"My heart got callused"

The powerful testimony of a former abortion provider.

7 Lessons for Delivering a Powerful Message

This post should be required reading for anyone who ever communicates a message -- blogging, speaking, teaching, etc.

How to read the Bible

An excellent homily by Fr. John Corapi.

Do Large Families Burden the Older Children?

A great response. And don't miss comment #25, from Katie Grace.

Abortion survivor Claire Culwell speaks in honor of her twin who died

The story of a young adoptee who found out that she was the unintended survivor of an abortion in which her twin sister died.

Values vs. Virtue

An insightful post, framed around whether this blogger would prefer that her daughter bring home a boyfriend with values or virtue.

The baby who changed everyone's lives

A gripping post from Carrien about an unexpected baby who transformed a family.

Great overpopulation t-shirt

via the Lifesite blog

Unborn Twins Interact in the Womb at 14 weeks Into Pregnancy

Neat story!

World's oldest winery found

Neat!

What did the New York Times bestseller list look like the week of your birth?

Find out here! Very cool.

What use is chronic pain?

Some great thoughts from the Philosopher Mom.

Abraham in 90 Seconds

An excellent idea - beautiful Youtube videos covering the lives of Biblical figures in 90 seconds. Sort of like a movie trailer for each person's life.

Catholic man adopts fifty children to save them from abortion

WOW!


via Eric Sammons

The arrogance of the "new atheists"

Some great points. An excerpt:

Which brings me to the problem with modern atheism, embodied by the likes of Harris and Hitchens, authors of "The End of Faith" and "God Is Not Great," respectively. So often it seems like a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. And the loudest voices of today's militant atheism, for all their talk of rational thought, don't seem to want to do too much thinking at all. As James Wood wrote in The New Yorker, "The new atheists do not speak to the millions of people whose form of religion is far from the embodied certainties of contemporary literalism. Indeed, it is a settled assumption of this kind of atheism that there are no intelligent religious believers."

Saints who were writers

Great list.

15 cities in gingerbread

Neat!

The coolest iPhone app ever?

This is amazing. It's an app where you can point the iPhone's camera at text in a foreign language, and it makes it appear as English (or whatever language you set it to appear as).

Listen for Epaminondas's trumpet

A must-read post for anyone who feels like their project is crashing and burning.

How the Japanese multiply

Neat!


via Faith & Family

Treasures in Heaven

A touching post by a mom who was trying to inspire her kids not to hoard their possessions, and ended up getting some painful, unexpected lessons herself.

The Scorpion Master!

7 great books for young adults

Wonderful list.

The blessings of cancer

A thoughtful, inspiring essay written by Bishop John T. Steinbock after his own cancer diagnosis.

"There's no escape from the cow"

A post detailing all the products that are made from cows.

via the Cynical Christian

Great quote

"The Catholic writer, in so far as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery: that it has for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for."

--Flannery O’Connor

Climbing to the top of a 1,700 ft. tower

This video is just crazy. Amazing.

Black Friday - the year I learned my lesson

A hilarious post from Dorian Speed.

Chinese villagers may be descended from a lost legion of Roman soldiers

Really fascinating article about a village in China where people have blue and green eyes and fair hair, and are believed to be descended from Roman soldiers from 2,000 years ago.

20 Obsolete English Words that Should Make a Comeback

Amusing list.

Six Things Every Christian Blogger Needs To Know

Beautiful thoughts. I especially loved this point:

Jesus Himself had only 12 followers.

And He lost one.

So if Jesus had only 12 followers… how many followers do we really need? If God Himself had only 12 followers and He lost one — would you blog for even one follower?

George W. Bush on faith and the death of Pope John Paul II

Interesting video.

What families REALLY want after they have a baby

A refreshingly honest list of the way friends and family members can really help moms with new babies.

A day in the life of a supermom

Amazing middle school football trick play

via Matthew Warner

Abortion and the window

A tragic, powerful story by a woman who used to work next to an abortion clinic.

Nuns sell rare baseball card for $262K

Great story.

Love and laundry

This post about Abigail's grandfather asking a neighbor to help with his laundry brought tears to my eyes. Lots of lessons about humility and how letting others help us blesses them as well.

Amazing photos of the sun

Wow!

Photos of NYC home libraries

Wow! Some beautiful shots.

