Please help me find all the "really good" Catholic Websites

Please list all t he great websites. Ideally, make them Franciscan. Acceptably make them Catholic. At least make them Christian.

I will compile them some time soon and put them before you. I'll google to get them..Butr I need a name.

Why do Iwant them? Simple. I want to look at more stuff on web. If you share your favorite spots, we can all benefit. I'll list two or three to get us started:

1. Insight Scoop
2. Catholicism.com
3. Salvationhistory.com That's St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology Scott Hahn
4. The Catholic Thing
5. Kansas Catholic
6. Cranky ( blog)

Tommy Augustine has returned to the building

I should likely repent. You see, I am guilty of not fulfilling a promise to help out on this blog. I promised, I pledged, I agreed. Then I got lost.

I hate it when people do that. Then, I did that. I was irresponsible. I was consistently unavailable. Got busy. Got distracted. Now Bonnie Venture has been very understanding. Franciscans are like that.

But I am shooting for more than forgiveness and/or understanding. I seek reconciliation. So, do me a favor. Keep track of whether I have been blogging or not. If I haven't posted, suggest I come in out of the cold.

I need to get some things said while that option still exists.

Some day when the mind-meld between Sodom on the Bay and everything East of the Beltway is firmly established, Franciscans--maybe all Catholics--maybe all Christians will be consigned to some Gulag somewhere.

Before that day comes, I must speak.

Being Catholic

I love being Catholic.

Becoming Catholic was a great deal about Bishop Sheen and Father John Powell. But it was equally about "bells and smells". And Sacraments. It was Holy Water and Precious Blood. Sacred Scripture and two thousand years of capital T Tradition.

My conversion to the Roman Church was not because I was exasperated by the theological insufficiency of what Protestants taught. In fact, I was a happy Protestant. And the theology was quite sufficient to answer any questions that one might raise. We forget that every church, and every denomination has smart people to support their positions at the expense of the smart people of other churches and denominations. So what I did was to move from good to better -- not bad to good.

Initially, most of the Catholic distinctives seemed to be interesting alternatives to explain philosophical quandaries faced by any thinking person. For example: Mankind has a problem with sin. They would like to get out of the problem. Getting out of that problem merits heaven. Failure to get out of the problem yields hell. Purgatory and Limbo were simply interesting Catholic notions to provide the place to go when one failed the criteria for heaven and hell. Purgatory was a stop most made on the way to Heaven. And Limbo? Well, limbo was a more or less logical construct developed by some theologians to handle the problem of children who died before being baptized. Conveniently, it wasn't exactly church teaching, but one could believe in it if one wanted to.

Since I wasn't Catholic, such issues were intellectually intriguing but not applicable to my own worldview. Remember, I was a happy Protestant.

Many conservative Catholics suggest reading the church fathers. More specifically, certain church fathers who support the idea that the early church and the Catholic Church are essentially one and the same institution.

Most Church fathers were pretty unconvincing to me. They were unconvincing because I already agreed. I was, as they say, convinced. And besides that , most of the translations I found were difficult to read. With the exception of Augustine, I found them pretty dry. Obviously bright men, I just couldn't connect them to my happy Protestant world. And some, Origen for example, occasionally seemed strange enough that I lost interest.

About this time I had a friend who became Catholic. He said he joined because it was okay to drink alcohol as a Catholic. As a Baptist drinking had been wrong. I remember asking him if this might be a new evangelization thrust for capturing the twenty-something? He was not amused.

Others proposed the attractiveness of Catholic culture. I suppose this is all about bingo, raffles, and special attention to particular feast days. Well, Catholic culture is great sociology, but it has never been the attraction for joining Holy Mother Church.

The attraction is simply Jesus. A conscious focus on Jesus at Calvary and what he accomplished there and taking care of my sin problem. Catholicism. appeared to be what Jesus had in mind when he and St. Peter talked about church and rocks. That was and is now focusing on Jesus as he appears in the Gospel and trying to grow in my understanding of him. It's spending my time trying to do what the Bible says. For me, conversion was not something done after tallying up whether Catholics or Protestants provided the most convincing arguments in some debate going on in my head.

