Random thoughts on magic, the traumas of Gen X childhood and other bits...

•  Rocky and I visited the chapel of the Comboni Missionary Sisters in Richmond.  The sister who showed us around was Italian and so kind. It's a lovely chapel and they have a retreat house for big groups. After than we went to the Botanical Garden and spent hours walking and sitting amid the plants and flowers.

• Once, the Vatican rebuked the author Alexander Dumas because he portrayed a member of the clergy in an insulting way. Today we have a Vatican official writing on behalf of the pope to a lesbian who writes pro-gay books for children.  I'm reminded of the last scene from the movie , The Manchurian Candidate where a grief stricken Major Marco can't go on anymore with what he is saying and just leans  back  and moans "Hell....Hell."
  

• The deliberately ignored Christians of the Middle East have a message for us.   I don't think most of us in Europe and North America are going to like it but maybe tears and blood has to be shed, maybe the scourge of Islam is what is needed to restore people to their senses.
  
  
• Am I the only one who can't wait for the pope's visit in September to be over? It looks like Philadelphia is going be a public relations failure. Besides the pro abortion involvement in the planning of the World Meeting of Families,  Philly people are not going to be happy with closed roads, bridges and towed cars. Much like Evilene from the musical, The Wiz, Archbishop Chaput seems to be singing "Don't bring me no bad news."  and in DC the diocese don't seem to be managing the logistics as well as it did when Benedict came to DC.
  
  
  
• There is no such thing as good magic. In rural South Carolina, where my parents come from, witches are known as root doctors. A skilled root doctor can give you a potion to make your arthritic hands hurt less, he can also give you a tea that will cause a heavy menstrual cycle--an abortion really---, or give you a powder that will make someone you don't like very sick or dead. All magic seeks to take the power belonging only to God. All magic is evil. Certain forms are very flexible which is in part, why they are so sucessful. My mother remembers that a person could go to the root doctor on a regular basis and still go to church. This shocked her as a girl but only a few adults that she met seemed to be troubled by it.
  
  I don't want to get into Harry Potter because even decent people lose their minds over it and can not be reasoned with but magic is pushed heavily by our media. Remember Buffy,the Vampire Slayer? That was one toxic show. Fathers were either useless or cruel. Mothers, even the one gentle and loving one  on the show, were useless and needed to be kept ignorant or their own good. Sex outside of marriage was normal. Sex with non-humans was also normal. In fact fornication of all kinds was ok, except for that between a normal man and woman. Conjugal relations were never mentioned and there wasn't a single happy marriage. Witchcraft was normal, and so-called white magic was held in high esteem. A whole lot of girls were influenced by that show and their daughters and younger sisters were captivated by Twilight, another toxic series of novels that portrays normal humans as boring and cursed humans and lessor demons, as beautiful, exiting, eminently superior and worth dying for so long as you can be with them forever. Somone is reading this and asking "What about Narnia?" Oh bother, Narnia. I was eight years old and realized that it was an allegory and that Aslan was supposed to represent Jesus. The White Witch was not at all appealing and was clearly a satanic figure.
  
  
  
• Hilary White has an interesting post on science fiction  where she wonders if  the constant drumbeat of hopelessness, and godlessness of  70s and 80s sci-fi didn't help cause the anxiety that seems to be so much a part of Generation X.  It wasn't just science fiction though, Lurleen McDaniel made a fortune writing teen-aged liebestod  novels. I think I picked up one  and it depressed me so badly I never touched her stuff again but think of all the poor silly girls who did read that stuff and grew up believing that you better grab "love" now because you could die young and miss it all. I'll bet that some of those girls are the ones who impulsively divorce their husbands, blow up their families but do it because they have a right to be happy NOW and life is too short to miss out.
  
  
  
•  After an apparently homosexual reporter slaughtered two people in Roanoke the media had a quandary. They can't bring themselves to criticize the murderer so  they blame weapon that he used.  Some people have been shocked by the conduct of the female victims family. How could you talk politics when your child is dead? I think it's because the lure of being on TV is so powerful that it trumps all natural inclinations.  I've seen people being interviewed who had glazed eyes and goofy grins while a dead body lies only a few feet away. It's like a drug. Later they may cry or go silent but while the camera is on them they go through the motions like zombies. It's astonishing and frightening to watch. 

The Passion of St. John

This painting may be seen by visiting St. John the Baptist Church in Front Royal, Virginia

I can't figure out how to repost properly so thanks to the copy and paste feature here's what I wrote about John, and the Herodian clan, last year.


