1. Melinda Henneberger: “Life here is death”: Waiting for help that may never come in South Sudan
3. Guardian: Lancet report says 13.5 million lives could be saved every year if mental illness is addressed
4. Cal Thomas on the Gosnell movie released on Friday
5. Stephen White on reform and prayer
6. From Christianity Today: The Pro-Life Case for Paid Maternity Leave
8. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik on mysticism and balance:
Today is the Saint John XXIII’s memorial on the Catholic Church calendar. I love Bill Buckley’s tribute to him at the time of his death. A little from it:
The manifestations of sincere grief over the death of Pope John are unparalleled in human memory. What has happened appears to be the solemnization of the old saw that all the world loves a lover: all the world loved Pope John, because he was one of the most convincing lovers of all mankind the world has ever known, and no one, anywhere, lived under the shadow of the doubt that Pope John loved him.
He cited the ecumenical chorus in mourning — not just a religious matter but uniting “democrats, monarchs, despots, totalitarians” as well having “joined the chorus of praise, making expressions of requited love, for the simple peasant who, carrying the heaviest crown on earth, went bravely to death, after trying hard, for five years, to teach the world how to live.”
He continued:
Will it happen? Will John’s goodness melt ideology’s heart?
We fear not. We fear, rather, that his efforts will have proved vain, that his political sense will prove to have been invincibly innocent, that his strategical coordinates were awry, that the enemy’s cynicism will triumph over his altruism. We expect that only a return to the life of definition will equip us to resist the enemy as resolutely as the Pope resisted his adamant disease. But, paradoxically, in renewing the fight, and recovering our strategical balance, we can get sustenance from the valiant performance of the Pope, the human being. We can remember to keep our hearts open, to encourage the enemy whenever he shows any sign of moral or rational stirring; we can remember to have infinite faith in the infinite powers of the Definitive Ally; and to be joyful, and humble, in our personal lives.
[Related: a homily for today.]
10. A Dante’s Inferno Hell Test
(Hat tip: Fr. Alek Schrenk)
PLUS, Mark your calendar and RSVP:
About some spiritual warfare I encountered this weekend
J. J. Hanson’s Living Legacy: Renewing Our Will to Live and Love Until the End of Life