Hail Mary

Hail Mary, full of Grace. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.

The Altar Boy

Our altar boys wear black cassocks and linen toppers but the kid who gets to wave the incense always looks just this blissful.

Would someone please tell Vatican staffers to stop trying to be hip?

There is something outputting and weird about this video. The actress seems so blank and artificial. What's pitiful is that someone on the staff of the Pontifical Counsel of Culture thought this was sophisticated.

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

 

Guadete!

The Christmas Eve vigil Mass was pretty good this year. The windows were open so we didn't have the heat and funk problem this time. Rocky and the other ushers worked hard but they were happy and every elderly person, or physically impaired person who needed a seat got one.  

Remember Christmastide STARTS on Dec. 25th.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."

- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.1

Christ is born in Bethlehem!

Random thoughts before I head to the mall

Every now and then, First Things lets something great slip by the editors. This  essay describes a typical suburban parish. I've been to plenty of St. Dismas's and the religion taught there isn't strong enough to sustain a soul in good times or bad.

One of the biggest blocks to vocations is parents, mother's mainly, throwing a fit when their son (particularly an only son) says he wants to be a priest. This is wrong. You can not sit in the pew and consider yourself good if you deliberately interfere in the will of God. He gave you His only Son. Who are you to deny Him yours?

Fritz von Uhde Heilge was fond of painting scenes from the bible using modern dress. He portrays Joseph and Mary as Dutch peasants walking the road to Bethlehem and several years later shows the Nativity. It looks like St. Joseph is making cocoa or maybe oatmeal.

The Road to Bethlehem (1890)

Holy Night (1911)

____________________________________________________________

Ahem, I guess Dutch kids behaved themselves back in old days. Folk lore said that St. Nicholas would settle all family business for parents before Christmas.  The folks in this lithograph must have had a real little stinker because they both look delighted.  The father is looking like he doesn't even know who this kid is. 

What if we just stopped buying?

I like Tom Ford perfume but I won't ever buy anything with his name on it again because of the blasphemous cross he's pushing. I've never been part of the Apple cult  er, fan base but if I were thinking of buying an iPhone or iPad the company is dead to me now. The CEO gave 8 million to promote homosexual causes in the South. We the consumers gave him that money.
 We can not complain about what companies do unless we stop buying their stuff. You can write letters, you can act a fool in public but if you keep buying their stuff what is the point? You don't need to get on Twitter or Facebook (Remember how useless that Bring Back Our Girls thing was?), just STOP buying.

eternal rest grant unto them oh Lord

Two police officers were murdered in New York yesterday. I'm sad, ashamed and disgusted.

This is beautiful

Five things Catholics should never say and other random thoughts

• My uncle in the nursing home needed a endoscopy and colonoscopy and since the staff at the hospital were completely apprised of his dementia they were ready for him. The procedure went well, and the hardest part was getting the prep formula into him the day before. He has diverticulitis but no polyps. Thank God.
  
  
• Deborah Lipsky used to be a Satanist. You can't get any hard core than that but our merciful God  brought her back from the gates of Hell. She wrote a book about her hideous experiences called, A Message of Hope: Confessions of an Ex-Satanist.: How to Protect Yourself from Evil. It's not St. Augustine's Confessions by any means but it's clear and simple   One thing that has caught the attention of multiple bloggers, an exorcist included is a list of five things you really should not be saying if you want to call yourself Catholic.   

• After reading Miss Lipsky's list I was reminded of something I heard one of the most fearless priests I've ever encountered bluntly stated about Hollywood. Most of what it produces is filthy because a surprising number of the celebrities we idolize have made a deal with the Devil for that fame.

• My firm's Christmas/Hannukah/Winter Fest/Whatever, Free Food and Booze party was last night. It was so bad I left as soon as I ate my pasta. Only a handful of support staff attended, three secretaries, two members of the IT department, one staff attorney and one paralegal and me.  There is a vast unhappiness and uncertainty at the firm right now.  The jollity was no where near what it was like in years gone by. The leadership says everything is fine but it sure doesn't seem like it. At my husband's job they skipped the party altogether and just gave out gift cards. I think I would've preferred that. 

• I think the Holy Father is, like all of us, a product of the times he grew up in. Look at Argentina for the last 50 years and it's not a lovely painting by any means. 

