Exodus 90 and other random thoughts

• St. Thomas Beckett, pray for us. 

Saint Thomas Becket, Bishop and Martyr - 29 December, from the Raccolta

• St Thomas of Canterbury, son of Gilbert Becket, was born in Southwark, England, in 1117. When a youth he was attached to the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to Paris and Bologna to study law. He became Archdeacon of Canterbury, then Lord High Chancellor of England; and in 1160, when Archbishop Theobald died, the king insisted on the consecration of St. Thomas in his stead. St. Thomas refused, warning the king that from that hour their friendship would be broken. In the end he yielded, and was consecrated. The conflict at once broke out; St. Thomas resisted the royal customs, which violated the liberties of the Church and the laws of the realm. After six years of contention, partly spent in. exile, St. Thomas, with full foresight of martyrdom before him, returned as a good shepherd to his Church. On the 29th of December, 1170, just as vespers were beginning, four knights broke into the cathedral, crying: “Where is the archbishop? where is the traitor?” The monks fled, and St. Thomas might easily have escaped. But he advanced, saying: “Here I am—no traitor, but archbishop. What seek you?” “Your life,” they cried. “Gladly do I give it,” was the reply; and bowing his head, the invincible martyr was hacked and hewn till his soul went to God. Six months later Henry II. submitted to be publicly scourged at the Saint’s shrine, and restored to the Church her full rights.

  Reflection.—"Learn from St. Thomas,“ says Father Faber, “to fight the good fight even to the shedding of blood, or, to what men find harder, the shedding of their good name by pouring it out to waste on the earth.”

  
  
  
  
• Hey married guys. If you decide to do Exodus 90 remember that it is your spiritual mortification and not your family's. So no snarling at the kids for listening to music while you have a caffeine withdrawal headache and no glaring at your wife because she's having pie. If you are so grumpy that you make your wife and family miserable then what have you really done for yourself or the Church? 

• Do you remember how Cardinal Bernadin asked that the Gay Men's Chorus sing at his funeral? Many of the people who questioned what that meant were told to shut up. I imagine that when Cardinal Newman requested that the grave of  Fr. Ambrose St. John, whom he called his "earthly light" be opened up so that he could be buried in the same grave with him, some people were shocked and there may have been whispers. Those people were probably told to hush and not give any scandal in front of the Protestants. Cardinal Newman's request is still giving ammunition to the Church's snickering enemies. He never should have been canonized. 
  
  
  
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• Beware priests who have female fan clubs. Beware of priests who Tweet or blog endlessly about video games, movies, food, or anything and everything BUT the Faith.
  
  
  
  
  

Merry Christmas

 My husband is home from work. I've finally heard from my Tennessee relatives and now Rocky and I are happily eating bacon sandwiches and listening to the greatest Christmas album of all time, 

Pavarotti at Notre Dame, Montreal.

 

Merry Christmas

 

Hollywood was never our friend

 We watch old movies and TV shows almost exclusively. I've known that Hollywood kept pushing perversion for decades and were only kept in check by the Church but I'm seeing how Hollywood executives managed to subtly manipulate the public even in the so called Golden Age of entertainment. It was often done with such a delicate touch that it must have taken a huge amount of rewriting and meetings to pull it off. 

Rocky was watching a nearly 60 year old Western TV show a few weeks ago  and suddenly I saw something that I never would have noticed as a child. The heroine owns a saloon (No, it's not Gunsmoke), but to my adult eyes it seemed more like a brothel with scantily clad "girls" living upstairs. The hero is the local sheriff and he and lady saloon owner have a relationship that will not end in marriage,  because the heroine likes her freedom and the sheriff doesn't want to be tied down or leave a widow in case he gets killed trying to clean up his very rough town. 

A local farm girl leaves her dreary, puritanical father and finds work and happiness in the saloon. Her widower father is broken hearted and shows up at the saloon demanding that his daughter return home. He is shocked to see that a cowboy is apparently sleeping in his daughter's room and he angrily tells the woman owner of the saloon that she is a sinner who has debauched his child. He comes back late that night with his shot gun and is prevented from killing the cowboy by the sheriff.

 It turns out that the girl is not a prostitute and she and the cowboy are married. The saloon is really just a saloon, (probably for the sake of the censors), and the scantily clad girls who work there just serve food and drinks and flirt but really don't do anything upstairs but sleep alone. The father is made a fool of and everyone laughs at him while he stands there looking embarrassed but relieved. That show very cleverly made the church going father look bad.  That was a poison in the subconscious of the young viewers. 

Another movie that I watched was even more overt. In this one a local woman is an adulteress who sees a murder as she returns from her off screen assignation with her lover. An innocent man is accused and is going to hang. He has one witness, a girl from the saloon who says she saw him going about his own business at the time of the murder and he had nothing to do with it. The innocent man's lawyer, who is the hero of the movie somehow finds out about the local wife and questions her in court. Desperate to save her marriage and not be humiliated in public, she perjures herself. The prosecutor jumps up and demands that the court can't possibly take the word of a harlot over that of  a respectable married woman. The innocent man's lawyer gets the married woman to confess and the innocent man is saved from the gallows. This movie was made in the late 40s or early 50s but it deliberately made the prostitute the truly good woman and denigrates the married lady. Hollywood was never our friend. 

We certainly do live in interesting times.

 As horrible as 2020 is and has been, there may come a day when we all look back on it as the calm before the storm and may even call it the good ole days. St. Januarius's blood did not liquefy today. The last three times it did not liquefy were in 1939, 1944, 1973, and 1980. Sooooo, yeah. Things can always get worse.

 

Life amongst the ruins and other random thoughts.

• If you still have a job, stock up now.  I'm not saying run around like your backside's on fire and  get 100 pounds of rice but there is no excuse for your children to go hungry because you didn't get an extra case of water or can of ravioli every time you go to the store now. Three million people claimed that they went hungry during the UK lockdowns. That's incredible. Come on folks, get some Spam. Get some Vienna sausages. Get a box of  macaroni or spaghetti and stick it in a big ole glass jar. Pick up a couple of packs of the cheapest ground beef and stick it in the freezer. Get some powdered milk. I know it's nasty but fresh milk won't last so unless you can find shelf stable milk, one can or box of powered milk  could really come in handy. You should be able to get through a month at least. 
  
  
  
  
• Child sex abuse and rape reports have doubled in Ireland since the lockdowns. Ireland, what the Hell is wrong with you? One study has shown that head trauma abuse of children in the UK has gone up by 1493%. Brits, what the Hell is wrong with you? I can't even fathom that number. It's also been reported that the number one cause of death of men there, age 50 and younger is suicide.  I haven't seen a study for this horror in the USA but police departments around the country say that child and woman beating and suicide among teens and young adults is up. We are being sorely pressed but violence and self destruction as answers to the crisis are not the right ones.  
  
