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Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Gospel

Jn 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Laz′arus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, “Our friend Laz′arus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Laz′arus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Now when Jesus came, he found that Laz′arus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary sat in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying quietly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. I knew that thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Laz′arus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.

Readings are from Dynamic Catholic’s New Testament Bible: RSV Catholic Edition

Epoch Times on Tariffs

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

WASHINGTON—As part of a bold shift in U.S. trade policy, President Donald Trump has ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods, aiming to revive domestic manufacturing and hold Beijing accountable for its decades of market-distorting practices. 
At the April 2 “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the White House Rose Garden, Trump unveiled the contours of his global tariff plans, including a 34 percent reciprocal levy on Beijing. The president pointed to China’s currency manipulation and other non-monetary trade barriers. 
This decision effectively raised the total new tariffs on China to 54 percent, including the 20 percent levies previously imposed to pressure Beijing into reducing the flow of fentanyl into the United States. 
This move will impact the approximately $600 billion in annual trade and bring tariffs on nearly all Chinese goods close to the 60 percent rate Trump had previously promised during his campaign. 
Trump believes that the United States holds leverage over other nations, including China, due to its status as the world’s largest and wealthiest consumer market. 
“Foreign nations will finally be asked to pay for the privilege of access to our market, the biggest market in the world,” Trump said during his Rose Garden speech. 
China quickly hit back, announcing that, starting April 10, it would impose 34 percent tariffs on imports of all U.S. goods. This move was part of a broader set of retaliatory actions, including tightening export controls on various rare earth elements and adding U.S. companies to the government’s “unreliable entities list.” 
Beijing also filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO), following through on a threat earlier this week. 
Trump pushed back at the Chinese regime after announcing its retaliatory response. 
“China played it wrong, they panicked—the one thing they cannot afford to do,” the president said in a post on social media platform Truth Social. 
Trade Distorting Practices
Despite joining the WTO in 2001, China did not evolve into the fully-fledged market economy that the United States had anticipated. 
China’s economic growth has accelerated dramatically since the country joined the WTO. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s trade-distorting practices, such as intellectual property theft, massive state subsidies, currency manipulation, wage suppression, and labor rights violations, have led to the closure of many U.S. manufacturers and the loss of millions of U.S. jobs. 
There is a bipartisan view in Washington on the need to address China’s market-distorting practices. 
Before the November election last year, President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, defended tariffs against China. 
“Previous efforts to build a China policy on changing China have not succeeded,” Sullivan said on Oct. 24. 
As a result, he argued, the United States must adopt a new set of strategies based on the current geopolitical and economic realities. 
During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods in response to various unfair trade practices, including intellectual property theft. 
The Biden administration chose to maintain those tariffs and even announced additional tariffs on products such as electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, medical equipment, lithium-ion batteries, steel, and aluminum. 
Both administrations have used tariffs to level the playing field for domestic manufacturers and protect American workers. 
However, Trump’s latest move represents an even bolder step in attempting to contain China and hold it accountable for its longstanding trade-distorting practices. 
Nick Iacovella, executive vice president for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, an organization that represents domestic producers and workers, said that these tariffs will address the decades of deindustrialization in the United States. 
“It is incredibly important that those tariffs actually stay in place,” he told The Epoch Times. 
For decades, there has been a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, Iacovella added, commenting on the market reaction. 
“When automakers moved their jobs to Mexico, their stock prices went up, but car prices didn’t decrease for American consumers,” he said. 
Adam Savit, China policy director at America First Policy Institute, argues that China has less leverage, despite Beijing’s retaliatory actions. 
“The U.S. has much less exports to China than China exports to the United States. So inherently, they’re at a disadvantage,” he told The Epoch Times. 
​​He stated that charging 54 percent tariffs on Chinese goods is an appropriate response to an adversary, and it will help in the strategic decoupling from China. 
Bargaining Chip 
On April 4, Trump extended the deadline for TikTok to divest from its Beijing-based parent company by 75 days. 
The president made the announcement in a post on Truth Social, just ahead of the original April 5 deadline. 
Trump stated that he would continue working in “good faith” with China. Previously, he suggested that tariffs could be used as a bargaining chip to pressure China into approving the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations from ByteDance, which several U.S. officials have warned has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. 
“You have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say: ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’” Trump said on April 3. “We could use tariffs in order to get something in return.” 
Nathan Worcester, Jacob Burg, Terri Wu, and Andrew Moran contributed. 
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