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Thursday, February 29, 2024

Is there no limit on the injustice bishops are willing to inflict on faithful Catholics?

San Antonio archbishop cancels Catholic family business

The video contains shocking stories. If you watch only one part, look at the treatment of Deacon Gene and his wife beginning around minute 35. It's horrifying what they were put through. Money was apparently more important to the diocese than protecting a victim of sexual harassment. So much for all the lip service!

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Bergoglio Is the New Muhammad

IMPOSTURE
Definition: act or an instance of deceiving others, especially by assuming a false identity 
Similar: pretense, deceit, deception, hoax, trick, ruse, fraud, trickery, artifice, false

Jorge Bergoglio, posturing as the Vicar of Christ, is fast inventing a new religion from the remains of the Catholic Church that he's currently deliberately destroying. Using the Seven Marks of Imposture we see that Bergoglio fits the description of an impostor, picking up pieces of Catholicism here and there and changing them into something else entirely, exactly as his predecessor Muhammad did 1400 years ago. Muhammad was not stopped then, and so far no one has stopped Bergoglio now.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

When Doctrine and Scripture are Stumbling Blocks -- Ask for Understanding!

Expulsion of Adam and Eve by Benjamin West circa 1800

I've mentioned before that Larry and I are studying Bishop Schneider's Credo, the Compendium of the Faith for Lent. The other evening we came across a teaching that was one of those difficult ones. It was in Part 1, Chapter 6 #224-226:

#224 -- Is the dignity of the human person rooted in his creation in God's image and likeness?

This was true for Adam, but with original sin the human person lost this resemblance and dignity in the eyes of God. He recovers this dignity through baptism, and keeps it as long as he does not sin mortally.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

What are you reading for Lent?

Prayer and study are an important element of the Catholic life, especially during the season of Lent when we are invited to grow closer to the Lord. Since "ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ" obviously it's important to read the Bible. I usually focus on the four passion narratives during Lent and always read Pierre Barbet's meditation from Doctor at Calvary on Good Friday. You can read it free online. 

Monday, February 19, 2024

Do You Want to be Happy for the Rest of Your Life? There's a Way!

Owen Francis Dudley
I've been re-reading Owen Francis Dudley's series on the Masterful Monk which is recommended by Fr. John Hardon in his Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan. Dudley was an Anglican priest who converted to the Catholic Church in 1915 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1917. Like Anselm Thornton, who became the Masterful Monk of the series, but was a doctor, he served in the British Army (as a chaplain) during World War I and, again like Thornton, was wounded. 

Dudley's series addresses the problem of human happiness. It explores the meaning of suffering and exposes the moral quandary after the war when many rejected the belief that a good God could allow the horrors of trench warfare, poisoned gas, etc. that marked that horrible waste of human life.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Thinking about penance and almsgiving! Charity is better than giving up chocolate!

Meet Fifi LaFoo!
This Lent I'm thinking about penance and almsgiving in a new way. After a homily last Sunday about the Lent's focus being about charity not suffering, I've decided to do penance and almsgiving a little differently. I will still be avoiding sweets and between meal snacks (I'm not much of a snacker anyway.), but I will focus on acts of charity. Sometimes those are harder than skipping the glass of wine or the chocolate bar. And giving up your time to serve someone difficult can certainly be a penance.

Almsgiving is taking on a different look too. Mother Teresa used to talk about the loneliness of many souls and their need for love. I've mentioned my sister, Jeanne, before who is in deteriorating health in a nursing home in Frederick, MD. It's a round trip of over three hours to travel from the Valley for a visit. And I confess, I'm not one of those folks who loves to hop in the car and take a drive. Nevertheless, my husband and I have embraced that trip for Lent increasing our visits from about once a month to once a week instead. We pray several rosaries which makes the trip fulfill all three Lenten practices. It's not an easy visit since my sister is depressed and often hostile and angry. It shows in her treatment of both family and staff. And I confess that I have often let Jeanne's mood and ill treatment infect me with resentment and impatience. Mea culpa. That's when I need to remember that feelings need to be under the control of the intellect and the will, something with which I've struggled all my life.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

This Land is Your Land! Pray for her and your local community!

Woodstock, VA historic courthouse

Does it make you angry to see the evil global elitists doing everything they can to destroy not only our country, but all the sovereign nations of the world? Love of your homeland is a virtue.  According to St. Thomas Aquinas it is man's nature to be  a “civic and social animal.” (ST, I-II, 72.4) Society begins in the family, the basic building block of every community. If the family is moral and strong, a nation will be moral and strong. That's why communist philosophy always strikes at the family. Orwell showed that masterfully in 1984 where children were encouraged to spy on their parents and report them for violations against Big Brother. 

Sunday, February 11, 2024

How to Teach a Student to be a Critical Thinker!