  
  
  
• The governor of my state, during his press conference made a hostile remark to Christians who want to go to Church and he was not shouted down. To my knowledge  bishops of Virginia said nothing in response. 

• If you have someone in a nursing home read this. 

• Could somebody please go to Rome and knock over that foul Vatican nativity set?
  
  
  
  
• Every time I meet a young Latin American priest I find myself wondering what seminary he came from and if he was one of the seminarians who were brought in the USA via the McCarrick pipeline to be um....entertainment for Uncle Ted and his  brothers. 

random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

• Please stop naming and posting photos of your parish or chapel with chirpy remarks that the Mass is conducted normally. You are just making it easy for busybodies to go there and make a complaint to law enforcement if they see someone without a mask. Protect your priest.
  
  
  
  
•  Rocky and I went to Richmond yesterday. It was incredibly depressing. Monument Avenue is hideously deformed with graffiti. The residents almost all have BLM signs in their windows in an attempt to protect themselves. The streets downtown are quiet. We could not enter our favorite Richmond restaurant but had to place our order over the phone and wait for them to bring it out to us. We ate at Belle Island park and watched college kids and birds.
  
  Later we went to Shockhoe Slip and that was just stunningly sad. Normally that area of Richmond is bustling with people but in the time of the Great Sickness we only saw a handful of folks walking with purpose and more homeless people than I've ever seen in Richmond before. On top of that, these homeless didn't have that drug addict look, nor did they look like con artists. They all looked seriously mentally ill. We only saw two men who were actively begging. The rest of the homeless were just sitting or walking seemingly unaware of the world around them. 
  
   At the end of the trip we went  through the drive through at Lees Chicken for dinner and it was such a relief to see lots of happy almost normal people in their cars. I thought about going to the FSSP church in Richmond but the last time we visited the people weren't friendly at all and since most folks are extra jittery right now I decided not to. 
  
  
  
  
• In order to comply with Virginia's rules my parish is requiring people to RSVP for Christmas Mass. I imagine that there will be some angry people who end up being turned away because the church won't be allowed to take walk-ins. Pray for everyone who will be involved. 
  
  
• This product is going to get somebody killed.  People are so freaked out and  many have lost their minds. One example of this  happened  last week when Rocky and I were going to get on an elevator but the woman who was on it panicked and backed up against the wall and yelled at us. 
  
  
  
• While you're donating to some lay apologist or instead of  doing that, why not help traditional nuns, monks and priests? Fr. Maximilian Mary of Jesus Crucified is a hermit in Pennsylvania. You can read his booklets and donate to him here.  
  
  
  
  
  
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• I listened to this podcast twice. 

Rethink Archbishop Sheen

 You know, I really don't think Archbishop Sheen should ever be canonized. He was a great showman before Vatican II but in his old age he either really lost the plot or maybe he was just a company man all along and he moved with whatever the company said at any given time. His canonization process was probably disrupted due to spite and other bad reasons but we may have dodged a bullet here. Saint Fulton might have  been as embarrassing as Saint John Paul II, Saint Paul VI and Saint John Newman may turn out to be. Let's wait a few more decades and let a future pope and committee who aren't star struck, coolly examine the evidence for or against a canonization. 

an apology

 Years ago there was a blogger whom I thought of as the prophet of doom and overly dramatic on top of that.  I made it a point to avoid reading her because I found her to be so depressing. Well, 2020, happened and you know what? Everything that blogger predicted has come horribly true. Our courts, our governors, our universities, media and public intellectuals-- everything about them that Etherelda said would come to pass; has. Rest in peace, ma'am. You were right. 

The McCarrick Report has been released. Does anybody smell sulfur?

 I thought making JPII a saint was a mistake. I thought it was too soon and that it, like the canonization of Cardinal John Newman would come back to bite us all one day. Well, now I think the canonization was sabotage and the bite has officially started. The McCarrick Report is out today. People who have read it say that it  blames JPII and his right hand man, Cardinal Dziwisz.

The report is said to be somewhere between 400 to 600 pages which will be grim reading I'm sure.  Blaming the dead rock star pope and an 81 year old man, who let's face it, is closer to the grave than the cradle, is a masterstroke. 

You see, if Saint John Paul II, who apparently never listened to anybody who tried to tell him that Bishop So-and-So was bad news, gave McCarrick his power then it calls into question JPII's sanctity or at least, his wisdom. A seed of doubt has been sowed. Since JPII was wrong about McCarrick, what else was he wrong about? Many people see JPII as their linchpin. Catholics of my generation looked up to him as the holiest pope since Pope St. Pius X.  Discredit JPII and those people are going to be shaken. If you've ever been exasperated after reading Hilary White's rage against JPII and Benedict XVI for not satisfying her father hunger then get ready for more of the same but from all kinds of people including some of your friends and family members. 

The McCarrick Report allows Francis to say, "Hey it wasn't me. My holy predecessor trusted McCarrick so why shouldn't I have? I was misled." I think most people are going to react to the McCarrick Report the same way their parents and grandparents did when the Novus Ordo was forced on them in 1968-1970. They will sit in the pews for an hour on Sunday and that's it or they'll stop coming to Mass or they will conclude that we've all been misled and they will apostatize. 

Salve Regina

 

Random thoughts--warning I'm grouchy today

•  Well, the kidney stone has passed...… I feel humble, sore and tired. 
  
  
  
  
• So, is our republic mortally wounded? If it is, how long before most people notice?  
  
  
  
  
  
• Everyday I'm seeing a LOT of Catholics talking about going Orthodox. For various and erroneous  reasons people are saying that if Francis is a valid pope then the whole Catholic Faith must be wrong. They can't bring themselves to go full on Protestant and don't see any point in going to the Episcopalian play house so the Orthodox seem like a lifeboat. The Orthodox have beautiful churches that look like a peek into Heaven. They have priests who consistently look like men in public. They do not mock the pious. It all looks good from a distance.  Well, I can only say that you can go to an Orthodox church but you will never be Greek, Russian, Armenian, etc. To most of the parishioners you will  always that Catholic who showed up late and Heaven help you if you open your mouth to make a suggestion about parish life.  Check out Orthodox Twitter or forums or blogs and see what the folks in the pews really think about you. It's not sweetness and light. 
  
  
  
  
• Louie Verrechio at AKA Catholic is on fire lately. If you've ever distrusted Taylor Marshall because the man's positions have changed so many times or you suspect that he's Opus Dei or if you have not forgotten the Fisher Moore episode then you should read this new series.

Fear Nothing

 

Go to Confession

You might want to make that General Confession as soon as possible. 

