The Church Suffers

Some look at Pope Francis and say "How can this be? It can not be. This man is not the real pope."  They forget the sufferings of Our Lord. His agony in the garden, the scourging which was much worse than most of us imagine.  Thanks to the Passion of the Christ movie we got a glimpse of it. The flagellum was a multi thonged whip with bits of bone, rock or  metal attached along the length. This not only caused  initial pain in being whipped but also ripped through the victim and tore off flesh which each lash.  Our Lord suffered. It was not enough to torture Him by scourging but the Romans drove a crown on thorns onto His Sacred Head causing exquisite pain throughout His Holy Face. Every nerve affected by the thorns must have been on fire. Our Lord suffered. He was rejected by His own people, which must have caused more pain than all His physical agonies and then given a cross. Even if He carried the cross beam instead of the entire cross that was an appalling weight for a man in His condition. Our Lord suffered. Even without the scourging and the falls along the way to the Via Dolorosa, crucifixion was a horrible death.  Our Lord suffered. Do you think His bride, Holy Mother Church should not imitate Him?


Holy Mother Church suffers from lousy Catholics, high and low. She suffers very much from lazy Catholics. She suffers from cowardice among her clergy. She suffers from bad priests who never should have been ordained. She suffers from monstrous bishops. She suffers from traitorous religious orders and she suffers when her children fall into heresy, fantasy, and childishness.

Saying that a pope who does funky, kick in the gut things is not a pope at all is just too easy, too much of a cop out. Unless someone credible can prove that Pope's Francis' election was invalid we need to leave that fantasy and face reality. Christ never said that the popes would all be like Peter or Gregory the Great and remember, the pope is NOT the Faith. The pope is the vicar of Christ. You don't have to like him. Just pray for him because things are bad and are going to get a lot worse.

Sacrifice

This painting shows young missionaries who are saying good bye to their families and parish probably forever because they are going out to take the Gospel to foreign lands. Disease, the dangers of travel, endless toil and pagan violence would kill many of these young men and women but they lit a spark. Millions of souls will not be lost because some forgotten missionary loved Our Lord.

The Virgin and Her Child

Mass without pews

These pilgrims and their priest were stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for hours before and after Fr. said Mass. God bless them.

Mass without pews

Random thoughts while watching the snow

• There is much talk about where the men are in Church these days. Some are attempting to solve it by making safe spaces for men, which is rather pitiful right there. Louis Verrechio  has in this video sampled the Fix the Men movement and doesn't like it at all.
  
  
  
• We are supposed to get up somewhere around 30 inches of snow tonight.  With some reluctance the powers that be at my job let us all leave early at noon. Even with that I just managed to catch the last bus home. When I got here I tried out Gordon Ramsey's scrambled eggs method (too much work and no more fluffy that my usual method), ate the eggs and decided to go take a nap.
  
  
  
• Rocky and I went grocery shopping on Wednesday and I saw something interesting and somewhat chilling. People were really aggressive. One man even tried to shove his way into the check out line.  A lot of people think that as long as you aren't in a city during a national emergency you'll be okay. Not so. The barely controlled individuals that I saw two days ago were all comfortable suburbanites. Some of the worse savages that will arise in a national emergency just might be our own neighbors.

• In parishes around the world, Holy Thursday has been a sad and sometimes sacrilegious side show for years. Now the side show is official.
  
  
  
• I just found this video of my parish's Silver Jubilee Mass. It looks like they were remodeling or the church wasn't finished yet.
  
  
  
  
• My great Aunt Lucy passed away last week and the funeral was yesterday. She was 88 and according to cousins who were able to make it, the funeral was ruined by the pastor. People who want married priests tend to think that it will work like the Orthodox. Nonsense. The average American Catholic outside of New York City has never seen a Greek or Russian Orthodox person. Most of us have never seen a Byzantine Catholic church, much less met a Byzantine Catholic. Let's face it, we live in  what was once a Protestant country and most of us act just like Protestants.  The odds are that a married priest and his parishioners would behave like Baptists.. I bring this up because there is a fight going on in my late great aunts church and part of is it  is due to the head preacher being single and dating. He has chosen a woman in the congregation and given her an engagement ring. Some factions in the church are unhappy because they think this woman will not make a good First Lady. Others are unhappy because they think the preacher should've chosen one of them instead. Naturally, the family members of the woman the preacher did choose are defensive of her.  Lines have been drawn and sides have been taken. The preacher's love life has tongues flapping and the fight over him and with him spilled over into my great aunt's funeral. Open the door to a married priesthood and Catholics will get be "enriched" with these kinds of scenes. 

Christians in the Middle East have been completely abandoned

I've noticed that Protestants, especially the Evangelicals have with few exceptions said nothing and done nothing to help our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, particularly Syria. This goes back to their hostility to Catholicism and their prideful ignorance of Faith before their sects were invented. But I haven't been impressed with the US bishops either. They seem eager to bring in young Muslim men but have forgotten all about the brethren of  the Blessed Massabki brothers, three Syrian  laymen who were martyred in 1860, and beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

Our Lady of Africa

I've been looking for clear image of Our Lady of Africa for ages. 

random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

• Fr. George Rutler has a couple of wise things to say about  the people who have lost their minds over David Bowie including clergy who should know better.
  
  
  
• According to EWTN the Church has over 20 valid rites.  EWTN does not mention the unofficial rites such as the gay Mass, the contemporary music---usually from the 70s-- Mass, the  Spanish Mass, the Charismatic  howl and faint Mass or the gospel music Mass. All of these unofficial rites have passionate defenders and are either left in peace or have bishops who lavish them with praise.  Only one rite seems to get the Catholic speech givers, essayists and book sellers all hot and bothered. Only one rite turns mild seeming people into Captain Ahab spitting at the white whale. It is the indult Mass, the Ancient Mass, the Traditional Latin Rite Mass, the Tridentine Mass , the Extraordinary Form, the Old Mass or the TLM . Whatever you call it, I guess  the key to the executive washroom in the Catholic talker/writer circuit is take part in the mobbing of "traddies," ritual. How sad. How utterly sad. Imagine--- grown men (especially sad when it is a priest) and women turning themselves into  mean high school girls in order to make a few bucks.
  
