St. Michael, the Archangel protect us!

One very worrisome thing I've noticed in the past few days is that a lot dangerous people who normally would be harassing people on the street or engaging in a strong arm robbery or who would be hanging out in Starbucks all day and night now have to go inside. The only places with people are the essential businesses so now really strange, threatening individuals are in the grocery store. Yesterday Rocky and I went to pick up a few things and there was a man wandering the aisles bothering people. Finally the manager made him leave.

Rocky noticed a strange man who came into the store where he works. The guy stalked around and did a lot of exaggerated, theatrical fake coughing. He didn't buy anything. He just looked at people. Today another weird man came in and stood around staring at employees.

So that's it, then

I just read the governor's stay at home order. There is no way we as a state can hold on until June 10th. This is financial disaster. This is ruin. This is everything millions of people have worked for all their lives gone up in a cough. My husband has been issued a letter stating that he is an employee of an essential business in case he gets stopped by the police.

Christ In Garden Of Gethsemane

Mass with the Canons

One of the things I intend to do when this is all over is to make the drive up to West Virginia and visit the Canons of the New Jerusalem.

My Jesus, mercy!

St. Therese, pray for us

The sentimental lie goes half way around the world before the truth can get it's boots on...

My uncle was on a ventilator multiple times when he got pneumonia. Something seemed fishy in the story about the Italian priest who supposedly gave up his vent to a younger patient.  It's not true. May God have mercy on Fr. Giuseppe Berardelli and may he rest in peace. 

Coonman snarls again

Virginia's governor, Ralph "Coonman" Northam is threatening jail up to a year or a fine of $2,500 if you're caught in church with more than 10 people. A year in jail for praying in church. Seriously? How is he going to enforce this? Is he going to have a cop staking out every house of worship in the Commonwealth? If I'm praying in the chapel and somebody walks in should I bolt out the door? Lord have mercy. 

The Annunciation

random thoughts on a tired Tuesday night

• So far the best live streams seem  to be from St. John Cantius ,the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception  (yes, Monsignor Rossi is still in charge), and of course,  EWTN.  Don't beat yourself up if you can't treat TV or online Mass the same way you do being physically present at Mass. It's not the same and can't be.
  
  
• Eternal rest grant unto Brother John-Sebastian Laird-Hammond of the DC Franciscans.
  
  
• Oh my goodness. Governor Ralph "Coonman" Northam has canceled school for the rest of the year. 

• Encouragement. 
  
  
  
  
• Whoah! The diocese of Pittsburgh just fired all the newspaper staff. 

King of Kings

Overeaction?

Has the world gone mad and overreacted? We've given up our freedom of assembly and movement and caused a financial disaster. In the coming weeks I think people are going to start asking if it was worth it.

Random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon.

• When a professional Catholic calls you stupid, Hitler(?!), or a show off who just wants to flaunt your "personal penchant for public display of Eucharistic piety", because you said that you are sad about not being able to be in the Real Presence of Our Lord and wish you could go to Mass, that is your 50 foot tall and in neon lights sign that you need to forget out ever sending them donations. 

• In Wisconsin the government is encouraging people to spy on their neighbors and report them if they have more than ten people gathered. Boom! Just like that, monsters are due on Maple Street*. I remember reading about all the frightened people who snitched on their neighbors, friends, family and co-workers to the Stasi in East Germany.....

• "The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other Apostles to have expired" - St. Nicholas of Flue
  
• After New York made abortion legal up to birth I decided I wasn't go back there to shop anymore. After reading (WARNING--NASTINESS AHEAD), this I'm definitely not going back. It's waaaaay too freaky in Manhattan and maybe the boroughs too.
• You know those very expensive Italian leather goods that you thought were made by free Italian craftsmen? They may have been made by a Chinese immigrant under questionable conditions.
• Most Precious Blood of Jesus parish in Pittsburgh is live streaming Mass. *Monsters Are Due on Maple Street was a brilliant Twilight Zone episode where aliens trick an a whole neighborhood into descending into suspicion, panic and violence by turning off the lights, and electronics.

At prayer

Priorities

My cousin needs to go to the oral surgeon but the surgery may be cancelled. In Pennsylvania the governor is saying that all elective surgeries must be cancelled but abortions will go on. So, you can't have your colonoscopy, or get your knee replaced or get that infected tooth fixed but apparently killing a baby is worth any risk...priorities people.

Calm down.

My husband worked over 12 hours yesterday. When he came home he had cramps and a nosebleed. I had to run through every cramp remedy I know. The customers at the store where he works were damn near feral. One woman was  furious because they were out of French bread. Rocky diplomatically  told her to look around her at the empty water and toilet paper aisles and to notice the long lines and crowds and then ask herself why they were out of French bread. He didn't take lunch or any breaks because customers overstepped their boundaries every time a manager attempted to get something to eat. My husband, his staff and people in other departments were insulted, cursed and screamed at while just trying to get more product on the shelves. 

 People, you need to calm down. 

Adoration at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Florida

Kyrie Elieson

Salve Regina

My favorite chant album

Random thoughts on a weird memory and weirder present

• Back when Rocky and I had only been married for two years he had to go on a four week business trip to New Jersey. One night I was lying in bed when suddenly the room felt strange. It was raining heavily and stormy and our bed was by the window so I could see outside. There was an ozone and electrical smell and then a crackling, hissing ball of green lightning floated in. I just lay there frozen and watched it float back out. When it left, the smell went with it. After a while I got up, shut the window and fell asleep. I'd thought that ball lightning only happened near bodies of water but apparently not always.

• The DC diocese has cancelled Mass and so far the Arlington diocese  has not followed. I've seen many people who get angry that other people are sad about not being able to attend Mass but I haven't seen anyone make suggestions about what they are going to do on Sunday in addition one's usual daily prayers. You could try reading the Breviary, or doing the Missa Sicca devotion.  or meditate on the Mass readings.  Watching the shut in Mass on TV or the computer is an option of course. I hope the more internet savvy priests will live stream themselves saying Mass for their parishioners.
  
  
  

• My mother was on the bus this week and a man in back began coughing. He kept on coughing and it was a deep, wet, wracking cough. He was obviously sick with something. People began looking around and murmuring started. Finally another passenger reached into his bag and pulled out a mask. He handed some out to the people who were sitting near him. The murmuring grew louder and someone called out to the driver to stop the bus and remove coughing guy.  My mother got off at the next stop, which was not hers but she was afraid fists were going to start flying and she did not want to be trapped on the bus with that. This hysteria was funny when it was just people stacking toilet paper to the ceiling but it's getting ugly now. It's only a matter of time before some poor sod gets punched in the face for coughing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Breakfast At Tiffany's was about a prostitute. Medjugorje is a scam. C.S. Lewis was not Catholic. Everyone involved in the film, Pretty Baby should have been whipped. You don't have to go to college to be a good Catholic.
  
  

• In your charity could you spare a prayer for Geska Lima? She is fighting the same cancer that my later mother-in-law had.

Mass announcements

At Mass, Father Visitor, who still can't stop telling jokes but has toned them down,  announced that there would be no drinking from the chalice and no hand holding.  I may have to start doing spiritual communions because the Eucharistic ministers who held the chalice will not be sitting down. Instead, of two priests we are now getting one priest and two EMs distributing the Blessed Sacrament in the hand.

Very interesting....

In Italy, they aren't allowing Mass and an 88 year old priest in  Castello d'Agogna was reported to the police for celebrating Mass for eight people. I wonder if the nightclubs have been shut down?

Dominus Meus et Deus Meus

At prayer

First Sunday in Lent