• Rocky is going to be ushering for the Christmas vigil Mass. It was wild last year, due to the large number people who completely forgot their manners to man and their reverence to God. Not all these people were C&E Catholics either.
•  This Video Sancto sermon is so good I stayed up past eleven to listen to it. 

• 
  

Thy almight Word leapt down from heaven....

For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course,  Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction.
The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 18, verse 11

St. Gilbert?

I'm so late on this but last year a priest was assigned to begin investigating if a cause for G.K. Chesterton's canonization should be opened. Some people are overjoyed, others are not. I read one essay by Stephen Drummel a few weeks ago that said Chesterton was too fat (well gee Sherlock, we never noticed), smoked cigars and drank his wine from a tumbler instead of a proper wine glass and that  he got crabby if anyone interfered with him while he was trying to chow down. He also was messy. Mr. Drummel doesn't come out and call Chesterton a drunken slob but he gets darn close to that.  In response to the essay a Dale Ahlquist, the premier US based G.K. Chesterton expert, wrote  that sure Gilbert was a big man but so was St. John XXIII (Pope Pius XI and St. Gertrude the Great were not fly weights either) and for what it's worth,  Pope St. Pius X dipped snuff and  St. Damian smoked and that  passionately liking wine doesn't make one a confirmed drunkard.

Is Drummel rough but absolutely right or is  Ahlquist correct? I don't know but several other sources throughout the decades have pointed out--- and this, I think will be the real deal breaker-- that although Chesterton was a Zionist for a time, it was only because he distrusted Jews and wanted them out of England and Europe. Later in his life he concluded that immigration to Palestine wouldn't work because of the Arabs who were already there and suggested that a carving a country out of territory in Africa might be the answer.  Chesterton's fans are hopeful that one day he'll be canonized but I wouldn't bet any money on it.

Annunciation

A Gorgeous Italian Madonna and Child

God's will is not necessarily fun or what we might want at the time

I was reading Ann Barnhardt's blog last night and the following passage resonated so strongly with me that I printed out the last line and stuck it on my wall at work.

A quick word to the priest readers, if I may. I hear CONSTANTLY as an excuse for “laying low” and “keeping one’s head down”the following:  

“If I rock the boat, I will get exiled and shipped off to Darkest Outer Nowhere.” 

Um, yeah.  Has it ever occurred to you that there are HUMAN SOULS in Darkest Outer Nowhere who

 a.) Our Lord created the universe for so that those human souls, as individuals, might exist, be saved, and be happy with Him forever in heaven, and that He would suffer the entirety of His Passion repeatedly for those people, as individuals, who just happen to live in Darkest Outer Nowhere?  Has it occurred to you that maybe one little old lady in Darkest Outer Nowhere has been begging Our Lord for the last 45 years to send a good and holy priest who will Offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Traditional Rite, and that maybe that priest, chosen to answer those prayers, is YOU? 

And b.) that the efficacy of your offering of the Holy Sacrifice is not tied to the worldly attractiveness of the culture you currently reside in and are so afraid to be exiled from?  Or that the efficacy of the Holy Sacrifice is not a function of how many lay people are in attendance?

Take it from me, just because something feels unpleasant to YOU does not mean that it is, by definition, bad, or not God’s will.  Sometimes it is precisely what feels awful to US that is what is best for EVERYONE ELSE.  Has that ever occurred to you?  Probably not.  Let me say it again:

Sometimes that which feels awful to us as individuals is what is best for EVERYONE ELSE, and is God’s will.

Our Lady of the Cave

Mass was pretty rough on Monday

Rocky and I couldn't make it to our parish so we went to Mass at another local parish. It's a dainty little church, the priest is a nice man, the people are friendly and sincere. I like them so I won't say the name of the place. It was like I fell into a time machine and stepped out in 1976. Afterwards I said to Rocky that  the whole experience, except for Father's excellent and utterly orthodox homily, was like being a little kid again. There was ad-libbing, with the rubrics and a mild lack of cantor control. Rocky was bemused by the loud running commentary by young couple explaining the Mass to their  very cute and talented and not completely potty trained (he announced "I peed! I peed!," sometime around the Our Father), tot. It was sweet but LOUD. Oh well. It was pretty rough but considering our schedule and the horrible evening traffic that night I am thankful we were able to get Mass.

