In my writings for this month's Spiritual Ponderings, I desire to tackle two closely related topics. Those topics are euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. In my ten plus years of priesthood, I have discovered that the world of medical ethics is a very confusing place. Sometimes when we think that we are doing a good and loving thing we are in all reality acting out of fear and misplaced sense of compassion. As a guide, therefore, on our journey through this difficult topic, I have decided to turn to F. Michael Gloth, IIII M.D. and his article "Physician-Assisted-Suicide: The Wrong Approach to End of Life Care." I came across this article while searching the United States Catholic Conference of Bishop's website. Quotes from his article will be in bold and my commentary will be in ordinary type. For the full article feel free to go to my website www.mayjesuschristbepraised.com or the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops' website www.usccb.org .

When I sat down to write my spiritual ponderings for May, little did I know how hard it would be for me to find four songs that I wanted to write about. Maybe next year, it will be a little easier. Before we get to our final song let us get one more quote about music. This one is from an author named Sarah Dessen: “Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.”

The following are ten suggestions on how to take "Father's Day" from simply being a holiday and make it a Holy day.

We are now at the third week of May and over half way through our IPod theology. As we have explored our first two songs and hopefully have a chance to listen to them, I think we can all agree with Johnny Depp “Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't.” This is why it is so important for us to know the meanings of song’s lyrics and why singing songs with good meanings can help lift our spirits.

I have to admit that I as a sat down looking for music to reflect on for this month’s Spiritual Ponderings, I found it very difficult. Many of the songs that I have heard on the radio just did not speak to me and some seemed to be completely contradictory. I am beginning to think that “meaning” is leaving some parts of the music industry behind and all we get is a lot of “flesh and flash” instead. On the other hand it simply could be that I am getting a little older and I don’t understand “youth language” as well as I use to. There just seems to me that some music has become downright pornographic in that it is not meant to lift our thoughts towards heaven or at least high ideals but rather it is glorifying more animal instincts.

Breaking Open the Word reflections for June through August have been updated.

As we enter the month of May the Church is in the midst of celebrating the Easter season which is a time of joy and festivities. One of the special ways that we celebrate Easter is to sing "Alleluia" (which in English means "praise YAHWEH"). It has been my tradition to devote my Spiritual Ponderings for the month of May to talking about music and the messages different songs strive to pass onto the society either sublimely or overtly. Victor Hugo the author of Les Miserables said the following about music: "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent". It is therefore important to ask ourselves what is the message that the music we are listening to trying to express.