Graceful Growth

Grime and grit, He stops and spits
Into our eyes
We wash each one, and see the sun
To our surprise

What love is poured out
In grace to each lout?
We are made clean of sin
By seeing His wounds and stepping within

Alone we are lost to freeze from frost
He warms gently
Downed disturbed, He weaves the word
We are made free

His blood poured out
To us is His shout
We are cleansed deep within
Gone to Our Lady neath her apron

Despite our disgrace
He grows from grace
Lily white lace
And a big embrace
For us to see His face

God bless,

>P<

Joshua Fahey

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

As this blog was started as a Lenten penance I had to make the decision to continue with this through the Easter Season or not. I have decided I will, I may not post everyday, but the blog should be updated at least twice a week. Thank you for visiting my blog through out Lent.

Jesus loves you!

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Holy Saturday!

O Light, from darkness, save us
Jesus Christ our light, He came
But before He came to save us
The darkness willed to quell His flame

The sun did set and lonesome followers
Mourning, then despair attacks within
But before the darkness claimed us
He rose so that new life could begin

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Good Friday

Pray for tormentors
That they know not what they do
Father forgive them

Pray for family
Behold your mother, your son
Father in heaven

Pray to our father
And they give me vinegar
Now it is finished



God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Holy Thursday!

Preparing for the Passover
Lamb, bread, and wine
A feast of the divine

Relaying wisdom to be relived
He who would be first must be a slave
This is how I have come to save

Calling God to consecrate
Bread to body, wine to blood
Saving us, mere Breath in mud

Sadly seeing sorrowful pain
He warned Peter of denial
And Judas of betrayal

Willing yet woeful wandering
Accepted a father's will and cup
Agonizing after His last sup

God bless,

>P<

Joshua Fahey

Fourteenth Station

Jesus is buried.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Thirteenth Station

Jesus is taken down from the cross.

"Woman behold your son."
His last words to her still echoing in her ears she sees His dead body.

"Son behold your mother"
His words call to us as we stand at the cross, as we witness our mother's grief.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Twelfth Station

Jesus dies.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Palm Sunday

Holy week picture.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Eleventh Station

Jesus is nailed to the cross.

Carpenter's trade, carpenter's work, fitting to die by nails and wood. Joseph taught Him righteousness, and twas through the righteous path that He found the cross.

(btw the picture is in iPad wallpaper dimensions.)

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

A modest proposal: Strength

Strength. What is strength to a Catholic? Actually, what is strength to a human? An image of of this buff monster with herculean (literally) power easily comes to mind, but I have to believe that the ultimate showings of strength were shown in the Gospel by Christ.

Strength is different than power, or at least power as humans understand it. After all Christ is admittedly the most powerful human to have walked this earth, but He wasn’t a politician, a general, or a gladiator. Christ shows us instead what power is supposed to be used for, His healings and exorcisms were certainly one part of it. he rarely used power for destruction, but those scenes are memorable (the fig tree and the temple merchants). In fact His power seemed constrained by an amazing self-control, an adherence to a divine honor code if you will. His strength is shown in the melding of power and its right use.

Other aspects of strength, which I think as more feminine in nature, are more clearly shown in His crucifixion, namely endurance and grace. Endurance can be thought of more as acceptance. His endurance of the sufferings of His Passion and His acceptance of the joys of living are both examples of this aspect of strength. Grace or poise could best be summed up in His words on the cross “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” This aspect is rather the opposite of whining, for you notice that Christ doesn’t whine and is in fact very generous towards those He interacts with.

There have been many powerful people, but we love the strong people. We prefer David to Goliath, Robin Hood to Prince John, Hercules to Ares, Dr. King to the KKK. For the Catholic true strength comes from God, which is why both St Francis Assisi and St. Ignatius Loyola were called away from selfish pursuit of glory, and also why Christ washed the Disciples feet. This is why Christ is our Champion.


God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Tenth Station

Jesus is stripped of his clothes.

All His protection and security taken away as He calls us to lift the bushel baskets off of our candles.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Poetic scripture reading

Who is your father?
It is not Abraham
For you would not kill me
If it was Abraham

Who is your father?
It is not God
For you would love me
If it was God

Who is your father?
Could it be the Devil?
For you are trying to kill me
Just like the Devil

Ninth Station

Jesus falls a third time.

Instead of the kingdoms of the earth, He received a crown of thorns. Instead of bowing before Satan, He bowed under the cross.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

The Sun, the Moon, and Eleven Stars.

Eighth Station

Jesus comforts the women of Jerusalem.

"Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."

Repent

Vipered claws of death
Gutting the flowers of life
Left in ruins soul

Adversary smart
Locks the poison within heart
Chains it with the mind

The sun rises east
Shattered chains of darkness sown
Birds freed from cages

Seventh Station

Jesus falls the second time.

