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Features
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April 3rd, 2009
Given up? Why not start over for Holy Week?
 You’ve made it this far — only another week to go. As a matter of fact, it’s the Holiest Week of the year.
So even if you’ve completely messed up all throughout Lent, here’s a good opportunity to try again and get into the spirit of Holy Week. Remember this is unflunkable — with each day that passes you get one more chance to learn more about yourself and grow closer to God. So join us down the homestretch for your last chances to fast, pray and give one day at a time.
We aren’t announcing when we will be doing our FastPrayGive Lent Incentive Grand Prize Drawing, but we will clue you in: we’ll do it in time to get the iPod Nano Easter Basket to the winner for Easter…
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April 3rd, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
If we’re not willing to settle for junk living, we certainly shouldn’t settle for junk food.— Sally Edwards
Fast from any food that is cooked or processed (e.g. french fries, rice, bread, cooked vegetables).
Pray for the well-being of our environment.
Give the money you would’ve spent on processed foods to your your FastPrayGive Bowl. (Your FastPrayGive Bowl is a container you’ve set aside to hold the money saved from various fasting challenges, to be used for whatever charity you choose at the end of Lent.)
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.…
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April 2nd, 2009
Debut Episode!
From over-the-top registries to destination weddings, the American wedding industrial complex is a $161 billion consumer bonanza. But a wedding is more than just a party: It’s the beginning of a life-long marriage, an important sacrament in the Catholic Church. Brides want everything to be to their specifications — and priests bristle at being treated like hired help. Friends and family ask about color themes for the reception, and the priest plies pre-Cana compatibility quizzes. It’s a cultural war, and engaged couples are on the front lines.
What happens when the princess planning her “one perfect day” clashes with the priest who would rather preside over a dozen funerals than one wedding?…
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April 2nd, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.— Mohandas Gandhi
Fast from sensory overload. For one hour use neither your sight nor hearing. (Use a blindfold or earplugs.)
Pray in thanksgiving for the gifts of sight and hearing and pray for those who are blind or deaf.
Give some of your time to an organization for the blind and deaf (like Lighthouse International or Recording for the Blind )
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: Halo Store Grab bag (one of the following-The Apostles by Pope Benedict XVI, A New Heart-Eleven Qualities of Holiness…
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April 1st, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
I do believe we’re all connected. I do believe in positive energy. I do believe in the power of prayer. I do believe in putting good out into the world. And I believe in taking care of each other.
— Harvey Fierstein
Fast from being overly serious.
Pray for the gift of good humor and the ability to see humor in life.
Give everyone multiple opportunities to laugh. (Forward a funny email, take a friend to a comedy show or movie.)
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share your
struggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: a tin can of Busted Halo M&M’s
To see a list of the winners so far, click here.
To win today’s…
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March 31st, 2009
Take the Freshman Survival Guide Survey!
 When we published Busted Halo‘s® First Annual Freshman Survival Guide in 2005, we thought we had a good idea on our hands; we just didn’t know how good. Since then, the Guide has grown exponentially and we are proud to announce an exciting and important step in that growth: Hachette Book Group will publish the first print edition of Busted Halo‘s Freshman Survival Guide next year.
Our goal is to take the first print edition of the Guide well beyond what we’ve been able to do online. Of course, it will still encompass a wide range of college-life issues from academics and relationships to dealing with roommates, social life and everything else that affects new college students. What makes…
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March 31st, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
The Third Petition of the Lord’s Prayer is repeated daily by millions who have not the slightest intention of letting anyone’s will be done but their own.— Aldous Huxley
Fast from your own willfulness and stubbornness.
Pray to see your life from God’s perspective.
Give up a long held grievance.
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: a copy of The Green Bible
To see a list of the winners so far, click here.
To win today’s prize: Give us your name and email address along with the email address of one friend you’d like to introduce…
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March 30th, 2009
When a friend's life is consumed with Christian group activity, resentment brews
Twenty minutes after our agreed upon meeting time, my best friend Andrea rushed into the coffee shop smiling and apologetic. The devil on my left shoulder won the wrestling match taking place in my conscience and I said, “I don’t think Jesus would have been late.” My tone was not joyfully sarcastic, but biting — with a clenched-teeth smile like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
It was unusual coming from me. Generally, I’m pretty maternal when it comes to my friends. (I spent the weeks before Christmas knitting hats and scarves in pink and purple while listening to hours of relationship complaints. In my Palm Pilot are individual birthday notices accompanied by a list of appropriate…
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March 30th, 2009
It isn't boring, it isn't non-Christian and you do have the time for it
 The promise of meditation is not the 20 minutes of refuge from an otherwise insane day, wonderful as that may be. The promise is to gradually cultivate a way of living that is less insane. I’ve noticed over and over: People struggling with anxiety over things they’re powerless to affect rarely have a daily prayer and meditation practice.
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March 30th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and to read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Fast from secrecy. Foster a more open relationship with someone in your life.
Pray for people who are burdened by secrets in their lives.
Give an anonymous donation to a charity and refrain from claiming it on your tax form.
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: a copy of The Sacred Art of Fasting by Fr.…
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March 29th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
Every man wants to pray the day before he dies. As he does not know when his time will come, so he must pray every day in order to be safe.— a proverb
Fast from fasting (all things in moderation.)
Pray a simple prayer of thanks for the day.
