Every now and then a theme crops up everywhere I look and demands attention. Over and over the echoes roll over me like a tidal wave: on social media, in news feeds I follow, in magazines I read, etc. Often it has a lot to do with what's happening in my life at the moment. "Pay attention!" my guardian angel reminds me, "This is important!"
Some say we face today the worst crisis the Church has ever experienced. Perhaps it's true. Horrifying things occur on an almost daily basis. Satan's influence pollutes the Church in many places. But take heart. The Church rose and grew in the midst of crises in the first century and has seen one after another ever since. Has there ever been a time of universal peace without difficulty and persecution? Church history overflows with periods of crisis.
Voris and company recently featured a Catholic World Report article by disgruntled former SSPXer Andrew Bartel. Bartel is not a canon lawyer and has pretty slim credentials to challenge a bishop with a doctorate in theology and patristics.
According to his profile on Catholic World News:
Andrew Bartel is a lay Dominican of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. He lives with his wife and their three children in Montana, where he works as a glazier. He is also pursuing a degree in English and Philosophy.
Bishop Schneider explains why we must defend the liturgy and restore the Holy Mass with its "richness." The limitations set by Pope Francis, he says, "will collapse." The Church "is in the hands of God."
Amen! I'm buying the book.
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| A picture is worth a thousand words. The fact that the smoke of Satan has entered inside her walls literally with the Satanic architecture of the papal audience hall. Satan is hardly disguised there, but raises his reptilian head for all to see. |
See Part 1
Without naming Lamennais, Pope Gregory XVI addressed his errors in the 1832 encyclical, Mirari Vos: On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism:...it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain “restoration and regeneration” for [the Church] as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed, these authors of novelties consider that a “foundation may be laid of a new human institution,” and what Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing “may become a human church.”
The pope went on to decry indifferentism which:
"All that we are going through now....shows that the good is coming....Don't take your focus off God....If you keep your focus on God you will have peace and joy despite the tumult that is worldwide."
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| Even secular voices recognize that license is accompanied by evil! |
I'm reading The Tumbler of God: Chesterton as Mystic. I've barely begun, but even in the introduction there are gems to be mined. This caught my attention this morning:
One of the tests of sanctity is said to be a contagious happiness and inner peace. Chesterton had his share of sorrows and of illness and his darker moments; but more than most people he was imbued with a kind of unpretentious beatitude that tended to convey itself to those around him. The writer Franz Kafka said of Chesterton, "He is so happy one might almost think he had discovered God." Indeed he had, and he was doing his best to live in the light of that discovery. What was his "secret"? It was to love the splendor of the real, and to live in adulthood the innocence and wonder of the child who sees everything for the first time. The Gospel tells us we must become again like little children in order to enter the kingdom. Chesterton shows us how.
Our blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline.
Or Russia taking down a drone?
Duh!
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| Offertory prayers at the Traditional Latin Mass stress the offering of Jesus Christ in atonement for sin. |
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| The fullness of the truth and the glory of God expressed in art, architecture, and music are found in the Catholic Church. She invites us to a closer union with God through the true, the good & the beautiful. |
To know and understand the world you live in serves in many ways to free one from the tyranny of confusion and chaos that swirls around us. The fact is that we live in Liberalism Land. I could call it Liberalism Loony Land for it often seems we slog through a Slough of Despond where everything is upside down, backwards, and inside out. A number of isms control the narrative today, a predominant one being liberalism, a philosophy of lunacy.
My wife is crying often. She says she thinks she could have done more.
I've got videos from about 5 years ago showing Mom's visible decline in her physical & mental state. Mom's reasoning & mental acuity declined. As time went on very bad decisions were made with her Pekingese, how when and where she would walk him. Especially when Mom would walk the dog at 6 am, with cars on the roadway and darkness all about; not the best of decisions. Mom would have obvious physical coordination problems, falling off the treadmill in the basement and never alerting us about it. I can now assume Mom knew she had problems, but was afraid of the changes we'd have her make. She'd walk up and down staircases arns full of stuff, walking like a 17-year-old with a devil-may-care attitude; knowing I'd enlighten her if I found out.
My friend sent a final post today about his mother-in-law who died Monday morning. Her journey is over as it will be for all of us. Please, in your charity, pray for the repose of her soul.
Natural immunity is best and the jab increases all cause mortality among the elderly
Dr. Fauci is a liar! He has lied right and left throughout the COVID nightmare in order to...what?
This is the 11-year-old boy and his father spoken of in my post from February 28 - Libs of TikTok creator: "This is just creepy". As the child reads the filthy smut directly from the book he checked out at his school's library followed by his father's reaction to the far left school board, ask yourself what you're doing to protect your own child from his or her school's leftist indoctrination.
Are you looking at the books your child brings home? Have you been to the school library to peruse books available to your child? Are you reading content from classroom books? Do you know what is being taught to your child?
