Free Republic

Today is the 247th anniversary of the mysterious, Providential fog that covered the evacuation of the Continental Army from Long Island to Manhattan in 1776. The term Providence was very common in this era. The president of Princeton College, John Witherspoon, defined Providence as the operation of God’s presence. After the evacuation on August 29, 1776, one soldier sent a report to a Boston newspaper that said: “Providence favored us. The night was remarkably still. The water as smooth as glass, so that our boats got all over. At sunrise a great fog came up. The enemy did not discover...

Why Isn’t G-d’s Name Mentioned in the Megillah?Compare the story of Purim with that of our other holidays. Ever notice how the plot features no open miracles? No seas split, no mass revelation, no dwelling in clouds for forty years, and no overcoming an enemy a hundred times our size using guerrilla warfare. What did happen? A lot of people were in the right place at the right time to provide just the political clout necessary when needed. What a coincidence. Of course, the word “coincidence” is not part of the Jewish lexicon. All these events were deliberately orchestrated...

Freedom From Truth: FFRF is beyond all reason by Daniel Clark “Our purpose is to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church,” At least that’s what Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote in a thinly veiled threat to the Allegheny County Council, to dissuade it from installing a plaque in the county courthouse that says “In God We Trust.” That principle, like everything else the FFRF stands for, is a lie. If Gaylor and friends can point to anything in the U.S. Constitution that prohibits a Pittsburgh courthouse from acknowledging God, this particular resident...

* Independence Day and 1st Holy Mass Celebrated in Temple of Divine Providence * Poland Fulfills The Covenant With God In Gratitude For Freedom from 1791 * Poles waited for this 225 years * Oratorio "The Covenant" by Michal Lorenc November 11, 2016 Photo - Mazur/Episkopat.pl “We have been waiting for this moment for 225 years,” emphasized the Metropolitan of Warsaw, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, at the beginning of the first Mass celebrated in the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw’s District of Wilanow. On November 11th, Poland’s Independence Day, this church, under construction by the Poles since the adoption of...

VOTING FOR ROMNEY IS TO VOTE FOR THE DEATH OF AMERICAAllowing homosexuals to serve openly and proudly in the U.S. Military is the single worst thing that has ever happened in American history. That infamous act of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. President, has cut America off from any further access to the resources of Divine Providence. You want to be like other nations? Now you will get the chance. Romney supported this infamy, and if elected, Romney will block any attempt to reverse it. Therefore, a vote for Romney is a vote to seal this infamy into the...

Why didn't Mubarak send in the tanks? Why didn't Tahrir Square turn into Tiananmen Square? Is the Egyptian regime less cruel than its Chinese counterpart? How is it that all the dictatorships in the Arab world have suddenly gotten weak in the knees over unarmed civilians doing nothing more than demonstrating? After all, the regime is all-powerful; they have built their security forces over decades in concentric circles so that the inner circle will owe its existence and power to the ruler and will always do his bidding. And if the need will arise, it will always force the ruler's...

THE SINNERS GUIDE Ven. Louis of Granada 1504-1588 With Imprimi Potest and Imprimatur TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS, INC.     Ch 12. The First Privilege of Virtue: God's Fatherly Care of the Just   The greatest privilege attached to virtue is the care which God exercises over those who serve Him. From this, as from a fountainhead, flow all other favors. Though God's providence is extended to all His creatures, yet He manifests a special care for His faithful servants. To appreciate the greatness and goodness of God's providence we must have experienced it, or attentively studied the Holy Scriptures, which,...

  IN POVERTY AND ITS HARDSHIPS We ought to conform to God's will in poverty and all the inconveniences poverty brings in its train. It is not too hard to do so if we fully realize that God watches over us as a father over his children and puts us in that condition because it is of most value to us. Poverty then takes on a different aspect in our eyes, for by looking on the privations it imposes as salutary remedies we even cease to think of ourselves as poor. If a rich man has a son in...

  IN REVERSES OF FORTUNE We should accept with the same conformity to the will of God the loss of employment or money and all other set-backs in our temporal affairs, repeating with faith the words of Job:  The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; as it has pleased the Lord, so is it done. Blessed be the name of the Lord!  What does it matter why those who are the instruments of your reverse of fortune have acted as they have done? The revolt of Absalom and the curses of Semei were directed against David...

  IN THE CARES AND DIFFICULTIES OF FAMILY LIFE If you are the father or mother of a family, you ought to conform your will to God's with regard to the number or sex of the children He pleases to give you. When men were animated by the spirit of faith they regarded a large family as a gift of God and a blessing from heaven, and considered God more than themselves as the father of their children. But now that faith has weakened and people live isolated from God, or if they think of Him at all it...

