Pray for us, Mother

Parents, don't buy that album and leave that ticket at the box office

When I was in high school I loved listening to Prince. My mother did not.  When he came to town it never even occurred to me to ask her to let me go to his concert and Hell would have frozen over before she would have ever gone to it with me. There was just no way she would have degraded herself in that manner.

Parents, don't try to be your kid's buddy and please don't go along with what's cool with all the other parents. A ten year old girl doesn't have any money of her own. The only way she gets to buy the album of a particular singer is if you buy it for her.  She can't order the singer's merchandise herself, you do it. She didn't go out and find someone to sing about various sex acts to her in the kitchen, you let the filth in the house yourself.

I would have enjoyed listening to Prince in my room with the record player cranked as high as it would go but it was my mother's house and she didn't like that nasty stuff and you know what? I respected her. I think a lot of the buddy/parents who buy crap for their kids and groove to it along with them are robbing themselves of something. You would go completely mad if you found an adult sitting in your living room talking smut to your little girl and you'd cut all ties to your best friend if you caught her instructing your daughter in how to perform a sex act so why do you go along with the nasty music?  If your little girl is singing about a wrist icicle,then the blame is on your shoulders. It's your house. It's your money. It's your child.

Ascension Thursday

There were a lot of people at Mass tonight. I think the Juventutum members really turned out in force.  I saw David Alexander of the Man With a Black Hat blog and there were several beautifully behaved children and cherubic infants in attendance.

Cold fury

I read a short notice from Rachel's Vineyard in my parish bulletin this week that infuriated me. It probably appeared in bulletins all over the diocese. I don't know if I am being fair or not but when I read the words, " Mother’s Day can be difficult for women who have lost children to abortion...."  my ears drums pounded and my cheeks began to burn, I felt a quick wave of nausea and my throat closed up. For a few seconds it felt like I had subjected to a physical blow. 

God bless and protect the women who have turned to Rachel's Vineyard because they are sad and sorry about what they have done but with the exception of the one's who were threatened with violence or whose parents threatened them with being thrown out on the street, they chose at the time to pay an assassin to kill their child. This is not the same as lying in a hospital bed and being told that once again your body has failed you and your child is dead. I lost my child. An unknown number of women in my diocese can say the same.  To put this plainly and yes, forgive me, crudely, the post abortive woman was not minding her own business when she was suddenly set upon by a team of killers from Planned Parenthood. If I knew which Rachel's Vineyard staffer wrote that notice I would probably tell her or him what I think in the most blistering words I could think of. I object to the use of the word, "lost," in the Rachel's Vineyard  context. It puts a polite gauzy veil over the hideousness of abortion and it demeans the pain of those women who suffered from infertility, stillbirth, or the  pre-birth death of an infant.  

Mass before pews

A nun

At Prayer

A nun

Happy Mother's Day

The bishop dressed in white?

Is there anybody in the Vatican who even tries to advise the Holy Father or at least do event  prep? Does he know what Sr. Lucia said happened to the bishop in white? So how does Pope Francis's comment  square with what we were all told about Pope Saint John Paul II? He was supposed to be the bishop dressed in white and his survival of his assassination attempt showed that Our Lady was pleased with him.

J.M.J.  The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.  I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.  After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.  Sr. Lucia

Cardinal Sus Volans, where are you?

When will the Massachusetts, DC and New York clergy's Kennedy fetish finally die?  Sometimes I think they'll have to be winged pork roosting in the trees before a cardinal in any of those cities declines an invitation to a Kennedy function.