Christ was tempted to throw himself down so that people may see that the angels wouldn't let harm come to Him. Instead he falls under the burden of the cross, no saving angels, no compassionate people, to save us.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Reasonable Doubt (Abortion part 3)

My final reason is more Vulcan (or as I call it Spockian, but that may get confusing so it was rejected by my editor (me)). You might have heard of that philosophy that goes “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” especially if you’ve seen Wrath of Khan. My first reason was of the one, my second of the few (the parents), this last is of the many, it is in fact evolutionary.

Evolution needs the various variety. It needs diversity in order for it to work best. When we don’t have diversity we have inbreeding. Abortion cuts off diversity. Abortion is against evolutionary principles, it is against our very nature.

One objection: We can purify our genes through good breeding (from animal husbandry) and cut off offensive shoots (from gardening techniques).

Answer: Humans are neither animals nor vegetation, and even if they were they would certainly not be cattle nor some potted plant. We are far more wild than other creatures of nature. And even if you could make an argument that God (or some deity like mother nature) does in fact do these things, we are not God (or mother nature).

As it is breeding may give you an excellent racehorse, but never the best wild horse.

Sixth Station

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

Do we give the life-giving waters to those who are unfortunate, even in defiance of the culture we face?

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Reasonable Doubt (Abortion part 2)

Last time with reason number 1, I focused on fetal personhood. I went through as logically as I could with the only objections I understood. This time I would like to expand the scope to include the main people involved (so I hope).

There has been much research done that has connected physical and psychological trauma on women who have undergone abortions. I am too lazy to actually link you up with the research, instead I offer the pathos arguments here (be careful, some parts of the website are graphic) and then be done with them.

The point I would like to make for this argument is that the one thing that everyone can agree is feminine, whether you are spartan or amazonian or chinese is that women give birth. This is THE feminine trait (I would like to forestall scoffers by saying that men are generally accused (unfairly in some cases) of thinking with theirs). I know that Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby has done an excellent job of selling how abortion allows control over this gift. This is utter hogwash. What abortion does is destroy that gift. It destroys it to the point that it could be easily said without contradiction that women are just prettier men who only get paid 75%. Women are not less than men, more than men, or the same as men. Women are women and men are men, equal and different. This is neither a prejudiced nor a bigoted statement, though it easily could be taken that way. Abortion is the enemy of feminism, and, as such, is also the enemy of masculinity (think about it, the definitions of the two are intimately linked, you can’t affect one without it affecting the other).


Reason 2: I am against abortion because it actively threatens my ability to be a good man.

God bless,

>P<

Joshua Fahey

Fifth Station

Simon helps Jesus carry his cross.

We are brothers and sisters in Christ, through baptism we have the honor (like Simon) to help in the redemption of man.

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

New profile picture! LAETARE!

Yippee!

God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey

Reasonable Doubt (Abortion part 1)

There are three reasons (arguments found by reason (otherwise I’d say because I’m Catholic)) that I am against abortion. This post is my best shot (at the moment) at describing the first.


The first is of the question of the rights of the fetus. I would like to point out that as soon as conception occurs the most fundamental and (possibly) the only scientific ontological change happens. DNA. The fetus is human and alive starting from conception, this is science. The only question that comes from this is when does the fetus have rights? Most notably the right to life. As I said before the only ontological change in the fetus’s development happens at conception. I have heard less logical conjectures though, I would like to present them : brain, heart, pain, birth.

The brain, without it would we be a person? Would we have the right to live? As I have met many brainless people (scarecrows anyone?), and I assume you have too, we should be able to get rid of this one quickly. The idea that personhood depends on the brain should be ridiculous with some thought, it would imply that the smarter a person is the more of a person, the more rights, that person should have. This would regard the aged, the mentally challenged (downs, autism, etc.), the insane as being somehow subhuman. This conclusion is reprehensible, therefore my conclusion is the brain is not a good enough answer (in other news blondes everywhere breath a sigh of relief).

The heart. We allow rich bastards to live, we love the tin man, not much else to say.

Pain. There is a medical condition that exists which describes someone who cannot feel pain, the name escapes me though. Even without nerves the cowardly lion saves the day (yes that will be the last Oz reference, sorry this one was such a stretch).

Birth. The most common illogical one, if you are in the womb you aren’t a person, if you are not in the womb you are a person. If you are in (Texas | USA | love) you are a person...




First reason: I am against abortion because it is logically, scientifically, and Occam’s razorly(sharp) altruistic.

God bless,

>P<

Joshua Fahey

Fourth Station

Jesus meets his grieving mother.

This station is where most of the pain of His Passion comes from. Nothing the Romans or the Jewish leaders could do could have possibly equaled the grief that mother and son felt in empathy and anguished love for one another. A sword pierces the heart.


God bless,
>P<
Joshua Fahey