Pray for us, St. Joan

Whenever I had to really fight the staff at my uncle's nursing home or when I had to get aggressive to get his doctor to move along paperwork I would remember her words, " I was born to do this," and it gave me the strength to get on with and get my mission done.

Cesspool?

A cesspool is an underground container that holds sewage. What is sewage? Urine and fecal matter and the fouled water used to move it along. When a priest/blogger recently wrote for Crux news that the traditionalist blogosphere is a cesspool he was saying that the devout Catholics who write those blogs are tanks of excrement. Think about that and what it means and then say a prayer for the man.

Our Lady of the Clergy, pray for your sons.

St. John Vianney, pray for your brothers.

This is for you

  

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Archbishop Gänswein just said something but what does it really mean?

Monsignor, Archbishop Georg Ganswein is Pope Benedict's man so when he talks about his boss he isn't just pulling something out of his biretta and spouting off because he likes the cameras. We can assume that this little idea really did come from Benedict.  Beware, beware, beware when someone no matter how high thinks  he can improve on what Jesus left us. That always leads to confusion, unhappiness and on many occasions in history, death. If you could speak to the dead you could ask anybody who ran afoul of Jim Jones, the Albigensians, the Arians, and of course anyone of the saints martyred by the Protestants.

So you say you need to be a deaconess to be empowered?

Go to her and tell the Handmaid of the Lord that following her example isn't enough for you because it doesn't give you enough power in the parish.

So it's come to this and other random thoughts

• When your daughter goes to the restroom at school next year there might be a boy in there and you can't do a thing about it. Ann Barnhardt has had enough of the culture that is allowing this. Non Veni Pacem thinks there is still a chance.  I think a few thousand or so people will pull their kids out of public school but most will shamefacedly buckle down and simply tell their daughters to be careful when they go to the rest room and to just leave if they see a male. Some people are saying hopefully that the next president will undo this. Um, no.  Other than Prohibition, I can't think of a single national law or agency or program that was discarded after being set in place. 

• Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

• A mariachi band stopped by to pray at our parish today. It was neat seeing them.
  
  
  
• This has got to be one of the most depressing things I've read all month.
  
  
  
  
• A young man from another diocese was at Mass today. He made a point of letting Fr. Hawk know  that he'd rarely seen such a beautiful, reverent Mass. Rocky wishes that he'd asked where the poor kid was from. 

Deaconesses? No thanks.

The pope is going to create a commission to study the possibility of women deacons If we get deaconesses I will ignore them and get in the priest's line for Holy Communion, just like I try to do now when presented with Eucharistic ministers. To be honest, I"m not in love with the permanent deacon idea. The ones I've seen didn't seem to be much of a day to day help to the their parish priest. I've seen deaconesses in action too. Rocky's grandmother was one. In Baptist churches the deacons have enormous power. They run the church. They pick  and can depose the pastor. Depending on the church's constitution they can control the purse strings.  A war between the deacons can split a church in two. At my grandparent's church , deacons drove the young pastor away. The deaconesses can make the First Lady of the church's life hell if they don't like her. The deaconess in charge of a ministry such as the Missionary Aid Society is a small queen with the freedom to run her fiefdom the way she sees fit until she dies or retires unless she does it so badly that there is an accounting problem or a  rebellion and the full power of the other deacons and pastor are brought against her.

Deaconesses are not necessary to the Catholic Faith. You can do what my husband's grandmother did right now. She was in charge of visiting the sick. You can go to nursing homes and to the homes of your fellow parishioners. Rocky's grandmother didn't just visit either. She cooked meals, she cleaned the house of the sick person if need be, she comforted frightened children and told them that mamma or daddy was going to be alright.  She sat and listened to men and women who were facing widowhood. She was a major force in both the senior and adult choirs. If you have a voice and are willing to work you can join the choir.  She and her team took care of the pastor's transportation.  The reverend never had worry about rides to the airport or driving home tired from a middle of the night hospital run.   Rocky's grandmother's cooking was legendary and she fed the hungry. On Sundays after services, she and the hospitality ministry served up a feast to everyone and at no cost for the poor. If you can't do that you can provide coffee and store bought doughnuts for Church functions or join the meatball, pirogi and pancake makers at the annual Church festivals.

You don't need to be a deaconess to pray. You can join or with the pastor's permission start a prayer group in your parish. Rocky's grandmother was in charge of the senior bible study. She, like my grandmother was also in charge in the missionary group.

And here is something else that I fear that Catholic deaconesses won't get. Rocky's grandmother had power but she was not power hungry. I'm confident she never once in her life whined about not being empowered. She did what she did and considered herself a servant to God and her church. Judging from what I've seen of the pantsuit nuns and the aggressive and easily angered (avoid them in the Communion line and see the sour look you get) Eucharistic minister ladies, Catholic deaconesses won't be half as humble as my husband's Baptist deaconess grandmother was.

Stepping aside from the practical aspect, theologically we don't need deaconesses. God's Holy Church has been whacked with experiments and outright efforts to make us Protestant-esque for 55 or so years. Enough! Let's try a new experiment. Let's be Catholics.

Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, pray for us.
St. Gertrude the Great, pray for us.
St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
St. Clare, pray for us
St. Louise de Marillac, pray for us.
St. Frances Cabrini, pray for us.
St. Katherine Drexel, pray for us.
St. Walburga, pray for us.
St. Clotilda, pray for us.
St. Margaret of Scotland, pray for us.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
St. Joan of Arc, pray for us.
Mother Angelica, pray for us.

A Catholic mystery: Archbishop Sheen and Bella Dodd

Bella Dodd was converted from communism by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. She became famous because she announced to the world that Moscow had spent many decades sending men to the seminary to damage the Church from within. Some of these men rose very high.  In 1966, or '67 she told theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand and his wife, Alice that at least four were cardinals working in the Vatican. Archbishop Sheen forbade Bella to name them in public or in private so she couldn't tell the von Hildebrand's who they were.. It's a great mystery why. I guess he feared scandal or perhaps he thought he was protecting Miss Dodd's life.

The Immaculate Conception

May is Mary's month

St. Katherine Drexel, pray for us.

The order St. Katherine founded has gone the way of many orders and now they are selling her shrine and next year her remains will be moved to Philadelphia.  I don't want to hear about the new Springtime in the Church anymore.

Hail Holy Queen!

An unusual Ascension

Most images of Our Lord's Ascension show Him lifting up in view of the apostles and His mother or they show His feet and the apostles straining to see Him for as long they can. This painting by Gustave Dore shows the Lord well above the earth with the angels as His witnesses.

First Friday for the Sacred Heart of Jesus

From the depth of my nothingness, I prostrate myself before Thee, O Most Sacred, Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus, to pay Thee all the homage of love, praise and adoration in my power.
Amen. - -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Ascension Thursday

We had a misa cantata for Ascension Thursday at my parish and there must have been close to 200 people there tonight. It was beautiful; just glorious.

Three great saints

This unusual painting shows St. Teresa of Avila, St. Clare of Assisi and St. Catherine of Sienna. They represent three glorious monastic orders, the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Dominicans.

The whole society is compromised and other random thoughts

St. Dominic, pray for us.

• Feminists destroy everything they touch. First they came to kill the babies now by pushing women into combat they mean to get the young and fertile women killed.
  
  
• One aspect of city living is that I've seen transvestites in the ladies room. I only noticed because the well dressed tall woman with the huge feet in the next stall was doing whatever it was that she was doing standing up and with her back to the door. Later I'd realize that it must have really been a man. A lot of people are upset with Target because the store is now allowing men in the ladies room. I know people who shop at Target and love it but it always seemed to me to be overpriced and for people who were too snooty to go to Walmart or Kmart.  Whenever I went there to shop for pajamas or t-shirts for my uncle in the nursing home I usually left empty handed because the quality didn't impress me.
  
  The American people have been thoroughly manipulated in the last thirty years to accept homosexuality. The battle was lost a long time ago and just as women have always suffered when their soldiers lost wars many of us will suffer now. The occasional transvestite whose disguise was almost perfect was not the danger really. The rapist or the peeping Tom who used to sneak into the ladies room is the problem. Now all he has to do is walk into Target and just wait until one lone woman or girl comes in. No-one at the store will order him out or call the cops. He's free to hang out as long as he wants and if he leaves his victim dead or incapacitated he'll be able to stroll out of the ladies's room without anyone in store security asking him "Hey buddy, whatcha doing in there?" Target has corporate counsel so   the company knows that they could face lawsuits but someone at the top is so attached to this cause that he's willing to risk it.
  
  
• I read that Russian Orthodox and Russian Catholics have pitched in to help Syrian Christians rebuild their churches. That's wonderful but notice who is not helping. I expected nothing from the Protestants of course but where are the Western Catholics?
  
  
• Our whole society has been compromised and perverted. I knew that sort of but it really hit me this week. I was reading a conservative blog that covers politics and society. I'm not interested in politics anymore so the social issues are  what I focus on. Most of the people are over 60 and reading it on a daily basis has been  really shocking. It's clear that they deplore the president and the Democrats but it's unclear what they love. Since we fight for what we love that is important. Most seem to be more delighted by their pets than they are by their grandchildren and seem to loathe their step-children in general.  Only a few lonely voices had a problem with divorce or eugenics. Most seem to be fine with homosexuality as long as it's amusing like Truman Capote and doesn't make any demands. Most seem to belong to no church at all and are just "spiritual".  Only one or two mentioned Easter  when it arrived. Most have no problem with abortion as long as it's in the first trimester. They find the singer, Beyonce offensive but love watching the Lucifer TV show. As I read, I thought, 'If these are the conservatives then what the heck are the liberals like? No wonder this country so screwed up!'
  
   Alice vonHildebrandt once  mentioned in a lecture that she never saw pornographic images when she was a child but today  children are exposed to  many such images. Even if you don't own a TV, and rarely leave your property every time you go outside you are witness to smut that would have gotten someone arrested just 40 years ago.  Get on the bus and you'll see obscene ads. Drive on the highway and you  see obscene billboards. Go to the mall and you can see half dressed teenagers and even older women. Go to the grocery store and there are magazines with lewd headlines and sometimes fully naked women on the cover right there in the check out line. Seeing cleavage, naked thighs and midriffs at Mass is not uncommon. God bless Catholic parents who fight the good fight everyday. Even so-called respectable mainstream society is against us.  No president can fix this sick society.  We need the help of Heaven.