  
• Judging by the English and German news I've been reading for the most part Germans and Swedes and Norwegians are grumbling about the sudden descent of young and aggressive Muslim males on them but they aren't yet willing to do anything but complain. Even the rapes are being  downplayed. Some people theorize that  European males, especially the Germans  are so beaten down by the aftermath of WWII that they'll never stand for anything ever again, good or bad including self preservation. Others theorize that this has something to do with feminism. Having been told that woman is superior all their lives the instinct to defend females has been gelded out of them. Whatever the reasons, I think the European leaders gambled and lost. They see that their people do not have enough babies to keep the welfare system going and they see that their people will never give up their cushy benefits so they bring in hostile foreigners in hopes that these men will go to work, pay taxes and keep the gravy train going. The trouble is, these young men seem  interested in something other than keeping dying countries afloat.

Our Lady of Akita, pray for us.

"As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests."

"The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres...churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.

"The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them"

This made me ill

Our Lord is not a one god among a pantheon of gods. 

A woman to admire

Lou Xiaoying saved over 30 babies from death. Because of China's one child only law many people killed their second child particularly if it was a girl.  Let fools idolize models, actresses and singers who did God knows what foul things to achieve their fame. This is a truly great woman.  HT to the Why I'm Pro Life blog. 

Words of sense from Fr. Goffine and Fr. Lapide

Apparently a lot of people were disturbed by the Holy Father's latest homily about the Child Jesus. Calm down and read some traditional teaching.

Why did the child Jesus remain in Jerusalem? Because of His love of prayer and communion with His Heavenly Father, and to show, even then, some rays of His divinity, by which to make known that He had come for the glory of His Father, and to procure our salvation. The glory of God and the salvation of our souls should be our chief object in life.... from "The Church's Year" by Fr. Goffine. 

For an even meatier discussion read what Fr. Lapide had to say. 

 And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?  S. Ambrose holds that these are the words of one administering reproof. And Christ, as the Messiah, and as a Lawgiver, might rightfully have reproved His mother had she sinned. But there was no blemish of sin in His mother, neither therefore was there any reproof on the part of Christ. Still, there is in the words a certain sharpness of tone, savouring of reproof, that He may teach them by His question and incite them the more keenly to learn the things that concerned Him, just as parents are wont to stimulate their children to zeal and diligence with sharp words, and masters their pupils. These words of Christ, then, are the words of one instructing and consoling; excusing himself, and defending what he has done:— From Fr. Lapide's Commentary

Random thoughts on 2015

• For me and my family, 2015, was a  challenging year, not completely horrible by any means but there were huge testing moments that I've written about all year. May God have mercy on my beloved dead and may Saints Martha, Dymphna, Appollonia, Alphonsus, Martin, Jerome and Therese continue to watch out for us and pray for us.
  
  
  In Catholic blog land things were interesting as always.  
  

• Traditional Latin Mass blog remains my favorite blog that I visit every day.

• A member of the feminist group, Femen, has written a book rejecting the group and apologizing to  Christians for her previous behavior. IF she's sincere this is huge.  It might be one of the biggest stories of the year.

• Michael Voris took a big hit in 2015. I gave up reading him early this year and I don't even watch his videos because I got sick of Church Militant's sometimes imprecise reporting and his Captain Ahab obsession with the SSPX but it was this video attacking Pope Benedict that turned off a lot of people who formerly sang his praises. Yes, it's undeniable that for whatever reason, Pope Benedict walked out and gave us Pope Francis but since Mr. Voris is don't-criticize-the-pope-man, people were shocked.

• I enjoyed the Mahound's Paradise blog  , St. Corbian's Bear  ,  The Catholic Table , What's Up With the Synod , One Mad Mom and DC Latin Mass this year.

• I very much admire the writing and spunk of Maureen Mullarkey.

• One Peter Five is one of the best Catholic sources on the Web and they did a post on Islam 101 that is worth studying.

• The saddest thing I read all year was in a comment on another blog. An elderly person said that she stopped going to church after her cat died because a  Baptist (correctly) told her that animals do not go to Heaven. She said that if her cat wasn't there she doesn't want to go.

• The most popular post I ever published was Should Priest's Blog?  I find that very interesting. It shows me that more than a few people are uncomfortable with celebrity priests.

• Who the heck is Matthew Kelly and why is he so popular? Restore DC Catholicism and Traditional Catholic Thoughts are on it.

• I discovered how much fun Twitter is and then I broke down and got a Pinterest account.

The feast Mary Mother of God

I had to work to 4:30 so there was no way Rocky and I could make it to St. Rita's by 5 which is why we went to the vigil Mass for Mary Mother of God at the Basilica in DC. It was very good. There were so many people in the crypt church that the smell was overwhelming. Usually when I ask, "What's that smell?" Rocky answers, "What smell?," or "It's not that bad." This time he leaned over to whisper in my ear, "Something stinks!"

The monsignor saying Mass was okay. His dramatic delivery reminded me of Archbishop Sheen and he adlibbed a bit but said nothing offensive. In his homily he pointedly reminded everyone that the New Year is not for getting drunk and acting a fool-that's the secular world's way. The New Year is dedicated to Our Lady and formerly was the Feast of the Circumcision.

The Knights of Columbus did a fantastic job of getting all the elderly and disabled seated.