Pray Like You Breathe

Why is it that many people stop praying after they commit a mortal sin? I know many Catholics who seem to live in two completely divergent states, as disparate as night and day. When they are in a state of grace, they make effort, they pray, they do penance, they act piously. Then they fall into some grave sin, at which point they just give up everything—they stop making effort, stop praying, neglect all their penances, and sink into acedia. Then they just...slump along like this for a while until they feel so bad, so depressed, so down in the dumps that they finally rouse themselves, go to confession, and start living a regular Catholic life again. 

The Foreigner as Curse: A Holistic Reading of the Old Testament on Migration

This week we watched in horror as 50,000 Moroccan migrants (all of them Muslim) crossed the border into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, overran the city, rampaged about for two days, and had to be forcibly ejected by the Spanish military. Many of these were criminals, and their invasion was aided and abetted by Moroccan authorities; videos clearly show them being brought to the border by Moroccan police, and Spanish officials, including the Defense Minister, have accused Morocco of deliberately loosening border controls. It was a deliberate act of aggression against Spain using human beings as weapons.