Advent Thoughts

The pine cone wreath made by Laura

This time of year I try hard to block out all the Christmas songs and decorations, so I can live Advent. Visiting family in Austin after Thanksgiving, we missed our usual preparations during the first eight days. Instead, we shared those preparations with our son and his family. But we returned last night so today I began my own welcome for the Divine Messiah. Larry brought up the Advent wreath and I cleaned the family room and set up the creche. What memories are stirred as I add every day to the adornments that fill each room with the spirit of Christmas.

Daddy made the creche and I laugh whenever I put the green branches on the back that are coded to fit into their holders. I never remember my dad without a project. One was painting and crimping little juice cans to make a "building set" of tubes for grandkids. And I know he must have made the little manger for Jesus. There's even a pile of miniature wooden logs that rest beside the stable. St. Joseph would surely have been busy making sure there was plenty of fuel to keep his family toasty warm.

"I am the Immaculate Conception"

Pray the rosary today in reparation for all the sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

A great meditation today would be to watch the wonderful film, The Song of Bernadette. The book was written by Franz Werfel, a Jewish poet, playwright, and novelist, in thanksgiving to the Blessed Mother for the safe escape of his family from the Nazis to America during World War II. The Blessed Mother continues to work miracles for those who love and honor her.

Pearl Harbor Day: Let's Remember Our Fallen Heroes and all Those who Serve

Pearl Harbor Day always brings thoughts of my dad who was a survivor of that horrific attack. He was on the U.S.S. Detroit and, as an ensign, was the ranking officer on board. He had just finished the duty watch and was going to bed when the shrill scream of the jets shattered the silence and bombs began exploding in the harbor. Obviously, nobody expected the attack on that early Sunday morning. The battleships, with their boilers down, were sitting ducks. Only two ships got out of the harbor that morning. The Detroit was one. They sent up plenty of fire power but the altitude fuses were locked up so it wasn't very accurate. Perhaps the Detroit was too little a fish for the Japanese to go after. Whatever the reason, they sustained no hits and no injuries. Thank God. My mom was pregnant with my oldest brother and had the Detroit gone down and Daddy been killed, I and my eight other siblings wouldn't be here. Nor would any of our children and many grandchildren.

Thank you, Lord, for protecting both my parents (and my brother) on that day and for getting Mom safely back to the mainland. And on this day of remembrance, please look gently on my dear mom and dad and welcome them into your glory if they are presently in Purgatory. "May the Divine Assistance remain always with us and may the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen."

From the Insanity File: St. Peter's Basilica to be Venue for Climate Change Ad!

Vatican, World Bank partner to launch Year of Mercy with St. Peter’s ‘climate change’ light show

The author of this article has this exactly right when he opens writing:

The Catholic Church, founded to shed the light of Christ on the world, has quite literally invited the world to shed its light on her.

Sister Lucia Didn't Think Much of the Bishops....

I continue to read Mark Fellows book on Sister Lucia and it is a real eye-opener. He quotes from some of her correspondence. In one letter she wrote:

God willing, the meeting with the Archbishop of Mitilene will have gone well, and His Excellency will not be one of the chicken-hearted...I think the best course would be that things be done with the bishops' full knowledge, but without them taking responsibility (as if they did not know), this is to say, to avoid the inconvenience of fears...Afterwards, when success comes, they can then declare that they took part in it.

From the Mendacious Media File: Pro-Lifers more Dangerous than Islamic Terrorists

WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTO OF ABORTED BABY BELOW

The latest Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino got me thinking about how these episodes are portrayed.

Have you noticed how, when any violence occurs even in the vicinity of an abortion mill, the media goes into a feeding frenzy? They profile all pro-lifers as crazed terrorists. What are the facts? Since abortion was legalized fewer than a dozen abortionists have been killed and, in more than one case, the murderer has been a mentally unstable individual with no connections to the pro-life movement at all. But that doesn't prevent the mendacious media working for the New York Times or the Washington Post from vicious slanders about those "extremist pro-life Christians!"

Compare that with the way they bend over backwards to avoid profiling Islamic terrorists as, well, Islamic terrorists. Immediately after revealing that the latest act of terrorism was committed by a devout Muslim, they bend over backwards pretending that Islam isn't Islam and that the believers are really "fundamentalists" who are betraying the "religion of peace." The real threat these mendacious reporters insist comes from pro-lifers who, because they oppose ripping babies bodies apart, stir up violence. I'm surprised they haven't figured out a way to blame pro-lifers for the latest atrocity in San Bernardino. But, give 'em time. No doubt they'll find a way even though the real comparison is between those who behead Christians and those who behead babies. Planned Parenthood is filled with domestic terrorists. If the babies could speak (as they will on Judgment Day), they would give articulate witness against the murderers of innocence.

The Vortex and One of My Favorite Bishops -- Rene Gracida...

...and one of my "least favorites," Cardinal Donald Wuerl.



Right on, Michael!  And for those who want to hear straight talk from Bishop Gracida including naming names of Catholic clergy who helped institutionalize the culture of death, watch this video on the "Virus of Proportionalism."

#Lucia-of-Fatima: The Whole World will be Communist!

With the 100th anniversary of Fatima less than two years away, I'm reading every book I can get my hands on about Our Lady's messages to the three little shepherds from the "beautiful lady." This morning, reading Sister Lucia: Apostle of Mary's Immaculate Heart, written by Mark Fellows and published during the 90th anniversary year (2007), I came across an interesting item. In 1946, Lucia, the only surviving seer of Fatima, was interviewed by American historian Professor William Thomas Walsh. During the questioning, she told him several times:

What Our Lady wants is that the Pope and all the bishops in the world shall consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart on one special day. If this is done, She will convert Russia, and there will be peace. If it is not done, the errors of Russia will spread through every country in the world.

Professor Walsh asked her if she believed that all the countries throughout the world, without exception, would succumb to Communism.

#Trinity-Betrays-Women: Ah Trinity, to be named for the Holy Trinity and to be such a Judas!

I graduated from Trinity College (now Trinity University) in 1968. Nancy Pelosi was about six years ahead of me. Even then Trinity was losing her Catholic identity. But today I received a petition from TFP Student Action saying Trinity promotes Planned Parenthood on the university website as a "resource." I always check things out so I went and looked. Here's the page. Don't you know, killing babies and selling plugs and drugs to fornicating students (all in violation of Catholic Church teaching) contributes to women's health? Tell that to all the post aborted women who are "silent no more."

Teaching Death to Nursing Students with Leo Tolstoy

Many saints who were priests encouraged their brethren to preach frequently about death. After our birth and baptism, death is the most important hour and one for which we need to be well-prepared. Nursing students will often be the last contact in life except for family and close friends. A proper attitude toward death and respect for the dying patient is absolutely crucial. Please pray for those in the medical profession. In our culture of death, many are being trained not to preserve and protect life, but to hasten death. Fight the culture of death and love and respect those who are near life's end. 

Teaching Death to Nursing Students with Leo Tolstoy

11/27/2015 at 4:46 PM By Mary Anne Hackett

BY RICHARD BECKER, NOVEMBER 27, 2015

To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.  ~ T. S. Eliot

We’ve come to the close of our annual month-long reminder of the obvious: We’re all going to die. It’s a truism that we learned as kids in Sunday school and CCD—the first of the four Last Things: death, followed by judgment, and then heaven and (rather, or) hell—although we Catholics are reminded of death year round. It’s front and center in our liturgy, our creed, and even our routine devotional prayers. “Pray for us sinners,” we repeatedly implore the Blessed Mother in our rosaries, “now and at the hour of our death.”  

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