The grocery situation and other random thoughts

•  The pope said nary a word on camera about the three people being murdered in the basilica in Nice, France. We not only have a bad pope, we have one who doesn't care one jot or tittle about his flock. I expected no better from him but it would have been a nice surprise if he could have managed to say something about that or if he refuses to comment on Europe he could have a least sent a polite, diplomatic word of condolence to the Catholics in Chile who have seen their churches desecrated. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Costco is not  allowing delivery in my area today because they're just overwhelmed with shoppers right now. I know it's the first of the month but this is not even the normal crush of people. All the folks who didn't stock up in the last few months have just realized that there will probably be riots after the Election and trying to pick up some eggs downtown might be more of an adventure that most folks are prepared for. At my mother's Costco the toilet paper and  paper towels are sold out. I wanted to get her some shelf stable milk but her brand is running low. I'll try tomorrow but I think I'll  also zip by the Spanish grocery and see if I can find some Nido Fortificado milk or cans of Media Crema. 

Holy Face

 

LITANY OF THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS     I salute Thee, I adore Thee and I love Thee, O adorable Face of Jesus, my Beloved, noble Seal of the Divinity! Outraged anew by blasphemers. I offer Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and Saints, most humbly beseeching Thee to repair and renew in me and in all men Thy Image disfigured by sin.     O adorable Face which was adored, with profound respect, by Mary and Joseph when they saw Thee for the first time, have mercy on us.     O adorable Face which did ravish with joy, in the stable of Bethlehem, the Angels, the shepherds and the magi, have mercy on us.     O adorable Face which did transpierce with a dart of love in the Temple, the saintly old man Simeon and the prophetess Anna, have mercy on us.     O adorable Face which filled with admiration the Doctors of the law when Thou didst appear in the Temple at the age of twelve years, have mercy on us.     O adorable Face which possesses beauty always ancient and always new, have mercy...     O adorable Face which is the masterpiece of the Holy Ghost, in which the Eternal Father is well pleased, have mercy on us.     O adorable Face which is the ineffable mirror of the divine perfection, have mercy on us.     Adorable Face of Jesus which was so mercifully bowed down on the Cross, on the day of Thy Passion, for the salvation of the world! Once more today in pity bend down towards us poor sinners. Cast upon us a glance of compassion and give us Thy peace.

Halloween thoughts

Halloween isn't what it was when you and I were kids. It's become sleazy on one level and dangerous on another. Have you noticed the explosion of demonic activity in this country and around the world in the past few years alone? And isn't there something schizophrenic about dressing your child up as a demon  and sending him out to the neighbors and demanding candy? I know of people who turn their lights out and pretend to be out on Halloween because they don't want to participate but are afraid of "pranks" and becoming  unpopular in the neighborhood. 

 Why do grown people downplay it when  a "grouchy,", "humorless" neighbor's house is attacked with eggs or his yard is strewn with toilet paper on Halloween when these same people would scream and carry on if someone did that to them on any other night of the year? What kind of Catholic says something like, "Well I don't approve but Old Jim or Old Lady Jones  is so cantankerous and never does anything in the community so no wonder the kids did the kids pulled a prank,"? It's talk like that that made me seriously rethink modern Halloween.

In your charity could you say a prayer for my Cousin Pearl? Plus other random thoughts.

• My cousin Pearl just got out of lock down. She lives in a nursing home and one of the residents got sick. The other resident was taken to the hospital and was exposed to Covid. Upon returning to the nursing home some authority decided that all the residents had to be restricted to their rooms for 14 days. Family members normally go to the porch of the nursing home and wave to her and talk to her on the cell phone. For 14 days she couldn't even do that. She and all the residents were not allowed to walk around the nursing home.
  
  Another cousin went to see Pearl yesterday on the first day when the residents were let out of their rooms.  Pearl has lost weight and looks very unhappy to me. She's 93. Folks we don't treat murderers like this. 
  
  
  
  
• Thank the Lord. My next door neighbors have finally moved. They were so nasty that I used to see roaches walking in and out under their front door. I suspect that the children in the family were the ones who were drawing on the walls of the apartment building hallways. 
  
  
  
• Archbishop Wilton Gregory is going to be made a cardinal. Some people are shocked but really folks, it was already set in stone. Traditionally the head of DC will be made a cardinal eventually whether he was a good bishop, a good priest, or even a good man. Heck look at McCarrick and Wuerl. The DC diocese is polluted. 
  
  
  
  

If your cause leads you to threaten nuns then you have a cause that I'm pretty sure is demonic

So this is where we're at, America. A male, (he's not fit to be called a man), posted photos of nuns on Twitter and  is deliberately trying to cause harm to them and their order  because they went to the Trump rally. The whole point of "doxing" is to put people's personal information on the Web in order that other evil people will harass or perhaps even harm your victim.  This  individual would have been right at home with the kind of males who went after good women in Paris, the Vendee, Poland and Spain. 

Jordan Peterson is back and Louie Verrechio speaks plainly

 I just watched a video by a priest cheering because Dr. Jordan Peterson is back from his near death experience. I have a few questions but the main one is this:  Considering that Peterson did not practice what he preached and his personal life seems to have been a train wreck what advice can he give a young man? 

Oh rank and file Knights what to do now? Have Knight families been fooled? Is the KoC running a managed opposition campaign? Does anyone think that Fr. McGiveny would approve?

Louie Makes Himself Clear

 Louie Verrechio used to annoy me when he'd carp about the March for Life or the Knights of Columbus's involvement because he'd always allude to what he thought was wrong but was  vague on details. Now,  he and the magnificent Randy Engel have spelled out their argument.  It's a thorough and disturbing one. 

It looks like Nellie Gray was betrayed either on her deathbed or after her death by the people running the March now. It also looks like the heads of the organization aren't fighting for the outright abolition of abortion but rather, a slow nibbling away at it. Essentially, the consensus idea seems to be to pragmatically ignore  babies in the first trimester for now in order to convince people that abortion in the latter trimesters is evil and should done away with. Supposedly after years of that people will come to realize that protection should be extended for all babies. 

The March leadership, Randy Engel writes, has also  made an effort to water down the Catholicism that led Nellie Gray to start the March in the first place because the current president of March for Life feels that "Nellie Gray's leadership was "too Catholic," " and continuing in Nellie's path might offend the kindly Protestants, Jews and even pagans who might be pro-life but would hold their noses and let babies die rather than rally with Catholics to stop it. 

I'm going to have to read the whole thing a few times to fully digest it but I don't like what I've read and as the wife of Knight of Columbus I really am disgusted with Carl Anderson. 

This is wrong

 Jesuit Tampa High School had the Stanley Cup on display before the Blessed Sacrament. You don't have to be a theologian or a saint to know that this is wrong. Whoever allowed this needs to step down or be removed. 

