I Wish You Knew

This post is something out of the ordinary but I came across this and wanted to share it with everyone as it relates to Law Enforcement and interacting with the public. Not everyone knows what it's like to put on a uniform, badge and gun and go to places and deal with people and things that are avoided on an average day by everybody else. We (Law enforcement) deal with a lot and are exposed to a lot of different things that the average public never see or only see on tv. And NO! everything you see on TV is not real, and some of us don't have the capability of CSI! In case you were wondering! Any way here it is:

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the patrol vehicle, with my foot pressing down hard on the pedal, hitting the air horn again and again, as you fail to yield the right of way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us however, your first comment upon our arrival will be, "it took you forever to get here!"
I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years from the remains of her automobile. "What if this was my daughter, sister, my girlfriend, or a friend? What was her parent's reaction going to be when thye opened the door to find a police officer with hat in hand?"
I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my parents and family, not having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not come back from the last call.
I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally and sometimes physically abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their attitudes of "it will never happen to me."
I wish you could understand why we tend to be so cautious and "unfriendly" when we pull you over. And I wish you would not take it so personally.
I wish you could understand the pain of watching someone who wears the same uniform being laid to res after being killed in the line of duty.
I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or the missed meals, lost sleep and forgone social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen.
I wish you could understand why we hate it when you look at us and tell your little child, "if you dont behave, I'm going to give you to that policeman." Great, now they're scared of us. So who do you want them to call when things go bad?
I wish you could understand the terror that courses through you veins in the seconds before you make a life and death decision because someone you probably have never met is determined to kill you.
I wish you could understand the frustration of arriving at a call and finding someone with a gun, knowing that you have milliseconds to decide if you need to shoot or not, while after the fact, your actions will be debated for months by many who have never even held a gun.
Unless you have lived this kind of life, you will never truly understand or appreciate who I am, we are, or what our job really means to us...
I wish you could though.

Proper Music for Catholic Worship

Can you tell the difference?? from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

Visor lift to The Catholic Knight for this post.

Knights of Columbus - A Novena for Pope Benedict XVI

Knights of Columbus are asked to pray a novena for Pope Benedict, beginning on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 11, and concluding on Monday, April 19, the fifth anniversary of the Holy Father’s election.
Following is the text of the Novena:

Prayer for Pope Benedict XVI
Lord, source of eternal life and truth,
give to your shepherd, Benedict, a spirit
of courage and right judgment, a spirit
of knowledge and love. By governing
with fidelity those entrusted to his care,
may he, as successor to the Apostle
Peter and Vicar of Christ, build your
Church into a sacrament of unity, love
and peace for all the world. Amen.

V/ Let us pray for Benedict, the pope.
R/ May the Lord preserve him, give him a long life, make him blessed upon the earth, and not hand him over to the power of his enemies.
V/ May your hand be upon your holy servant.
R/ And upon your son, whom you have anointed.
Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory Be…

Council 9001 stands firm behind the Vicar of Christ, Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI in his duty to speak out on the sins of the successors of Judas Iscariot. We will render whatever aid shall be neccessary. Thank You Holy Father! We stand behind you 100%

Good Friday 2010

In commemoration of the Death of Jesus, on Good Friday this year, the Council in conjunction with select Hispanic Men of the parish participated in the second annual Cristo Muerto or Dead Christ procession.


The Body of Christ is carried by prominent Hispanic men of the parish.


The Grand Knight takes point, to lead the procession




The Body of Christ is followed by Father Parkerson and two seminarians Brendan Buckler (who will be ordained a deacon in June) and Philip Johnson as well as several altar servers. Among them the Worthy Chancellor Eddie Sopp.




The Lay Faithful follow behind as well


Dunn's Finest shut down a section of 421 to allow for the procession to continue. They did a great job!



Over 100 were in attendance!





Altar servers incensing the way



Close up of Fr. Parkerson and seminarians

Grand Knight salutes the Body of Christ as it enters back in the church to lay to rest.

Grand Knight also salutes Father and the seminarians for their ultimate sacrifice, because without priests there would be no mass, just like without christ there would be no salvation.

