Some web browsing.........

A quick round up of some interesting articles we came across online:

• Lonely? - When the universe forces you to be alone, take it as an opportunity to engage (sad, alienating) loneliness and turn it into (powerful, transformative) solitude.
• David Weiss writes about rediscovering his faith amidst the ravages of mental illness - God of the Schizophrenic
• Dorothy Day is oftentimes remembered for saying, among so many other things, that she did not want to be called a saint. Fair enough, but the problem with that request is that sanctity and holiness of life are not things a person gets to decide for him or herself. Day’s life, her writings, her direct and prophetic example stand out to so many - Dorothy Day and the Challenges of a Prophet.
• Ever wonder about the Blessing of Gossip?
• Stephen Hawking: Heaven is a myth
• What happens when loyalty to family conflicts with loyalty to God?
•  Archbishop Dolan makes the point that marriage is the core of civilization.
• Fr Laurence Freeman OSB asks what is the price of a smile?
• Bishop Conley of Devner Colorado has an interesting talk on the new missal.
• Blessed John Paul II credited Our Lady of Fatima with sparing his life. In one of three later pilgrimages, he left in Fatima what his successor called "the 'bullet' of our anxieties and sufferings." - A Bullet in Our Lady's Crown.
• Catholics who grew up straddling the cusp of the conciliar divide may have a vague memory of the phrase “offer it up.” The Anchoress reflects.
• Subways are mysterious; they shouldn't work, but they do. And sometimes their mysteries become enhanced by grace. Deacon Greg reflects on Underground Prayer.
• The search for God is a very intimate enterprise. It is at the core of every longing in the human heart. It is the search for ultimate love, for total belonging, for the meaningful life. - Rule of St Benedict for God Seekers.
• Carmel Pilcher makes the point that the New Missal can heal the church.
• Fundamental rights or fundamental confusion - Voicing an opinion at a human rights forum can be a scary business.
• A 'surfing Madonna' appears in San Diego.
• Max Lindenman makes the point that when examining your conscience prior to confession, try to work in a punch line - The Confessor who laughs.
• The West remains so out of touch with its own mystical tradition that many Westerners seeking mysticism still feel they have to go East to find it. While this can work for many brave and generous individuals, it cannot work for the entire culture. Carl Jung warned us that "we westerners cannot be pirates thieving wisdom from foreign shores that it has taken them centuries to develop as if our own culture was an error - Becoming Christian mystics again.
• All cities are noisy, but Rome is one of the noisiest. In Rome one learns quickly to block the sound of late night public debate, and the buzzing of the appropriately named Vespas that fly down the streets well into the wee small hours. Otherwise, one does not sleep until 2 a.m. or later, when—for about four hours—Rome observes a grudging silence. Elizabeth Scalia finds "the Silence of the Romans".
• From the Monastery of Bose, a reflection on the gratuitousness of monasticism.