Pope St. Pius

 Dear Pope St. Pius, please pray for the Church. 

Doubtful saints

•  This book argues that French mystic Marthe Robin was a cheap fraud.

 

• Carlo Acutis was by all accounts, a sweet, pious boy and the people promoting his cause say that he was a second St. Dominic Savio but should he canonized? Have his promoters really made a good case for his sanctity?
  
   Being incorrupt is not required to be canonized but it is accepted as the great sign from God that a person was especially favored. Bishop Sorrentino says that young Carlo was not, despite what has been claimed. 
  
  His body is also clothed in branded clothing. I can't tell for certain what his jacket says but it looks like there is a Nike swoosh on his shoes. Did Nike approve of this? Does the Church now have a  named Venerable as product placement for a sports wear corporation? 
  
  
  
  
  
  

Pray for our country and other random thoughts on a Saturday night

St. Michael, pray for us. Our country is in danger. 

• Just because Judge Amy Coney Barrett is Catholic doesn't automatically make her a good Supreme Court Justice pick. Remember what a disappointment John Roberts turned out to be? And if being Catholic is your only qualifier, is she still really Catholic? She belongs to a Charismatic group. The Charismatics sprang from some pretty weird and frankly terrifying ground. The sober and careful, YouTube Ascent of Mt. Carmel channel has a lot to say about the Charismatic Movement. You might want to read up on the subject. 

• The canonization process has been so watered down that I don't trust this.  I don't trust this at all.  
  
  
  
  
• Have you noticed that the professional Catholic talkers don't seem to have anything to say about the vandalism and desecrations going on at Catholic churches in the US? Why is that?

• Peter's Pence is this weekend. I expect the poor ushers all over the country will report that they got a lot of sour looks. 

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Exposed

 Do they have the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at your parish? Before you enroll your tot you might want to read this. 

I don't want to be cool

 The same people who told your parents that they were unsophisticated rubes when they objected to Brooke Shields being a sex symbol at 10 are now telling you that you are not smart or cool enough to realize how wonderful "Cuties" is. 

Stop adding to the lay apologist's bankroll and other random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

•  Like the swallows returning to Capistrano and the cicadas  of Summer singing their lieberstodt, Steven Skojec  is doing his big "crisis" of Faith production for 2020. I'm being sarcastic but really, haven't we seen this before? That man would have probably been much happier --  if his struggle's with doubt really are true-- if he'd gotten a real job instead of making his money off the Faith. 
  
  If any Catholic college student is reading this then here's one piece of advice: If you are majoring in Theology and intend to make your money as an apologist, stop now. By all means study theology but use your time at college as training for an honest job that will actually support you and your future family.  Our Church does not need anymore lay people using the Church Militant- the living laity as opposed to the Church Triumphant in Heaven and the Church Suffering in Purgatory-- as a cash cow.  This comment from a wise reader of the Noni Veni Pacem blog says it better than I do.  

• "I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of." Ruth Bader Ginsberg
  
  Ruth Ginsberg is dead on Rosh Hashanah. Pray for her soul but let's not sugar coat this. She had 87 years of life; far more than most people get and she was resolute in her evil beliefs. Millions of babies are dead. Millions of women ruined their own lives.  Ruth thought that was just great. 

• I bought a mask that says "Memento Mori" on it. Two priests looked at me and I think the deacon's eyes lit up. 

• St. Januarius, pray for us. 

What would make you cancel your Netflix?

Seriously, what would make you cancel Netflix? They make a filthy blasphemous movie about Our Lord and Catholics went "Oh that's terrible but boycotts don't work. I only watch decent things on it." Now Netflix is peddling "artistic" porn with pre-teen actresses. Thousands of people have canceled, even one Catholic blog owner who previously made excuses as to why he was keeping Netflix after the blasphemous film. If you still have Netflix, why? The company obviously gets a kick out of producing filth and giving offense so no, they won't miss your money. Still, why do you still have it and what would make you walk away?

O Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, Son of the living God, behold, we kneel before Thee and offer Thee our reparation; we would make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against Thy holy name, for all the injuries done to Thee in the Blessed Sacrament, for all the irreverence shown toward Thine Immaculate Virgin Mother, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against Thy spouse, the holy Catholic and Roman Church. O Jesus, who hast said: "If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you", we pray and beseech Thee for all our brethren who are in danger of sin; shield them from every temptation to fall away from the true faith; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss; to all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity! For this do we pray, most merciful Jesus, in Thy name, unto God the Father, with whom Thou livest and reignest in the unity of the Holy Spirit world without end. Amen

*Oh, one more thing. If you have a friend who says that he watched "Cuties" and enjoyed it and thought the sight of young girls simulating sex acts was just great you have been given a gift. You now know what that friend really is and you should know what to do. 

Rest in peace

 Apparently New York will not be doing a 9/11 tribute this year. 

In your charity...

 In your charity would you please pray for my uncle? I think he's become depressed. He's 77 and admitted that he doesn't eat everyday. He doesn't see the point. He also sits in the dark because he doesn't see the point of spending money for electricity at night.  

On the bleeding wounds of our crucified Lord.

On the bleeding wounds of our crucified Lord.

Jesu, no more, it is full tide

From Thy hands and from thy feet,

From Thy head, and from thy side,

All Thy Purple Rivers meet.

Thy restless feet they cannot go.

For us and our eternal good

As they are wont; what though?

They swim, alas! in their own flood.

Thy hand to give thou canst not lift;

Yet will thy hand still giving bee;

It gives, but oh it self's the Gift,

It drops though bound, though bound 'tis free.

 

Sleeping in the bed that the feminists made and other random thoughts

• When I was a child my parents lived in a building that had an office employee whose nick name was Pinky. I never knew what Pinky's real name was. He always wore pink or pastels and his hair was in the same style as my mother's. He hated children, spoke quietly and quickly to men, and hung around with a group of older women with no families or husbands. They hissed and cackled like a coven of witches.  I never saw him with any of my mother's friends or any women who seemed happy or nice. My mother was polite to him but since she despised gossip  she never conversed with him about anything but maintenance requests. 
  
  There is a priest, who I will not name who reminds me of Pinky. He spends a lot of time on social media and seems to have a bee in his bonnet concerning the nun who spoke at the RNC convention. I was too young to understand why Pinky seemed timid or hostile towards normal ladies  and although I take offense at the nun's referring to Our Lady as an unwed mother,  I think I see what this priest's problem might be. When I was a child I found Pinky to be frightening at times because of the blazing meanness that always seemed to exude from him  but as an adult I look at this Pinky-like priest and feel revulsion and then profound sadness because he is a priest.
  
