To Pray for the Christians in the Middle East-UPDATED

Thanks to having low friends in high places, I can share this with you. You used to have to be an operative of the CIA, or MI-5, to be able to pull up stuff like this on your computer screen. Nowadays, you can do so from your investment house's Bloomberg machines. By doing so, you can even pretend that having this kind of knowledge at your finger tips will give you an investing edge. It won't, but that is another story.

Thanks to Hundreds of Thousands Who Answered the Cries of the Christians in Iraq

Call it the email read 'round the world.

In November, a friend of a friend, Maria Teresa Landi, came up with an extraordinary idea: she e-mailed her friends, proposing they send letters of encouragement to the Christians of Iraq, who are being tortured and persecuted and murdered for their faith. Tere, who is active in the Communion and Liberation movement, asked that her idea be distributed as widely as possible. We posted her proposal, which was picked up by our blogging friends, such as the Anchoress and Father Robert Barron and many, many others. 

To Pray the Rosary for Persecuted Christians in Iraq

Join Catholics worldwide on Tuesday, Nov. 23 as we pray the Rosary for the persecuted Christians in Iraq. This is yet another effort to strengthen our Iraqi brothers and sisters in Christ. My friend Dan told me about this proposal and referred me to a website promoting it.

How fitting these prayers will happen Tuesday, when we pray the Sorrowful Mysteries. Christians have been praying the Rosary for 800 years. They are powerful prayers.

To Send Supplies to the Christians in Iraq

Sending letters to the Nuncio was a great idea to let our embattled brothers and sisters in Iraq know we care. And with a little help from our friends (like the Anchoress and Father Robert Barron and many other bloggers—thanks!), the letter post  "read 'round the world" was shared by 384 people on Facebook and resulted in 2400+ people reading the post. We're not sure how many e-mails the Nuncio received, but we will let you know what we find out.

But many asked us about how to send relief in the form of food and supplies. Sending donations that can be turned into food, clothing, and shelter is an idea that many of us would like to put into action now.

To Dedicate this Song to the Memory of the Martyrs of Baghdad

I remember listening to America's Top Forty with Casey Kasum while I was growing up, do you? While I was fooling around at You Tube preparing for the MfM music post, I replayed the beautiful Hail Mary prayer that is in Arabic that I posted on Friday. I soon realized that there is a ton of Christian music in Arabic posted over there.

So like the people who used to call in to Casey (who is of Lebanese Druze family heritage), and to Wolfman Jack (and other disc-jockeys too), I would like to dedicate this song to my brothers and sisters at Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad Iraq.

Because Christian Martyrdom Sheds No Innocent Blood

Originally posted back on September 16th, the Feast of St. Cyprian, I am breaking this post out of the archives again. The recent killings of parishioners at Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad bring the title of this post into stark relief with the events that transpired there on All Hallows Eve. St Cyprians words do not alleviate the pain, nor do they erase this tradgedy from our minds. But they do point to something larger than ourselves: the truth in the title of this post points to the Truth of the Word Incarnate.

—Feast of St. Cyprian

Today is the day we commemorate the fellow you see in the icon to your left. Cyprian was beheaded for refusing to worship the false gods of the Roman Empire.

There was no separation of church and state, see, so the state decided to make an example of Cyprian, and thousands of other Christian martyrs too. The state, the Empire, lost the war against Christianity, and collapsed like the house of cards that it was.

To Send Letters to the Christians of Baghdad

This morning, Maria Teresa Landi, friend of a friend, came up with an extraordinary  idea: send letters of encouragement to the Christians of Baghdad, who are suffering horrible persecution and killings. They are the Church's modern-day martyrs.

By day's end, the Nuncio at the United Nations was offering his diplomatic pouch (direct mail). He proposed to have all letters and messages sent to him by Tuesday night in a package and he will send the package to the Nunciature in Iraq on Wednesday morning.

To Pray for the Christians of Iraq

Post by Allison Salerno,
I drive New Jersey highways to work each morning, one uninspiring state road after another. Lately, I have found a scenic side road, right before I pull up to the large public high school where I work. The subdivision has large yards and ranch homes festooned for the season. Pumpkins, bales of hay and scarecrows dot the lawns. Some folks even have started to display Christmas wreaths even.

As I was navigating these hilly pretty suburban streets, a news report came on my car radio about more Christians killed in Iraq. Overnight, bomb attacks targeted Christian homes in the Baghdad neighborhoods of al-Mansour, al-Duarah and Sara Camp.