Listen to this inspiring talk by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen about the importance of adoration.
Last week I flew to California with Georgette and my daughters to attend the wedding of someone who is very special to us. As you may already know, Georgette and I have 7 children – Harry, Anna, Maria, Laura, Mary Rose, Christine, and Teresa. The wedding was on Saturday, June 18. The groom was my son, Harry, and his bride was Kathryn Neill.
Last Sunday while I was at a graduation party, I spent some time talking to one of Georgette’s cousins, Tim Siedlecki. Tim is in his mid 30’s. About 13 years ago, he moved from Peoria to St. Louis after accepting a job at the Boeing Corporation. Shortly after he moved, Tim bought a house in a residential area near the St. Louis airport.
During my first two years in high school, I was on the wrestling team. My win/lose record freshman year was 50/50. I was what was commonly referred to in the wrestling world as a “fish” – someone who usually ended up on his back flopping around until his opponent finally completed the task of “pinning” him.
With the recent killing of Osama Bin Laden, we heard a lot about SEAL Team 6, the group of young American military men who swooped down on Bin Laden’s fortress, did their dirty work, and then disappeared into the night.
Have you ever heard of a “Cafeteria Catholic”? The term was popularized a few years ago when Maria Shriver declared that she is a “Cafeteria Catholic.” Shriver is the wife of former bodybuilder, actor, and governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Last week she was publicly humiliated when her husband admitted that he fathered an illegitimate child over 13 years ago. The mother of the child is their former housekeeper. The housekeeper only recently gave up her job of cleaning the Schwarzenegger home, after carrying on her illicit relationship with Schwarzenegger over a period of several years.
During the past few weeks there’s been an increase in the amount of calls to my law office from people who are in financial distress. There’s a certain segment of the population that’s up against the ropes financially – people who are looking for a simple solution to their complex problems.
My son Harry recently turned 30 years old. He’s the oldest of my seven children. When Harry was a young boy, one of his favorite shows was Sesame Street. You remember Sesame Street don’t you? It was a children’s show that had a cast of characters with names like Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie.
You may have heard of Louis L’Amour, one of the most successful fiction writers of all time. During his lifetime, he wrote 89 novels, 2 non-fiction books, and 14 collections of short stories. In all, over 320 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. L’Amour died on June 10, 1988, at the age of 80. During his lifetime, he was widely known as “America’s Favorite Storyteller.”
Have you ever heard of the practice of using canaries in coal mines to alert coal miners of danger? Canaries are small songbirds that were first bred and used as domestic pets in the 17th century. Because they are more sensitive than humans to toxic gases (such as methane and carbon monoxide), canaries were, at one time, routinely used by coal miners as early warning devices that danger was imminent.
Earlier this year a prison inmate confessed to killing a female correctional officer inside the chapel of a prison in the state of Washington. At the time of the killing, the inmate, Byron Scherf, was serving a life sentence as a “three-strikes” offender for prior rape convictions.