   One day a future pope is going to have the courage to suppress  the Jesuits, and  the Legion of Christ and require a severe reform of much of the Franciscan and Redemptorist orders. 
  
  St. Peter Damian, pray for us. 
  
  
  
  
  
•  A week ago a woman walked up to a Philadelphia cathedral lector who had just finished reading  and punched her twice. It probably wouldn't have made the news if it hadn't been caught on the Mass live stream video. The police later said the attacker is non compos mentis  and let her go. Some people assumed that this was a BLM attack but it's more likely that this woman was simply nuts. The mad, the drug addict, and the drunkard are usually to be found on the steps, the grounds and in the pews of big city churches, especially the cathedrals. When Rocky attended Bible study at St. Mathew's Cathedral he used to check the ladies room before anyone went in because it wasn't unusual to find someone in there who might get aggressive with a lone woman. 
  
  One person watched the video of the frightening incident  and asked in her Tweet where the men were. I didn't laugh but I did smile sadly. Ladies, depending on where you live, we women have been on our own for decades and quite a few of us deserve it. If you stood silent or cheered, "Go Girl!," while at least two generations of boys were mentally castrated then you don't have the right to complain "Where are the men?" 
  
  
  
  
  
• I remember when Hurricane Isabel hit Virginia. After three days with no power our apartment building got hot and humid and the smell in the common ares was pretty gross. When my husband I and stepped out into the hall we actually smelled waste and I do not mean kitchen trash. Why that happened when we all still had flushing toilets and tap water is a mystery but we never forgot how unpleasant things got within a mere three days. Just when I snapped and told Rocky that we had to go to my mother's, the power came back on. Rocky and I have been seriously thinking about what we are going to do in an civil emergency and the knowledge that quite a few of our neighbors are going to be a problem has got us looking for backup housing. Wherever we go, it has to be within driving range of a decent parish with a reverent Mass. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Speaking of parishes, Rocky and I were driving along and saw a church that we've never noticed before. We went in and it was awful. It was one of those gray and beige concrete block warehouse style churches with the corridors to the school, office and meeting rooms. It took a few minutes to find the actual church and then it took more minutes to find the Blessed Sacrament. We left because there was  a meeting going on and the attendees didn't look too happy to see us. I asked a Knight of Columbus who was there if they had a chapel and he told me that due to Corona the chapel was  being repurposed for use as their confessional.  When we went back to the car we noticed an old man praying his rosary in the garden. It was a nice garden and since it wasn't too inviting inside he had the right idea. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The younger Gordon brother and his wife are going to teach a Catholic Home Economics course starting in October. That's not a bad idea in itself. A shamefully large number of young people seem to have no idea how to fry an egg, clean a toilet properly or manage their personal finances.   However, if you don't have or want to spend  $250 for the course  you can watch home arts videos on You Tube at no additional cost beyond your internet service. Check out Alaska Granny, At Home with Lynn Wilson, This and That with Denise Jordan and Lynette Yoder.  

 

Mass in a mask

 It's allergy season and I started coughing at Mass. Several people looked at me and gave me some hard stares. I felt Rocky tense up beside me. If anyone had dared to say anything to me he was ready to tell them off. 

Mass before pews

 

Excuse me, I have a nitpick.

 

George Neumayr, confirming what @TaylorRMarshall said yesterday regarding Steubenville: https://t.co/YYqJVzH759 pic.twitter.com/MmrAjEDg9y

— MrCasey (@MrCasey62) August 22, 2020

I don't know anything about the rest of this but the last lines leave me mystified.  Monsignor Jameson, was rector of St. Matthew's Cathedral long before Donald Wuerl arrived from Pittsburgh. 

a beautiful homily for the Feast of the Assumption

 The Assumption was not a Holy Day of obligation this year and there was not a word about it at Mass today. Here's a beautiful homily for the feast. 

and here we are

 

Love and sacrifice

A young priest posted this and some people complained. He pointed out that this quote is from Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the response was silence. Now, if you've read this blog you already know that saying Archbishop Sheen said something is not the end of the conversation for me. Archbishop Sheen was sterling before Vatican II but afterwards he said and did some disappointing things. However, Archbishop Sheen was absolutely correct here. 

Anyone who's been married knows that marriage is not a bed of roses. Romance and  true love are not the same. When my husband's grandfather was dying his wife fed him, bathed him and sat by him until the end.  When my grandfather became bed-ridden, my grandmother had to move the family from the farm to town and get a job as a cook in a local restaurant.  My grandfather died when he was only 51. There are no poems or pop songs about home nursing or watching your fine young husband become helpless.

My husband has sat in waiting rooms while I've had surgeries, medical procedures and doctor visits. He's been there  when I had the flu, bronchitis and migraines. I've taken care of him after his surgeries. And you know what? Those were days of grace. 

When we married my in-laws were not happy. My mother-in-law even called my mother and asked if she couldn't convince me to to get an annulment.  My mom set her straight but the problem remained for years. I was the wrong class and the wrong religion. My husband hung on to me harder. In contrast, when my in-laws overstepped in my brother-in-law's marriage he clung to them and his wife found herself working hard to please Big Daddy and Big Mama. My brother-in-law is divorced today. 

 Love requires sacrifice. It requires bearing with unpleasantness and overcoming our own desire for comfort, laziness or  fun for the sake our beloved. Lady Gaga is not singing about cleaning up your spouse's vomit... for the second time that night. Jay Z and Beyonce are not doing power ballads about standing by your child's grave and being strong for your spouse. Nobody is giving Ted Talks about holding on together  when the factory closes or about going from shopping at Macys to shopping at Goodwill when times get hard. Yeah, there is suffering in marriage along with joy. Pretending that doesn't exist is foolish. 

 

Rest in peace, dear lady

 My mother-in-law had ovarian cancer. She had massive surgery and lived with a colostomy bag for 15 years. All of her friends from the chemo ward died. She held on until a new surgeon was able stitch her together in such a way that she no longer needed the bag. I remember how happy she was when she was able to go to the bathroom like a normal person again. My mother-in-law's insides were held together by prayer and pelvic mesh.  She  survived to see her sons married, and to know her grandchildren. She went back to work but eventually her kidneys, damaged by the chemo, began to fail. She fought every day in some form for 23 years. Ovarian cancer is awful and watching what it did to my mother-in-law left me speechless.  

Geska Lima was a beautiful soul, a great lady whom brightened up Catholic Twitter with her wisdom, her prayers and meditations. She fought her ovarian cancer with great courage and when her doctor's finally told her there was no hope she tried alternative treatments. Now she has passed away. May the angels lead her to Paradise. 

