St. Bernadette Soubirous
The Church often reminds us of our obligations according to our state in life. A priest's or nun's duty is not the same as a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a student, an employer, or employee. But one duty in which we all share is to be holy "because my Jesus wants it."
How do we do that? It's not very complicated, but it's anything but easy. Mary showed us how in her "fiat." When she responded to the angel, she gave us the answer. "Be it done to me according to your word." The angel was the the messenger of God's will. If we want to be holy we have to do one thing -- embrace the will of God! It's better to embrace His will out of love than out of fear, but Scripture tells us that the "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." A child may behave out of fear of Daddy's anger, but it's better to behave out of love and respect. And as we mature in our faith, that hopefully becomes our default position.
My husband and I have experienced two deaths in the past eight months, an older sibling in each family. Reflecting on death and the power of prayer makes me so grateful for the Catholic Church family. Whenever I ask for prayers, dozens of you respond immediately offering Masses and rosaries and who knows what other acts of charity for the requested needs? I thank you from the bottom of my heart!
I read a post yesterday that set my teeth on edge. It was from a Catholic who had his assault rifle aimed dead center on traditional Catholics. Well, he wouldn't want to call them "traditional" Catholics because the word Catholic should stand alone -- no adjectives. We're all just plain, old Catholics.
Let us walk with Jesus like the disciples on the road to Emmaus listening and learning from Him. He has the words of eternal life.
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." Gustav Mahler
The pilgrimage by the French mothers (and grandmothers) of priests. They walked 800 miles to beg the pope for the continuation of the Traditional Latin Mass for the sake of their sons. His answer? The crushing and uncharitable Traditionis Custodes.
I've written many posts on Spy Wednesday over the years. Here are a few. Today I'll be meditating on the betrayals in my own life. My sins were among those that caused Jesus's bloody sweat. Let me put sorrow for my sins in the cup of consolation the angel brought to Him in the garden.
"As it is impossible to verbally describe the sweetness of honey to one who has never tasted honey, so the goodness of God cannot be clearly communicated by way of teaching if we ourselves are not able to penetrate into the goodness of the Lord by our own experience."
+ St. Basil the Great
What a week this is from Palm Sunday to Holy Thursday to Good Friday to Easter Sunday. We experience a range of emotions from the incredible honoring of Jesus as Christ the King by the crowds on Palm Sunday, to the Last Supper and the institution of the priesthood on Holy Thursday, to the betrayal by Judas and the evil trial by the Sanhedrin that broke every rule in the book during the passion. It's exhausting even to think about the journey including the Stations of the Cross, the last short, but agonizing, stretch to Golgotha.
There is something about the virtue of courage that calls to my heart in a way that many other virtues do not. Why is that I wonder? Is it because our modern world overflows with cowardice, that so few are willing to defend the truth? Fr. John Hardon often urged parents to raise their children to be martyrs. "You do not remain faithful to the Savior without paying for it," he once said.
I was thinking about going to see my sister for a few days. Frederick, MD is halfway on the two hour journey to her home. We've met in Frederick before and walked the Cross Creek path which is lovely and level. So I was looking at restaurants in the area where we might stop after hiking and before going back to her place.
A few years ago I read the dystopian novel, Children of Men, by P.D. James published in 1992. The topical bible describes the phrase, children of men, as:
a biblical phrase that appears in various contexts throughout the Scriptures, often used to denote humanity in general. It emphasizes the human condition, distinguishing mankind from the divine and highlighting the relationship between God and His creation.
Virginia under the Democrats is less safe, less prosperous, and less free. It didn't take long for Spanberger and company to undermine the great Commonwealth with their evil agenda. We were already purple because of Northern Virginia, Richmond, Norfolk, and the college towns. We are on the way to seriously unchangeable blue! I know several people moving out of the state since Spanberger took over. I have no doubt that many patriots will flee from the tyrants in Richmond and seek a safer harbor elsewhere just like those fleeing New York. It's funny to see Kathy Hochul begging wealthy former New York residents who fled to Florida and Texas to come back. She wants to keep fleecing them to support Democrats social programs including billions to illegals.
Every Friday my husband and I join several other members of the chapel for a holy hour for priests. It has become an essential and well-loved part of our week. We pray the rosary and then the stations of the cross. The prayers all focus on supporting our own priests and all the priests of the world in their challenging vocation. How desperately we need our priests. Without them Jesus cannot come to us here and now, really and truly present on our altars and in all the tabernacles of the world.
And the proper response is: "And the rest o' the day to yerself."
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| Will this be the only home you can afford? Move over, chickens! |
Do you think of yourself as a homeowner because you bought a house? When you first purchased a home, you probably thought, "Well, the bank and I own it until I pay off the mortgage in 20 or 30 years." Did you celebrate when you "paid it off?"
Think again. Even after you "pay off" the mortgage, you are a renter. It doesn't matter how long you've lived in your home or whether you've reached the end of the 30 year mortgage; you are a renter. The real homeowner is the government. You'll find out pretty quickly if you don't pay the PROPERTY TAXES who owns your house. The government does.
by James M. Thunder
published in The Narthex, blog of New Oxford Review, in four parts
Feb. 24, March 8, 11 and 13
Part 1: Notre Dame: The Good News & the Bad News | New Oxford Review
Folks, the good news out of Notre Dame is shockingly good. The bad news out of Notre Dame is shockingly bad. I’ll start with the bad.
On January 8, 2026, Notre Dame issued a press release announcing that a professor, Susan Ostermann, was being appointed, effective July 1, as director of the Liu Institute. Because of her public and persistent pro-abortion views, this appointment has been met with objections by:
I was talking to my sister-in-law the other day about the financial situation of our children and grandchildren. Today many families need two jobs just to survive. She described how thankful she was that she was raising her children when it was possible to be a stay-at-home mom. The reality of the problem hit home as I was reading an article in Chronicles by Ryan Neuhaus, America's Affordability Crisis. It's sad and sobering:
We have built a country in which a young person can do well in school, take on debt to get a degree, work full-time, delay gratification, even postpone marriage, and still fail to secure a middle-class life. That kind of change doesn’t just happen. It’s a reflection of how the country has been governed for decades, and the truth beneath all the charts and numbers being thrown around today is that the affordability crisis is a governing crisis: a failure to use power to deliver outcomes that make ordinary life better.
Several years ago I did a post on five R words that I kept coming across in my spiritual reading. Sometimes things that repeat become like a hymn that buries itself in your soul like a precious memory. That's the case with these R words for me. So I'm repeating the post with some changes and will be watching for these words every day when I pray the Mass.Reading the headlines these days is enough to send your blood pressure through the roof. The war in Iran is showing signs, not of de-escalation, but a strategy of horizontal escalation that gives a weaker power the ability to respond to a stronger power. [See Why Escalation Favors Iran.] Reading about it definitely gives one pause about the wisdom of starting the fight. Did we learn anything from Vietnam? And now Hezbollah has joined Iran with coordinated, simultaneous missile attacks.
I keep coming across the number 40 this Lent. Today was another reminder. It's the feast of the 40 martyrs of Sebaste. Since I hate the winter cold, this story strikes me particularly hard. I think of the poor soul who failed to persevere and died in the warm bath. Is he in an even hotter place now? It's hard to imagine that, under such torture, a person gives full consent of the will to the evil act. I'm praying for him today. I hope he is in the company of his fellow soldiers today glorifying God.
Today is the feast of St. Frances of Rome who lived during the Great Western Schism (1378-1417) when there were two competing clerics claiming to be pope. Frances was a wife and mother, married at thirteen to a good man who never tried to curb her austerities and service to the poor. She was charming and kind and well loved, especially by the poor.
One of the amazing things about St. Frances were her visions and mystical experiences. They included being escorted through hell and seeing the punishments inflicted on those who broke the commandments.
