrified human who has been brainwashed into seeing diversity and pluralism as the end of civilization."

Not all Christians are the same. Not by a long shot. Please remember that many, many of us are fighting authoritarianism alongside you and doing our damndest to help those who are in need.

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Leftists and progressives, please stop using the word "Christian" when what you mean is "religious extremist," "right-wing MAGA cult member," or "well-meaning, terrified human who has been brainwashed into seeing diversity and pluralism as the end of civilization."

Not all Christians are the same. Not by a long shot. Please remember that many, many of us are fighting authoritarianism alongside you and doing our damndest to help those who are in need right now.

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Absolutely spot on. I grew up evangelical in a fundamentalist church and it's taken me decades to see some of these concepts for what they are. As long as you're sexually pure, don't curse, vote Republican bc that's what every Christian does, and don't touch drugs, you've got all the major sins covered. Extra bonus if people hate you for being a Christian (which...that's another post). The values Jesus spent his time actually talking about? Yeah, I guess we'll mention those from time to time but soap-boxing about Biblical literalism is more important.

Of course you're still supposed to panic about the state of your loved ones' souls as much as possible, but that's another other post.

(Obviously this stuff is not taught overtly. But it sure is taught.)

Without a guiding connection to orthodoxy, young Evangelicals are developing heterodox sensibilities that are at odds with a Christian understanding of personhood. The body is associated with sin, the soul with holiness. Moreover, this sense of the body, especially under the alias flesh, tends to be hypersexualized. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Evangelical emphasis on purity, a word that has become synonymous with bodily virginity. Despite the biblical usage of purity as holiness in a broader, holistic sense, including but not limited to sexual matters, the word “purity” has become narrowly sexualized. It is not a virtue to be continually cultivated, but a default physical state that can be permanently lost. In Evangelical vernacular, “sins of the flesh” denote specifically sexual sins, and these are the evils that dominate the theological imaginations of young, unmarried Evangelicals, far more than idolatry, say, or greed. I can remember one particularly vivid illustration from my Evangelical youth, when I was asked to imagine myself on my wedding day, in a pristine white dress—and then asked to picture a bright red handprint anywhere that a man has touched me. This image of a bloodied bride, of flesh corrupted by flesh, seared into my imagination a picture of the body, rather than the soul, as the source and site of sin.

Evangelical Gnosticism by Abigail Rine Facale

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“[…] My daughter, you have not offered Me that which is really yours.

I probed deeper into myself and found that I love God with all the faculties of my soul and, unable to see what it was I had not yet given to the Lord, I asked,

“Jesus, tell me what it is, and I will give it to You at once with a generous heart.”

Jesus said to me with kindness,

Daughter, give Me your misery, because it is your exclusive property.”

- The Diary of Saint Faustina, Notebook IV. Bolding original, formatted by me for ease of reading.

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The first U.S. bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV has called for priests, deacons and parish leaders to join them in accompanying migrants to court.

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A woman holds a cross as she prays on Independence square in Kyiv. 2022.

Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

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