http://www.smh.com.au/national/faithful-in-waiting-for-a-holy-decree-20091214-ksdc.html FAITHFUL IN WAITING FOR A HOLY DECREE 15 December, 2009 (Edited by DCB)
Those faithful Roman “nuns, priests and laity who have campaigned for the sainthood of Mary MacKillop have mastered one Christian virtue above all others - patience.” MacKillop’s “canonisation began in 1925, 16 years after her death, and yesterday it took an exciting turn with reports that a Vatican decree recognising Blessed (Mother) Mary's second miracle was imminent, with sources saying it could be as soon as this weekend. This would clear the way for canonisation next year.” Leaving his carbon foot-print “Father Paul Gardiner, spent nearly three decades travelling between Australia and the Vatican in his role as MacKillop's postulator, the person who manages the ‘'bid’' for sainthood.”

These people are to be pitied and their salvation prayed for. However, for those of us who know Christ through faith in the person and finished work of Jesus Christ we are already a saint! 1Corinthians 1:2 “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth (they were alive when Paul wrote this letter to their local church), to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/pilgrims-find-hope-from-visit-to-chapel-20091214-ksdg.html PILGRIMS FIND HOPE FROM VISIT TO CHAPEL 15 december, 2009 (Edited by DCB) – “Kumar Subramaniam comes to visit Mary MacKillop every day to pray for his wife” who has been sick an awfully long time. Kumar said Mary “MacKillop has given his wife the strength to go on.” In fact every day people come to pray at Mackillop’s Memorial Chapel and many say she has intervened on their behalf. One lady who said she was not Catholic “has prayed to MacKillop for 10 years.”

Jesus said in John 14:13, 14 “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/in-an-age-of-celebrity-a-role-model-to-give-church-the-boost-it-needs-20091214-ksdf.html IN AN AGE OF CELEBRITY, A ROLE MODEL TO GIVE CHURCH THE BOOST IT NEEDS 15 December, 2009 (Edited by DCB) – Someplace in Australia a grandmother who is a devout Roman Catholic “is quietly celebrating her against-the-odds survival from terminal cancer, and waiting on Rome's recognition that her cure was no mere fluke.” It is on this woman’s recovery and the cure of another Australian woman but not so devout a Catholic that may just prompt the Pope to declare Mary MacKillop Australia’s first saint.

These dear folk are simply “...alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” Ephesians 4:18.

http://www.foxnewsradio.com/2009/12/14/public-schoo-kids-singing-to-allah/#axzz0ZgJnGmk0 SECOND GRADERS SING ABOUT ALLAH? 14 December, 2009
(Edited by DCB) – At Lantern Road Elementary School in Fishers, IN the second graders were going to “sing a song declaring, ‘Allah is God” but it “was removed just before the performance after a national conservative group launched a protest.” The principal said the school was trying “to teach inclusiveness through their holiday production” as it made references to “Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Las Posadas and Kwanzaa” BUT the only deity mentioned was Allah! Here is what the second graders were to sing:
“Allah is God, we recall at dawn,
Praying ‘til night during Ramadan
At this joyful time we pray happiness for you,
Allah be with you all your life through.”

The Muslim Alliance of Indiana said removing the song was just “Islamophobi”. It is enough to make one cry “...How long, O Lord, holy and true...” Revelation 6:10.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20091130/rick-warren-views-unemployment-orphans-as-top-gov-t-priorities/page2.html 30 November, 2009 (Edited by DCB) Southern Baptist Rick Warren became popular among so called evangelicals in 2002 when his book the Purpose Driven Life was published. He is now asked his opinion on many subjects and recently when asked what the priorities of the US government should be he said he believes unemployment and orphans were the top priorities. Warren has received and rightfully so “a great deal of flack, especially in recent years, over his middle-road stances.” Warren says “homosexuality is a sin” and has “compared abortion in America to a holocaust” and seeks to make the case “for cooperation among different faiths and often avoids taking a stance on legislation deemed ‘anti-gay’ by critics.” He says his goal as a pastor is “to encourage, to support. I never take sides”. Warren’s follow-up to the Purpose Driven Life “is expected to hit bookstores on Easter Sunday of 2010 - the 30th anniversary of Saddleback Church.” The design for the cover of this new book awarded to an Italian company after they were chosen from 3,500 other designs.

Pastors and their flocks would be better off reading what God says than what Rick Warren says. Sorry Rick God tells pastors to “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry” 2Timothy 4:2-5. Faithfully preaching the Bible causes one to take sides!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580359,00.html NEW JERSEY TEACHER ORDERS 3RD GRADER TO PUT AWAY BIBLE DURING QUIET TIME 16 December, 2009 (Edited by DCB) – One really wonders if they are living in America when they read that “A third grader was told by a teacher at her New Jersey elementary school that the Bible was not appropriate reading material for quiet time”. The principal of the school later “apologized for the incident, saying school policy does in fact allow students to read the Bible during quiet time and that the teacher had simply made a mistake”. What next?!

Because of Calvary,
David C. Bennett, D. Min.