CatholicAnchor.org Alaskans are invited to participate in the international fall prayer campaign of 40 Days for Life. The annual event will begin with a kick-off rally on Tuesday Sept. 22 from 7-8 p.m. The following day, Sept. 23, the peaceful prayer campaign will run from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. for 40 days at the Planned Parenthood…
In less than a year, a group of Alaskans will head to Kraków, Poland with millions of youth from around the world for the World Youth Day gathering with Pope Francis. According to local organizers, those intending to make the pilgrimage need to register soon in order to guarantee a spot.
Most mornings, we gather together after chores and breakfast to pray for the “Fourteen P’s,” a list of requests that, over the years, we’ve managed to finagle all beginning with “P” (pope, president, priest, papa, pets, etc.). I also read something: perhaps a passage of Scripture or prayer to memorize, sometimes a saint’s biography or section of the children’s catechism. Now, it is short, child-sized teachings from Laudato Si.
Traditional Yup’ik dance was a form of prayer, a ritualistic plea to the spirit world in the land that would one day be known as Alaska. In that long-ago age, the shaman donned masks representing animal spirits and led the tribe in singing, dancing and drumming to petition the spirits for specific needs. In the late 1800s Christian missionaries including Jesuit priests banned the Natives’ ancient ceremonial dancing, condemning it as evil pagan idolatry.
As a homeless man in Alaska, Jeff Lane lived at the mercy of four omnipresent factors — weather, the law, wild animals such as urban moose and bear, and attacks by teens looking to victimize the homeless. A hierarchy exists among the homeless, according to Lane, and any sense of loyalty to one another is underpinned by the crushing tyranny of alcoholic thirst: the next drink is king.