Persecution...

...and martyrdom continue:


...The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.

Now, as the U.S. supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away.

In October 2012 the last Christian in the city of Homs—which had a Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis came—was murdered.  One teenage Syrian girl said: “We left because they were trying to kill us… because we were Christians….  Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house.”

 Read the rest here.

Adornment

Seen on Facebook, Holy Fathers:

The True Adornment Of Woman
By: St. John Chrysostom

Do you wish to adorn your face? Do not do so with gems but with piety and modesty; thus adorned, a man will find your appearance more pleasing to behold. For that other kind of adornment generally arouses suspicions which give rise to jealousy, enmity, strife, and quarrels. For there is nothing more disgusting than a suspiciously beautiful face. But the adornment which comes from almsgiving and modesty drives out all wicked suspicion and draws your husband to you with greater strength than any chain. For natural beauty does not make a face become beautiful as much as does the disposition of him who beholds it, and nothing is more likely to produce this disposition than modesty and piety. Hence, even if a woman be beautiful but her husband hates her, she will appear to him as the ugliest of women; if a woman does not happen to be comely but she pleases her husband, he will find her the fairest of women. Judgments are made not in the light of the nature of what is seen but in the light of the disposition of those who see it.

Adorn your face, therefore, with modesty, piety, almsgiving, benevolence, love, kindliness towards your husband, reasonableness, mildness, and forbearance. These are the pigments of virtue; by these you draw not men but angels to you as your lovers; for these you have God Himself to praise you. When God shall approve of you, He will win over your husband to you in every way; for if wisdom illumines the face of man, much more does virtue make the face of a woman shine forth.

Overheard

"I love my country, even with her many flaws. I weep as I watch her commit suicide."

I will not comply

Terrific post by Blackiswhite. The opening:


Dear Sirs:

I am writing to thank you for your gracious requests that I take part in your American Community Survey…the requests that also prominently contained the admonition that “YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.”   However, despite your shotgun “invitations” to take the survey, I’m afraid I must respectfully decline.

Read it all here.

Conversion

"The theme of nearly every conversion to Orthodoxy is a study of the Early Church. I(t) seems to be rather earth-shattering for most Protestants."

Interesting post from Journey to Orthodoxy website.

My conversion to Orthodoxy began with reading Polycarp. That led me to checking translations of the Bible. That led me to disenchantment with the agenda-driven modern translations. Snowballed from there.

Judge

Via NiceDeb:

Judge Jeanine Pirro:

Here’s the rap against Holder, according to the Judge.

Count 1: Perjury.
Count 2: False Statement To Congress
Count 3: Aiding and Abetting
Count 4: Obstruction
Count 5: Misprision of felony
Count 6: Conspiracy

Overheard

"The American media are malevolent in their negligence."