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Saturday 1 December 2012

The Viral Photo on Facebook:Policeman in NYC buying homeless man boots

The corporal works of mercy, which I think mean more when one does these actions for a particular person than an agency....







  • To feed the hungry;
  • To give drink to the thirsty;
  • To clothe the naked;
  • To harbour the harbourless;
  • To visit the sick;
  • To ransom the captive;
  • To bury the dead.

Compendium online....




Well, well, all these years, I did not bother to find out whether the Compendium of the Catechism was online. It is and here is the link. I keep giving my copies away to under 40s.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

Multi-post day

Wild Campion
Well, I have had some sort of upper respiratory flu thingie for two days. Can't go out. So, here is some cute to remind you of all the posts today.

cute.... and more cute....




well, got your attention, son taking spider in France outside, as he always does, unless it is a Brown Recluse...or Black Widow

Mid-day Readings from the NO Hours. And, readings for the Mass of St. Edmund Campion.

More Wild Campion


Isaiah 53:3-7; Ps 16; John 17:11b-21


1 Kings 2:2-3 ©

Be strong and show yourself a man. Observe the injunctions of the Lord your God, following his ways and keeping his laws, his commandments, his customs and his decrees, so that you may be successful in all you do and undertake.

Lord, lead me down the path of your commandments,
– for that is the path that I desire.

Let us pray.
Lord God,
  living light of eternal love,
grant that, always aglow with charity,
  we may love you above all else
  and our brethren for your sake,
  with one and the selfsame love.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Art for Arts Sake Not Propaganda; Art for the Glory of God

Thanks to Wiki Paintings


Spencer has an article on the artists in the United Kingdom who have started a group which is concerned about artistic freedom. Now, we artists who are traditional Catholics would feel uneasy in their midst, as many are anarchists. I paint, when I can and write poetry, plays, short stories and children's stories. I would not want a government telling me I could not have religious content in my work as it is all highly religious.

Here is the problem. The Islamists hate art as it is against the Koran and the hadith. The Catholic Church survived the iconalist controversy, which caused havoc in many towns and cities at its peak. We are a Church which, because of the Incarnation, allows and celebrates art of all types. Visit the Vatican Museums  What a treat!

We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are doers, builders, makers of beauty. We are involved in mimesis to God's poesis.

The artists in the group should be worried. We have entered a ridiculous situation in Europe where even anarchists and socialists are afraid of Islam. http://www.passionforfreedom.co.uk/

We cannot dismiss this problem. We must find ways to understand our own heritage. Sometimes, not all the time, artists are the prophets of a society. This may be the case in London. We would be offended by some art from these artists. But, we do not want to fall into barbarism which destroys art and architecture for the sake of ideology.

Watch what happens in Cairo.

Reader, or rather, viewer response criticism




Let's see if you can unpack the loyalties in this recent demonstration and figure out the common threads. This is a little lesson in developing critical thinking skills. Photos thanks to Spencer.

From Fr. Gabriel Burke's Blog Via a Reader


Dublin

Unite for Life Vigil 
                                       Tue 4th Dec
                                  4.30pm at the Dáil
Please make every effort to attend. This cannot be stressed enough. It will most likely be the only opportunity we get to send a united message to the Government not to introduce abortion. The vigil will have a positive, clear message about safeguarding the lives of mothers and babies in pregnancy. Posters will be provided on the day. 
Pleasespread the word to family, friends and anyone you know.
For more details and bus information contact: Claire 0872668702 or Katie 0877020255.


http://www.frgabrielburke.com/

Just a reminder-reiki is not approved by Rome and here is why...




For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Matthew 24:24 DR


http://old.usccb.org/doctrine/Evaluation_Guidelines_finaltext_2009-03.pdf

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html

Nothing is new under the sun and Satan does not care how your soul and body are damned forever, but that this happens. Do not be deceived. Just a reminder, and I know of one Jesuit center which teaches this. Why is this allowed by the bishop or head of the Order?

This is very popular here among so-called Catholics. I have tried to warn some people here.  http://www.reiki.ie/index.php/reiki-links/

http://www.reikiassociationireland.com/about.htm

and there are many more.

Satan does not care how you go to hell, just that you get there


In thinking about hell because of all the readings of the past two weeks and that "something" in the air which causes many of us to be thinking of the same things at the same time, I have been meditating on the fact that the demon who hates God and the good does not care how you get to hell, but that you get there.

