I love the description of Sunday as a "day of rest." It comes from Genesis. God worked for six days and then He rested giving us the example of how important it is to "keep holy the Lord's day." It belongs to Him, not to us.
This morning at Mass the image came to me from the Irish blessing.
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
Truth is one of the first casualties of a revolution. When a revolutionary wants something he knows is a lie, he very quickly finds a way to bury the truth. Study history and you'll find the lies behind every revolution. I can't count how many times I heard those going into abortion centers say, "You have your truth; I have mine." No truth exists in the revolution except what pleases the revolutionary.
Here is a sobering thought from St. Paul. Before he headed to Rome to meet his death he met with the elders at Ephesus. He told them they would never see him again and warned them of the threat that would come from within from "ravening wolves...not sparing the flock."
I thought of Archbishop Lefebvre as I read this and his Open Letter to Confused Catholics outlining the damage done by the wolves within. St. Luke blew the warning trumpet in Acts chapter 20 quoting St. Paul with whom he traveled. That warning is most appropriate today as well as we see the devastation caused by wolves in Roman collars "not sparing the flock," wolves from among "your own selves," the hierarchy:
I'm not sure what the appropriate word is for the way the Vatican is going. Puzzling, baffling, idiotic, contradictory, chaotic? Dare I say satanic? Confusion and chaos are always signs of the evil one and, as Pope Paul VI so famously said, "Satan's smoke has made its way into the temple of God through some crack." [Source]
Rome calls the SSPX rebels and the recently consecrated bishops as well as the two consecrating bishops excommunicated and schismatic. Meanwhile, the chaos and rebellion against the Vatican from within goes on unchecked and unpunished everywhere else. The Communist Chinese are allowed to appoint bishops and persecute the underground Church unopposed. Bishops in the name of synodality promote all kinds of doctrinal deviations. Freemasons rejoiced over the election of Francis and Leo walks in his footsteps. One Peter Five did a three part series titled Why Do the Freemasons Love Pope Francis? [Source] The Masons described Francis as "a radical agent of change." Interesting, eh?
So what is the appropriate word for the Vatican's response to the crisis in the Church? Do they even admit there is a crisis? Or is the crisis part of the change agents' plan with or without the deliberate cooperation of the hierarchy? They don't need to be Masons or Communists, just think like them.
So many people are gifts, some for a lifetime, some for a season. A relative once questioned my statement about being a friend to another relative whom my husband and I supported at a crucial time. She said, "You aren't friends." It was true that we hadn't had much contact for several years, but I still objected. My reply was to ask if the Good Samaritan was a friend to the wounded Jew. How much of a relationship did they have? Did the Good Samaritan ever meet the man again or had he already recovered and gone when he returned to the inn? To stand by someone in need and then lose touch altogether or even go low contact doesn't erase a time of friendship when someone may have been in great need.
In a statement released in tribute to the musician, the Grand Orient of Italy (GOI) revealed his membership in Freemasonry and, above all, the importance of the responsibilities he had held within it. Bruno Battisti D'Amario was presented as the founder of the Giuseppe Leti lodge in Rome and as the composer of the official anthem of the Grand Orient of Italy. He had also twice served as president of the Regional College of Venerable Masters of Lazio and as a councilor of the Order. [Source]
The homily at Mass this morning offered a serious challenge. Father described our greatest passion as the desire to speak. When I think of "passion" I have rarely thought about speaking with the tongue. We speak in other ways with our body, hence the term body language, but how many equate passion with speech? I daresay few.