Parents beware

 Two days ago I read a Twitter post by a teacher who was concerned that since he will be teaching via Zoom parents will be able to hear what he's telling the kids about sex issues. Parents, if a grown man wants to talk to your kid without you knowing what he's telling them, something funky is going on. 
If a grown man wants to talk to your kid about sex, something funky is going on. If a grown man frets about how to get around you and calls you a "helicopter" or "snow plow" parent because you pay attention to what he's trying to do then you have a problem. Parents beware and keep your guard up. Any teacher who wants you to leave the room in your own home needs to be challenged and corrected. 

None of this kind of thing is new. Bad people go where the kids are and there have always been teachers who overstepped their bounds. Decades ago, my mother got a phone call from her oldest brother, Jr. He was 17 then and triumphantly told her that "they" (parents) had finally got one of their teachers. The teacher was a pervert who had flirted with and seduced students. When the principal, school board and most importantly, the parents found out he was run out of town and out of the county. 

Go read the Little House on the Prairie series or watch an old movie, particularly an old Western. Teachers were held to a very high standard up until the 60s. Parents demanded that teachers to be as respectable as a nun and before the advent of teacher's unions, teachers got fired and lost their license to teach if there was proof of inappropriate behavior. Why were parents so strict? Because the man or woman who has custody of your child's mind for hours has a powerful impact that can shape or warp them for the rest of their lives. 

Is Biden crazy or crazy like a fox?

 

Joe Biden is not a good Catholic and if he ever was, he hasn't been for decades. I've wondered for some time if he isn't a sly trickster as well. When he pawed and sniffed women and girls in public we saw the people  around him get these stunned looks on their faces or they did the 1000 yard stare. Some people shook their heads and said it just Joe being...eccentric. Others were rightfully appalled and thought he was either losing control of his faculties or a narcissistic pervert or both.

Every now and then I wonder if  the old rogue isn't pulling an I Claudius? Emperor Claudius if you remember from the book and the series, had to pretend to be a harmless, half wit so he would be ignored by his immediate family's enemies. The scene where he is crowned and then stuns all the Roman court by suddenly speaking and behaving normally is still one of the most thrilling I've ever seen. 

Is Biden a pitiful figurehead being used by his family, and some shady characters or is he a straight up villain playing his supporters for useful idiots? Hey, it's 2020. Anything short of zombies and dragons would not surprise me one bit. 

 

I saw this gorgeous Last Supper on the Les Femnes blog

See what we've been reduced to

Rocky usually stops in a church on the way home from work to do his holy hour. He was struck by the elaborate directional arrows at this parish and saddened by the closing of the Adoration chapel. 

Be discreet and protect your priest

Do you have a good priest who is not going to call the police on you if you take your mask off at Mass? Great. Don't put his name and parish on social media and don't post photos. You will surely get the priest into trouble with his bishop and you might be the reason why there's no more Mass at your parish. You could also get the priest in trouble with the law. Some states are sending spies to churches to look for violations.  Law enforcement has shown up at churches. Priests and Protestant clergy have been threatened with jail time. Be discreet.  Sensus Fidelium has a sobering video on this topic. 

Random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

• In your charity could you pray for the mother of a friend of mine? She was taken by ambulance to the hospital yesterday. Her doctor would not see her until her COVID test came back negative but by the time it did she was in bad shape.  
  
  
  
  
  
• I've read numerous stories about how Bill Gates's vaccines have damaged women and children in India and at least one African country but his defenders always say this was  just a bad batch of vaccine or that sometimes people have bad reactions and the individual tragedies don't matter in the face of the greater good.  Think about the women and girls who ended up sterilized. What kind of life do they have now? Infertility is considered a curse in many cultures and it's not uncommon for a man to cast aside a wife who can't have children or to take a second wife. A young girl who has been sterilized faces no chance of marriage.  That bad batch of vaccine has doomed her to a life of loneliness, and degradation. Nobody in her village is going to marry her.  If she's lucky she can stay with her family and be a beloved aunt. If she's not lucky she could end up as a prostitute. Knowing this how on earth can people spout those flippant bad batch excuses. 
  
  
  
  
  
• There once was a writer who had a beautiful blog. Her writing was elegant, her vocabulary was obviously that of a highly educated person and her devotional posts were inspiring. Despite all this I was not fond of her. She had that habit of humble bragging, which I cannot stand. Don't call me a worldling because I take a day trip to the lake or shop at  Walmart when you are jetting off to Europe twice a year with  the excuse that you're going on pilgrimage or an "important conference". I stopped reading her. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I refuse to receive Communion in the hand so Rocky has had to ask priests for the Precious Blood for me. So far they've been willing.
  
  
  
  
• Msgr. Bastress who was the pastor at Saint Alphonsus in Baltimore was a kind, patient man. I went to Mass there twice. May he rest in peace. If it wasn't for him many people in more than one state would not have had access to the traditional Mass. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• One sign that the Catholic Church is the only one is that the forces of evil always go after our churches. Nobody cares about the Mormons or the Seven Day Aventists. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Never trust anyone who constantly cracks  pedophilia jokes. They aren't being "edgy," they are telling you what they find fascinating. 

I thought this was a joke

It's not.  

I bet this story won't become national news

Folks we're in trouble. 

Pie Jesu

random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon.

• The DC diocese will reopen this weekend. Parishioners may not use the restroom before or during Mass and you have to leave right after.  Most adults should be able to hold themselves for an hour but what about those who have various medical issues? Men of a certain age tend to urinate a lot more than they did in their youth. A few weeks ago we read that if people really need to go they can ask the ushers and then a team will assemble to sanitize the restroom after they leave. That has apparently been dropped. I suspect many people responded that they didn't want to humiliate themselves by having to beg for a restroom and didn't want to open the restroom door to find a grim group at the door waiting for Typhoid Mary to leave. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Things aren't looking too good for our country. The mystic Therese Neuman predicted that America would not be conquered from the outside but would fall from the inside. It doesn't matter that the majority just want to get back to normal and that this current unpleasantness will pass. It only takes a devoted or fanatical ten percent to move a nation. The rest of us will just go along with it. As for the bad times passing I will point out that Communism lasted for 70 plus years in Russia. Everyone who said "This will pass," in 1917 died waiting. It hasn't passed in Cuba and it hasn't passed in China.  

