Holy Innocents, pray for us

Merry Christmas

Fiat

The Promise of Ages

I wish Bishop Barron would say something like this....

Contrary to what some may say, the god of Islam & the God of the Christian faith are not the same. The God of the Christian faith is Creator of the Universe & sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to save us from our sin. He can change every heart who will put their faith in Him. 2/2

— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) December 15, 2018

So let me get this straight....

The pope has been  openly meddling in the secular affairs of Western nations by telling us that we should cheerfully accept millions of Third World migrants but Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin says when asked about Catholic Asia Bibi and her family said, “It’s an internal question that regards Pakistan, I hope it will be resolved in the best ways possible”. 

The Annunciation

Thanks

Thank-you to everyone who prayed for Rocky before his surgery. It went well and he's home.

Pray for us, Mother

It aint about the gingerbread

These are  St. Meinrad seminarians

St. Meinrad's seminarians put on an apparently annual show for their professors and the lay professor's children. This year they also got together and  had a decorated gingerbread house competition either before or after the show. Taylor Marshall, has objected to the sight of grown men engaging in a kindergarten activity and  and was  crude about it.


My father was a cook and I learned the fundamentals of baking and cake decorating from him. Cooking is hard work. It gets noisy and hot and profane in the professional kitchen and since it's a high stress environment, tempers can flare up. It takes a tough man to turn out hundreds of tender baked goods everyday.  Marshall mocked the gingerbread decorating but that's not the problem. Decorating a gingerbread house kit is a short cut that I wouldn't make in my kitchen but  is in itself no more effeminate than when my great uncle and his friends got together to make moonshine, or when my grandfather and his friends got together to do a hog roast fundraiser  or when my father and his friends got together after culinary school to make omelets.

 The problem is that this whole event in this day and age seems socially tone deaf.  I'm guessing that the seminarian who posted this photo  is too young to have heard the stuff that was whispered about St. Meinrad's past.  I've read multiple accounts from men who said they were seminarians there in the 80s and left in disgust, never to be ordained.  Perhaps he's unaware that the Church in America has paid out something like a billion dollars in settlements to mostly males who say they were used by priests for sexual gratification. The seminarian  who posted this photo may not have any idea how nervous parents are right now. It's not uncommon for people to ask a priest where he went to the seminary in an attempt to figure out if he's going to be trustworthy or not. They may not say anything on social media or out loud but I bet that there are people who saw this photo and who will be watching with extra critical eyes when a seminarian from St. Meinrad's shows up at their parish. The 70s and 80s are over. Things that once seemed like light-hearted fun now make people's stomachs twist and turn. You can argue all you want about whether that's fair or not but that's the way things are right now and how things will be for many years to come.  The photo of the seminarians isn't inspiring. If I was kid I would not want to follow these guys.

  St. Paul Miki and,Blessed Rolando Rivi seminarians and martyrs, pray for us.

DIABOLICAL NARCISSISM in a snapshot

Look closely at this photo. I saw it on Complicit Clergy via The Remnant. Then Cardinal McCarrick has his arm around a younger priest or seminarian. Ask yourself this question: Did you ever see your Dad put his arm around any of his friends and embrace them at the waist? When you saw your Dad embrace somebody like that it was your Mom or there would have been trouble.  McCarrick really wasn't hiding his predilections at all. Looking back on it, he must have been terribly amused by these displays. He knew that none of the men  present or anyone viewing the photo had the power touch him. That's pure, undiluted narcissism.

I am the Immaculate Conception

Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us

St. Edmund Campion, Pray for us

Dear Priests,

Don't be afraid of getting a crappy assignment. St. Edmund Campion worked undercover in Elizabeth I's England. Elizabeth is a feminist saint these days but she was a great killer of Catholics. St. Edmund knew that he was risking death being a priest in England but he did it. His feast day was December 1.

Judgement day

"Why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."  "It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."'

---A Christmas Carol

  Those who were careless in their youth will be made to care in their helpless old age. I think a lot of people who chose sterilization and abortions are going to have a Scrooge Christmas Future experience on their deathbeds.

Get hold of yourself

Pope Francis may break your heart but don't let him and his flunkeys break your Faith. Our Lord and Our Lady both said that things would get foul in the Vatican one day.

More and more people have quietly decided that if Francis is right, then Catholicism must be wrong and they've gone to the Orthodox or Protestantism. A few days ago I even saw a tweet from someone who was so disturbed by Francis that this person wondered if the Vatican I Council, (1869–1870),was wrong. If you feel yourself starting to panic take heart in the words of Pope Pius IX and get hold of yourself. 

St. Francis of Assisi was not soft

Forget those horrible, sentimental but very popular images of the seraphic St. Francis. He was not skipping and twirling around Italy while petting St. Bernards and parrots.

Pray for us dear Mother

A prayer for the redemption of bad priests

Divine Savior Jesus Christ, Thou are the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Oh, be in a very special way the Good Shepherd of those poor lost priests who are also appointed by Thee to be leaders of Thy people, but who have broken the oath of their holy ordination and have become unfaithful to their exalted calling. Bestow upon these poorest of the poor the very fullness of that pastoral solicitude with which Thou dost so faithfully seek the sheep that are lost! Touch their hearts with the irresistible ray of grace which emanates from Thine all-merciful love! Enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, that they may turn away from all sin and error and come back to Thy holy altar and to Thy people. O most compassionate Savior! Remember that Thou didst once redeem the souls of Thine erring priests with Thy Precious Blood and in infinite preferential love didst impress upon them the indelible character of the priesthood. Put wholly to shame those miserable helpers of Satan who lay snares for the virtue of priests and endanger the holy ideal of the priesthood. Most graciously accept our prayers and sacrifices for poor priests who have gone astray and hear our earnest petition.

 Amen 

Imprimatur - Bishop John F. Noll (April 18, 1948)

St. Anthony of Padua, defender of the Holy Eucharist, obtain for us holy priests

St. John-Mary Vianney, model of sacerdotal holiness, obtain for us holy priests

St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionary priests, obtain for us holy priests

St. Therese of the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, victim offered for the sanctification of priests, obtain for us holy priests

Saints and Servants of God, obtain for us holy priests.