Red Shirt Fridays!!

If the Red shirt thing is new to you, read below...

Last week, while traveling to Chicago on business, I noticed a Marine sergeant traveling with a folded flag, but did not put two and two together.

After we boarded our flight, I turned to the sergeant, who had been invited to sit in First Class (across from me), and inquired if he was heading home.

"No," he responded.
 
"Heading out?" I asked.
 
"No. I'm escorting a soldier home."
 
"Going to pick him up?"
 
"No. He is with me right now. He was killed in Iraq, I'm taking him home to his family."
 
The realization of what he had been asked to do hit me like a punch to the gut. It was an honor for him. He told me that although he didn't know the soldier, he had delivered the news of his death to the soldier's family and felt as if he knew them after many conversations in so few days.
 
I turned back to him, extended my hand, and said, "Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do so that my family and I can do what we do."
 
Upon landing in Chicago the pilot stopped short of the gate and made the following announcement over the intercom.
 
"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to note that we have had the honor of having Sergeant Steeley of the United States Marine Corps join us on this flight. He is escorting a fallen comrade back home to his family. I ask that you please remain in your seats when we open the forward door to allow Sergeant Steeley to deplane and receive his fellow soldier. We will then turn off the seat belt sign."

Without a sound, all went as requested. I noticed the sergeant saluting the casket as it was brought off the plane, and his action made me
realize that I am proud to be an American.
 
So here's a public "Thank You" to our military Men and Women for what you do so we can live the way we do:
 
Red Fridays.
 
Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the
"silent majority." We are no longer silent, and we are voicing our love for God, country and home in record-breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.
 
Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -- and it continues each and every Friday until the troops all return home, sending a deafening message: that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar will wear something red.
 
By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in red and it will let our troops know that the once "silent" majority is on their side more than ever -- certainly more than the media lets on.
 
The first thing a soldier says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is, "We need your support and your prayers." Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something red every Friday.

Cathedral of Saint Paul

                                                  2007 SERIES

"The fundamental harmony between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents. "

Fides et Ratio (44)
Pope John Paul II

	GEORGE WEIGEL Thursday, NOVEMBER 8, 7:00 p.m. The Cube and The Cathedral “Is it possible to build a democratic political community without reference to God, or to transcendent moral norms? That’s the question modern Europe poses to itself and to Americans. In this lecture, George Weigel will explore the roots of contemporary European secularism, their implications for the United States, and the possibilities of a re-evangelization of Christianity’s historic heartland.” GEORGE WEIGEL, senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, is one of the world’s leading Catholic intellectuals and the author of many books, including the international bestseller, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II and The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God. From 1986 until 1989, Weigel served as founding president of the James Madison Foundation. Weigel was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he led a wide-ranging, ecumenical and inter-religious program of research and publication on foreign and domestic policy issues. He is also a member of the editorial boards of First Things and Orbis, and serves as a consultant on Vatican affairs for NBC News.
	RALPH McINERNY Thursday, DECEMBER 6, 7:00 p.m. How Do You Know That? Philosophy and Common Sense “Modern philosophy began with the assumption that nothing we thought we knew before the formal study of philosophy, before running everything through a critical approval mechanism, can count as knowledge. This is rather hard on your Grandma who never studied philosophy and yet knew lots of things. Was she deluded? What is the relationship between sophisticated inquiry and common sense? Classical philosophy sought its principles in what everybody knows. All the efforts to avoid this procedure have led up blind alleys.” RALPH McINERNY is Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and holds degrees from the St. Paul Seminary, the University of Minnesota and Laval University. He has taught at Notre Dame since 1955 and was the director of the Jacques Maritain Center from 1979 to 2006. McInerny is the author of two dozen scholarly books and many more essays, as well as numerous general interest works. He has appeared on William Buckley’s Firing Line and NPR, has lectured on three continents, and has served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the Metaphysical Society, the American Maritain Society and the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

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by Roger Owens &
The Church of the Incarnation
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   10/30/2007