The philosopher, Peter Kreeft, writes some place that to sacrifice people to principle becomes legalism. And to sacrifice principle to people is relativism. Pope Benedict has written often and eloquently about relativism. 

Legalism doesn't seem as much a problem, unless one becomes scrupulous. Likely because in an effort of misguided compassion we have come to tolerate almost anything as acceptable. Political correctness has found favor as the only principle by which to make decisions. Morality has largely become making choices based on how I feel rather than on absolute propositions about what is right and what is wrong. So, although legalism in its most virulent forms (the aforementioned scrupulosity, for example) is to be avoided, it's also good to have something to believe in, some moral compass other than talk radio and talk television.

In my way of thinking, Roman Catholicism achieves a balance between these two ditches. It steers clear of these extremes of relativism and legalism when it's working well.

Its emphasis on grace, mercy, and forgiveness is magnetic to me. Offering grace and mercy and forgiveness to other people could change our world We might even become a Christian culture.

Finally, I'll are country's glorification of personal feelings has come to the church. And feelings may be winning in practice if not in principle. This is a problem. To be more direct: What is the difference between the behaviors of weekly Mass attenders and those whom we label secularists?

Catholic teaching does not hold feelings as unimportant. They just are not the moral compass. They follow on the heels of choices made on the basis of principles. In particular, principles carved from Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium.

At the same time, the church, the body of Christ is made of persons. Flawed persons to be sure, but nonetheless, creations of God. Baptized creatures. Confirmed creatures. And if they were baptized and confirmed then they should be participating in the body of Christ.

I am a person. As I get to know Jesus (a person) I find my place in him. I follow him and his church into glory.

That makes more sense than any cow pile covered in snow. I've seen one of those up close. That's not me, and that's not you as Christians, Catholics, or Franciscans.

From the Summa off Tommy Augustine-Art.2

Last month I mentioned Lynda and me moving after spending thirty-two years at the same address. The Moving Process still fills our days, taking our time, sapping our strength, and zapping our energy.

However, we can see the end as the first house has sold. Yes, sold. Buyers are a young couple, first house, two kids, moving into OUR place on top of OUR memories! Unless we remove the memories first. That’s what happens when one scrapes them off the walls, sucks them out of the carpets, and stuffs them in those special moving boxes, the ones for moving hearts. There is room, I am told, for moving all the good memories we cherish, all those we‘d like to re-visit on long evenings with special people, to the new house. The Moving Process is also the opportunity to move on without yesterday’s bad memories and bad dreams and all their poison we harvest to use so methodically to infect our present moments. We all do it. Listen in any group as someone (maybe you? maybe me?) rehearses to others the hurts nursed for decades.

We shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to stick such dreams and memories into black plastic sacks, tie the strings extra tight, and then (when they stop struggling) leave them at the curb on trash day. Unfortunately, sometimes old friends are left behind that way. What and who was precious move inadvertently from the core to the periphery of our lives-and everyone moves on, accidentally forgetting those once treasured.

Purgation of habits and attitudes works about the same. This is a lot like facing Purgatory now or Purgatory later. I, unfortunately, am finding there’s going to be plenty left over for the later if I keep at my current rate of spiritual development. I talk holiness. I tell Franciscan tales. I fantasize what knowing Padre Pio would have been like. Then I realize that when I found reason to skip confession this week from my parish priest--again, it makes any thoughts of much holiness on my part look premature. Without Mercy, they are truly stillborn.

After all is said and done, I confess I am really pretty comfortable spending the day sniping at others, foregoing repentance for self-righteousness. Surely somebody reading this understands. You know, it’s like when you awake to find what you held precious as a “gift of discernment” was really a “critical spirit”.

Again and again, I have to move back to Matthew 7:5. That’s the one about the log in my eye and the speck in yours. I can discern your behavior. I just can’t judge your being or personhood. God does that with precision. Colossians 3 fills in a lot here. Read it. Pray it as you move through the words.

It’s a powerful chapter if you’re at all like me, who when I’m climbing the ladder of spiritual progress, suddenly realize, the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. So again I move it and start over--again, postponing spiritual ecstasy at least one more day.

From the Summa off Tommy Augustine-Art.1

We’ve recently moved after thirty-two years of marriage from our first home to our second home. I’d say we are 90+ percent finished with the project. To give perspective, we bid the house three weeks ago, closed two week ago at 9:00 am before movers came three hours later that same day. We are really tired.

