Jenni 🌸

RTs / ❤️s do not imply endorsement

[Sachin Jose @Sachinettiyil]

Soon-to-be-beatified Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who inspired thousands of people to embrace the Catholic faith, including former committed communists, is among the figures announced by U.S. President Donald Trump to receive a statue at the National Garden of American Heroes.

[Colm Flynn @colmflynnire]

Fr. Mike Schmitz becomes emotional in Dublin as he pays tribute to the generations of Irish priests who left their homeland to serve as missionaries in the United States. He says he is a product of their evangelisation.

Watch the full homily on @theway_ie

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

Why is it ‘cancelled’ in the U.K. but ‘canceled’ in the U.S.?

Because we gave them that L in 1776.

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

Bob Odenkirk has returned as Saul Goodman in a new video celebrating 250 years of America.

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

Happy birthday, Maestro @NosedaG !

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

So thrilled and feeling humbled and blessed for the opportunity to hear from the incredible @NosedaG 🎶

[Ascension @AscensionPress]

Today, we remember the ultimate sacrifice.

A love so strong it changed history. Jesus gave his life for you.

#GoodFriday

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

A lot of people don't want to hear this, but it's hard to have a bad day when you wake up early and work out before most people are even awake.

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

Blessed for the opportunity to observe the gifted musicians of @NatSymphonyDC rehearse, and to witness Maestro @NosedaG channel their talents and draw us into this blissful, breathless existence…it was transcendent. I never feel closer to God than when experiencing music.

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

@USAA please please PLEASE offer an email address I can email so that I don’t have to wait to talk with a human and I don’t have to deal with the useless virtual assistance.

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

@PinoAmericano Same

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

@Gabriele_Corno Isn’t that the same person? The person who saved an animal in need…and the animal’s rescuer?

[Jenni 🌸 @JenniDC27]

Beautifully said with inspiring faith.

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

I would like us to remember the Lord’s words: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25:40). It is truly so! If we concretely love those who are hungry and thirsty, those without clothing, those who are sick, strangers, or prisoners, then we are loving the Lord.

[Ohio State Football @OhioStateFB]

OHIO AGAINST THE WORLD 🌰

#GoBucks

[Daily Stoic @dailystoic]

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” Viktor Frankl

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal.

If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist.

If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian.

If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist.

[Ohio State Football @OhioStateFB]

THE WORLD FAMOUS OHIO STATE BUCKEYES.

[Ohio State Football @OhioStateFB]

O-H‼️