The Bible tells us that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and reading her words and the descriptions of her visions will certainly immerse you in the fear of the Lord! It's better to serve God out of great love for Him than out of fear, of course, but often that begins with recognizing his power and judgment of sin. And don't we acknowledge that when we pray the act of contrition?
Our sermon today was on the noonday devil, also called acedia or sloth. How many people have any idea what that means? I'm betting most have never even heard of "acedia" and probably think "sloth" is a synonym for laziness. But the reality is much worse.
I've had a lot of interactions with Protestants on social media over the years, anonymous Protestants usually. They often have no interest in an honest discussion about faith and the differences between Catholic belief and Protestant belief. Often they tell you what Catholics believe which is almost always wrong and, when you correct them, they just repeat their errors insisting they're right. It's actually pretty funny. They know more about what Catholics believe than a life-long Catholic does. They often aren't interested in a good-faith exchange; they just repeat their bigot points. Catholics worship Mary. The Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon and the pope is the anti-Christ. Catholics aren't allowed to read the Bible. Yadda Yadda. Many Protestants are rabidly anti-Catholic bigots who are just trolling and lobbing insults -- not exactly a model of Christian charity.
‘Terrified': Mother, daughter say man sideswiped them before 495 stabbing rampage
When one examines a crisis, it's important to know exactly what that crisis consists of. We know there's a crisis in the Church; you'd have to be brain dead not to realize something isn't right. But what is it? Is the crisis a fight over different liturgies? Is that really the central issue? Between those nostalgic for the old ways versus those progressives who want what they believe to be a more accessible church with windows open to the world? Or is it primarily about Vatican II?
The other day I wrote a post about the murder of Stephanie Minter at a bus stop in Hybla Valley, my formers neighborhood for thirty years.
When a Vicious Murder Hits Close to Home
Let's call this chapter two of the story.
I have mixed feeling about the war in Iran. On the one hand, it is terrifying to think of Iran having nuclear weapons with a naval fleet or submarines capable of delivering annihilation to any city in the United States. Europe is under particular threat which may explain the reluctance of Spain and the U.K. to get involved. Is their anti-U.S. talk designed to protect them from retaliation considering their proximity to the conflict? Somehow I doubt that carries much weight with fanatical terrorists!
Things change. I would say that old age makes one less willing to suffer fools. I've been blogging for almost twenty years and, in the beginning, I posted most comments. Ad hominem attacks galore made it past my moderation wall without censorship, especially if the one attacked was me. I'm pretty thick skinned. I was less obliging for insults against others.
"The current situation regarding the episcopal consecrations in the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has suddenly awakened the entire Church." [Source] Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Being awake is a good thing as St. Peter reminds us:
"Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour." [1 Peter 5:8]
In the Old Testament God told Gideon to dismiss any soldiers who knelt and drank directly from the stream. Those who stayed alert, awake so to speak to any advancing enemy by using their hands to bring water to their mouths, became the conquering army. [Judges 7]
Revelation has a particularly apt point:
"Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God." [Revelation 3:2]
You've probably noticed that the world is in a mess! Francis didn't need to call on Catholics to "make a mess;" the mess already existed. Can anyone deny that the secular world rivals Noah's time? Do the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah come close to the diabolical condition of the modern era? Have you read any of the Epstein files? (I don't recommend it; just know that the evil is so satanic it boggles the mind. I had to stop looking at it and pray the St. Michael prayer.)
The Left's invasion at Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday, January 18th was an act of terrorism. There have been numerous murderous church attacks in the past two years. In 2024 there were over 400 attacks, some resulting in physical death and injury. In 2025 there were nine, one foiled by church security.
In the first and second paragraph we read this:
Unfortunately, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, like so many things coming in these modernist-infected times, has been corrupted. Studying a catechism like the Catechism of the Council of Trent or the Baltimore Catechism or, in fact, Credo is more likely to build up the faith without introducing novelties that twist the truth.