American Hysteria-- It's all just a little bit of history repeated

From the time of the Pilgrims, Americans have been prone to outbreaks of hysteria. You may remember that the Salem Witch trials began with a nine year old girl and her eleven year old cousin who displayed shocking fits that seemed to have no physical cause. As word of the behavior spread other girls in town began doing the same things. And suddenly some simmering neighborhood feuds and family resentments exploded with the girls accusing all kinds of people of witchcraft. By the time cooler heads prevailed twenty people were either executed or died in prison. Some people say that it was the accusation against the governor's wife that finally made most of the colonists realize that this whole thing was a monstrous farce.

We shake our heads at Salem these days but essentially the same thing keeps happening over and over. Do you remember the  day care abuse hysteria wave of the 80s and 90s which destroyed innocent people? At the time if you said, "Wait a minute. How can you take ten or twenty kids out of school in broad day light, abuse them in unspeakable and violent ways without leaving a mark?," people responded by accusing you of not not believing, being evil yourself or being small minded. At first we all believed what was being reported but as the years went by and we read details of the accusations it all fell apart. Obviously, children are abused in school but the ritualized chains of predators (if not outright covens) that suddenly rose up in the 80s and early 90s turned out to be not provable and in many cases obvious hogwash. The accused in the daycare scares are now either dead, elderly, or so severely traumatized that they just want to be left in peace. We don't have their protesting voices to remind us what happened to them and we let the media, the mad and the unscrupulous lead us on into something new to be panicked and outraged about such as the current campus rape frenzy.

 Panics like this are not completely unique to America but we seem to do it more spectacularly than anybody else.  Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

The Immaculate Conception-- Monday is a Holy Day of Obligation

I don't read Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog very much anymore but I checked in yesterday and was a little depressed to see that the comments on the annual question of "Is there any way to get out of going to Mass two days in a row?" aka "How do we handle the Feast of the Immaculate Conception."?  I'll tell you how you handle it. You go to Mass on Sunday and then yeah, you go to Mass on Monday to honor Our Lady. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a holy day of obligation in the US so it's serious business if you miss Mass for a non-serious reason. If you are a parent, and your child has some activity planned on Monday night it's even more vital that you cancel that and go to Mass. If you don't practice the Faith now, while your children are at home don't make a fuss or sulk when they give up it up the minute they leave the house for good. 

The Christ Child

The Infant Jesus by Carlo Dolci

Pray for us, St. Peter Claver

 I have a feeling and can base it on nothing concrete, just my instincts-- that there is a great big fat hustle going on in Ferguson. I think the locals, both the ones who are just enjoying themselves with their stolen loot and the ones who are genuinely outraged,  are getting played but by whom and to what purpose? I haven’t a clue but the Da Tech Guy Blog has a warning for the folks who actually live in Ferguson that makes a lot of sense. 

A particularly vicious demon has been let loose  and when you dance with demons there is no way you can come away from the experience without being burned at the least  or utterly consumed. Speaking of demons, there's a scene in the movie, Evil Dead (don't bother to look it up--it's terrible, bad acting, bad theology, piss poor story telling and unnecessarily graphic and I couldn't stomach it after 20 minutes) where one of the hapless soon-to-be victims says to the hero, " I don't know if you noticed this, but ... Nothing's fine. Everything's been getting worse...every second." That pretty much sums up the political and morally rotten state of this poor country. God have mercy.  We do not deserve it, not one bit but dear God send us priests, send us saints, we need conversion, penance and fervor so very desperately. 

Oh St. Peter Claver, pray for us.  

Magnificat

Annunciation

Vespers at St. Francis Church

Gethsemane

...And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground.  Luke 24:14

O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow: for he hath made a vintage of me.. Lamentations 1:12

Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord.. Psalm 130

He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all things?  Romans 8:32

One of the Sweetest Holy Family paintings I've ever seen

A rather sobering Last Supper

This drawing of the Last Supper is interesting and in particular because of the way the unknown artist portrays Judas. Obviously, he's the only one in the dinning room with no halo but look at his body posture.  Everyone else is following Jesus with rapt attention. They are leaning towards Him with hands either clasped in prayer or outstretched in supplication  but Judas sits stiffly with his elbow on the table and his knees crossed in a studied imitation of casualness. One hand is  directed away from the Lord and the other is clinching his precious blood money.  He is in the room with the Lord and the others but inside he's already gone.  This drawing  deftly illustrates the hardened, smug sinner who does not even acknowledge to himself that he is a sinner, at Mass.