Christ's Victory Over Sin Chafes Forces of Evil

ROME, APRIL 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Every year, the forces of evil get very anxious as we reach Holy Week. After six weeks of purification and prayer, we reach the great celebration of Christ’s victory over sin and our reconciliation with God. Satan is a sore loser.

So the Christian celebration of the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection is accompanied by the yearly ritual of Christ-bashing in the mainstream media. You will recall that just a year ago Newsweek Magazine celebrated Easter with a cover story titled “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” while the Discovery channel aired a documentary that portrayed Jesus as a political opportunist.

This Lent, the attacks have been more pointed, targeting Christ’s vicar, the Pope. The last few weeks have seen a frenzy of accusations against the clergy, the bishops and the Pope himself regarding cases of sex abuse in Germany, Ireland and the United States. The strategy has been that of pre-Geneva Convention warlords: fire as many shots as possible into the air and hope that something will hit the mark. Since the media are held to no rules of engagement, innocent casualties and wanton destruction are welcomed as tactics to weaken the adversary.

Daily headlines pairing Benedict XVI with sexual abuse reveal little substance and much specious reasoning, while the editorialists have been vying, like bullies in a school yard, to see who can deliver the sharpest kick.

To the secular minded it seems inexplicable that the Holy See doesn’t leap to its own defense, brandishing sheaves of files, swiftly rebutting each accusation, and decrying this defamation from the cupola of St. Peter’s. This is not Rome’s way. Not when the Landsknechts sacked Rome in 1527, forcing Pope Clement VII to flee for his life; not when 86-year-old Pope Pius VI was trundled off by Napoleon and driven around Europe until he died; and not when the Italians claimed Rome and drove Pope Pius IX into exile within the Vatican walls.

There are two main reasons for this. For all their pretensions, newspapers are not a court of law. They are bound to no rules when considering evidence, nor is there a process for establishing the worthiness of witnesses for the prosecution. They can pick and choose what to publish and what to silence, or simply ignore. The media’s self-styled tribunals bring more sales for the editors and more reasons and resources to keep attacking the Church, but little in the way of justice.

Moreover, in media courts, you are assumed guilty until proven innocent. In this arena, the press calls the shots, and slings the mud while all the Holy See can do is wipe it off. Much like the trial of Christ, there is no chance of acquittal here.

Christ’s unjust trial and condemnation, however, never was a story about those who betrayed and beat him. Jesus is the hero and brought out the best in many, even as he went to his death. Simon of Cyrene, who helped bear Christ's burden, Veronica who became the custodian of his image, and even the late convert Longinus, who pierced the side of Christ with his lance -- all these are remembered by name, while the reviling mob and persecutors are lost to history.

The trials of Benedict XVI have similarly produced some heroes. Bill Donahue of the Catholic League has brought the battle to the doors of the newsrooms. Relentless and inexhaustible, he has extracted apologies and forced retractions like David repelling the wolves and lions from his flock.

Among many others: George Weigel, Sean Murphy, Father Raymond de Souza, and most recently, Cardinal Levada himself, have spent hours sifting through each accusation, checking facts and brandishing their writing talents to persuasively rebut each new accusation randomly thrown by the press. Why do they do it? So the Holy Father won’t have to.

The tempestuous fury of the mainstream media stands in sharp contrast to the Roman mood. After record numbers for Palm Sunday Mass, the atmosphere in Rome is prayerful and serene as we approach the Holy Triduum.

While the secular world wrestles with its fascination with sex and scandal, the Christian faithful join the prayers of the Holy Roman Church in this the most blessed time of year. The Pope’s job is not to jump when the New York Times calls, but to reap and distribute the graces won for us by Christ. Here in Rome, that is our fixation.

The often overt hatred of the Catholic Church these days constitutes a last Lenten temptation for us. Like Jesus' three temptations in the desert, Satan offers us three as well: a temptation to despair for the future of the Church, a temptation to turn our attention from our Paschal renewal, and a temptation to despise those who have shown such scorn for our faith and our Holy Father.

Like Jesus, we must resist. It is up to us to remember that our Kingdom already has a news service, and it is the Good News that we proclaim this week.