The Human Free Will 38. You suggest that our eternal fate depends upon ourselves? Yes. It is certain that man has freewill, and can choose what his eternal fate will be. If a man is in a state of serious sin and dies in such a state he will go to hell. But he need not have remained in such a state until death look him. At any moment he could have turned to God, repented of his sins, got forgiveness and chosen a line of conduct which would result in the salvation of his soul. 39. Some people deny...

III THE PRACTICE OF CONFORMITYTO THE WILL OF GOD To the question, "In what things should we practice conformity to the will of God?" there can be only one answer:  "In everything." The first thing that God asks of us is that we should faithfully keep his commandments and those of the Church, humbly obey those who have authority over us, and carefully fulfill the duties of our state. Thereafter we should desire what God does and accept with filial submission all that is decided by His Providence. Let us now see some of the circumstances which may arise....

II THE GREAT ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINEDFROM ENTIRE CONFORMITY TO THE DIVINE WILL Our sanctification is God's aim in all His dealings with us. What would He not do for His own honor and our good if we would only let Him!  The heavens make no resistance to the spirits that guide them and their motion is magnificent, orderly and useful; they declare aloud the glory of God and preserve order in the universe by their influence and the invariable succession of day and night. If they resisted this guidance and instead of following the motion set for them...

PART I by Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure GOD DOES EVERYTHING WITH SUPREME WISDOM All wisdom comes from the Lord God we find in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, and with him it remains forever, and is before all time . . . and he has poured her forth upon all his works.1  How manifold are your works, O Lord! exclaims the Psalmist, In wisdom thou hast wrought them all2  It could not be otherwise, for God, being infinite wisdom and acting by Himself, cannot act except in an infinitely wise manner. For this reason many of the Doctors of the...

PART I by Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure I THE WILL OF GODMADE AND GOVERNS ALL THINGS Treating of the Will of God St. Thomas, following St. Augustine, teaches that it is the cause of all that exists.1  The Psalmist tells us that "all that the Lord wills he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps."2  Again in the Book of the Apocalypse it is written:  "Worthy art thou, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and because of thy will they existed...

Over the weekend, former John McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt told "60 Minutes" something shocking about McCain's former running mate, Sarah Palin. It seems that when Schmidt met Palin after McCain selected her, he was surprised that she was so calm. Schmidt apparently asked her how she could remain so tranquil in the face of such a monumental life change. She responded, "It's God's plan." Naturally, the media went bonkers over this revelation. The New York Times approvingly reported comic Jimmy Fallon's one-liner: "God responded: 'What? Really? Don't bring me into this.'" The Week asked whether Palin was "simply devout...

From pagan times down to this very moment, the Jews have been widely reviled by other people. Anti-Semites will say that makes sense, since there really is something obnoxious about Jews. While anti-Jewish prejudice can be explained in part by reference to other religions and their holy books, or by a demonic strain in ancient and modern cultures, I think there may be something not wholly irrational in the anti-Semite's complaint against us. The Torah portion for this week, Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), sheds light on this. When God launched the project of acquainting his human creatures with himself, he chose...

Video from press conference: "America would not exist if it wasn't for the divine hand of providence in not only intervening to win the Revolutionary War but in writing the inspired words of the Constitution. To think that we can save the Constitution without God's help when the government of the United States is corrupt is absurdity," Idaho GOP gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell said.

TREATISE ON THE LOVE OF GOD Book II, Chapter IV By St Francis de Sales Book II. The History Of The Generation And Heavenly Birth Of Divine Love. Ch 4. Of The Supernatural Providence Which God Uses Towards Reasonable Creatures. All God's works are ordained to the salvation of men and angels; and the order of his providence is this, as far as, by attention to the Holy Scriptures and the doctrine of the Fathers, we are able to discover and our weakness permits us to describe it. God knew from all eternity that he could make an innumerable multitude...

Tradition marks this time of year as the occasion for Jewish calamity, and a biblical perspective helps us understand why.The weeks preceding the saddest of Jewish holy days, Tisha b’Av, have seen remarkable displays of anti-Jewish sentiment, from the deadly to the merely despicable. As Israel was slammed with long-range missiles from Hezbollah, the world’s “civilized” nations (with a few exceptions, including the United States) condemned the Jewish state for striking back in self-defense. In Seattle, where I live, a depressed Muslim gunman opened fire on six women at the Jewish Federation office, killing one. Later the same weekend, Mel...