Some such as St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom say that Judas took Communion  and was the first to eat and drink condemnation for this profanity. Others speculate that Judas left before Our Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist or defer to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich who said that the bread  fell from Judas's hand before he could consume it.  Either way is a rather sobering lesson and a warning about the deadly seriousness about receiving Our Lord's precious blood and body while in a state of mortal sin.

Conowingo

Last week, Rocky and I went on a day in Western Maryland to look at bald eagles at the Conowingo Damn. It was incredible. I got to see them flying and sitting  and heard them for the first time. They seem to take little interest in humans but vocalize to each other quite a lot.  We also saw vultures, cormorants, a peregrine falcon hunting pigeons and a slew of different gulls and terns. Afterwards we went to the charming town of Port Deposit, MD and ate an excellent meal at  the Union Mill hotel.   We took photos of the local Catholic Church, St. Theresa of Avila, which has been around since 1866. It's only used on Sundays and shares a pastor with two other parishes. God bless that priest. He must be in constant motion.

Prayer For Priests

-St. Therese of the Child Jesus

O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;

for your unfaithful and tepid priests;

for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields.

for your tempted priests;

for your lonely and desolate priest

for your young priests;

for your dying priests;

for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.

But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:

the priest who baptized me;

the priests who absolved me from my sins;

the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;

the priests who taught and instructed me;

all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way (especially …).

O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,

and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen

Treasure and Tradition: The Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass

I just found a fantastic book.   It's a guide to the Tridentine Mass that has clear black and white drawings that explain what everything is on the altar, what the priest has on and why and what the Mass is.  It also has gorgeous photos of each part of the Mass and shows the words of the Mass in two ways. First you can see the Latin words with the English translation right underneath and if that doesn't work for you the author, Lisa Bergman has the parts of the Mass in English alone on the same page. Another very helpful feature is a chart a the front and the back that helps you find your place should you get "lost" during Mass. The book is absolutely beautiful to look at and it's a hardback which makes it durable and a lovely gift for someone. Rocky was fascinated just leafing through it and I've learned so much.  Thank you Lisa Bergman!

My King

Um...Simcha?

Seriously, can someone explain Simcha Fischer to me? Other than being an insult comic what is the point of her act? I think I understand what she loathes, but I'm fuzzy on what she loves about the Faith and the people who actually practice it.

Prayer

Christ and His Mother

Henry Ossawa Tanner's Annunciation is quite well known but I've never seen this one which shows Mary and her Divine Son a few years later.  

random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

1. Is the proposed by certain Cardinals attitude of "mercy" toward adulterers  a Trojan Horse? Is it really a way to introduce homosexual "marriage" in the Church?
   
2. Have you noticed that the people who used to say that Hispanics were the future of the Church in the US have fallen quiet? Is it because Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism are racing through Latin America?
   
3. I read that there are going to be showers set up at the Vatican for the homeless. That sounds nice but I hope there is a plan for the problems that will come with the showers. Homeless men and women present a huge challenge. Why are they homeless? Because, in most cases,  the mental or drug and/or  drink induced  behavior or the plain criminal behavior that binds them is so bad that their own relatives and old friends can't deal with them. There will be drugs in the shower area. There will be crime.  Some of the homeless will become prey. Other will be agent of chaos themselves. Women tourists would be best served if they are told to stay away or only walk in groups near the showers. Volunteers  of both sexes will need a full course of safety training.
   
   At my old parish I had a number of homeless pals that I chatted with, donated to and tried to comfort but I knew, and the folks in charge of the homeless ministry said straight out that females should not be alone in a room with the clients. My husband Rocky used to check the restrooms and unused conference rooms before and after the bible study he attended at our old parish. After bible study he also escorted the usually young women who attended, to the door lest any of them be cornered by a client.   I am not saying fear the homeless. Many of them are pitiful victims who are afraid of you but you need to be realistic. No matter how many years you've been a lion tamer, you don't casually stroll into the den. I hope nobody gets hurt in and around the shower area and if they do, I hope it's not covered up.
   