We would all do well to imitate the calm demeanor and calm questioning of this professor. He is obviously a student of Socratic and his method. Kudos to him and what a blessing that he is so young. It gives me hope for the future. There are actually some sensible teachers out there.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

The Spoonful of Poison in Fiducia Supplicans

Don't worry, your holiness, no one will notice
the spoonful of poison in the document. I was careful.

A number of people are claiming that Fiducia Supplicans (FS) is completely orthodox and there's no problem with it -- at all. And I agree that the document was written to carefully disguise the spoonful of poison it contains. Let's face it, that's how the devil often works. He doesn't mind orthodoxy one bit as long as he can insert the tiny deadly morsel. And Francis is absolutely excellent at doing it with the help of his cronies in the curia. The document reminds me of the death scene in I Claudius when a single poisoned mushroom is in the dish. A little poison can be very effective as FS is illustrating already.

Friday, February 9, 2024

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Happy Happy Church! 
(Trains in the Sky)

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a British author made famous in the modern era from the Peanuts cartoon character, Snoopy, and his eternal quest to write a book beginning with Bulwer-Lytton’s classic opening, “It was a dark and stormy night.” 

"The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually since 1982, claims to seek the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels - that is, one which is deliberately bad."

Below are a few bad first sentences from books in the religion category.

PAPAL AUDIENCE SERIES: "Planes and Trains and Acrobats" - Riding his magic carpet made of steel across the Vatican sky over St Peter's (because he no longer trusted Boeing 747's Shepherd One) the pope, in his best Arlo Guthrie impersonation, sang, "Good morning, TLM Catholics, how are ya?" then in a sinister voice said, "Have you not heard the news that before the day is done, one more feckless rigid doctrine will have faded like a bad dream into the disappearing Catholic Church?" but suddenly his train fell from the sky crashing into Santa Marta where the numerous scantily-clad Vatican acrobats were housed.

Thursday, February 8, 2024

What Are You Reading?


Have you ever heard the expression, "You are what you eat?" That may be true physically, but there's a more important reality about man than his physical body -- his soul. And I think a more real expression is, "You are what you read." 

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Time to Think about Making Praying Arms for Lent

I love spending time with my grandkids. Two of the local grandsons decided awhile back that they want to do "cooking day" with Grandma every week. So for the past month or so we meet weekly to learn cooking skills and enjoy the results. One of the big benefits is that it gets them away from the computer games. They bring their Ipads to do math tutoring with their grandfather (They're home schooled), but that's it. Bike riding, board and card games, and cooking are the fun for the day. They are becoming quite the little chefs.

Monday, February 5, 2024

The Time Has Come...

...to take down the Christmas tree. I feel like singing this song skipping the part about times of being sad. Not a single one of those -- except a little nostalgia over the past remembering friends and family who are gone now. So many wonderful Christmases from my childhood going out with Daddy on Christmas eve to buy the tree and coming home to decorate it. Going to Midnight Mass with my family and coming home to open our stockings before we went to bed. Getting up on Christmas morning to the profusion of packages. (Gifts for parents and ten children make quite a pile!)


Saturday, February 3, 2024

Will the Pope Listen? Stop Laughing!

We're in a mess and the bishops don't seem too eager to help get us out of it. Where are the U.S. bishops? Why isn't a single bishop on this list?

Priests and scholars call for withdrawal of Fiducia Supplicans.

Friday, February 2, 2024

Good News: EARLY SPRING from Weather Expert Phil!

Punxsutawney Phil Predicts Early Spring at Groundhog Day Festivities

Can We Know the Immortality of the Human Soul by Natural Reason?


For Lent, Larry and I are reading Bishop Schneider's Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith. Since Septuagesima Sunday is the beginning of Lenten preparation, we began last Sunday with the Preface, Introduction, and the beginning of Part I on Faith. Today we were discussing some of the questions and one presented a bit of a challenge. Part 1 #8 asks, "What are the truths of the natural order?" The answer: "Truths that human reason can discover and demonstrate without the help of 'grace, e.g., the existence of God, His providence, and the immortality of the soul."

Thursday, February 1, 2024

How Would You Live This Day if You Knew It Was Your Last?


I get a daily meditation in my inbox. Today's was on death. Depressing thought, eh? But a necessary one! St. Robert Bellarmine used to tell his priests they should preach on death once a month. Some of the saints thought about their death every day. One saint (Can't remember who at present.) would imagine himself in hell when he examined his conscience and would ask himself what he did that day to earn eternal damnation. Pondering on death is a powerful medicine. I think one of my Lenten resolutions will be to imitate the saint and examine my day in the light of death. We're all going to die. It would be good if we are well-prepared and ready when the unforseen moment arrives. As Fr. Buckley always told us on retreat: "Death is certain; the hour of death is uncertain."