REALLY? This looks like a joke from the Babylon Bee website.
Jesus told the Pharisees to "render to Caesar" recognizing the legitimacy of government despite the character of its leaders. The Roman tyrant and local leaders at the time were evil, and those who followed them were even worse! Think of Nero lighting his gardens with Christians covered in pitch. In the early centuries of the Church the emperor and his minions would carry out the most barbaric persecutions imaginable.
Ukraine's Lost Neutrality - Part 2
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| Give credit where credit is due. These are the Russia-Ukrainian War enablers! |
.....check it out! I don't usually post more than once a day, but this is too good to miss. I'm posting the beginning then linking you to Mundabor's page.
....THINK AGAIN!
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| St. Augustine & St. Monica, pray for us. |
God always answers our prayers. Sometimes He says yes and sometimes He says no. God loves us so we can be sure when He says no that what we are asking for is not good for us.
When He says yes, sometimes He takes His own time. Abraham and Sarah prayed for a child. God told them, yes, not only would they have a child, but their descendants would be like the stars of the sky. But God made them wait...and wait...and wait.
Instead of trusting Him, they decided to take things into their own hands. Sarah convinced Abraham to have relations with her maid, Hagar. Ai yi yi! We all know how that ended and we're still suffering from the battle between Isaac and Ishmael today.
Maybe God delays fulfillment of His yes to help us grow in patience and perseverance. And sometimes, He rewards that patience and perseverance with an abundance we can hardly imagine. Let me share an excerpt from Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence about St. Monica and her sixteen-year prayer vigil for the conversion of her son, Augustine:
Last night I was trying to decided what to make my next bedside reading. I looked on my kindle and thought I would reread The Scarlet Letter, but after eight or ten pages of the first chapter I set it aside. Maybe another time. Then I turned to a Chesterton book on my kindle, The Crimes of England. That was a bust too. Too much concentration needed. Then I remembered that I have a book written by Stalin's daughter that I've been wanting to read. So I went over and looked for it on the biography bookshelf, but a little volume caught my eye and I pulled it out. It was a small biography of Joyce Kilmer. I opened it and began reading and was a third of the way through it before setting it down and turning off the light.  |
| Jesus before Caiphas: the Illegal Trial and Sentence |
Let's present a hypothetical trial situation. You're selected for a jury and seated. In your lap is your notebook and pen because you are determined to be a responsible citizen who listens carefully and judges fairly. (Yes, you are called to judge the facts and conclude whether the defendant is guilty or innocent.)
I've been thinking about and praying for the Red Rose Rescuers (RRR) who are in jail with draconian sentences. They were all denied the right to put on a defense of necessity that justifies breaking a minor law in order to defend life or even property. It's the reason firefighters can break down doors to enter burning buildings or a good Samaritan can trespass to rescue a child or even a pet in danger.
Evidence of damage from the COVID jabs, falsely labeled as vaccines, continues to mount. We live in a culture that hates children. The woke tyrants in power happily murder babies in the womb, mutilate gender-confused children, attack parental rights so they can control the future by brainwashing the kids. It's horrifying. And what they did during COVID was criminal. And they knew it! They ridiculed real doctors as science deniers and manipulated the public to attack those who refused the Kool-Aid. Read this from the Frontline Doctors and weep for the children and young adults who continue to die suddenly from heart-related damage inflicted on them by Fauci and his team of liars:
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I received this email today from Chris Bell in New York who has spent his life protecting little ones in the womb and offering aid and shelter to their moms. His wife, Joan Andrews Bell, is currently in jail for offering help to women at abortion killing centers. The proposal on the New York ballot is just one of many popping up across the country. Maryland's question one would enshrine abortion and other sex-related issues in the state constituttion. Abortion is on the ballot in ten states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota. Murder of the innocent is one of the sins that cries to heaven for vengeance. Fight these evil propositions if you live in these states or know someone who does.
Vote “NO” on PROPOSAL ONE
(Called the Equal Rights Amendment is anything but.)
Yesterday was my dad's birthday. He was born in 1917, the first of five children born to Raymond Michael Schneider and Marie Zurlinden Schneider in Cleveland, Ohio. His dad, my grandfather, was an organist who played in vaudeville for the silent movies and later was organist at St. James Catholic Church in Lakewood where his men and boys' choirs became well known. He taught his own children to play and Daddy played the organ later for the Catholic community at the Naval Academy when he was student there and for St. Augustine's in Elkridge, MD after he retired.
In 2009 my brother, Ray Jr. (now deceased), posted this on his blog:
Raymond John Schneider — Dad
Ray's first ship was USS DETROIT, which was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. DETROIT subsequently transported the Philippine Government's gold and silver monetary reserve, which had been removed from Corregidor by submarine, from Honolulu to San Francisco.
What's wrong with the world?
G. K. Chesterton famously responded to that question with two words.
I AM!
Sometimes when I read things that are happening in this poor country I just shake my head and lament:
What if...:
Our granddaughter married a wonderful man last Saturday. What a joyous bell-ringing celebration a wedding is! It gathered friends and family from far and wide. I saw two of my nieces for the first time in several years and had a chance to catch up since we sat at the same table.