So how does this relate to you? First, since we still own the first house, if you’ve ever had an idea you’d like to move to Liberty, this is your opportunity for the deal of a lifetime! I’d love to have you meet our realtor!

Second, my Illusion about my level of Simplicity. I honesty believed I had this conquered. I was not one of those materialists. No way, not me. The ladies at the thrift store knew me personally from the boxes and bags we deposited on their back step. Oh, I had other problems, just not Simplicity. Well, boy was I wrong.

Moving taught me I had done little to de-clutter my life materially. My assessment of my success in this virtue reveals pride, ignorance, or some toxic combination. Stuff was everywhere. Junk of every description. Things too good to throw away but which I’ll never use. Slowly, ever so slowly, my little pile of treasures is being diminished. But I could have done it, and done it right, years ago.

If this reflects what is really going on interiorly, for me-- and I believe it does---I am stuck in the purgative stage even more deeply than I had ever imagined. And this was a perceived strength!

Finally, Television. What can I say? We have all, or most all sat through Cable TV playing the same gruesome news over and over. We’ve complained of MTV, then sat mesmerized with Dancing With the Stars.

Lynda opined we could do without cable TV, just keep the internet and phone. She then suggested getting the fastest road runner. I was hooked. And all we regularly watched was EWTN, anyway. We get good reception on the internet and the radio.

So do I miss television? Very little. And spiritual reading leaves my head in a much better place than some dark detective drama.

One more change I am planning is Devotion to Sacred Heart. Even bought me a statue. Never did it two days in a row in my life. Look at what it promises in last month’s news letter! Better deal than I’ve heard lately.

Want to try it, too? If you stop, you can always get the old you back.

Congress and Catholicism, and Reaching A Critcal Mass

I rarely am given to political comment. In the interest of full disclosure, neither party inspires me. Most politicians on either side of the aisle in Washington, Jefferson City, and Topeka appear to operate from a worldview dedicated to seizing power, then maintaining the power they've seized. This is done by spending money like there's no tomorrow. My money. Your money. Our great grandchildren's money.

I know this is not what Bernie Madoff did. That was crooked. Surely Congress wouldn't take everything, live "high-on-the-hog ", leave us broke, and.........surely not.

After all, many of them claim to be Catholic. Like Gov. Sibelius, Nancy Pelosi, Say-it-ain't-so Joe Biden, the gravely ill Ted Kennedy, etc.

As unsettling as are the spending practices of these politicians who claim the name Catholic, they at least are on spongy ground.

But abortion is too much for them to support and still be Catholic. Send their membership paperwork to the Unitarians or to Rev Wright in Chicago. Them claiming to be Catholic is like claiming to be a car because you were born in a garage.

If that isn't okay, or if Rev Wright won't accept them, how about praying for their souls? Candles all over the sanctuary!!!

Computers and Sin

I find it easy to whine when a computer problem overwhelms my technological savvy. My outrageous pride thinks I should know all the answers on my own. Sounds a whole lot like me trying to overcome Sin. Both computers and Sin seem to remain challengingly similar adversaries.

Knowing now that I need to rely on God for patience, insight, forbearance, prudence, revelation, self-discipline, and so forth when clawing my way out of my latest computer debacle does keep me humble. But relying on the Holy Spirit when clawing my way out of my latest non-computer debacle is even better. Both teach me how limited I am and how awesome God is.

I still occasionally try fighting my computer (and Sin, too )on my own. That's the thing about being self-centered: one hates to give up the habit of making dumb choices without a fight. Unfortunately, I still all too often turn to Him only when I'm fresh out of ideas. Happens with computers and with Sin.

But God hasn't given up on me, so why should I?

-----Tommy Augustine

A Shameless Effort To Get Your Attention

Now, if you have never commented on a blog, this is your time to begin.   For example, you may have questions about what we do at meetings or about Franciscan Spirituality. We will try to answer them.   (Our answers will often even relate to your questions.)  When we have no clear cut answer, we will beat around the bush.

If you like what we  say, tell others.  If you don't, keep it to yourself.

Spl Ckr

Looks lik I aut to use it