4. Yesterday I read part of an article about a spate of snatch and run attacks on women in NYC. I stopped reading when one of the victims was quoted as asking where the men were? Since each attack happened in the middle of busy sidewalks why didn't any man step in to help? I thought, "My sister, you can't have it both ways". Today's young man has probably seen his mother, his aunt or his sisters trade Dad  in for a check from the government or a support check and has grown up seeing the women in his life go from man to man.  Even if the women in his life were chaste while he was growing up he's seen that a single woman can take care of herself . All of his life he's been told that  womankind's biggest hindrance is man. One example of the the toxic atmosphere in this country between the sexes is a  t-shirt that was sold in  major clothing store chains. It  bore the words, "Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them." Many people thought this was cute and ridiculed the people who found these shirts offensive. With all the poison  let loose in our society, why, my sister do you expect a man to step forward  to save  you? There are good men who would come to the rescue but they are thin on the ground and won't be around when you need one. Our feminists sisters think that's just great. I'm going to cheerfully use a cliche  here:  we can not put the genie back in the bottle.
   
   
5. In your charity please pray for my uncle in the nursing home.  They found blood in a stool sample and he's scheduled for an ulcer test and a colonoscopy. I'm not sure how we are going to be able to get the Golightly prep formula into him because it doesn't taste good and he is not going to understand why he's being forced to fast. Fortunately both tests will be done at 6AM so he'll be able to eat as soon as possible.
   
   
6. Every time you go to Mass the most glorious thing in the world happens. Bread and wine turns to the Flesh and Blood of Christ. We don't see it like St. Gregory did, but it happens just the same. 

Mass of St. Gregory

Porn is not just a man's sin

Usually whenever there is a discussion, sermon or online commentary about pornography it is about men and boy and only mentions women and girls as victims. It's very rare that anybody brings up women's pornography. If you read 50 Shades of Gray and swooned you indulged in pornographic material. The woman reading "mommy porn", "erotica" or mainstream "spicy" romances is just as big a sinner as a man looking at filthy photos on his computer but so many of us treat this like it's cute. It's not.

The Rescuers

In this dramatic painting, artist, Carlo Dolci shows four Franciscan  monks who have come to the rescue of a family who took a wrong turn on a mountain.  I can not know if it was the artists's intention but this is a beautiful allegory for what  good priest can do for a sinner.

suicide is not dignified or pretty

I was thinking about Brittany Maynard and I wonder if she had any idea of what suicide really looks like. I once had a relative, who decided to end things. The death was not like a sentimental movie. The spouse of this relative was left to clean up feces from the carpet. The body does some ugly stuff after death and it's not a charming memory for your loved ones.

Death and the Maiden by Marianne Stokes

Requiem Missa Cantata

To the Blessed Sacrament....

I

 I adore Thee profoundly, my Jesus, true Victim of expiation for our sins; and I offer Thee this act of adoration in compensation for the sacrilegious outrages Thou dost receive from so many of Thy ungrateful people, who dare to draw nigh to Thee and receive Thee in Communion with mortal sin upon their souls. In reparation for these hateful sacrileges, I offer Thee those last drops of They most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from the wound in Thy Side; and, entering therein, I approach Thee with acts of adoration, love, and thanksgiving, and with all holy souls who are devout to Thee in the most Holy Sacrament, I say:
Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and divine Sacrament.
Pater noster. Ave Maria. Gloria Patri.


This prayer can be found in The Raccolta

random thoughts on All Saints Day

Feast of All Saints

• I've noticed a lot of attempts at man shaming going on in Catholic blog land. In the 70s and 80s a lot of men  were disgusted by the shenanigans in their parishes but kept on going to Mass and refused to help with anything, (the guys who were active beyond ushering or putting up the altar Christmas tree, were chuckled at and the adults use the word "hen pecked" to describe them ). Other men and boys simply stopped going to Mass as soon as they turned 18, and would only return for weddings, funerals, graduations, the occasional baptism and perhaps a Christmas Midnight Mass. As a girl,  I never got the impression that any of the ladies really missed them. Anyone who had a problem with the pastor, the church musician or the deacons behaving in a womanish manner had two choices: Shut up or don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya,  and until the pedophilia/ephebophilia  scandal burst open like a rotten watermelon this was all A-okay.   Frankly, instead of these sermons, essays and not so cute memes to shame men into coming back to Mass how about begging their pardon and asking them to come back for the sake of their souls and because we need them? Steve Wood has an interesting essay on the subject at his site. 
• 
  
• The annual fight about whether to let the kids participate in  Halloween didn't happen in Catholic blog land this year. Things in the church and the secular world are so bad right now that people had other concerns.
• My parish is having a missa cantata on November 6, at 7:30.
  