Sadly, I must posit again the problem of so many people not believing in hell.

Then, I must list all the way Satan is tricky, very tricky, as he is so much more intelligent than we are. He watches us. He cannot read our minds, but he does watch and wait to trip us up.

Here are some traddie ways to fall into serious sin; this is a special list for my traddie friends and myself.


1. Think you are better than everyone else because you go to the TLM weekly, or belong to the SSPX. This is hubris.

2. Think that Rome is wrong when the Pope makes statements ex cathedra

3. Think that liberal bishops cannot be obeyed.

4. Think that the FSSP is a compromising order (I really do not like this one)

5. Think that Vatican II caused all the problems-you do not know your Church history

6. Think that the Mass and Doctrine were changed in the Vatican II documents-yes, there are vague and confusing statements, but doctrine remains solid.

7. Think that the Novus Ordo is always invalid.

8. Think that you know better than Rome about issues regarding private revelations.

9. Think that confessions in the SSPX are legal; no, these are not, sadly.

10. Think that you can disagree with the teachings of the Church concerning the Apostolic Succession (sedvacantist position)

Suffering in Advent and on Christmas Eve

This is my favourite time of year--Advent and Christmas.

Starting in the 1970s, I became Ms. Christmas, making Advent wreaths, Christmas tree ornaments (yearly), decorating the house and preparing in the real Advent sort of way with the celebration of fasting like the Byzantines. We celebrated St. Nicholas day, St. Lucy's Day, and made and ate lots of perogies and borsch over the years. We did the Jesse Tree and baked cookies and hid them in high
cupboards.

I miss this. I had a mini-business making wreaths, center pieces, door hangings, etc. for a short time. It was easy for me and the kitchen was stuffed with bits and bobs of ribbon, greenery and glue guns. I only made what I spent, but it was great fun.

After my son went left for England in 2010, I had my last tree, which I have mentioned on this blog-pink retro with gold ornaments, many of which I made.

No more. Now my Christmas is more like the original one, which is good, but it is a suffering. However, there is a quiet joy in joining with Christ in His isolation and Mary and Joseph's ostracization from their own people on that Holy Night.

What would you rather have? That is what God asked me. If asked, would you not want to experience what He did? If we really love someone, we want to be with them and be like them. Simple. Hard, and it is called dying to self.

In the image of the Crib, we should see the Crucifixion. This is not morbidity but reality. There is only one reason why Christ came to earth on that cold night-to experience the Passion and to die for us and rise again on the third day.

In the old days, the Feast of Adam and Eve was on December 24th. One of the prayers was the same as that of Holy Week-O Felix Culpa, O Necessary Sin of Adam. I wish these connections had not disappeared. That is why, of course, we have apples on the tree, or pears. I had a fruit tree now and then, and incorporated the theme of the Fall into the tree decorations.

We are body and soul, but there comes a time when the inner man must take precedence over the outer man. Do not get so involved with the outer than you forget the inner.

Campion's Brag



Today is the Feast Day of St. Edmund Campion. The students at Stoneyhurst would have had a day off today. Some of the saint's relics are there. 


 Campion's Brag

To the Right Honourable, the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council:
Whereas I have come out of Germany and Bohemia, being sent by my superiors, and adventured myself into this noble realm, my dear country, for the glory of God and benefit of souls, I thought it like enough that, in this busy, watchful, and suspicious world, I should either sooner or later be intercepted and stopped of my course.

Wherefore, providing for all events, and uncertain what may become of me, when God shall haply deliver my body into durance, I supposed it needful to put this in writing in a readiness, desiring your good lordships to give it your reading, for to know my cause. This doing, I trust I shall ease you of some labour. For that which otherwise you must have sought for by practice of wit, I do now lay into your hands by plain confession. And to the intent that the whole matter may be conceived in order, and so the better both understood and remembered, I make thereof these nine points or articles, directly, truly and resolutely opening my full enterprise and purpose.
i. I confess that I am (albeit unworthy) a priest of the Catholic Church, and through the great mercy of God vowed now these eight years into the religion [religious order] of the Society of Jesus. Hereby I have taken upon me a special kind of warfare under the banner of obedience, and also resigned all my interest or possibility of wealth, honour, pleasure, and other worldly felicity.
ii. At the voice of our General, which is to me a warrant from heaven and oracle of Christ, I took my voyage from Prague to Rome (where our General Father is always resident) and from Rome to England, as I might and would have done joyously into any part of Christendom or Heatheness, had I been thereto assigned.

