The other Teresa

She read the autobiography of St. Therese and was inspired to pursue a vocation as a Carmelite. After she entered the convent her letters to friends and relatives were filled with such joy that some of the recipients entered religous life as well. She contracted typhus and shortly before her death at age 20, she wrote, "For a Carmelite, death has nothing to be afraid of. She is going to live her true life. She is going to fall into the arms of the one who loved her here on earth beyond all things".
She is St. Teresa of the Andes.

Wedding beauty

Usually when I look at other people's wedding picturess my silent reaction is "meh", but the sweetness and beauty of this wedding of a young English couple really charmed me. What a lovely Mass. It's too bad this isn't an option for most couples.

strange days

Tolerance? Yeah right. This stuff is about the power to frighten people into shutting up.

Oh good grief

I rarely bother with Inside Catholic anymore but when I do, I find sad little essays like this . You wonder why so many 20somethings have left the Church? It's not for love of Facebook. Young people usually leave the Church not because of some great trauma but because for many of them, there is nothing to hold them. Chad and Jessica may not hate their parish but they sure don't  love it. Their parishes are nice, very nice but fail miserably to show Jesus as anything more than their nonjudgmental buddy in heaven. To paraphrase Archbishop Fulton Sheen many parishes fail to image the real  Christ who  makes us "hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water."
My generation, the one before the Millennials  were fed an ooey gooey, pretty pony gospel instead of the Faith that sustained the martyrs. Most of us grew up in parishes that were repulsive.The music, the teen masses, the rap sessions (shudder) and the Youth Leader were supposed to be relevant but were quite lame and we knew it. We had too many effeminate priests who looked and behaved like they were put together by the ladies gardening committee. The brave and devout young man who felt called to be a priest faced spending his life with such fellows as companions and superiors. Is it any wonder that many a vocation withered on the vine?  The girl who wanted to be like St. Therese found a convent full of Sr. What's Cool Now and Sr. Feminist. Naturally, she fled and didn't persevere in her vocation.

Things are better now.  With only one exception I haven't met a priest who was ordained after 1990, who used the "priest voice" or made me doubt his masculinity. Healthy religious orders are booming and we are seeing young habited nuns again but the damage is done. People talk about the 20 somethings as a lost generation when they ought to be talking about the lost generations and Facebook had nothing to do with it.

No matter what you've done you can repent

Dr. Bernard Nathanson was big time abortionist and he was so committed to killing babies that when he got one of his girlfriends pregnant he coldly and calmly aborted the child himself. That's right, he killed his own son. In the 1970s Dr. Nathanson saw ultasound pictures and something in him was touched. He stopped doing abortions, became a pro-life activist and converted to the Faith. Years ago, I read his book Hand of God and I never forgot it. Rest in peace Dr. Nathanson.

Thank you

Thank you to all the men and women who looked Nazi's straight in the eye and lied about the Jews or the Allied soldiers hidden in the barn.....

Thank you to all the reporters who pretended to be tourists and returned home to tell  the true story of what was going on in the Congo, Armenia, Russia...ect.

Thank you to the peasants who snuck food into the prisoners held by the Moors.....

Thank you to all the good women in Russia, Spain and  Mexico who hid priests......

Thank you to the woman who hid the Valencia chalice in her coat and walked right past the evil men who wished to despoil the Valencia cathedral and take the chalice as a trophy....

Thank you earnest Quaker ladies who made your homes hiding places for the Underground Railroad.....

Thank you recusant Catholics who risked your own lives to keep the Faith alive in England.....

Thank you, to all those did and dared for the sake of good  while lesser people sat at home fat and happy and critical.

Two songs in memory of my great grandmothers

I can't believe this

According to the people who run this site, on March 19, to the 23rd, Our Lady is scheduled to appear in Alabama. I am shocked and embarrassed because non Catholics will see this specatacle and they will be pushed further away from the Church. I'm horrified because devout Catholics will be hoodwinked.

Once, years ago, an old priest went to Medjogorje watched what was going on and then cried with grief. He later wrote "What have they done to you, my Lady?" The Mother of God does not appear by command. She is not a performer. No seer before Medjugorje has ever used their visions like parlor tricks.  This supposed visit to Alabama is just a carnival. I can imagine the carnival barker now: "Greetings folks, you say you can't make it the former Yugoslavia? No problem, we have a seer who will come to Birmingham and have a vision right in front of you."

