It's a Christmas miracle

Every now and then outrageous and irreverent behavior by a priest during Mass gets smacked down by his bishop. This was one of those precious few times. A priest in the Phillipines forgot the dignity of his office and turned the holy Mass into a show all about him. The videos taken by parishioners went all around the world and I guess it was just too much for the bishop to stomach. Praise God.

In the House of the Virgin

And the Word became flesh... Merry Christmas and may God bless you all.

 The Burning Babe 

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shedAs though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.

“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,

Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,

Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;

The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,

The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,

For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,

      So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”

      With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,

      And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

by St. Robert Southwell S.J.

Requiem

I've always thought that my husband was wonderful but lately when I look at him I marvel. The man really is a walking miracle. My father-in-law was an extreme narcissist. He was the corpse at every  funeral and the bride at every wedding.  He was the sun and anyone who didn't want to revolve around him forever was in trouble.  He was affectionate with his sons when they were little but changed when they became teenagers. Perhaps it was because he couldn't cope with them growing up. Maybe something bad  happened elsewhere in his life and that is what made him mean. Perhaps he was afraid. As the boys grew, he may have felt like an old lion who had to defend his territory.  We'll never know. At any rate, Rocky made it out of that household being sane, decent and kind. My father-in-law never got over Rocky  leaving home and his "humorous" tongue was so toxic  that the only way for Rocky to deal with him without getting emotionally torn up every time we visited was to severely limit contact and then to only talk about safe things like football.

My mother-in-law simply adored her husband. He could do no wrong. If he said the sky was green. She would agree and get angry at anyone who said otherwise. Now that she is gone, Rocky is left with only his brother and sadly, it is now obvious that while Rocky got away, "Clipper," never really did. When I look at him, it's like seeing a 6 foot tall marionette with no visible strings.


Kyrie Elieson!
Eternal rest grant unto my in-laws Oh Lord. Let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.

Very good Christmas advice from a priest

Fr. Peter Carota has very good advice on how a Catholic should celebrate Christmas.

Before Bethlehem

Blessed art thou among women....

Gaudete

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)

This Little Babe by St. Robert Southwell

This little Babe so few days old,

Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;

All hell doth at his presence quake,

Though he himself for cold do shake;

For in this weak unarmèd wise

The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,

His naked breast stands for a shield;

His battering shot are babish cries,

His arrows, looks of weeping eyes,

His martial ensigns, Cold and Need, 

And feeble Flesh, his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,

His bulwark but a broken wall;

The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes;

Of shepherds he his muster makes;

And thus, as sure his foe to wound,

The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;

Stick to the tents that he hath pight,

Within his crib is surest ward;

This little babe will be thy guard.

If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,

Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

St Robert Southwell

A letter from a man I'd never heard of

A year ago I read a letter written by a dying man. He was Mario Palmaro, a Catholic journalist in Rome. He was terribly worried about his children and the silence of the Church in the face of the homosexual lobby. I never forgot what that man wrote.
Eternal rest grant unto him Oh Lord....

At prayer

In your charity, could you pray for a damaged relative of mine?

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked; 

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; 

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head. 

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Last night I found out something horrible. It was something that I had suspected but now I know it for sure. No-one killed themselves  but an image surely died. A relative that we all thought simply golden, the favorite child, the one with the big job, the biggest house, the newest car, the most money and the surgically enhanced wife, the one who had all the world says is good, is actually angry, miserable and has carried a frightening level of resentment for years.  Rocky and I were stunned and when the evening came to a merciful close we were glad to see this person leave our home.  Poor soul. 

Hail, the God bearer

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)

At prayer

The pope is the vicar of Christ

The pope is God's highest servant. He is the steward. He is the visible head of of the Church but he is not the ultimate head so no, it is not his church to do with as he pleases. Everything he has power over to loose and bind is given to him by Christ and he must answer to the Master one day. The bride belongs to the bridegroom and the bridegroom is Christ.

It is HIS church.

at prayer

This painting of a nun at prayer looks like the Oblate Sisters of Providence habit.

que soy era Immaculada Councepciou

There is going to be a light show projected onto St. Peter's Basilica in support of environmentalism/making everybody but the rich live like livestock in order to "save the planet" on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  My Jesus, mercy!

Random thoughts

Never forget what Mary's Baby came to do

• Have a blessed Advent!"
• I can't stand poor mouthing.  I come from a family and a culture that drilled it into my head that you did not discuss your money with anybody outside the house. Even if you had to spend the month eating grits with no butter, you got on with it, made sure the rent was paid, looked presentable when you stepped outside  and did not shame your people.  A few weeks ago a blogger mentioned that he went to France and ate something nice at a restaurant. Two readers  wrote in to say passive aggressive things like, "Oh I'd like to eat something besides Cheerios but I have 9 kids and can't do (frivolous, it's implied) stuff like that.  On another blog I read the author's advice on housekeeping. Two people responded with the sugar coated insult along the lines of "Well, I can't do that because my husband and I are real Catholics and have chosen a modest lifestyle instead your (it is hinted) wordly way." Folks, the lady blogger was writing about keeping your house clean and neat.  I see this frequently from commenters and it is not attractive.  How about, "Oh, that's nice," and nothing more or if that's too much, how about no comment at all? Begrudging what other people have and do does not make you and your lifestyle look holy, it just makes you look small, discontent, and leads other people to think, 'Wow, I feel sorry for your family.'
  
  
• My parish, St. Rita's got new hymnals and missals. The old ones from CC Watershed  were beautiful but a  not tough enough to survive my fellow parishioners. The ushers were frequently finding books with the covers and backs torn off after Mass and the arrangement of the missal/hymnal combination just seemed to confuse people. The new books are from Illuminaire. Hopefully they will survive  for a few years.
  
• The Texas nuns make good soap. 
  
• This is a gorgeous blog.
  
• In a parish in North Carolina they had a Rorate Mass. I've never been able to go to one but I mean to.
  
• Disorder in the nation starts with disorder in the home. We obviously have a LOT of work to do.
  
• Rocky is going to be ushering on the early Christmas Vigil. This is typically a suit up and be ready for anything Mass. The ushers face, among other things, visiting horribly spoiled children who are confused and upset because rude behavior that was okay all year long is suddenly not okay. I watched many young parents, sometimes the father, but usually the mother just lose it in the vestibule because they are mortified in front of their  in-laws.  Occasionally it is middle aged parents who snap. It's most often  the father who upon seeing the expressions on the faces of his shocked relatives looks at his daughter's strapless, thigh high dress and gets embarrassed.  The poor kid can't understand what the big deal is because Dad said nothing all the other times she wore the dress. This leads to a scene at home, being late and then going off on the usher when he offers  a fold up chair to sit in the back instead of miraculously finding  spaces together in the front half of the church.  Then there are the C&E Catholics who sometimes come to church with a grudge and get ridiculously upset because the usher refuses to make a 97 year old in walker move down so they and their party of eight can all sit together.
  
  
  
  
  
  

St. John of Damascus-- pray for us!

St. John was Syrian and in his old age he was brought before the ruling Caliph and his hand was cut off. After spending the night in prayer and agony the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and restored his hand. The Caliph was astounded and let St. John return to his monastery where he lived until his death sometime between 749 and 753. His feast day is December 4.

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)

A prayer for the Holy Father

Dearest Mother, please let the Holy Father take some time off and stop giving interviews on planes.

Amen