Sunday Meditation: Got Gratitude?

This morning at the chapel we celebrated yesterday's Marian feast for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What a debt of gratitude we owe to the mother of God for her fiat. Take her hand and she will lead you straight to Jesus! 

Frankly I can never understand the Protestant contempt for Mary. Do Protestants love their own mothers? How can they when they expect Jesus to see His mother as a rival? She isn't and never has been. She loves Jesus more completely than any other human who has ever lived or will live. 

In What State Do You Live?

There's a story about a little boy who goes to his dad and asks, "Daddy, where do we come from?" Dad takes a deep breath and begins to give the birds and the bees explanation. He pauses and, looking puzzled, little Johnny asks, "My friend Pete says they come from Ohio. Where do we come from?"

It's a good question? Where do we come from and what state do we live in? And the follow up question is obviously, where are we going?

My readers come from all over the map according to Google. Some come from my home state, Virginia. Others come from just about every other state in the country. Readers come from other countries and continents as well. I welcome them all as we explore life from a Catholic point of view.

The Lies Parents Tell

Parents want to rear their children to be truth-tellers. At least they should. But many parents today lie regularly to their children. Why? Mostly out of human respect. I’ll give an example from my own experience. 

The Catholic Clowns' Three Ring Circus

There seem to be a lot of circus acts in the Church these days. My dad would be shaking his head and talking about the clowns, especially those in Roman collars. We certainly see them on a daily basis. Some clown around during the Mass dressing up as Barney or blessing the congregation with a guitar or singing silly songs (like Larry from Veggie Tales) or warming up the congregational audience before every homily with a joke.

What Women Have Lost! And Men Too.

So much has been lost in the Church and in our culture, much of it since Vatican II. The sixties was a particularly disastrous decade both within and outside the Church. The sexual revolution with the invention of "the pill" made eliminating babies as easy as popping a pill every day - at least when it worked as it was meant to work. Originally intended for married couples, its use quickly devolved into recreational sex and one night stands: no responsibility, no complications, no babies. 

And the Church was silent. It was about fifteen years after Humanae Vitae, the encyclical that condemned contraception that I first heard a sermon on the papal document. I went out of church and congratulated and thanked the priest. Today, polls show that most Catholic women, about 87%, use a form of artificial birth control to avoid pregnancy.

Bishop Schneider Makes First Statement Following SSPX Consecrations

This bishop speaks with a clear voice and what he has to say should give all those saying the SSPX acts like Protestants pause. The real Protestants promote the synodal church, disregarding dozens of popes who spoke with clear voices. They have traded those popes for those who speak off the cuff on airplanes and other miscellaneous locations causing serious confusion among the faithful

Here's the statement of Bishop Athanasius Schneider who is well named. Thanks to Diane Montagna for posting it on her substack:

The Dilemma Between Preserving the Unambiguous Integrity of the Catholic Faith and Being Canonically Recognized by the Pope

by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Capital Punishment for the Guilty vs. Compulsory Abortion for the Innocent

I've spent most of my adult life fighting for the little ones in the womb waiting to be born. For many infants, it's the most dangerous place in the world. That was recently emphasized by the attempt of a couple to force the surrogate mother carrying "their" baby to undergo abortion because the little one had a curable heart problem. She refused and fled from the biological parents who live in the death state of California to Texas where the little one could be treated after birth.

Sunday Meditation: A Day of Rest

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. 

Hail Holy Queen! Happy Feast Day to our Blessed Mother.

The chapel was full this morning to celebrate Our Lady's feast day. How many stayed home today because the USCCB with the approval of the Vatican eliminated the obligation when the feast falls on Saturday or Monday? Probably most. How gratifying to see so many Catholics attend Mass willingly without obligation for the simple love of the Blessed Mother.

Revolutionaries Always Massacre the Truth First!

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.