Harry – Page 38 – Perpetual Adoration

July 4, 2015

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Restoring Freedom of Religion in America

In November 2011, 70 businesses and professional organizations added their names to a legal brief that was filed in a case that was in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The businesses and organizations were recruited by a law firm that had been hired to file a “friend of the court” brief. The purpose of the brief was to encourage the court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

June 27, 2015

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The Trashing of a Sacred Institution

If you pay any attention to our local community-theater productions, you know that the play Les Misérables opened last weekend at the Eastlight Theater in East Peoria. My daughter, Mary Rose, plays Cosette (after she grows up) in the play.

June 20, 2015

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Training To Be A Superhero

Have you ever heard of Benjamin Percy? He’s a 36-year-old writer who has won several awards for his novels and short stories. His newest novel, The Deadlands, was just released. He is currently adapting his previous novel, Red Moon, for Fox, and is writing a new television series — Black Gold — for the Starz cable network. His favorite current project is writing the newest version of Green Arrow for DC Comics.

June 13, 2015

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Beyond Your 15 Minutes of Fame

Five years ago, in an Adoration Letter article titled “A Prayer for a Beating Heart,” I asked for prayers for my wife, Georgette. In the article, I wrote about a genetic condition that she had that caused the wall of one of the ventricles of her heart to become so thick that her heart was unable to supply her body with a sufficient amount of oxygenated blood. Her health was quickly deteriorating and the only way to correct the problem was through open-heart surgery, which was scheduled for June 16, 2010.

June 6, 2015

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John Wayne vs. Bruce Jenner

Every so often, my wife tells me that I’m living in the wrong times. Because of my old-fashioned beliefs, she claims that I would have been better off living during the 1800s. Whenever she comments about this, I remind her that I spent the better part of my early years at my grandfather’s (Tom Williams’s) house, and since he was born in 1898, that’s probably where I picked up a lot of my beliefs.

May 30, 2015

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The Right Way to Begin a Marriage

In June, Georgette and I will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary. We were married on June 15, 1980. Prior to our wedding, I asked my Uncle Harry LaHood if he would sing at our wedding Mass. He graciously accepted by telling me that he would be honored to sing at our wedding.

May 23, 2015

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I was a god for a day

After I graduated from Saint Louis University law school in 1982, my wife and I moved back to Peoria. At that time, my wife was pregnant with our second child. Shortly after returning to Peoria, I began teaching CCD classes on Sunday mornings at St. Sharbel Catholic Church to seventh- and eighth-grade students.

May 16, 2015

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Modern-Day Goddesses

When I was growing up during the 1960s and early 1970s, my favorite movies were Westerns. I’m not sure why. One reason may have been because I watched a lot of television with my grandfather, Tom Williams, and he liked Westerns. Another reason may have been because the heroes in Westerns were always tough, rugged, no-nonsense men who reminded me of the men on the Williams side of the family.

May 16, 2015

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How We See Ourselves

Last week, I listened to an audio recording of a presentation that was given by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in the 1950s. During his presentation, Sheen talked about an experience he had while he was a Monsignor in New York. He recounted the following story: