Sunday Meditation: Are Catholics Masochists?

Are Catholics masochists who turn every landscape into a dystopian city of suffering? What do you think?

In his homily this morning, Father mentioned reading an article by a psychologist who stated that Catholics worship pain and suffering. His evidence? Our churches have a bloodied crucified man at the center, many of our saints suffered gruesome martyrdoms, we offer a Mass with the unbloody sacrifice of the slain Lamb of God, etc. And, of course, there's the guilt factor. Father didn't mention that, but it's part of the picture painted by disbelieving psychologists. The Church lays a guilt trip on their followers who need to spend significant time (and money) de-compressing with a professional who will relieve them of their guilt. All those poor Catholics who wear a metaphorical hair shirt, if not a real one, are paralyzed by unending guilt that needs to be eliminated by drugs or talk therapy. Hmmm.

Sunday Meditation: Honor or Dishonor? Palm Sunday and Good Friday!

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.

Sunday Meditation: Is the SSPX Today's Ark?

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.)

Sunday Meditation a Day Early: When God Sends you three feet of snow.....

We all know the saying, "When life gives you lemons make lemonade." Well...two students at Notre Dame decided that three feet of snow from the heavens was an invitation. They accepted and created something beautiful for God, an ice chapel. 

Sunday Meditation: Make the Rosary Your Go To Devotion to Grow in Holiness

After the Mass, there is no greater devotion than the holy rosary. If you aren't praying it every day, you are depriving yourself of one of the greatest aids to lead us to heaven.

Sunday Meditation: "Wickedness in the High Places"

I came across the phrase "wickedness in the high places" this morning while I was reading the meditation for the day in Benedictus. We're certainly seeing plenty of that these days. Earlier this week I blogged about the queer Mass in Germany aired on the diocesan website. The "presider" priest may not occupy a high place in the diocese, but his bishop does. And that Mass was, indeed, wicked and scandalous. 

Sunday Meditation: Meet Your Guardian Angel in Silence

One of my favorite spiritual masters is St. Alphonsus Liguori. What a body of wisdom he left us. Today I want to share his thoughts about our "Noisy World" from Love God and Do What You Please.

To such as these [those attached to worldly things] the Lord does not even speak; He sees it would be a waste of time. That is what He said one day to St. Teresa: "There are many to whom I long to speak, but the world makes such a noise in their ears that they cannot hear Me. If they would only detach themselves a little from the world!"

Even after over a decade of attending silent Ignatian retreats, I still have a long list of things to which I know I'm overly attached. Detachment is a lifetime struggle, but if we don't detach ourselves from creatures we can never fully belong to the God Who loves us so much and longs for our whole-hearted love in return. One of the greatest helps in the struggle is your guardian angel. 

St. Alphonsus continues:

Sunday Meditation: The Frustration of Lost Items

Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. My plan was to spend the day re-reading Louis de Wohl's wonderful historical novel, St. Helena and the True Cross. Only one problem. I can't find it. The shelf with Mary Windeatt's saint novels is where it should be, but it isn't. I remember reading it a few years ago so I know I own the book, but where did I put it?

I looked through my alphabetically arranged lives of the saints and it isn't there. Then I went upstairs where I have two shelves of biographies and it wasn't there either. So instead of spending the day following my intended pursuit, I will read the entry on St. Helena in Butler's Lives of the Saints and offer up my frustration for the poor souls in Purgatory. 

Sunday Meditation: Don't Let the Priest Pirates Steal the Treasures of the Church!

Pirate in priest's clothing.

Today at our SSPX chapel in Linden, VA we celebrated the Feast of St. Pius X from September 3rd in the traditional calendar. As patron saint of the Society, that was appropriate. St. Pius X certainly represents a man for our season in the Church when modernism has perverted so many Catholics and is bringing many to the brink of hell.

In his encyclical Pascendi, Pius X called modernism the "synthesis of all heresies." Compared to the numerous documents by Francis he was concise, describing modernism and its errors in only 57 paragraphs. Compare that to the long-winded documents by Francis filled with ambiguity, confusion, and error: Amoris Laetitia -- 325, Laudato si -- 246, Fratelli Tutti -- 287, Querida Amazonia -- 111,  Christus Vivit -- 299, etc. 

Sunday Meditation: Another Vatican Scandal -- Welcoming LGBT Pilgrimages for Jubilee Year

Vatican Officially Recognizes LGBT+ Pilgrimages for Jubilee Year

Not again! More hopes dashed to the ground. One hoped when Robert Prevost  XIV stepped out on the balcony of St. Peters as Pope Leo that we would experience a sea change in papal leadership. Yes, we knew he was a close protege of Francis, but hope springs eternal as they say. Many were optimistic because of the traditional vestments and change in tone. The prudent waited, giving Pope Leo the benefit of the doubt and praying. Yes praying for renewal of the Church and a return to sanity. 

Sunday Meditation: Love is not rude!

Regular readers know that I like the Epoch Times -- a lot! The June 17-24 issue had a great article on The Steep Price of Declining Civility. I think most would agree that we see that almost every day, the behavior on social media being a good example. Rudeness is just the tip of the iceberg, though. The riots in our cities, school shootings, assassinations of political figures -- they all show the "steep price" of a culture entering chaos!

Sunday Meditation: To be united to Christ means union with the Cross.

Mary Magdalene
embracing the cross.

Regular readers of the blog know how much I like the Benedictus prayer companion. I usually do the daily devotions including the meditation. Yesterday's entry was on the Mystery of Failure by Dom Benedict Baur from Light of the World. What a reminder that to be truly united to Christ means to be united to the cross. Suffering is not a curse, but a true sharing in the life of Christ. And, since suffering is unavoidable, why not make the best of it and allow the Lord to draw us close to Himself. This meditation truly called to me to change my attitude toward any suffering -- the big ones and the petty annoyances. Help me, Lord, to embrace all of them cheerfully! 