• Rocky and I went on vacation last week and on the way back we stopped at the church we were married in for Sunday Mass. I couldn't wait to leave. The cantor came darn close to giving up a lounge act but the priest gave a good homily. As I sat there I thought of my own pastor and decided that I should thank him for the way he celebrates Mass and if I get chance I'll thank our church musician, who is highly talented, for never cutting loose and dominating the Mass.
  
  
• I realized something on my vacation. I felt physically great for the entire week. I'm not sure how to do it but I'm going to have to figure out a way to lower my stress level at work.
  
  
  
• I feel embarrassed for Michael Voris. 

Dear Catholic business owners

I've been frustrated lately by interactions with two Catholic businesses and without naming any names I have to say that I really wish four  things:

1. If you intend to have a going concern get your business model straight. Do not send me letters or e-mail hinting that I'm not a good Catholic if I don't buy your product to help you pull you  out of insolvency.  A number of Catholic publishers have played this game in recent years and it always ticks me off. Pity and guilt is not how you market a business.
   
2. Act like you know what you are doing. I expect the same level of professionalism from you as I would from a totally secular business. If you ship me a product and it doesn't arrive in three weeks and you did not send it book rate or live in another country don't get huffy when I inquire as to the product's whereabouts and communicate honestly with your customer who has spent good money with you.
   
3. Have a product worth repeat business. If your product is substandard why do think I should buy it?
   
4. Don't oversell to ridiculous lengths.  Your movie with its bad acting, anachronistic language, and poor technical quality  is not the greatest thing since The Passion of Christ.
   
5. I'll say it again. Get your  business model straight.     

at prayer

Return O ye revolting children...

The most evident mark of God's anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clergy who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than charity and affection of devoted shepherds ...

When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people, and is visiting His most dreadful anger upon them. That is why He cries unceasingly to Christians, "Return O ye revolting children ... and I will give you pastors according to My own heart". (Jer. 3:14,15) Thus, irregularities in the lives of priests constitute a scourge upon the people in consequence of sin.
-St. John Eudes

To the Blessed Sacrament

I adore Thee profoundly, my Jesus, the Living Bread which has come down from heaven; and by this act of adoration I would make amends for all the acts of irreverence which Thy people day by day commit whilst they assist at Holy Mass, in which bloodless Sacrifice Thou dost renew the very Sacrifice which once Thou didst consummate on Calvary for our salvation. I offer Thee, in reparation for all this ingratitude, that most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from the wound in Thy Right Hand; and, entering therein, I unite my voice with the voices of the holy angels who adore around Thy throne:
Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and divine Sacrament!
Pater noster. Ave Maria. Gloria Patri.


Taken from the Raccolta

A Dutch Madonna

Like his good friend, Gari Melchers, George Hitchcock fell in love with the Dutch country side and he painted Our Lady as a Dutch girl.

They rented the Sistine Chapel?

So Porcshe rented the Sistine Chapel for a corporate event. The Vatican spokesmen say it's okay because charity money was raised. Supposedly the only real difference from this and allowing tourists in to look at the chapel is that the Porsche guests were better dressed and weren't sweaty and stinky. I am reminded of the  time Jesus took exception to money being raised in His Father's house.

Jesus never said it would be soft and easy

This Russian painting shows the first Christians in Kiev attending a clandestine Mass by moonlight.

Madonna and Child

To the Blessed Sacrament..

I adore Thee profoundly, my Jesus, true Bread of life eternal; and by this my act of adoration I would make Thee compensation for all the wounds with which Thy Sacred Heart bleeds daily to see the profanation of those churches wherein Thou dost vouchsafe to abide beneath the sacramental species, to receive the love and adoration of Thy people. I offer Thee, in reparation for all those irreverences, that most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from the wound in Thy Left Hand, and, entering therein, I say every moment:
Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and divine Sacrament
Pater noster. Ave Maria. Gloria Patri.