 Can you imagine St. Bernadette going to New York and having visions on command for the gawkers? Can you imagine St. Catherine Laboure making a lucrative career out of her visions of Mary? The surviving seers of the approved Rwanda apparitions do not travel all over the world and I don't recall Sr. Agnes of Akita doing a road tour either. 

Oh Mary, exteriminatrix of heresy, pray for us.

Confession, 1872

Strong Women

Resolute

Courageous

Gallant

Faithful unto death

What's up?

Is the current level of acesss* to the Tridentine Mass in danger? Today on Fr. Z's blog he wrote cryptically about the  Summorum Pontificum being altered in some way. On the Rorate Caeli blog the comments ranged between hopeful, to disgusted to completely disheartened. What's up? Are people being hysterical or is there something to this talk?





* I know there are people who are not impressed by the number of TLMs available in the US but it's a larger number than I've ever seen in my lifetime so I don't want to complain.

TEOTWAWKI

I've read several blogs that talk about preparing for nationwide end of the world as we know it situations. Most of the bloggers expect either a financial collaspe along the lines of what happened in Argentina or a massive terrorist attack. They all counsel that people should calmly get ready and expect the worst. It's not very comforting.

My mother in law is on dialysis, my father in law, Big Daddy is a diabetic, and so is my mother. Rocky takes two medicines daily and if there is ever is a true apocalyptic TEOTWAWKI situation no amout of stockpiled food or weapons is going to save my family.

God have mercy.

The end game

You may think, oh it's just poor little England but I suspect that what starts with the Anglicans will grow. It's like California. We laugh and call that state the land of fruits and nuts say "Well that might be okay in California, but it will never fly here." And sure enough the weird or silly Cali fad goes nationwide. Remember palimony? Remember how ridiculous it seemed to think that a concubine could demand and get a financial commitment from a man that was equal to that of a wife's?
The end game is coming in just a decade or so and it's going to be this: either allow gays to have their weddings in our churches or face fines and even jail. 

St. John Fisher, pray for us.

You can't even imagine how much He suffered for you

Go to confesson.

You can't even imagine how much how much He loves you. No matter how far or how low you have fallen, He wants take you back. So whether you use the confession app or a paper list or find yourself  stammering out your sins with tears and trembling, just do it.

Bernadette

She was sick for most of her life. The best home her father could provide was a hovel. She was a peasant girl with hardly any education. She spoke a dialect instead of proper French. Her own mother doubted her at first. She was persecuted by an unbelieving bitter nun. She suffered horribly before her death. She counted this all as nothing because she saw the Queen of Heaven. This little French maiden obeyed, overcame and rose to great hights of holiness. She is a saint in Heaven.

St. Bernadette, pray for us.

No confession App. needed

In the olden days people managed to get to confession and tell their sins all on their own. The new confession App for your Smart phone is cute but we really don't need it.

Fr. Thomas Euteneuer

I've noticed some smugness about Fr. Euteneur in certain circles. That's not good. I was never a fan of his but I don't get a kick out of seeing his situation. When a priest gets into difficulty it's a terrible thing.

Jesus, Savior of the world, sanctify Thy priests and sacred ministers.



Thundersnow and a modest swan

Last week we had a thunder snow. The booming thunder, blue lightning and the big, wet and heavy fast falling snowflakes made an impressive sight. Sadly, I slipped and fell down hard on the platform at the train station while trying to get home and spent the next day nursing my scrapes and bruises in bed.

The next couple of days were better. We went to Baltimore for a friend's birthday and first went to Mass at the St. Jude Shrine. The priest there is a good confessor and extremely jolly. He reminded me of a thin Friar Tuck. The only real flaw was the small army of Eucharistic Minister ladies. They weren't needed because even when the pews are full the shrine is actually much smaller and more intimate than it looks. The gem of the shrine is Andre, the head usher. He knows everything and is so patient with tourists and is a genuinely devout man, God bless him.

We went to the DC Car show on Sunday afternoon and I found looking at the people was just as interesting as gawking at the cars. I was struck by two things: leggings should not be worn as pants with a short top and that the more modestly dressed ladies far looked better than the rest of us. I saw a young Orthodox Jewish lady with her husband and five kids. She wore an exquisite looking scarf, a well fitting little sweater and a long velvet skirt with ballerina flats. She glided through the Convention Center like a swan amidst a flock of stewing hens. That woman looked elegant, charming and definitely not frumpy.