Today on Kresta - Oct. 7, 2009

Talking about the "things that matter most" on Oct. 7

4:00 – Kresta Comments

4:20 – Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
With today’s feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, we turn our attention to the Blessed Mother and the power of the rosary. Fr. Dwight Longenecker is here to help us discover the parallels between our lives and the Mysteries of the Rosary while experiencing the healing graces of Our Lady. Where our lives are characterized by trauma, stress, pain, or sadness, this ancient contemplative prayer can bring acceptance, understanding, and joy.

4:40 – Blessed Damien of Molokai to Become St. Damien on Sunday
Blessed Damien de Veuster, a missionary priest who served patients with Hansen's disease in Hawaii, will be canonized by Pope Benedict XVI this Sunday at the Vatican. The canonizations will take place during the Synod of Bishops for Africa. Born in 1840, Blessed Damien spent the last 16 years of his life caring for patients with Hansen's disease, or leprosy, on the island of Molokai. He died in 1889 and was beatified in 1995. We talk with Matthew Bunson, author of Saint Damien of Molokai: Apostle of the Exiled.

5:00 – Kresta Comments

5:20 – Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College: 2nd Edition
Next, when Pope John Paul II issued Ex Corde Ecclesiae in 1990, he called for Catholic colleges and universities to renew their commitments to the doctrinal teachings and intellectual traditions of the Church. The response has been slow, leaving many Catholic families bewildered as to where to find the best of Catholic education. There are in fact a number of fine Catholic institutions of higher education in America—if one knows where, and how, to look for them. The recently updated Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College: What to Look For and Where to Find It is the first college guide to show students where they can learn and grow in a genuine Catholic environment without the nonsense that has overtaken even some of the most well-known Catholic universities. We discuss it. Patrick Reilly joins us.

5:40 – The Danger of Turning Religion into a “Toy”
Fr. Robert Barron is convinced that a very serious enemy to the Church is a current creeping take-it-or-leave-it indifference to religion. Not so much a hostility to religion as the weary, even bored, bracketing of those questions that, for centuries, have captivated the greatest minds and spirits of the human race. Where did the universe come from? What is the deepest purpose of my life? Where is reality ultimately tending? Is there a meaning inherent in the events of history and the movements of nature? We look at the danger of turning religion into a “toy”.