Mother, Daughter, Housewife, Spy: A Hero of Israel

Utterly awesome. Excerpts:

Reading of each fresh atrocity in Syria conjures unique memories and emotions for Judy Feld Carr, a Toronto woman who worked for 28 years as a hidden spy master, a civilian orchestrating the escape of 3,228 Jews from the anti-Semitic regime that had locked the unwanted minority inside its borders.

...“Hearing of the hell that is going on in Syria today substantiates everything that I had done for 28 years because I so closely watched the hell that was going on there before,” she said this week from her Toronto home.

“I had to live a double life. I was a mommy and a wife and a daughter… and then had to sneak away and do all of my secret stuff.”...

She actually read John le Carré to learn spycraft.  God bless her, and may there be 10,000 more like her.

On Suffering and Bravery

Not just on today's tragedy, but more generally, as well.

The Anchoress reacts.  Excerpts:

Christmas is coming. These beautiful children, who likely had written their letters to Santa, or perhaps had opened a new window in an Advent calendar before going to school, are lost to us — now — in these weeks where nothing gives us a sense of promise, a future and a hope, than a child’s smile.

God help us.

In Advent, the days are short; the light is scarce and darkness gathers more fully every day. And today it nearly encompasses our hearts. We need light; we need illumination, because we do not understand...

We all of us struggle, every day, with God and with mankind. Today, our name is Israel, and we struggle...

God help us. There are no words. No one has new wisdom. We are broken and in our wounds evil enters in and battles goodness, and all I can do is run to the crucifix and bend low before it and remember these parents, these children, in my prayers, and turn to Christ and his Mother, who understand...

Msgr. Pope shares the tragedy and self-sacrifice of his parents with regard to his mentally ill sister.

Father Longenecker celebrates St. Lucy on her recent feast, a child who suffered at the hands of evil for the sake of good.  Excerpts:

...This is why I love Lucy–because she did not compromise. Finally, as I love St Therese, I love Lucy because she was a little girl. It was not the great soldier, the great he-man, the great warrior who stood up bravely for Christ….it was a little girl, and this reminds us that unless you become like one of these little ones you cannot see the kingdom of heaven...

The Crescat talks tragedy. Excerpts:

...My prayers are with the victims and their families. The pain of losing a child is the hardest thing ever. Of this I know personally.

“In the face of horror … there is no other answer than the cross of Christ: Love that descends to the abyss of evil.” — Pope Benedict XVI...

From a discussion of The Hobbit.  Excerpts:

"The more truly we can see life as a fairy tale," said G.K. Chesterton, "the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the dragon who is wasting fairyland."

On the Suffering of Innocents. Excerpts:

...As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes—and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new...”

And a reminder of happier realities, of every day life, of children home and safe, of families living and working together.

Daily Dose of Inspiration

Good work from the medical team.  Excerpt:

...water flooding over the FDR Drive had taken out not only the backup generator but the backup to the backup generator. The secondary backup device is on a low floor and was disabled by the flooding. The primary backup generator is on the roof but the pump that supplies fuel to that generator is on a lower floor and was flooded. When I arrived, there was still some power left in the backup generator but nobody knew exactly how much. Some lights still worked. I was told that some ventilators still worked but that some were operating on battery power.

Many patients were too sick to walk down the narrow staircase to the lobby. They were painstakingly carried on plastic sleds - one by one - by teams of four to five people from as high up as the 17th floor. I went to several of the floors with Dr. Mark Pochapin, the director of the Division of Gastroenterology at NYU. He was one of a team of people making sure that communication flowed and that everybody was accounted for. The intensive care unit was already evacuated when I arrived. Lit only by my flashlight, filled with crumpled blankets and other evidence of a hasty retreat, it appeared eerie to me - like a scene in a movie where a cup of still-warm-coffee tells the detective that somebody had been in a room only minutes before. But this was undeniably real life and the clock was ticking as the team of workers raced to evacuate the patients.

A Concentration Camp Martyr

Never forget.  Excerpts:

Sixty-eight years after he died of starvation and disease at Dachau, early on this "Good Shepherd Sunday" brought the beatification of the German priest Georg Haefner, whose death at the hands of the Nazis was judged to be "in odium fidei" -- out of "hatred for the faith" -- and, thus, has seen his designation as a martyr.

One of nearly 500 German and Austrian clerics to be jailed, Hafner's reported offense was to preach against the rise of the Third Reich.

With this morning's rites, the new Blessed (1900-42) becomes the fourth member of the fold who perished in the concentration camps to be raised to the honors of the altar, following Saints Maximilian Kolbe and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), and Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, the Austrian farmer who was executed for refusing to be conscripted into Hitler's army. (Another lasting light of the era was now-Blessed Cardinal Clemens August von Galen (1878-1946), the "Lion of Munster" whose preaching against the Nazis during the war exposed the regime's manifest evils.)...

Old Heroes

sometimes do the things the powerful will not:

...Ordered by drug cartels last Nov. 13 to hand over his ranch, Garza was just like so many other Mexicans who lost their life work and property to them. Like most, he would have been rational to run for his life, given the cartels' capacity for depravity.

But the old rancher told the thugs no. He warned them if they tried to take it, he'd be waiting for them.

The barbarians struck the next day, barraging the ranch house with rifles and grenade launchers. But they encountered something they hadn't expected — the lone Garza fighting back, hard, with his hunting rifle, taking four cartel attackers down with him before he died and leaving two others wounded.

When Mexican Marines arrived at the scarred ruins of the ranch a few days later, they were stunned to find that the rancher had fought the cartels alone, protecting his property at the ultimate price in place of the state that couldn't.

Resistance hasn't been common in Mexico, where gun ownership is banned and the state is charged with protecting people.

The public and media rapidly recognized Garza for a hero, and the story stirred the country. Garza drew attention because he died defending so much of what is under attack in Mexico.

Criminal cartels have challenged the state, civil society, and democracy itself as they pursue absolute power. They've driven villagers from their towns. They've forced soldiers to wear hoods, judges to wear masks and the free press to publish anonymously.

Central to everything is the right to private property. It doesn't exist so long as cartels can order ranchers off their land and turn townspeople into war refugees.

Garza stood up to this — a real hero of Mexican freedom. If his death inspires other Mexicans to resist the cartels, it won't be in vain — it will be the planting of the first seed of victory.

Requiscat in pace.  Note also--they banned gun ownership in Mexico. What has been the consequence?