• Monsignor Rossi is not going anywhere. I won't be donating to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception anymore. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• After being my Uncle Sonny Boy's guardian until his death my opinion of nursing home staff is very low. After watching videos of nurses and doctors wriggling and gyrating my trust level is shot. Atrocities like this one keep happening and I don't think we will see anybody going to prison. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• A friend from work told me a horrible story. She was in a departmental Zoom meeting when her manager steered the conversation away from work to talking about the riots and BLM. Each person in the meeting was "encouraged" to "speak out". My friend was upset and being put on the spot. This was akin to your manager demanding to know how you vote or what your religion is. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I think the country never should have locked down. It was not worth the damage to our economy or to the nation's mental health. People have lost their jobs. If you're over 50, you are going to have a hard time getting a new job that was as good as what you had. Some folks probably aren't going to work full time in their fields ever again. People  have committed suicide. Depression and madness has skyrocketed. Ten years from now people are still going to struggling from the mental fall out. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• My Jesus, mercy!
•  

  
  

  
  

If you've ever mocked a friend or relative who was afraid to go to the hospital during the lock down it's past time to apologize

"It turned out that I was having a coronary, thus the breathlessness. I had to sit in the emergency room until they tested me for the Wuflu. Two hours later they came back and said I was negative, which I already knew. I sat there for 24 hours until they found me a room." 

I just read a comment on Non Veni Pacem  from a woman who had a horrifying experience in the ER and I don't blame anybody who is scared to go to a hospital in these terrible days. You will be alone with no family member to fight for you. The staff will immediately focus on Corona and it will be hours before your actual needs are addressed unless you present in the ER with blood loss or have an ambulance crew to vouch for you. How many people have died over this? We will never know. 

I have not forgotten

Ann Barnhardt calls out the Trad Inc. folks who went crazy back in March calling anybody who wanted to go to Mass a granny killer*, stupid or pious show-offs and now have the nerve like they never thought Corona was a big deal. Miss Barnhardt names no names but I'm thinking about two specific people who got very nasty to anyone who didn't think the Corona virus was akin to the plague. One of them was snappish as a rabid animal at the very idea of people wanting to go outside and even more furious that they dared to express a longing to return to church. This individual was so over the top with hysteria I was almost alarmed. 

*Turns out the grandparent killers were the governors who forced Corona patients into nursing homes

As it turned out, the virus wasn't the worst thing by a long shot

Still not ready to jump on the Pell bandwagon

Back in 2017  and  in 2019, I wrote about Cardinal Pell, the accusations against him and obliquely, one of his defenders. I believe he was innocent of what he was wrongly convicted of but it does not follow that he's a saint or a traditionalist or that he acted appropriately when the stories of child sexual abuse in his diocese reached his desk. We also have to realize that there has been talk about Cardinal Pell for years. It may be all filthy Freemasonic lies,  and Australia may be a horrible place, but please don't act like this has all just popped up overnight. There are men and families who were and remain broken-hearted. Boys were used for sex. People lost their Faith. It went on for decades. Cardinal Pell says he knew nothing about it. I'm glad hes's out of prison but please, don't be ridiculous by comparing him to Cardinal Mindszenty,  Fr. Ciszek or the Apostle Paul in prison.

Oh Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.  Arise Oh Lord, and let Thy enemies be scattered. Let them that hate Thee, flee before Thy holy face.

a word from St. Jean Vianney

Yes, my friends, as the life, so the death. Do not hope for a miracle, which God vouchsafes but seldom. If you live in sin, you will die in sin. Many examples prove to us that after an evil life, we cannot expect a happy death. Vianney, St. Jean Marie. Sermons of the Curé of Ars

Is Pope Francis really Catholic?

This is a repost of a question I asked a little while ago. Every time Francis speaks I wonder...

Is Pope Francis really Catholic or is he just a cultural and career-wise Catholic? I'm not trying to be funny and I'm not being sarcastic.  Argentina has a lot of witchcraft and I don't mean silly college girls playing with love spells and candles. I mean the real stuff; the pre-Columbian paganism and folkways mixed with frank Satanism. This is not unique to Argentina or Latin America. Here in America  there are people don't have a problem going to a root doctor (a witch) and still going to church. Someone will point out that Francis is Italian. Well yes, his parents came from Italy but they raised him in Argentina.  The thought about how Francis was raised and what he marinated in as a young man came to me a few years ago when I was watching a nature program of all things. The host was in the country-side in  Argentina and saw a crossroads shrine to a bandit-"saint", The host noted that the villagers were Catholic but also were at ease with something close to voodoo or santeria. I wondered if this doesn't explain part of what is wrong with Francis. 

Remember when he joked that he doesn't go to the doctor instead he goes to the witch? Ever wonder why he's so anti-normal Catholicism and saving souls but seems to love pagans and primitivism? This all came back to me when I read about the pope's latest joke.  My father-in-law used to say that when he was deployed to Turkey he found Istanbul to be quite sophisticated and modern but when he went out to the rest of the country and saw the villages it was like going back centuries. Maybe outside of Buenos Aires it's like that too, to an extent and perhaps, Francis consciously or not,  embraces the old folk ways and the "simple" people  as part of his cultural heritage.

Well, they got Tim Gordon.

Tim Gordon, the older Gordon brother lost his teaching job at a Catholic high school for Tweeting about BLM. I don't like the man. I think I've made that clear in the past. I like his younger brother even less but Gordon has 6 children and his eldest child has serious medical issues. I'm sorry for their sake.

 If a person is acting a fool on company time then okay, fire them. If a person is off work and represents on camera or in print that what he says is the formal or informal policy of his employer, or is approved of by his or her supervisor and that representation is not true, then okay, fire him. However, if you are not on company time while acting a fool, and by that I mean just mouthing off, not committing a crime--- or, making a statement in print or on camera and not mentioning your employer at all, then getting fired is unjust.

The only exception I can think of is when an employee signs a behavior agreement with the employer saying that the employee will not do anything that could cause the company embarrassment or harassment.

An already hostile boss  may get wind of what an employee  said or wrote and may look for ways to get rid of them but unless the employee has been gold bricking, still in the 90 day probation period or called into HR one too many times, the boss  won't have any legal  ammunition for that and the whole thing could lead to a fat lawsuit, even in a Right to Work state.  More likely if a boss was really offended by an employee's statement things at work could get hostile enough to make the employee quit.

I think this is a pretty good example of why we don't need married priests. How many married men hold their tongue or sensibly decline to make that Facebook post because they knew that if they got fired the rent wasn't going to pay itself and the kids have to eat? A priest needs to be ready to move to a new assignment with the speed of the Apostles if need be, remain detached from the world and teach the Faith no matter what. A married priest can't do that and might end up running away from his duties to the Lord's lambs in order to take care of his own.

Now back to Timothy Gordon. If you ever read his Tweets, his books or watch his videos then you know the Gordon boys love a fight and believe  in never backing down to opponents.  I'll bet he had enemies in the teacher's lounge and among the tuition paying parents that he didn't even know about. Apparently  about 100 students, parents and alumni signed an online petition objecting to him.  Gordon will probably find out what really went into the firing decision after talking to sympathetic former co-workers. Possibly this has been brewing for some time and he finally gave his enemies the ammo they needed to strike. It's also possible that threats were made against the school and/or faculty and the school head(s) panicked.  Huge corporations are rushing to pledge allegiance to BLM. If he expected his high school to stand behind him, it was a blunder.

To paraphrase something my  late father-in-law used to say, Gordon's alligator mouth wrote a  check that his Tweety bird home front had to cash. A lot of people are delighted to watch. I am nervous about bigger issue: if Gordon can be fired for what he wrote off company time then the same thing could happen to anybody. Gordon is still holding a good set of cards. He's young and has a law degree. Unless his state  Bar moves against him he could go back to practicing his profession. A Go Fund Me account has been set up for him.  His attacks on the SSPX will get him speaking engagements and sell books. Timothy Gordon will be okay. Jane or Joe Regular Person doesn't have all that to fall back on.

Wait, What? Fr. McGivney died of Corona back in 1890?

Dear Lord. These people never stop with the hype. Now they're claiming Fr. Michael McGivney died of Corona in 1890.  Up until a few days ago all biographies of Fr. McGivney said he died of pneumonia.
Yes, a cold can turn to pneumonia and yes there was a great deal of sickness in his town in 1890. He may have caught his infection from tending to parishioners  but there are more than one way to acquire it. Why try to make Venerable Fr. McGiveney cool by pinning Coronavirus on him? The Mormons try to baptize the dead to bring them into the Mormon cult. By using such a cheap tactic the promoters of Father's canonization cause look just like the Later Day "saints". I know the Knights want him to be canonized but by dropping the Corona  catch phrase to jazz up his cause is insulting to him and to the already degraded canonization process.

Fr. McGiveney, pray for us

A painful moment

I was listening to a bush craft skills video yesterday in which an old Baptist in his canoe spoke about how his faith in Jesus is the key to his not living in fear in the face of Corona. I felt ashamed because I have not heard a single American bishop speak as boldly as that old man.

Nightmare in the nursing homes

You may have seen the sickening video of a young man attacking residents of a Michigan nursing home. I won't post it here because it upset me too much. He's  been arrested but the most shocking thing about this story is that he's reportedly mentally ill. (he looks more like he has fetal alcohol syndrome to me), and has was diagnosed as being infected with Corona virus. Why, why, why is a mentally ill young person in a nursing home? Why was an extremely violent young man allowed to roam unimpeded in a nursing home?


Some people had said that Democrats seeded nursing homes with Corona because elders vote Republican. That doesn't make sense. I've stood in line to vote and saw residents from a near by nursing home being brought in on walkers, canes, and wheelchairs. To my astonishment I saw a poor old man who's eyes were glassy and his mouth was slightly agape. If I'd asked him what he had for breakfast that morning I do not believe that he could have answered me. I watched the nurse wheel him up to the voting both and pull the curtain. I'm convinced the nurse did his voting for him.


Nobody who is in the last stages of dementia, or bedridden or dying is voting and old Democrats vote Democrat to the day they die anyway. So what really happened? Were the elderly deliberately targeted to boost the death numbers? Who profited by every death? There must be a financial incentive. Pray for your family members in the nursing home. The Health Secretary of Pennsylvania pulled his mother from nursing home and took her to safety. If you go your loved one's nursing home and demand they give your daddy right now, you'll probably be arrested. Since you can't even visit and notice things your family members are totally without any defense and are at the "mercy" of forces you can't constrain, or in some states, even sue one day. 

Mass in a Mask

Northern Virginians were allowed to go back to Mass on May 29. Rocky and I went to St. Thomas Moore Cathedral. It was unpleasant. Sitting with my mask on from the time we went in for confession to the end of Mass actually made me dizzy. I kept having to take the mask off and ignored anyone who decided to look at me instead of the altar. Air conditioning really would have helped. Catholics in DC and the Arlington diocese are still dispensed from Mass indefinitely and I may take advantage of that because frankly I felt  physically worse during Mass than I have during this entire Corona crap nightmare.

another doubtful beatification?

I've seen books about Marthe Robin in Catholic bookstores but never paid much attention. Apparently she's up for beatification and some people have doubts. 

The Church already has some embarrassing beatifications and canonizations from the past 30 years so God willing if this woman was a fake it will be exposed.

A wild memory and random thoughts on a beautiful Saturday afternoon

• What the heck is going on with Michael Voris's hair? When did it become platinum blonde and why does it look like JFK Jr.'s hair when he was a toddler?
  
• When I was 13, my father died. The next month I was walking to school and saw a man dressed in a shiny white suit and shoes. He was standing at the bus stop and looked at me with a kind smile. He seemed to glow.  I immediately thought it was the angel of death. My state of mind in that terrible time was that if my father could die then anything was possible. I walked toward him and then to my surprise, past him. I got to the corner and looked back. He was gone. Later I mentioned the episode to my mother. She told me that the man was in white probably because it was Spring and he just felt like busting out in his white suit. He smiled, she explained because he was probably a pleasant man who saw a pleasant and wholesome sight: a nice looking child in a Catholic school uniform going to school. She also pointed out that the glowing effect I saw was just the sun on all that white polyester. She went on to explain further that he was gone when I looked back because he was at a bus stop. The bus must have come and gone and I just didn't notice because I was so stunned. 
  I responded,"Oh! You're right," and then told her that I was still proud of myself because I didn't cry or try to run but went straight to my destiny like a grown person should. My poor mother sat down and tried to say something wise. Instead she just hugged me and said, "Oh baby." I imagine that some days she must have felt like lion tamer with a particularly wild cat.
  
  
• I don't understand the whole British NHS cult thing. They've been told to stay away from the hospital and hide at home in isolation to protect the NHS and not cause the doctors and nurses to be overwhelmed with unimportant cases while battling Corona. But isn't the purpose of a national health service to serve the people? If they aren't taking care of the sick then what the heck are they getting paid for?
  
  
  
• My dad used to say that one day the scientists were going to cook up something in the lab that would kill us all. I'd always laugh at his joke but I understood that he was telling me, through humor that Dr. So&So can be a crook or fanatic or wrong just like anyone else and that I should worship nobody but God.
• Joe Biden says that any black person who does not vote for him is not black. So I guess the whole Civil War thing never happened and Joe actually has pride of ownership over black people's votes if not their bodies. I'm reminded of the Louisiana Democrat who boasted and was correct that the only way he'd lose his race would be if he got caught with a live boy or a dead girl in his bed. Joe was incredibly insulting and he's been given a pass by the media because he's the Democrat.
• My old parish is having communion services. My current parish is sticking to You Tube Mass. Rocky wants no part of either choice.
  
• Dear bishops and clergy of Minnesota, the worst the governor can do to you is arrest you. Fr. Kowalski, pray for us.