iii. My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reform sinners, to confute errors—in brief, to cry alarm spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many of my dear countrymen are abused.
iv. I never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of state or policy of this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from which I gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.

v. I do ask, to the glory of God, with all humility, and under your correction, three sorts of indifferent and quiet audiences: the first, before your Honours, wherein I will discourse of religion, so far as it toucheth the common weal and your nobilities: the second, whereof I make more account, before the Doctors and Masters and chosen men of both universities, wherein I undertake to avow the faith of our Catholic Church by proofs innumerable—Scriptures, councils, Fathers, history, natural and moral reasons: the third, before the lawyers, spiritual and temporal, wherein I will justify the said faith by the common wisdom of the laws standing yet in force and practice.

vi. I would be loath to speak anything that might sound of any insolent brag or challenge, especially being now as a dead man to this world and willing to put my head under every man's foot, and to kiss the ground they tread upon. Yet I have such courage in avouching the majesty of Jesus my King, and such affiance in his gracious favour, and such assurance in my quarrel, and my evidence so impregnable, and because I know perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all the Protestants living, nor any sect of our adversaries (howsoever they face men down in pulpits, and overrule us in their kingdom of grammarians and unlearned ears) can maintain their doctrine in disputation. I am to sue most humbly and instantly for combat with all and every of them, and the most principal that may be found: protesting that in this trial the better furnished they come, the better welcome they shall be.

vii. And because it hath pleased God to enrich the Queen my Sovereign Lady with notable gifts of nature, learning, and princely education, I do verily trust that if her Highness would vouchsafe her royal person and good attention to such a conference as, in the second part of my fifth article I have motioned, or to a few sermons, which in her or your hearing I am to utter such manifest and fair light by good method and plain dealing may be cast upon these controversies, that possibly her zeal of truth and love of her people shall incline her noble Grace to disfavour some proceedings hurtful to the realm, and procure towards us oppressed more equity.
viii. Moreover I doubt not but you, her Highness' Council, being of such wisdom and discreet in cases most important, when you shall have heard these questions of religion opened faithfully, which many times by our adversaries are huddled up and confounded, will see upon what substantial grounds our Catholic Faith is builded, how feeble that side is which by sway of the time prevaileth against us, and so at last for your own souls, and for many thousand souls that depend upon your government, will discountenance error when it is bewrayed [revealed], and hearken to those who would spend the best blood in their bodies for your salvation. Many innocent hands are lifted up to heaven for you daily by those English students, whose posterity shall never die, which beyond seas, gathering virtue and sufficient knowledge for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, but either to win you heaven, or to die upon your pikes. And touching our Society, be it known to you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must overreach all the practice of England—cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted: So it must be restored.

ix. If these my offers be refused, and my endeavours can take no place, and I, having run thousands of miles to do you good, shall be rewarded with rigour. I have no more to say but to recommend your case and mine to Almighty God, the Searcher of Hearts, who send us his grace, and see us at accord before the day of payment, to the end we may at last be friends in heaven, when all injuries shall be forgotten.

He was 41 when he was hung, drawn and quartered for the Faith and the Church. St. Edmund, pray for us.

See also the first reading for the Mass of St, Edmund Campion below.


Isaiah 53:3-7

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition 
Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth

The Island of Practical Atheists

Eire is a strange place these days, The vast majority of the people do not care about religion or even the afterlife. They missed the big movements of the last forty years regarding the erosion of Truth in the Church and in society, Just as the United States has turned the corner, and the Church has turned the corner, Eire has changed. One cannot help but see that there are two churches which call themselves Catholic, just as there is a large ex-democracy calling itself a Republic, which is really a socialist state where individuals increasingly lose personal power and rights. How does a Republic end and become a tyranny? Apathy. Complacency. Deceit in the heart and in the mind, and in the soul move one quickly away from God.

Most people cannot face the two churches. Most people do not want to talk to the sons and daughters who have fallen away by going to liberal parishes where priests in the Confessional still say contraception or homosexual relationships are o.k. They make excuses and vote accordingly. The classes on theology which allow discussion of universal salvation as a reality or women priests as just a matter of time still proliferate and the major retreat centres offer new age spirituality condemned by Rome.. Seminarians hear heresy in the classrooms and if a lay person in academia stands up to authority regarding pro-life issues for example, one is expendable. One cannot be openly pro-life in some universities and survive.

What I find in Eire is this persistence of living in the past. One woman, who is not married and will not marry, told me that too many men live in the past. She wants to live in the now and look towards the future. She wants to be holy, not complacent. She wants to face reality and not go on saying "We are an island of saints." No, Eire is not an island of saints nor has it been for a long, long time.

This head-in-the-sand attitude makes it comfortable to be a Catholic without really being one. But, here is the really interesting point.

The fall-out is not new. It is merely, now obvious. I have quit being shocked by traditional Catholics who support pro-abortion parties just because they always did, or young people who are afraid to stand outside the abortion counselling centres because of the fear of confrontation, or worse, a false sense of compassion. Bad decisions are made daily because of cowardice. I wrote about this in the early part of the year--there are no real fighting Irish. What has caused the young to give up courage, at an age when courage should be one of the major forces for good in the young soul is a mystery. People just want to get along, I guess.

The overwhelming feeling I get is similar to one I feel when I read about the complacency of the Germans and Austrians regarding the Holocaust. Many years ago, I read Hitler's Willing Executioners.

Here is an excerpt. Just replace babies for Jews, or Catholics for Jews.

Judges and members of the legal profession were so eager to purge their institutions and their country of Jewish influence that they, beginning already in the first few months of Nazi governance, often outran the legal mandates that the regime promulgated. In October 1933, one Berlin court upheld the dismissal of a Jew from administering an estate, ruling that the people’s pervasive hatred of Jews “made it seem inadvisable to retain a Jew in office, even in the absence of a special law to this effect.” Earlier that year, in July, another Berlin court provided a more sweeping justification for judges taking such initiative in the battle against Jewry. According to Die Juristische Wochenschrift, the most important German legal periodical, the court, writing with obvious approval, pointed out “that a revolutionary legislature [the Nazis had been in office but six months] naturally leaves loopholes which ought to be filled by the Court in applying the principles of the National Socialist Weltanschauung.” The German judiciary – almost all of whom had taken the bench during Weimar and therefore were, at least formally, not “Nazi judges” —was composed of such ardent racial antisemites that leading Nazis (bound to the belief that the eliminationist program should be legally governed) chastised judges for having violated the law in their rampant eliminationist ardor. Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick similarly tried to rein in all those under his jurisdiction, including many holdovers from Weimar, from extending the eliminationist measures beyond the laws that the regime had made. The judiciary’s extensive contribution to the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi period reveals its members to have been zealous implementers and initiators of eliminationist measures. The judges composed a group that was obviously bristling with anti-Jewish hatred during Wiemar, and then, when Hitler took power, was freed to act upon these beliefs. 

Have we forgotten that Hitler was elected?

Hatred and intolerance of religion do not happen overnight. That the media here is so anti-Catholic is merely a symptom of what is already discussed in homes, schools, college dorms, pubs. The real Catholic issues are overlooked by priests and politicians alike and this is merely a symptom of the greater problem of selling out to EU socialism and practical atheism. When I bring this up, people are astounded when I say the Church has always condemned socialism and they defend socialism anyway, refusing to look at why it is pernicious. They praise their socialist Catholic politicians. These are not liberal Catholics, but traditional ones, but not really.

If one acts as though God is not the end and means to the end of our lives, one is a practical atheist, If one compromises daily or chooses not be be a spiritual person in the here and now, one is a practical atheist. In applying for jobs, even traditional Catholics have told me to do something illegal, work under the radar. I said no. God does not bless deception. Holiness does not come from lying. "Gain the world and lose the soul" seems to be a forgotten phrase. And no one is interested in pursuing that discussion...One man told me that his entire family went to New York in the 1970s and worked illegally. That was the way to do it. A traditional Catholic, going to the Latin Mass bragging about criminal activity astounded me. But, I do not come from people who do illegal things for money. "Beg before stealing" is a motto of a poor Mexican family I know who live in poverty in the States. And, working under the radar is stealing. The island of practical atheists...

The post-Christian world is worse than the pre-Christian world, as people were given the Truth and have rejected it. 

Living in ignorance is a lie. One chooses ignorance. One closes one's eyes to the Truth because it is comfortable.

That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand: lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. Mark 4:12 DR



Too many people do not want to see the Truth in themselves or in the Church here. They are not praying, "Lord, that I may see." Maybe it is too scary for them. 

Maybe they want to be blind.

Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you should not have sin: but now you say: We see. Your sin remaineth. John 9:41 DR

And they plotted to kill Him after He said this....




The LIberalism of the Pharisees and Sadducees

When liberals criticize the traditionals in the Church, and I do not like to use terms like right or left, but when the left criticizes the right, they call them "Pharisees and Sadducees". The left calls the right hypocrites.

It is the direct opposite.

The liberals are the Neo-Legalists.

Let me explain, and it is really very simple.

If  persons merely go by the law, either the Ten Commandments or Canon Law in the Church, they are following a pattern of thinking which allows for casuistry  that is, the loosest interpretation of these laws. Those who are liberal point to laws and say, "Oh, we merely need to do this, but not this..." And, what is the not this?

The not this is the total giving of one's life to God. To go by the rules is not only minimalist, but dangerous.

One does not necessarily get into heaven by the easiest route, which is merely following the law.

That is what Christ meant went he said this:









Matthew 23

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition 
23 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples,
Saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses.
All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not.
For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them.
And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes.
And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues,
And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi.
But be not you called Rabbi. For one is your master; and all you are brethren.
And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven.
10 Neither be ye called masters; for one is you master, Christ.
11 He that is the greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
The liberals follow the laws: they go to Church on Sunday but not during the week. They fast exactly one hour before Communion, but not more. They learn all the ways in Confession to avoid looking at the root cause of their sins by sticking with the bare minimum of the laws. They may even tithe, but not follow the corporal or spiritual works of mercy.

The liberals interpret the laws to find the loopholes. They say they are Catholics, but they are materialists. Like the Moslems, the Pharisees and Sadducees based their holiness on a reward and punishment basis; and on following exact performances without engaging the spirit. They tried to find the easiest way to get to heaven-by the law.
Example: the real traditional Catholic knows that Canon Law no longer covers women's head coverings, but follows an older custom because of a movement of the heart to honour God. The liberal, the Pharisee, will say it is no longer a rule, so one doesn't have to do it. They will say that one only has to go to Confession once a year as that is the law, and so on. They look for the exact interpretation and live by that and nothing more.
The Neo-Legalist ignores the soul, the spiritual world, and most importantly, the most important thing about religion-a relationship with God.
This is why the men of the law wanted to kill Christ. He pierced their hypocrisy with Love. They lost their way to heaven because if they had to love, they would be forced to do more than the law; they would have to repent and change; they would have to love their neighbour as themselves not in the minimum but in the maximum manner. The mantra of the Neo-Legalist comes from a view of spirituality based on modernism and psychology, instead of holiness.

Legalism is minimalism.

When St. Augustine states "Once for all, then, a short precept is given you: Love, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good."

He then goes on in this sermon to speak of the Beatitudes, which a real liberal will not understand. One cannot give one's entire mind, heart, soul to God and remain a liberal. That self-denial brings one into conformity with the Holy Trinity, the Mind of Christ and the Mind of the Church.

One ceases to be a Neo-Legalist is one is in love with God and lives, and moves and has one's being in God. Love destroys legalism and makes one more traditional, as one becomes one with the Trinity is all things. This is the position of the truly humble person.

The prideful man thinks that following the law without engaging his spirit in a deep communion with God is enough. That is why these Sadducees and Pharisees wanted to kill God. He intruded into their calm and sure way to get to heaven. He demanded their entire souls, not merely the minimum.

This was Christ's message to Nicodemus:

Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born again? Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. John 3:4-5 DR


This scares the liberals, as it demands the total surrender to God. A traditionalist at the TLM knows what this means by the very obedience to the most beautiful thing under heaven. The humility of the TLM brings new life and the new man. Holiness is a question of BEING and not merely DOING. If one does the minimum, one will not become perfect. One will not see God.

A must read

Serious business-read this, please. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT_CONSTITUTION_GLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-29-20-23-22