Give yourself a break.
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: a copy of the March issue of Magnificat with the Lenten Companion
To see a list of the winners so far, click here.
To win today’s prize: Give us your name and email address along with the email address of one friend you’d like to introduce to BustedHalo.com®…
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March 28th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
Is not prayer also a study of truth — a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something.— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fast from winning — an argument, your place in line.
Pray for greater humility.
Give time to help somebody in a task that you excel at.
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: a tin can of Busted Halo M&M’s
To see a list of the winners so far, click here.
To win today’s prize: Give us your name and email address along with the email address of one friend you’d like…
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March 27th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
 Considering the fact that he’s our neighbor — the Colbert Report studio is just around the corner from our offices — we thought that, as a staunch defender of our Holy Mother Church, Stephen Colbert would love it if we asked our readers as part of their Lenten spiritual discipline to FAST from ANY and ALL Stephen Colbert-related content ALL DAY on Friday March 27. In that same vein, we’re also asking readers to reflect on how blessed they are to live in the US of A (PRAYER) and to make a small donation to a non-profit that protects bears (or a charitable equivalent) (GIVE).
Fast from ANY and ALL Stephen Colbert-related content ALL DAY on Friday March 27.
Pray on how blessed…
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March 26th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.— Meister Eckhart
Fast from your routine.
Pray in a way you’re not accustomed to, e.g. the rosary, sitting meditation, etc.
Give a portion of your prayer time to somebody else’s prayer request.
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share yourstruggles at our “Slip Support Station” on Facebook.
Today’s Prize is: a copy of the March issue of Magnificat with the Lenten Companion
To see a list of the winners so far, click here.
To win today’s prize: Give us your name and email address along with the email address of one friend…
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March 25th, 2009
...so we're tossing you a little incentive to keep going
 It’s been a month since Lent started and a lot of us are struggling. So to give you a little incentive to get back on board we’re making it easier than ever to enter the drawing for our FastPrayGive Lent Incentive Grand Prize: an iPod Nano.
Up until now, to have your name entered into the drawing we’ve required that in addition to your own email, you give us the email address of a friend you’d like to introduce to BustedHalo.com. For the next week — Thursday March 26 to Thursday April 2 only — just enter your own email on the contest form in both spaces for an email address. You’re free to enter this way once per day during the next week (3/26/09-4/2/09) and your entry will count…
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March 25th, 2009
Coming Soon! Busted Halo's "The Princess, The Priest and the War for the Perfect Wedding"
From over-the-top registries to destination weddings, the American wedding industrial complex is a $161 billion consumer bonanza. But a wedding is more than just a party: It’s the beginning of a life-long marriage, an important sacrament in the Catholic Church. Brides want everything to be to their specifications — and priests bristle at being treated like hired help. Friends and family ask about color themes for the reception, and the priest plies pre-Cana compatibility quizzes. It’s a cultural war, and engaged couples are on the front lines.
What happens when the princess planning her “one perfect day” clashes with the priest who would rather preside over a dozen funerals…
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March 25th, 2009
A younger generation expresses their Jewishness in controversial ways
Evocative, disrespectful, proud, antithetic: these are just some of the words used to describe Jews with tattoos. Seth Alamar, who has 30-odd tattoos, calls most of his markings religious or “Jewish.” He has heard all the reasons why a Jew should not get tattooed — including the false myth that he would not be buried in a Jewish cemetery. But despite all the controversy surrounding ink in the Jewish faith, he did not think twice.
“The reason [I got tattoos] is not because I am not religious, it is not because I do not believe in G-d, or even because I am not a devout Jew,” Alamar said. “It is simply because it is my body and I don’t need anyone to make decisions for me.”
Alamar,…
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March 25th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving. — Franz Kafka
Fast from television and pick up a book to educate yourself.
Pray for all those who do not have access to quality education.
Give old books you’ve already read to your local library, hospitals, women’s or homeless shelters, children’s reading or afterschool programs, and senior centers. Or you can donate books to our soldiers overseas by going to booksforsoldiers.com.
Slipped up? Don’t give up. Start again and share…
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March 24th, 2009
Return to the Lent calendar.
Lent Quotable
The call to “treat all things as if they were vessels of the altar” (Rule of St. Benedict 31:10) is the call to steward the earth, to treat it reverently, to hold it in loving hands. It is the call to keep what is usable, to care for what is vulnerable, to safeguard what is fragile on this planet. It is the call to preserve the environment and to clean our houses and our streets and our woods and to stop pollution. It is the call to save the earth for our children.— Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, from Wisdom Distilled from the Daily
Fast from fuel consumption… take public transportation (or walk or bike) to work or school today — even if it’s a long…
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March 23rd, 2009
Part 1 - An interview with E. Benjamin Skinner
There are more slaves today than at any other point in human history.
— E. Benjamin Skinner, A Crime So Monstrous
In his 1999 book, Disposable People, author Kevin Bales declared there were 27 million slaves worldwide — living, breathing, feeling human beings forced to work or suffer punishment, often both.
For most of us, it’s difficult to imagine that in 2009 there are more than 27 million people, most of them women and children, being held against their will. Many are abused or carried across international borders and exploited as servants, forced prostitutes or laborers. Most of them have absolutely no knowledge or power that could have enabled them to avoid entering their slavery situation. And…
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