Before we left for the wedding, I was sick, which caused us to delay our departure for a day. Happily I recovered enough to go after dosing up with Vitamins C and D and drinking a disgusting immunity tea recommended by a friend.
A discussion came up in the comment section yesterday on the Tulsi Gabbard post about whether a Catholic commits a mortal sin by voting for Trump. You can read the discussion here. It started with a priest preaching that you can never vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic moral evil. The reader who commented raised the question of whether the fact that Trump has endorsed IVF and even inserted it into the GOP platform disqualifies him from the Catholic vote. Correct me if I'm wrong, Aqua.
Hmmm...True or false?
I did not hear the sermon so I can't comment on that; I only have the reader's brief description. Did the priest explain the distinction between formal and material cooperation with evil? That's where the rubber meets the road, I think.
“Far from being prejudicial to you, your failures, insofar as they give you the opportunity of submitting to His Will, will be as it were a monument to your perseverance in God’s service, and the more numerous they have been, the more glorious will be their witness to your perseverance.”
As regular readers know, I decided to meditate on 1 Corinthians 13, St. Paul's admonition on love, until the new year of 2025 (and perhaps beyond). The focus on patience has gone on for about two weeks. I'll be working on being patient until I die, of course, but last Sunday my husband and I had to practice patience big time and we did it fairly well.
When she describes her reasons for leaving the Democrat whore-house she succinctly nailed the disaster that the party has become. Read her commentary and, if you're Catholic and Democrat, isn't it time to leave too? She doesn't mention abortion, but in 2020 when Tulsi was still a Democrat, she introduced two pro-life bills. That took courage in a party that cancels any politician who won't embrace their abortion sacrament. Let's pray that many other Democrat politicians follow her example.
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| "Rachel" Levine and Sam Brinton, are among the "ugly Americans" destroying our country. |
Have you ever read The Ugly American? You should. It details failed U.S. foreign affairs around the world due to greedy, corrupt, ignorant, and incompetent ambassadors and foreign service members. The way elitists are assigned plum roles around the world reminds me of Cromwell and his stooge, Richard Rich, in The Man for All Seasons. Some things never change. Power continues to corrupt and many are willing to sell their souls for both power and money.
And now to go on....
Check them out on Mundabor's blog. And here's one more. Pray for the happy repose of the soul of Corey Comperatore and for the comfort of his family.
A few days ago I began rereading the novel Victoria: a Novel of 4th Generation War by William Lind under the pen name Thomas Hobbes. The blurb at Amazon describes the book saying:
Victoria is more than a conventional novel and involves considerably more than mere entertainment. In much the same way Atlas Shrugged was the dramatization of a particular philosophical perspective, Victoria is the dramatization of a new form of modern war that is taking shape as the state gradually loses its four-century monopoly on violence. It is a book that informs, even teaches, through example. And sometimes, the lessons are very harsh indeed.
My husband and I spent the last six days with our youngest and her family celebrating our dual anniversaries. Larry and I chatted for the past few months about whether to do something special for our 55th. Trips have become a rare adventure for us. Driving long distances seems like too much trouble and neither of us wants to fly any more. Between the sardine can experience on the plane and the rude and crude treatment by the TSA, we'd rather go to the dentist. Our last significant trips were one for our 50th anniversary when we drove to the Great Smoky Mountains with another daughter and her husband and a trip to Sandbridge in 2021 for a beach week. In the Smokies we stayed in a charming air B and B with a Lord of the Rings theme complete with a cardboard Gandalf. Both of those trips were family events which always doubles the fun.
Today my husband and I celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary. Sad to say, one of the first things I saw this morning were excerpts from Melanie Trump’s soon-to-be-released memoir. Her position on abortion reads like a Planned Parenthood ad. It reeks of selfishness and god-like autonomy and pride. All I could think was poor, selfish, silly woman. Beauty is skin deep; what about your soul? How many of your children did you kill? When a woman is that adamantly pro-abortion, one can’t help wondering if guilt is behind it. I’ve met many women justifying their abortions with abortion advocacy. I’ll be praying for Melania’s conversion.
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| Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. |
Mary Immaculate, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the eternal Wisdom lies hidden to be adored and served by angels and men, Queen of heaven and of earth, beneath whose sway are subject all things that are lower than God, Patroness of the United States of America, sorrowful and mindful of our own sinfulness and the sins of our nation, we come to Thee, our refuge and hope.
I visited Medjugorje in the early 90s with a friend. We'd spent two weeks exploring Ireland and she wanted to make a return visit to Medjugorje. She had been practicing the Wednesday and Friday fasts and attributed her return to the faith to Medjugorje. So we joined a group of Irish pilgrims and spent the last week of our trip in the little village which was already beginning to experience a tourist boom.
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| Despite his many material heresies, the cardinal said in an interview last year that Francis has not committed formal heresy and that, even if his election was flawed, acceptance of Francis as pope has made up for it. |
There's been quite the disagreement about whether or not Pope Francis is really pope. Lots of people say he's not for varying reasons, especially the sedevacantists. Here are some of those reasons:
I just finished reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson. It’s a historical fiction about the pack horse librarians who traveled the Kentucky wilderness of Appalachia to bring reading materials to far flung often isolated patrons. It also focuses on the “blues” whose congenital blood disease turned their skin blue from lack of oxygen.
