Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Tony Snow Dead at 53, A Tribute to a Catholic Journalist [Tony Snow - Catholic Convert]
CatholicOnline.org ^ | 07-12-08 | Deacon Keith Fournier

Posted on 07/13/2008 7:36:22 PM PDT by Salvation

Tony Snow Dead at 53, A Tribute to a Catholic Journalist
By Deacon Keith Fournier
7/12/2008

Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

"It’s trendy to reject religious reflection as a grave offense against decency. That’s not only cowardly. That’s false. Faith and reason are knitted together in the human soul. So don’t leave home without either one."

President George W. Bush (L) and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow return from an event at the Quantico Marine Base to the White House in Washington, September 14, 2007. Snow, who battled colon cancer, has died.
President George W. Bush (L) and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow return from an event at the Quantico Marine Base to the White House in Washington, September 14, 2007. Snow, who battled colon cancer, has died.
CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) – Tony Snow, whose Catholic faith, superb communication skills, and work ethic propelled him to prominence in the world of media, journalism and communications, has died after his courageous battle with colon cancer.

Honored by the Catholic University of America in May of 2007, Tony Snow gave the crowd which gathered for the 118th Annual Commencement Address: "Reason, Faith, and Vocation" much to ponder.

The title summed up his efforts to integrate his faith, his commitment to marriage and family, his political and policy convictions and a career of communications.

It was also characteristically blunt and practical while rising at times to the level of inspired insight. That was Tony Snow’s gift of communications. He used it throughout a career which was accompanied by earning the respect of his peers, even if they disagreed with his positions.
~~~~~snip

(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: catholic; convert; restinpeace; tonysnow; tribute
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-46 next last
To: trisham

**Hearing him speak so honestly and passionately about his faith must have inspired many who listened.**

I was always inspired even by the short quips he would share at the end of every Fox News Sunday.


21 posted on 07/14/2008 7:08:24 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Salvation

He was funny, too! He almost always had a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.


22 posted on 07/14/2008 7:10:41 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: trisham; jmj3jude; Jaded; NYer; higgmeister; SuziQ; AKA Elena; fatima; Ciexyz
Cancer's Unexpected Blessings
When you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change
 
Tony Snow
 
Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen—leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but resigned August 31. CT asked Snow what spiritual lessons he has been learning through the ordeal.
 

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.

Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life—and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many nonbelieving hearts—an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live—fully, richly, exuberantly—no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'

Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived—an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tinny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us—that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us partway there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two people's worries and fears.

Learning How to Live

Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.

It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up—to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.

 


23 posted on 07/14/2008 7:32:59 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: All
Related Elsewhere:

Tony Snow spoke to reporters about his cancer in a White House press briefing.

Cal Thomas wrote about Snow in a 2007 column, "The Tony Snow I Know."


24 posted on 07/14/2008 7:36:35 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Salvation
What is man that Thou art mindful of him?

We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.

********************

Thank you for posting this, Salvation.

25 posted on 07/14/2008 8:12:10 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: trisham

Yes, it is so beautiful. I am still grieving over the loss of this good man.

(Can’t get enough of the news coverage.)


27 posted on 07/14/2008 8:38:16 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Salvation

Is there any information yet about when his funeral will be, or where?


28 posted on 07/14/2008 9:04:50 AM PDT by SuziQ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SuziQ

There is something on the news forum about a group wanting to picket his funeral. Didn’t notice the time and day, however.


29 posted on 07/14/2008 9:08:44 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Salvation

07/17/2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Alexandria, VA

Christ Episcopal Church, 118 N. Washington St.

(per Kristann)


30 posted on 07/14/2008 9:57:05 AM PDT by reagandemocrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: reagandemocrat
WASHINGTON - President Bush will attend the funeral Thursday for Tony Snow, his former press secretary, at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Snow died of colon cancer Saturday at age 53. He is survived by his wife, Jill, and their three children.

Snow was the White House press secretary from May 2006 until last September. He long was a member of Washington’s power circles, and a familiar face across the country, as a conservative commentator and an interviewer on TV and radio for Fox News

31 posted on 07/14/2008 10:03:07 AM PDT by mware (F-R-E-E, that spells free. Freerepublic.com baby)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: reagandemocrat

One good thing, those nuts from Westboro will be picketing the wrong church.


32 posted on 07/14/2008 10:04:13 AM PDT by mware (F-R-E-E, that spells free. Freerepublic.com baby)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Salvation; Trueblackman
Salvation, those nuts from Westboro are claiming they will be protesting at the funeral. Trueblackman has already gotten in contact with some who will be protecting the family from their presence.

I was wondering about the Knights of Columbus, think they would be interested.

33 posted on 07/14/2008 10:07:08 AM PDT by mware (F-R-E-E, that spells free. Freerepublic.com baby)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Salvation

I read this with tears and suddenly something occurred to me. Thinking of Tony Snow, his smile and the wonderment shown in his eyes, I am reminded of Christ saying that we must have the faith of a child. I often thought what that meant and I think I have a glimpse of the answer. Tony Snow always seemecd to be in wonderment of life around him. His manner, his voice, his essence emitted wonderment of everything. Can you remember as a child seeing an everyday occurence for the first time - such as a chick hatching or a plant springing from the ground - and being amazed by it? To me, that was Tony Snow. He was truly humbled by it all. Listening this weekend as his friends and collegues related their stories concerning Tony Snow and each one was amazed as to not only what he did but what he could do. They were amazed because of his humbleness and modesty. Tony Snow had the faith of a child.


34 posted on 07/14/2008 10:10:21 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: 7thson
Listening this weekend as his friends and collegues related their stories concerning Tony Snow and each one was amazed as to not only what he did but what he could do. They were amazed because of his humbleness and modesty. Tony Snow had the faith of a child.

Excellent observation!

35 posted on 07/14/2008 10:42:32 AM PDT by SuziQ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: mware
I was wondering about the Knights of Columbus, think they would be interested.

Wouldn't that be perfect? Silent and stoic in the face of the shrill protesters from the Westboro (allegedly) Baptist Church.

36 posted on 07/14/2008 10:46:20 AM PDT by SuziQ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Salvation
Thank you for finding and posting this. What a wonderful tribute to the man, Tony Snow.

May he requiescat in pace.

37 posted on 07/14/2008 12:53:11 PM PDT by vox_freedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: SuziQ

I heard today that his funeral would be on Thursday. Haven’t checked the news forum yet.


38 posted on 07/14/2008 7:19:28 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: 7thson

**Christ saying that we must have the faith of a child.**

Unless you become like one of these least you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.


39 posted on 07/14/2008 7:21:46 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: All
Mailing Address for Condolences to the Family of Tony Snow
40 posted on 07/14/2008 7:26:09 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-46 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson