What It’s Like to be Chronically Ill and Catholic

Last updated on: August 23, 2016 at 3:33 pm By Mary Pezzulo

While this post was originally written independently of the Patheos Catholic Channel series, “Catholicity: Identity and Its Discontents” we have been encouraged to run it together with the symposium because of it’s thematic fit. Steel Magnificat both cordially invites and heartily encourages our readers to read more here. July is over. Thanks be to God, thanks be to God, eternal thanks be to God. I don’t know how the general public feels about July, but it’s the month I dread more than any other.... Read more

Prayer Request…

Last updated on: July 31, 2016 at 3:18 pm By Mary Pezzulo

Please pray for the father of a reader in Canada, who was recently moved into assisted living. He’s apparently had a bad fall and is being tested for brain damage. Lord, have mercy! (Image via Pixabay) Read more

Muslims at Mass, oh My!

Last updated on: July 31, 2016 at 3:08 pm By Mary Pezzulo

Take a look at this. French Muslims attended Mass today all over France, to mourn for Father Jacques Hamel and to show solidarity with French Christians. There are at least two ways of looking at this. You could be pleased. You could say, “How wonderful that they are worshiping God with us, and I hope they return. I hope that God uses this opportunity to speak to them.” Or, “Even though we disagree on many theological points, even there has... Read more

More Information On the Slaying of Father Jacques Hamel

Last updated on: July 30, 2016 at 3:36 pm By Mary Pezzulo

Please take a moment and read this whole article from Sky News. There are three things you should take away from this article: First of all, Adel Kermiche’s imam, the leader of his particular mosque, is so disgusted by the murder that he does not want to “taint Islam” by associating with him. Kermiche is not going to be buried by members of his faith; they view him as excommunicated by his act of terrorism. Some people will apply the... Read more

Things I Learned On The Internet This Week: Last Weekend of July Round-Up

Last updated on: August 6, 2016 at 1:49 am By Mary Pezzulo

(image via Pixabay) Here we go, folks, this is my semi-regular round-up of fun information you need this week. First of all, stop the presses: Lisa Frank is releasing a clothing line for adults. Drink it in in all its beauty; I’ll wait here. Check out those leggings. Check out that non-Mary-modest crop top you’d have to wear over another shirt. Finally, I have a chance to be as cool as I wasn’t in the first grade. I will wear Lisa... Read more

Dystopia of The Super-Heroes: A Review Of Brandon Sanderson’s “Steelheart”

Last updated on: July 29, 2016 at 11:59 am By Michael Pezzulo

Mary and I have been thinking about adding reviews of new and recent fiction on Steel Mag for a month or two now. I was going to start with Brandon Sanderson’s most recent two Mistborn novels, Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning (both excellent and to be reviewed in this space soon). But I found myself sorting trough the internet and learning that Sanderson had also recently finished his “Reckoners” series – a trilogy set outside the wider universe (called... Read more

RIP, Jerry Doyle

Last updated on: July 28, 2016 at 9:49 pm By Michael Pezzulo

(Image: Jerry Doyle at San Diego Spacefest 2009. Photo by Phil Konstantin) Like all lovers of Babylon 5, I am very familiar with Jerry Doyle’s work in the role of Michael Garibaldi for that franchise, although I am totally unfamiliar with his other work (apparently he had a career prior to acting and spent the last few years as a radio host). I never feel like I quite know what to say in the face of death- it seems to be... Read more

You Know What the Divine Mercy Feels Like?

Last updated on: July 28, 2016 at 5:13 pm By Mary Pezzulo

I know I talked about this once before. But do you know what else the Divine Mercy feels like? Picture this. There has been a heat wave in the Ohio Valley. We’ve had weather in the 90s with a head index of 105 for days. It didn’t get below 80 at night. The grass is brittle brown paper; the zucchini plants are dead. I spent most of every day last week an anchoress cloistered in the only downstairs room with a... Read more

Blood, Sweat, Poop And the Theotokos

Last updated on: July 28, 2016 at 4:31 pm By Mary Pezzulo

I just had to share another wonderful conversation I had lately with my talented friends on facebook. My rather fiesty friend who’s always getting into arguments came back from one of them victorious with the following: “Speaking of the glorious dignity of demure womanhood and the eternal feminine purity of motherhood, I just got back from rescuing the baby, who had pasted herself to her bouncy seat with an epic load of poo that leaked out all over her new... Read more

The Best Reaction I’ve Read So Far To The Horrific Knife Attack in Japan

Last updated on: July 27, 2016 at 11:53 pm By Mary Pezzulo

Can be found in this article in Forbes. “Where is the outrage? It’s limited, at best… Why? The messages that society sends and accepts again and again form a drumbeat of “better dead than disabled” and “disabled = less than fully human.” Hard to get outraged when you can’t see someone as fully human in the first place.” It’s sobering how comparatively little press this attack is getting, and terrifying that it might be as author Emily Willingham says: the victims... Read more