If you have been following my friend's posts describing the journey his wife accompanying his dying mother-in-law who has dementia, the story is nearing it's end. You can read more at:
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| Father Terrence Keehan, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Inverness, Illinois, uses a guitar to give the final blessing at a Mass livestreamed on Feb. 13. (photo: Screenshot of YouTube video / Screenshot of YouTube video via CNA) |
Have you ever read the Vatican II (VII) documents on the sacraments, beginning with the Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilium (SC published December 4, 1963)? It outlined the guidelines to be followed in revising the mass. The Novus Ordo (NO) did not spring up like the Phoenix as the council ended; it was the product of a committee with its major architect Annibale Bugnini who wanted to eliminate anything that could possibly be a stumbling block to Protestants.
It's a war of propaganda and nothing in the media can be trusted. "Mainstream media is part of propaganda war... We must be skeptical of absolutely everything." (John Pilger)
My husband is from West (By God) Virginia and most of his siblings and their families still live there. Larry graduated from the University of West Virginia in Morgantown with a degree in Electronics Engineering. He had a wonderful beginning there in the mountain state and how this Navy brat enjoyed the introduction to that wonderful state!
Editor's Note: I've been following the challenge my friend is facing as he and his wife, a nurse, care at home for his wife's mom who is in her 90s, suffering from dementia, and nearing the end of her life. I read a column recently by a woman who described the different stages of dementia that challenge home care givers. Home care, she said, is "not for the faint of heart!" That is certainly obvious from my friend's emails.
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| Moral pollution of the evil empire is engulfing our beautiful country! |
I'd like to believe in "American exceptionalism" and I believe there once was a time when America could be accurately described in those terms. Unfortunately, today Reagan's famous line about the Soviet "evil empire" calling Communism "the focus of evil in the modern world" can arguably be applied to us.
"Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik blasts pornographic books in education, including an incident involving a Maine sixth grader who took a sexually explicit book home to his father." - Fox News
In this video Chaya Raicik says, "This is just creepy." An 11-year-old boy wanted to check a book out from the school library to show his father because the book had two men lying on a bed together. The school librarian asked the boy if he wanted more books on that subject and if he wanted the graphic novel version.
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| Our Lady, Health of the Sick |
Philosophy gives me a headache all right! All that talk about realism, rationalism, liberalism, modernism, Marxism, sophism, skepticism, and every other ism out there makes my head spin. I actually got an A in metaphysics in college, but don't ask me anything about it. Being and essence, mind and matter, substance and attribute.... good grief! We had to read Sartre's Nausea and it was definitely nauseating as was his entire philosophy in my opinion.
Well...you don't hear that much these days for obvious reasons, but it really came home to me with two articles I happened to read this week. One was from the October 27th issue of The Wanderer by Raymond De Souza titled When Ambiguity Holds Sway in the Church. If anything marks this pontificate, ambiguity takes the premier position. And that reminds me of a comedy routine by Emo Philips when he ends a joke saying, "Ambiguity... the devil's volleyball."
Mom is dying in phases.
Not eating much just a little bit of a Snack Pack of chocolate pudding and a few ounces of oatmeal with apple sauce and milk to thin it out.
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| From the 1978 movie, Coma, based on Robin Cook's 1977 novel of the same name. |
Get ready for a real life horror story.
But first, let me say that anyone who's not sleeping at the switch knows that euthanasia and assisted suicide are expanding at an alarming rate. Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium have been murder capitols for years and now Canada has joined the killing spree and is considering taking it a step further - to kill "mature minors" without parental consent. (One presumes the parents will be called after death to remove the body and pay for the funeral.)
The sermon this morning was all about charity based on the Epistle, 1 Corinthians 13. Charity/love doesn't reside in the emotions, but is an act of the will and first involves our call to union with the source of all charity, God. Scripture tells us that God Himself is Charity/Love.
"God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him."
So the virtue of charity calls us to know God better, to embrace His will and to love others for the sake of God who created them in His own image and likeness. We can only grow in that virtue by knowing God better through reading scripture, adding good spiritual reading, and prayer. Our Lady who practiced charity better than any other person who ever lived, except for her Son, can teach us if we draw closer to her. "Am I not here and am I not your mother?" she said to Juan Diego.
Every one of us, if we are blessed with a faith-filled mother, learn our prayers on her lap and at her knee. She holds our hands together and teaches us the sign of the cross. "Lord, be in my mind, be in my heart, and give me strong shoulders to carry the cross." What a blessing! But even those who never had that blessing have our holy mother to teach us now.
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| Who are you aiming your slings and arrows at? |
It seems today that Catholics spend more time fighting with each other than fighting our common enemy, the devil. Novus Ordo true believers shoot arrows at the wicked "rad trads." The sedevantists (who have grown since Benedict died to include all the "Benedict is my pope" people) tell the rest of us there's no pope and it's obvious so why can't we see it? And then there are the multiple attacks on those "SSPX schismatics" who cause so much division. "Go away, we don't need you here!"
"Pain and suffering are always inevitable to a large intelligence and a deep heart."
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| "A new day with no mistakes in it....yet." Miss Stacey to Ann Shirley |
I'm going to see my spiritual director today, so I'm thinking about my recent challenges and how to face them.