The duty of the moment

I thought this excerpt from the Wikipedia article about Catherine Doherty was inspiring:

A central theme in Catherine Doherty's spirituality is the duty of the moment. As she herself put it: "The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child.... There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God."

"Should I marry someone of a different faith?"

Great advice from a Catholic blogger whose husband is a nonbeliever.

The fun of fear

Some thought-provoking points about Halloween. An excerpt:

I believe Halloween is good -- not the way some people celebrate it today, as a borderline satanic ritual or a dive bomb into the depths of depravity, but in the way it has traditionally been celebrated in this country: a game designed to give the players a shiver (with a few sweets thrown into the bargain).

Because all of us -- and especially little children -- carry around so many fears, large and small, about everything from death to how the rent will be paid this month to (in the case of my oldest daughter) a sudden crack in the earth opening and swallowing us up, Halloween gives us a raucous stage for the free expression of our anxieties.

"Did you always want 11 children?"

An excellent reflection from a mom who just found out she's expecting their 11th child.

The dynamics of despair

A fantastic post by Abbot Joseph. An excerpt:

If the devil had his way, he would lead us all along a progressive path that looks something like this: sin, despondency, despair, suicide. His ultimate goal is to lead us to despair of salvation, and then to seal our doom by forever cutting ourselves off from the Source of Mercy. This is a fairly long process in most cases, but the devil really doesn’t have anything else to do, so he can apply himself diligently over the long haul to gradually lure souls away from God and then, at the right moment, zero in for the kill.

Why certain baby names are popular

An interesting article. An excerpt:

Metropolis: When we look at the list of girls — Isabella, Sophia, Mia, Emily, Madison, Olivia — they are romantic names or soft names. What is behind that?

Wattenberg: You are sensing something about names. The most powerful trend in baby names is something individual parents are almost never aware of: we don’t like consonants anymore. Every parent will say I like old-fashioned names, quirky, I’m looking for something really powerful and creative. What they don’t say is, I’m really looking for a name with no two consecutive voiced consonants. That is really what America wants.

The beauty of creation

An amazing video.

A picture of a mosquito's heart

This is amazing. Also, details about how they got the shot:

Preparing and photographing a mosquito's heart is an incredibly exacting job. A slit has to be cut into the bug's abdomen. Its stomach and other organs have to be removed. Two types of stain have to be applied to the heart and its surroundings: fluorescent green phalloidin for the muscles, and blue Hoechst stain that binds to the DNA in cell nuclei. Then the specimen is put under a microscope, and filtered light zeroes in on the stained cells.

Small world photography

Amazing photos of microscopic subjects. Wow!

The Truth About Mary and Scripture

This is really excellent. Great music too.

10 Fast Organizing Solutions for 10 Areas of Your Home

Helpful and practical tips.

When the womb is empty

Great thoughts from Betty Duffy about the mixed feelings that come with successful use of NFP to avoid pregnancy.

People in "persistent vegetative states" given the ability to communicate

Very interesting. An excerpt:

The team used the fMRI scanner to measure the patient’s brain response while asking him questions. Brain signals associated with “yes” and “no” are complex and quite similar, and to overcome this problem the researchers asked the patient to imagine playing tennis for “yes” and walking through his home for “no”. Tennis movements activate regions at the top of the brain associated with spatial activities, while moving around the home is a navigational task that activates areas in the base of the brain. Using this technique the patient was able to correctly answer six test questions.

Andrea Bocelli tells a "little story" about abortion

An amusing parody of technical news articles

Funny.

3,500-year-old city discovered

Neat!

Some amazing dancing

Wow!

A bird's-eye view -- literally!

Neat video of footage from a camera attached to a hawk.

Another great OkGo video - with dogs!

Taking apart a Jeep and putting it back together

In less than four minutes:

12 tips for praying the Rosary as a family

Some helpful ideas.

Amazing aerial photography

Really cool pictures.

Does science rule out God?

Great commentary about the proper roles of religion and science.

Day to day happiness maxes out at $75k/year

Interesting.

Fr. Barron on Eat, Pray, Love

via CMR

If Matthew had a blog

Clever (love the "comments" too).

Why one parish asked its parishioners to bring their cell phones to Mass

A unique idea for getting more church attendees to register with the parish.

Fear is useless

Some great thoughts from Fr. John Corapi:

What's it's like to be a billionaire's kid...and not inherent his wealth

A fascinating look at Warren Buffet's kids' lives:

What does the earth look like from Mercury?

Neat picture.