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One Sunday morning, in the summer of 1966, I found my way to a little white Catholic chapel on a corner in Saticoy. Only a year before, my family had moved to Ventura from Eau Claire, Wis. I wasn’t familiar with the Saticoy area, but something drew me to the chapel that morning.

I was in tremendous emotional pain and having a crisis of faith. As I knelt in the back of the humble church, tears began streaming down my face. I was beginning to doubt the existence of God. If there was a God, why was I going through so much turmoil?
Silently I cried out to God in prayer: "Dear God, Father in Heaven, if there is a God, if there is a heaven, help me! I am so close to rejecting you. Please O Lord, let me know that you are real."

Precisely at that moment and directly behind me, a man with a powerful voice and a wonderful Austrian accent began singing out, "Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name." The fire of God’s love flooded my heart and my life was changed forever.

As I came back from Communion, I looked to see who that man was. No one was there.

Moments later, as I left the pew, I was swallowed up in a big black hug. There was the most handsome-looking priest I had ever seen. It was 45-year-old Father Arnold Biedermann.

In my darkest moment, God worked through this man to answer my prayer. Since Father Arnold Biedermann’s meager beginnings at the little white Sacred Heart Chapel, God has used him to be a source of love and affection for thousands of people throughout Ventura County. [Source]

First Things now has a blog On the Square that will have posts by not only Fr. Nehaus, but others as well. [Via Plato’s Stepchild]

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Here is a great column by Danielle Bean at Catholic Exchange called "God Equips the Called." She also maintains her blog here.

The Anchoress has yet another excellent post titled Praying with the Cloud of Witnesses and I especially like who she invited for prayers with Hurricane Rita in mind.

Papabile reflection on the priestly abuse scandal has some interesting insights into it. His post goes along with one by The Mighty Barrister on his Catholic High School reunion.

A fairly new Catholic portal called myCatholic.com is up and running. The main page includes Mass Readings, Saint of the Day and various headlines from news feeds. In addition you can add custom RSS/Atom news feed to your homepage. They have a list of feeds that can be easily selected, as well as allowing you to enter your own. Under Commentary & Opinion you can easily select CERC, Domenico Bettinelli, Catholic Light, Fr. Jim Tucker, Kathy, Shaidle, and myself. It has a nice clean interface which you can modify and I have started using it as my browser’s homepage.

at Speculative Catholic.

John Zmirak wrote me about his new book The Bad Catholics Guide to Good Living. I have previously linked to a hilarious Screwtape-like article he did on World Youth Day which unfortunately is no longer online. His book I believe is unfortunately titled, but looks hilarious and I will be ordering it. It has some rave reviews from people like Fr. George Rutler so don’t let the Bad Catholics part fool you. On the site is also a very funny flash animation of the Vatican Space Program.

In other news a new Catholic literary magazine is starting up called Dappled Things and is looking for contributing writers

I am writing to inform you about a new initiative that I expect you will find very exciting and interesting. Throughout the past few months, a group of young Catholics (including myself) have been working to create a Catholic literary magazine targeted to students and young scholars. The name of the magazine is Dappled Things, and its aim is to provide a space for young writers to engage the literary world from a Catholic perspective. The magazine is committed to quality writing that takes advantage of the religious, theological, philosophical, artistic, cultural, and literary heritage of the Catholic Church in order to inform and enrich contemporary
literary culture. Thus, we are committed to following John Paul II’scall to evangelize the arts and culture.

Another reader wrote to inform me that the Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist now have 17 new young women as postulants. Again showing that those who are faithful to the Church continue to grow while at less than faithful orders postulants are as common as hen’s teeth.

And yet another reader sent me a link to this animated Holy Card.

I agree with Br. Seraphim Beshoner, TOR at Friary Notes. This poster of the baby Jesus is pretty scary looking. He also makes some good points about using Communist imagery to promote Christ and notes the irony of the Communist Party of Russia distributing images of Lenin as an infant in order to counteract the Orthodox devotion to the child Jesus.

Interesting interview with Father Ratzinger (George that is) from an article originally in Junge Freiheit and I believe translated by the blogger at Catholic Church Conservation.

Jamie at Ad Limina Apostolorum kicks of the first of three posts titled A Reflection on the Nature of Episcopal Conferences, Part I of III. In it he looks at some of the pertinent documents, especially John Paul II’s 1998 Apostolic Letter Apostolos Suos, ‘On the Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences.’

I assume this must be a parody blog, since as far as I know there is no Bishop of Norfolk, Va (correct me if I am wrong).

SecretAgentMan gives a rave review of Mark Shea’s new book on Mary which will be published sometime next year.