Catholic Fire

at Aussie Coffee Shop and is being hosted by Therese this week. I especially enjoyed the following posts: Heavenly Hugs at Silent Canticle , My prayer for Christmas by Ebeth, at A Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars. and Sarah's Not Enough Time in The Day at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering. Be sure not to miss Deacon Keith Fournier interviews Govenor Huckabee at la nouvelle theologie . Be sure to check out all the fabulous posts there. Enjoy!

I teach a workshop for couples engaged to be married called “God’s Plan for a Joy Filled Marriage.” From our registrations we know that roughly half of these couples are already living together. In fact, in the United States, 60 percent of all marriages are preceded by cohabitation, according to a year 2000 study. In 2004, more than 5 million Americans were cohabiting, that is, living together in a sexual relationship without marriage, compared to 500,000 in 1970, according to a 2005 study. There are a variety of reasons couples choose cohabitation before marriage. Convenience, financial savings and companionship are some of the reasons. There is another reason that is also understandable. Many couples believe that the familiarity that cohabitation provides will lead to a more informed decision of whether or not to marry, thereby lowering their risk of divorce. Since many coming into marriage now are children of divorce or have family members or friends who have experienced divorce, th...

It was 3:20 am on the morning of March 13, 1964. Kitty Genovese, who managed a nearby bar, was just getting home from work when she was attacked while walking toward her apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. She screamed that she had been stabbed. Lights of nearby apartments went on, windows opened, the attacker disappeared, but nobody came to help. Then the attacker returned, found his victim, and stabbed her again. She screamed, but nobody helped her or even called the police. The attacker came back a third time. It was now a half-hour later. He attacked and stabbed Kitty Genovese yet again, this time fatally. At that point the police received their first call, and were there in two minutes - but they could not save her life. In the days and weeks following this murder, detectives and reporters became furious as they discovered that no less than thirty-eight people witnessed this assault, but did nothing. It was an astonishing failure of human compassion, a stunning d...