Traditionally most Catholic catechisms begin with the creed. I'm on Chapter 16 "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints." With all the chaos in the Church at present, this chapter offers clear teaching on the nature of the Church, the papacy, and our obligations as Catholics. I'll quote several questions:
Pope Francis often described the Church as a "field hospital" for sick people. Thinking along those lines, I see Bishop Athanasius Schneider as a doctor who correctly diagnoses the plague invading the Church when so many "doctors" claim the patient is healthy. He brought up five wounds in his December 18th meeting with Pope Leo and described what he sees as the prescription for healing. One of those wounds dealt with the Traditional Latin Mass and the situation with the SSPX.
Hypocrisy at the Vatican? Can you believe it? Or has that become the default position of many of our spiritual fathers? I personally wonder how many of the magisterium actually believe what the Church has taught for millennia. If they do, how can they abandon it so completely that they are ready to canonize a man I can only describe as a sexual predator, Bishop Alejandro Lbaka. What else can one call a priest who cavorted nude with young men and let them touch his genitals and bring about arousal? Is he going to be the patron of all the clergy sex predators who brought such scandal on the Church? Will his canonization be used to justify nudity and sexual play as natural?
On the first and third Sunday's of the month we have catechism after Mass. It's short, only about twenty minutes, but what a grace! There is always a message that touches the heart and brings clarity to the "fog of the moment"* in which we live.
Several Sundays ago Fr. Albert, a retired Dominican in residence at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, delivered the teaching and focused on discouragement and Mary's role in protecting us based on the teachings of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Knight of the Immaculata.
This guide will help us make really valuable choices during Lent that bring us closer to Christ by the time we reach Easter. I've listened to several times and it's already helped me identify a disordered thing in my life that needs attention. Father discusses penance, mortification, and making concrete resolutions "to clean things up in the future." Those are the luggage we need to take on our Lenten journey.
"What we're after during Lent is to remove obstacles to God's grace -- to remove those obstacles from our souls and our lives."
Want the journey to Easter to be fruitful? This is a good starting point? May God pour out His grace on us that we may reach our goal and be able to say, "That was a really fruitful Lent. Thank you, Lord. Help me continue to grow closer to You during the Easter season of celebration."
Anything and everything is allowed except for the TLM pic.twitter.com/2B7OulGgj5
— T C (@TC_HELLCAT) February 16, 2026
I recently read several articles on substack defending the Novus Ordo by Msgr. Arthur Holquin, a retired priest of the Diocese of Orange in California. I don't subscribe to his account and won't. Once I realize someone isn't trustworthy, I shake the dust off my feet and move on. I left one comment and that's it. Someone else can argue with him. He writes a dissertation responding to anyone who disagrees with him and mentions over and over how educated he is.
"The faith must survive in someone!...The thing that unites us is the Catholic faith itself.....God has given us, even in the midst of this darkness, He has given us oases of light....God has not left us orphans. He has not abandoned us, Yes the shepherd has been struck with the sheep. Maybe we don't need to scatter as much as we thought. Because God has provided us faithful shepherds....So what do we do? We support them.
I'm sure many of my regular readers know I like the Epoch Times. I almost never read an issue without clipping an article to send to someone. Today it was this:
Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that occurs when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their behavior conflicts with their beliefs. This discomfort motivates people to change their beliefs, justify their actions, or avoid new information to reduce the inconsistency.
Think about that. What happens when the actions of our pope and bishops show diametrically opposed philosophies. How do you reconcile two mutually exclusive propositions? You can't! Jesus called Himself "The way, the truth and the life." Embracing truth means one has to choose. Which of two things is true, or are both untrue and is the truth elsewhere altogether.
Throughout his life, he made a rule never to advance any doctrine which he had not learnt from the ancient fathers.
Would that those bishops who love introducing novelties and errors adulterating the faith were followers of St. Cyril. And what did Archbishop Lefebvre say? Unlike our dissenting and scandalous bishops, the archbishop wanted to pass on faithfully what he had been given. I think he and St. Cyril have much in common, both Catholic in the fullest sense, both lovers and defenders of the Blessed Virgin Mary and enemies of heresy. Archbishop Lefebvre was never looking for a fight. He simply wanted to pass on the faith as he had received it, protecting Sacred Tradition:
