I don't get it

A priest in England got a bit bothered by this mosaic in Westminster Cathedral. With all due respect to a highly learned and sophisticated man of God, I don't get it. I'm an Philistine, I guess.

Massacre of the Innocents

We have many Herods in the USA. The slaughter continues.

I hope the Pope is okay

A crazy woman threw herself on him and knocked him down. He's continued on with Mass but he's 82. A shock and blow like that is not good. Someone in security should offer a resignation as soon as they get back to the Vatican. This is the same woman who tried to grab him last year. Is this to be an annual event?

The Cherry Tree Carol

King of Kings--- my favorite scene

In the 1927 Cecile B. DeMille produced King of Kings. I think it's better than the remake in the 60s. It has a few flaws of course. The scrouging and crucifixion are too neat and clean. There is barely are scratch on Jesus. He just looks tired and sad. The actor playing Jesus is too old at first glance but he's magnificent. The actress playing Mary is wonderful but a bit too young next to Jesus. I liked how it shows Judas constantly, slyly causing trouble. He's so slick and polished that it's a huge moment when Peter looks at him with shock because he's slipped and shown his true heart.

I loved how Mary doesnt' seem the least bit alarmed when two dirty and ragged little children show up at her window wanting to see Jesus. She takes the girl in her arms and brings her to Jesus. DeMille showed an excellent little theological moment there.

Blessed--- oops, excuse me--- Venerable Pius XII

Thank you, Holy Father! Pope Pius's name has been slandered long enough. He did more to help Jews in Europe than anyone else. Before Pearl Harbor, FDR turned fleeing Jews away. England didn't exactly open her arms to millions either, although in fairness England was busy being hammered by the Germans. During the war, the Allied forces were aware of that Jews were being sent to concentration camps but bombing the train tracks and roads that led to the camps was not done.

I realize that some groups have protested the pope's beatification. They should be politely ignored.

i tore up my Catholic Charities envelope

I stopped giving to Catholic Charities some time ago because a lot of what they do isn't Catholic and frankly I'd rather give directly to a real Catholic charity that I trust. Last year we had the scandal of Catholic Charities workers helping a girl get an abortion. This year in Roanoke a group refugee teens brought there by a Catholic resettlement agency, decided to repay this mercy by kidnapping a woman and holding her for ransom. The plot fell apart and the woman escaped but she was badly truamatized and is afraid to leave her house now.

I'll bet that no-one from Catholic Charites apologized to poor Mrs. Levicki and sadly, I'll bet that her opinion of the Catholic Churh is pretty darn low at this point.

Apparently there have been a number of unpleasant incidents in Roanoake since the refugees arrived and it's not because the locals are mean or racist, some of the biggest complaints have come from black Americans. My own experience with a sudden refugee drop was no picnic either. A few years ago a church group (I used to think it was the Episcopalians but now I'm not so sure), settled Somali refugees in my building. The result was horrible. The wives and mothers had never seen stoves before and the fire department had to come once or twice a week for months. One awful night we had two kitchen fires a few hours apart. The smells in the hallway were sickening because goat tripe is apparently a staple of the Somali diet. The neighbors complained vigorously and the resettlement people moved the refugees out of here. Nobody asked the neighbors if we were prepared to live in constant fear of fire. Nobody apparently prepared the Somalis for modern life. Nobody apologized. It was a miserable mess for everyone. Soft hearts shoudn't mean soft minds.

snow has turned the place into a marshmallow world

Well, global warming freaks ,DC, MD and VA just got hit with the biggest accumulation of snow fall in 70 years. Hah! It's amazing. The whole world sounds like it's under a blanket. The snow has been falling since Friday night and I can't see anything but white. The sky is white, the ground is white, there are gray shapes bumbling around in the snow---the neighbor kids, I guess. Earler I saw the occasional SUV going by but now the road is completely empty. Rocky, God bless him, is at work.

I was worried a bit about missing Mass but I just heard that the Archdiocese has forgiven the Mass obligation for this weekend. That's the first time I've ever heard of this happening. As soon as I finish putting up the tree I'm going outside to play in the snow.

You can't always judge a parish by the church's looks

Blessed Sacrament in Alexandria, VA is one of the ugliest churches I've ever seen. It has cinder block walls, glass brick, miles of dirty beige carpet and you have to walk all over the building in order to find the surly ladies in the office. It looks like a 1970s minimum security prison BUT it has a serenely beautiful Sacred Heart chapel, an adoration chapel that always has a least one or two people praying no matter what time I drop by and it has sterling priests, Fr. Cregan says a straight Mass by the rubrics and adds no nonsense, plus he's a good confessor. And they have night masses and confession all during Advent.