This prayer can be found in the Raccolta.

So...........Cardinal Kasper.

Cardinal Kasper, have you forgotten Africans like St. Benedict the Black, St. Marcellinus (left Africa and went to France as a missionary), St. Perpetua and Felicity, Pope St. Victor (first African pope), and Blessed Isidore Bakanja and Blessed Annuarite Nengapeta? They and St. Charles Lwanga and his companions have a lot to teach you sir. You should listen to them.

Blessed Anuarite Nengapeta, marytr. 

Update: Cardinal Kasper denies saying anything rude about Africans in his interview. The reporter has a recording. 

Dear Synod Fathers....God hates divorce.

This is a marvelous work showing a couple that judging by the wife's face have hit a rocky patch in their marriage and she's ready to kick the door open and head to a divorce lawyer. It looks like the couple has gone to the rectory for advice and the dear old priest is cajoling, pleading and preaching that they remember their vows and get past whatever it is that has brought them to this point. I wish the bishops at the synod could see it.

Salvator Mundi

Like Gold From the Furnace

“From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.” Raymond Chandler from "The High Window"

That quote from Raymond Chandler came to my mind after reading Patrick Archbold's post  (which so far, over 70 people have commented on), about the state of the USA. He thinks it's over. Ann Barhardt has said on many occasions that it's already dead and starting to stink but we just haven't been paying attention.  Patrick isn't sure of what will happen next and Miss Barnhardt is expecting a nasty, violent collapse complete with looting, rape and murders. I haven't really formed a guess yet but I am sure this: politics is not going save us. Our only hope is in the Lord. Probably in two or three generations from now the USA that we know will be completely, obviously no more. God willing something better will come out of the fire like gold from a furnace. 

To the Blessed Sacrament

I adore Thee profoundly, my Jesus; I acknowledge Thee present in the most holy Sacrament. By this act of adoration, I would make amends for the forgetfulness of so many Christian people, who, when they see Thee go to the poor sick, to be their strength in their great journey to eternity, leave Thee unescorted, and hardly give Thee even one outward sign of homage. I offer Thee, in reparation for this coldness, that most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from the wound in Thy Right Foot, and, entering therein, I say and will never cease to say:
Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and divine Sacrament!
Pater noster. Ave Maria. Gloria Patri.


Taken from the Raccolta.

Mass without pews

A Mass on the battlefield.

This is wrong

 Imagine that I am your servant and I have come to your house with a guest. The guest does not like you so not only do I ask you to stay out of the living room and dinning room while the guest is present but I cover up all the photographs of you and your family because this might offend or at least discomfort the guest. You'd think me mad wouldn't you? Even if you didn't tell me to get the heck out  but instead, for love of me, you kindly put up with this extraordinary request, you would at least consider yourself ill treated and would ponder my lack of love and respect for you.   The intent here is well meaning but we all know what road that leads to. 

For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty, and that of his Father, and of the holy angels. Luke 9:26

RIP Fr. Groeschel

Yesterday I was thinking about him as I walked back to work from lunch. Today I read that he's passed away at 81. Rest in peace, Father.

To the Blessed Sacrament...

ACTS OF ADORATION AND REPARATION TO JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

 I adore Thee profoundly, my Jesus, in the Blessed Sacrament; I acknowledge Thee true God and true Man. By this my act of adoration I intend to make Thee reparation for the coldness of so many of Thy people, who pass before Thy churches, nay, before Thy very tabernacle, where hour after hour Thou dost deign to dwell in loving impatience to communicate Thyself to Thy faithful; yet do not even bow the knee before Thee, but, like the Israelites in the wilderness, seem by their indifference to loathe this heavenly manna. I offer Thee Thine own most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from the wound in Thy Left Foot, in reparation for this hateful coldness, and, entering therein, I say, and will never cease to say:
Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and divine Sacrament.
Pater noster. Ave Maria. Gloria Patri. 



From the Raccolta.

Three Nuns

Alter Cristus

A medieval St. Matthew and the Angel

The angel seems to be saying, "Excuse me, may I interest you in writing a gospel?"