 The House of Herod was an astonishingly sick one even by the standards of the day. Herod the Great, was a monstrous individual and the first of a long line of anti-Christs. A Roman contemporary famously quipped that it was better to be Herod's pig than his son and that was true. Herod did not eat pork--in public anyway but his paranoia drove him to kill not only his wife, her mother and her still teen-aged brother but two of his sons as well.When Herod wasn't killing his family, he was killing enemies, real and imagined and making his subjects miserable. His viciousness was such that his courtiers probably weren't shocked when he ordered the Slaughter of the Innocents.

Herodias  who was a key figure in the Passion of St. John, was the granddaughter of Herod the Great by one of his murdered sons. She was married to her half uncle, Herod II, (also called Herod Phillip) a son by King Herod's third wife.  At some point she dumped  her husband and taking her daughter, Salome went off to Gallilee  in order to be with his half brother Herod Antipas, another son of Herod the Great by his fourth wife.  Her new husband, Herod Antipas was both her brother-in-law and her uncle.

St. John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, of whom Our Lord said there was none greater born of woman, looked at the adulterous, incestuous couple and saw that they were crooked people sprung from a crooked house. Most people would've turned away, repulsed and given the situation up as hopeless  but John did not. The Gospels tell us the rest of the story. His passion is commemorated on August 29.

Reparation prayer

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

Our Lady of Lourdes

Song for Mary

Prayer

The most beautiful thing this side of Heaven

Mass tonight was even more thrilling than usual. There were a lot of new people there besides the regulars and the confession line was long. Among the regulars were a charming woman I've nicknamed Sweet Mommy and her Delightful Daughter. Sweet Mommy is married to Funny Daddy. The Handsome Indian Couple were their usual pew. Big Irish, who looks like he could kneecap you but is actually a very tender hearted guy was up front, the Three Cute Girls were on the St. Joseph side, the Shy Young Fellows were on the Our Lady side and the Big Jolly Family who come in a tank were spread out in two pews. There is always a big assortment of single people in their 20s and we get worshipers from around the world. To see this kind of variety in peoples you'd have to go to a cathedral in the city but we were were all together in a little back water parish for the Tridentine Mass. What a beautiful thing.

A word to the guys

• A woman who works in ANY capacity for Planned Parenthood or who mentions that yeah sure, she had one or more abortions,  says she is not the least bit sorry  and takes offense when you are disturbed by that knowledge will, inevitably hurt you to the soul one day. Without total conversion she simply can't help herself. Having paid someone to slaughter her own little baby she can now do anything. Run away.

• Do not marry the perpetual damsel in distress. The woman who needs you to save her from herself will bring painful drama to your life forever. 

•  Don't marry an unbeliever thinking that it will convert them. Missionary dating and marriage rarely work and  the cases where it did work owe it to divine intervention. You probably aren't St. Clotilda or  the Prophet Hosea so don't go looking for suffering young bro. 

Do you think Christ doesn't notice?

Do you think it escapes Our Lord's notice how many of us say "God bless America," in one breath but twist and squirm  and remain silent when it comes to saying, "I oppose abortion,"?

Reparation Prayer

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

Prayer

The Wounds of Christ

Within Thy wounds, hide me, Lord. 

Random thoughts on a Tuesday

• The music director at church is looking for a new cantor. I wish a basso profundo would walk through the doors.  I'd love to hear a voice like this just once. Can you imagine a basso singing "Shine Jesus, Shine?" I sure can't.

• I was listening to a priest giving an interview who mentioned that many people in America are going and have gone insane. I think he's right. There seem to be more people wandering the streets in desperate need of care in a mental institution. Craziness seems to be everywhere, in the grocery store, at work, among celebrities. Everyday something more gross and disgusting is said or done in public--always in public so we can "celebrate" it, and the priest said it is because we in the West are slaves to appetite and feelings both which will, if not kept in check lead to madness.
•   I'm starting the St. Monica Novena today.
• I have an interview today and I am very nervous. I shouldn't be but I am.
  
• Louie, Louie, Oh, Oh , he's mad now, oh, oh, oh.....
  
  
• I'm so looking forward to Mass tonight at St. Rita's.

The Assumption

Oh Queen Assumed into Heaven to be with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost forever, pray for us.

A word from Pope Benedict XV

"One cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and condition; made foolish by desire to please, they do not see to what a degree the indecency of their clothing shocks every honest man, and offends God. Most of them would formerly have blushed for those toilettes as for a grave fault against Christian modesty; now it does not suffice for them to exhibit them on the public thoroughfares; they do not fear to cross the threshold of the churches, to assist at the Holy sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seducing food of shameful passions to the Eucharistic Table where one receives the heavenly Author of purity. And We speak not of those exotic and barbarous dances recently imported into fashionable circles, one more shocking than the other; one cannot imagine anything more suitable for banishing all that remains of modesty."