How great are the trials that beset the Christian, from the cradle to the gave! Sometimes those who are least deserving of pain suffer the most.  Te nearer they approach God, the more thoroughly they are purified by the fire of suffering. The more earnestly they strive to serve God, the more they are misunderstood, despised, repudiated, and persecuted by the world.  Sometimes they receive like treatment even from their friends."Because...I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19). Even those who are nearest to us and whom we justly hold in high esteem desert us. Even those in whom we trusted consider themselves justified in deserting d rejecting us. These sufferings are certainly the deepest and most bitter.

Sometimes God Himself seems to have taken the side of our enemies.

Sunday Meditation: Of the Three Little Pigs, Parenthood, and Preparing for Death

When our children were young we had a car with no radio. So we entertained the kids by telling stories. Larry told fairy tales and I told Bible stories. A favorite from Daddy was The Three Little Pigs. Mom and Dad filled up their napsacks with all kinds of goodies and sent them off to make their way in the world,  build their own houses, and outsmart wolves.

Sunday Meditation: Baking Bread and Reflecting on the Bread of Life

One of my sisters (I have five) has sourdough mania. (That's actually the name of a book.) She came for a visit and brought us a loaf of her sourdough bread, which we enjoyed - delicious and beautiful. She experiments with making all kinds of recipes with both the sourdough starter and the sourdough discard.

If you are like me, you never heard of sourdough discard and perhaps have never experimented with making sourdough bread, so let me explain. When you first make the starter, you simply combine unbleached flour and filtered water in equal parts. You add the same amount every twelve hours for seven days leaving the mixture covered with a napkin or towel in a warm place. (I put it in the oven with the light on.) Each time you add the flour and water, you mix vigorously to add air. The starter picks up natural yeast from the air and ferments. On day seven your starter should be bubbly, doubled in bulk, with a sour smell. You "discard" all but half a cup and continue adding more flour and water once a day.

Sunday Meditation: Come Holy Ghost, Fill the Hearts of the Cardinals

Some Catholics erroneously believe that the Holy Ghost chooses the pope. If that were true, one would have to wonder how competent He is in view of the number of corrupt, licentious and just plain bad popes that have filled the chair of Peter over the centuries. NO! The cardinals don't lose their free well when the doors of the conclave are locked. And anyone with open eyes saw the machinations behind the election of Jorge Bergoglio. The St. Gallen Mafia certainly didn't gather to pray the novena to the Holy Ghost for the next pope. They gathered as liberal church politicians intent on electing their man to turn the Catholic faith into one more modernist Protestant sect.

Sunday Meditation: To Whom Are You Listening?

Remember the old Disney cartoons showing Pluto with an angel whispering in one ear and a devil in the other. That's not too far off. Our guardian angel is always with us trying to give us good advice. But do we listen? Or are we so enamored by the noise of the world that we can't hear his voice, especially when the devil is booming in our other ear.

But it's not only our guardian angel who's trying to communicate with us. Good and holy shepherds also compete with the world, the flesh, and the devil for our attention. C.S. Lewis offered a masterful description of the devil's tactics in his Screwtape Letters. It's wise to know the enemy and how he works on you. One of his most powerful weapons is discouragement. You know, that little nagging maggot that runs an endless loop of negative messages:

Sunday Meditation: Wild Winds Today. Does that make you think of the Holy Spirit?

We are under a wind advisory with a tornado watch. Our situation down in a little dip makes the likelihood of a tornado touchdown at Camp Kreitzer pretty remote. But the wild wind is dropping branches and pinecones everywhere. Since I just spent several hours cleaning them up on Friday with two little brownies helping, I'm rolling my eyes. 

Unending tasks, like weeding and yard cleanup, always make me think of the perennial fight against my faults. No matter how much I work on them, they never seem to be eradicated completely. 

Sunday Meditation: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself! Do You Keep a Record of Your Past Wrongs?

At Mass this morning I was thinking about 1 Corinthians 13. One of St. Paul's admonitions about love emphasizes that it doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Obviously, if we keep a record of wrongs about our neighbors, we are likely to build walls against them and even stud the walls with the barbed wire of grudges and desire for revenge. To not keep a record of wrongs, we need to foster the virtue of forgiveness.

Sunday Meditation: The Purpose of Literature is to Please and Instruct

Philosopher Peter Kreeft, a man on a mission -- to teach the truth!

I'm always a little puzzled by those who say they never read fiction and consider it a waste of time. I think I've found just as much (or more) food for meditation in a great novel than many books of non-fiction and their didactic manner of teaching the same thing. Am I more likely to remember the lessons about good and evil, friendship and treachery, courage and cowardice from a book of psychology or from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Shakespeare's Macbeth? 

Philosopher Peter Kreeft describes the purpose of literature as to please and to instruct. His presentation on Lost in the Cosmos, Abolition of Man and several other books is tremendous and well worth a listen -- or two -- or even three. He demonstrates how literature can be either direct or indirect to make a point and teach a lesson. Abolition is an example of direct literature, Lost indirect. Lewis uses logic and reasoning; Percy uses satire, irony, and humor. But both works explain the crisis of modern man, men without chests, that is men who have lost the heart of things.

Sunday Meditation: It's the Lord's Day; How Will You Keep It?

Every Sunday is a little Christmas and a little Easter. How will we keep it holy?

Do you remember the description of Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol? He was a man who "knew how to keep Christmas," something he learned from the three ghosts. Perhaps we need three ghosts today to help us "keep" Sunday: the Ghost of Sunday Past, the Ghost of Sunday Present, and the Ghost of Sunday Future. If those ghosts visited us today what would those visits look like?