First of all, I want to love God with my whole heart, mind, will, and strength. That's primary and it really sums up everything. What can I do this Lent to cooperate better with God's grace?
"On at least five occasions, Cardinal Burke has rejected the magisterial nature of official papal teaching (in one case, pre-emptively dismissing a hypothetical official teaching of the Magisterium)." Since this is what the SSPX also does, why does he believe they are "in schism" for holding the same positions as he does? That's a head scratcher!
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| St. Cyril of Alexandria |
St. Cyril has been called the Doctor of the Incarnation, as St. Augustine was styled the Doctor of Divine Grace: in the great intercession of the Syrian and Maronite Mass he is commemorated as "a tower of truth and interpreter of the Word of God made flesh." Throughout his life he made it a rule never to advance any doctrine which he had not learnt from the ancient fathers."
This reminded me of Archbishop Lefebvre's determination to pass on what he had received, the faith as taught by the Apostles and Fathers of the Church. Would the Fathers of the Church even recognize the faith as presented in Amoris Laetititia, Traditionis Custodes, and the synodal process?
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Is making a sponsorship to an SSPX church a sin, if one doesn’t support being in Schism. I have a deep love for Our Lady of Guadalupe for example and would like to support the side altar in her honor.
I assume that the SSPX chapel has a plan to create or renovate a side altar and a collection is being taken up.
A couple things.
First, we cannot accept the premise. The SSPX, the claims of dilettantes notwithstanding, is not in schism. When proper authority issues a proper decree properly composed and promulgated, we can review this. Until then, charity dictates that people should back off and attend to their own affairs. [Read the rest at Fr. Z's blog.]
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| Chandelier from Phantom of the Opera |
I'm having a Monday morning meltdown! Not that I'm upset, I'm just feeling a little all over the place. Yesterday my daughter reminded me of a trip we took to the Kennedy Center for her 24th birthday to see Phantom of the Opera.
One Problem!
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| Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine, La Crosse, WI |
I respect Cardinal Raymond Burke and have a number of his books in my library. His writings have helped me in my formation as a Catholic. My husband and I visited the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse on one of our cross country camping trips. What a delightful experience! And how grateful I am to Cardinal Burke for its creation. But building a beautiful shrine honoring Our Lady and writing some great books, doesn't make one infallible. Even Peter is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra or speaks in union with the magisterium, not just the current magisterium either. He and they may not "make a mess" with the immutable Doctrine and Sacred Tradition of the Holy Roman Catholic Church passed on from the apostles. Novelties that conflict with Doctrine and Sacred Tradition are anathema!
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| Check out Susan's article, Once Upon a Time in Detroit! |
Yesterday was the feast of the great bishop/martyr of Antioch, St. Ignatius. Do you know him? Every Catholic should. When we intercede for our bishops, St. Ignatius must immediately come to mind. What if every one of our bishops embraced his example. What a difference we would see in the Catholic Church!
Mundabor's blog pointed me to an article at Gloria TV this morning quoting Cardinal Roche, 
Cardinal Arthur Roche
head of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. Roche laments those pesky bloggers, "keyboard warriors" he calls us, who defend the traditional Latin Mass and are having an effect on seminarians and others.
What a compliment!
What defender of the Mass of the Ages wouldn't thrill at Roche's words!
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| Meanwhile we throw tanks and buckets of taxpayers' money at Ukraine! |
The father of seven is being persecuted by an out-of-control government that targets pro-lifers as domestic terrorists. That this ever went to trial shows how evil and unbalanced our law enforcement is today. If you're an Antifa terrorist, you can loot, burn and kill with impunity. If you're a pro-life sidewalk counselor offering help to women to save their little ones, you can expect to have your house raided by armed brown shirts with rifles at the ready terrorizing your children.
Let us spend the weekend in prayer and sacrifice for this family! I'm sending my guardian angel to pray with the angels of all the jurors, the judge, and Mark's family. And may their patron saints also be interceding. Read the article for the background and then pray like you are in the dock!
Loving God is the most important business of our lives....The truly practical Catholic, the Catholic who takes seriously his vocation to love God, will try to make spiritual reading a regular part of his weekly, if not daily, program.
And so, every day I read Scripture, or an entry in the Lives of the Saints, or a chapter in the Imitation of Christ, etc. At present I'm reading the life and ministry of Christ in chronological order in scripture. It puts things in perspective. What happened first? What did Jesus do right after His Baptism and temptation in the desert? I never thought about a lot of it before. His meeting with the woman at the well, for example happened very early in His ministry, so did the nighttime visit of Nicodemus. How does that impact my understanding of Jesus and His ministry?
"During my three and a half years at PFL, I counseled a woman who endured harassment from Frank Pavone and eventually left PFL employment over his inappropriate behaviors.
"PFL did not have a human resource department providing recourse to aggrieved employees, nor a safe, independent and confidential harassment committee... Having a general awareness of other victims over the years besides the woman I counseled, I resigned after the board, at my insistence, finally instituted an independent and confidential employee harassment committee to protect all employed at PFL against any future inappropriate behaviors."