Prayer and pardon

French painter, Jules Breton loved Brittany and he was fascinated with the beautiful effects of Confession. He painted three versions of Breton women and the peace of pardon.

Once again I ask, "Where are the American Catholics on this?"

We don't expect much from the bishops in France but this sympathetic gesture is more than what I've seen from American dioceses.

True Love

Random thoughts....

• Go to the end of the video. The cantor is singing to Mother Earth. It's bad enough that sick people, many of whom have access to no Mass but the one on TV and who haven't had anyone from their parish come near them since they got sick, are forced to put up with cheesy Masses on TV but this is just too much and the the pries having to go along with it is just pathetic.
  
• Friday I got sick and after work I went home, got into to bed and slept until 11 AM the next day. Rocky and I went to Mass and then I went back to bed. I guess it's partly from a sinus infection and partly from grief over work.  On the positive side I think I must have sent out over 50 resumes.
  
• Michael Matt says he was a baby during Vatican II and is really sick of hearing about it. I giggled a bit when I heard him say that.
  
  
• I have a feeling that the "compassion" for divorced and invalidly remarried Catholics is just a   camel's nose under tent distraction for something else to slip by at the October synod.
  
  
• Cecil the lion was not beloved by the villagers who lived next the preserve. When your experience with lions is seeing your sister being eaten by one and being unable to go get water from the river because you don't want to be next, it makes it pretty darn hard to sing along to Disney's The Lion King. Warble "Hakuna matata" at a rural Zimbabwean and you might get slapped.
  
  
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• Christians are being killed in the Middle East the Vatican is inviting Oprah to come visit and asking us to apologize for sins against the Earth.  When the Princes of the Church get frivolous it's a sign that a correction-- a good bracing slap is needed. 

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us

The sword of Hilary

No, I don't mean Bill Clinton's wife, I mean Hilary White the spunky Catholic columnist and blogger. She's written a commentary on pitiful Cardinal Sean O'Malley and the pro-life movement that is sobering and sharp as a sword as one commenter points out.

St. Philomena novena

I'm currently praying the St. Philomena Novena. The reminders come to my in-box everyday thanks to the lovely people at Pray More Novenas.

Let's help Jessica make it to the convent

A fellow Virginia and recent graduate of William & Mary wants to follow Our Lord to the Benedictine convent but she has to pay off her college debt hopefully before she's too old to be admitted. You can help her out here. 

Traveling can really make you appreciate your own parish

Rocky and I were on a road trip and had to go to a local parish for our Sunday obligation. It was interesting. The church was the drabbest I've ever seen, A Quaker or any Anabaptist could've walked in said, "Guys plain doesn't have to be this ugly." The people were very nice, they treat their elders with consideration and I was SO impressed by the kids. They were well behaved. The brat factor in Northern Virginia is so high it's a nice surprise seeing ten years olds sitting without video games or having to go to the restroom three times in an hour.  The homily was strange. The priest left the pulpit and gave his homily like a motivational speaker moving back and forth across the stage.  The music was totally Protestant and concert length. At one point the priest and the sulky altar girl were standing for an inordinately long time waiting while the guitars strummed and the choir sang on and on. Poor Father was visibly startled when Rocky received Communion on his tongue but recovered himself when I stepped up.
As for the altar girl.......why do parents force their kids to serve? If you daughter is scowling, dragging her feet, flipping her hair,  wearing makeup that makes her look like she just came out of a biker bar, slouching into the sacristy in booty shorts and a t-shirt that might fit a three year old or lounging by the altar before Mass I think she really doesn't want to be there. Maybe you are trying to show her who is boss but do you have to have this fight in Our Lord's house?

The influencers in America have gone insane

At work my colleagues are just about weeping over a dead lion but haven't said jack about Planned Parenthood. It's been chilling to watch.  They just parrot whatever they hear on TV. I wonder how many people who have wept over the lion would even bother to shrug their shoulders over the Zimbabweans who have been attacked by lions?  Probably not a one, which is the real reason why Americans are hated.  It sure isn't for our so-called freedom. We tell people how to live. We tell people that they can't have roads, schools, hospitals and indoor plumbing because we like their plants and animals more than we like them.  We cheerfully strip people of their dignity. We threaten their countries for the sake of homosexuals. We interfere with their efforts to uplift themselves and give them sterilization as... charity.
When you get to the point where you are willing to threaten a man (whom granted, sounds like a jerk- I have nothing against hunting but it has to be a righteous kill-within the law and with work involved)  and his home and family over a beast but care nothing for human life, you have gone insane and need a good dose of reality and something serious to occupy your excessive free time.