St. John the Beloved in MacLean is odd looking. It's a round church so you can see your fellow parishoners and they can see you-- don't scratch or pick your nose. The floor slopes like a movie theater. It's pretty painful on Rocky's arthritic knee because the floor is always pressing him foreward and I even experienced a bout of nausea/vertigo while walking to my pew BUT it's a loved church. Someone tried very hard to bring beauty to that odd design and it worked. The Blessed Sacrament, not the priest is right in the middle and visible to all. The tabernacle is gorgeous. Fr. Aragorn is the pastor there now and he's a dynamic speaker and confessor. He will not tell you what you want to hear but only what you need to hear. His counsel may sting a bit but so does alcohol when you put it on a wound. Until you get that sting, the wound won't begin to heal. AND they have the Tridentine Mass.

four odd things about me---

I can't stand sitting with my back to the door in restaurants. I'm intensely disturbed by the idea sititng in the middle of the dinning area too. Rocky sometimes calls my his little Wild Bill Hickcock.

If you give me most forms of bread I'll eat the inside but never, ever the crust. Rocky eats that.

I misplaced my cell phone in my own bedroom and had to go find my glasses-- also misplaced in order to see well enough to find the phone. This excercise took about an hour.

I fantasize about buying a farmette, raising my very own hog and taking him to pig shows.

While America is obsessed with Tiger Wood's sex life, (prurient interest is a sin, I think); deadly serious things are happening in the world that could very well get a lot of us killed. It's barely been reported but five young Muslims from Northern Virginia were caught in Pakistan. They went for jihad. These miserable slugs all lived in my town. All came from comfortable homes.

One of these guys was studying medicine at Howard Univerisity, the school my brother-in-law graduated from. All of them were said to be devout, quiet and "nice" guys, as pleasant and peaceful as lambs. They went to a mosque that is less than ten miles from my home. These wannabe jihadis walked my streets, took the local bus, drove on the same roads as I and my family and friends, and they went to work and the mall like nomal people.

They smiled and seemed so normal and all the time they were burning with hate. All the time they were dreaming of killing Americans.

When is this country going to wake up? Why do we allow immigration from certain countries? They were caught this time but will we be as blessed next time?

Wickedness that takes my breath away

Sr. Donna Quinn shames herself , St. Dominic, and her order when she makes the foul statement that Mary, the Blessed Virgin, the saint of saints expressed "choice."

Sr. Donna, how dare you use Mary as a pro abortion argument! Woman, you are a Bride of Christ, what is WRONG with you? Put a habit on, withdraw in silence to a decent convent and ponder your poor decisions.

I am the Immaculate Conception

Yesterday Rocky and I went to St. Matthews Cathedral for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It was wonderful. We were at the 5:30 Mass and it was packed. Young Fr. Regan gave a fine homily.

The triumph of the cads

I keep hearing women babble on and on about choice and freedom and why we must ---absolutely must be able to slaughter our own children in the womb or we won't have lives worth living.

These poor creatures don't realize how pitiful and defeated they are. They think they're winners, they think they're free. Instead the whole abortion movement has been a triumph for bad men.

Once upon a time a man knew that if he had sex with the girl next door, or the girl from church or the quiet girl in the back row of his algebra class he was running up a debt that would have to be paid. If she got pregnant a whole lot of people would come down on him and he could marry the girl or forfeit his reputation and his position in town. Now, if a girl gets pregnant the man can say "Get an abortion or I'm gone." I once knew a girl in my senior class who got pregnant twice by her boyfriend. He treatened to stop seeing her if she didn't get an abortion. She did both times and guess what? When graduation came he headed off to college and dumped her anyway. He used her for sex and paid no social consequences at all.

Another friend got pregnant by a real piece of work. He was an alchoholic and dangerous. She did not marry him of course and did not have the abortion he wanted either. In exchange for releasing him from any legal custody or financial responsibility to their son she the boy are safe.

Pregnant women get assaulted and killed in shocking numbers in this country. Many modern American males expect that abortion safety valve to protect them from taking repsonsiblity for their actions and the bad ones can get vicious when the woman refuses to kill the baby.

So many pro life workers have told sad stories of seeing unhappy and sometimes crying women being led into abortion clinics by grim faced men. You call that freedom? The confused, frightened woman who is being forced into the killing room by a cold hearted paramour is less free than her great great grandmother ever could've imagined.

Puer Natus in Bethehem

This is my favorite chant.

O come, o come Emmanuel

Thinking themselves wise, they became fools.

This painting is Dante and Virgil in hell by one of my favorite artists, William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It came to mind when I read that the DC City Council has voted to legalize gay marriage. This is a cause that means diddly squat to the lives of most of the inhabitants of my childhood home. DC has high crime, high poverty, schools so bad that no-one under the age of 45 can remember when they weren't rotten, and the highest rate of AIDS in America.

You could visit hell bringing a ladder, a rope and wings and no-one there would notice. The inhabitants are too busy wallowing in their own anguish and hate of themselves and everything else that the light of hope couldn't penetrate their minds. Of course, being in hell they have no other option but to torment themselves. I don't know what the DC Council's excuse is.