Salvator mundi!

Rocky and I have been married 29 years. The Infant King  who holds the whole world in His hands, took care of us.  Thank you, Lord.

The Holy Family

I love this painting showing the Holy Family on what I'm guessing must be Passover dinner. 

St. Therese Novena

Pray twenty four Glory Be's with twenty four St. Therese, of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

This is not cute

St. Louis de Monfort, pray for us

St. Padre Pio, pray for us

St. John Vianney, pray for us

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us

St. Anthony Mary Claret, pray for us

St. Augustine, pray for us

St. Ambrose, pray for us

St. Ingnatius of Antioch, pray for us

Holy priest martyrs North America, pray for us.

Be consoled

HT to Les Femmes

Random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

• I have such a feeling of deja vu these days. It's like I've seen so much of what's going on in the news before. I guess either Americans naturally go through cycles or the powers that  be manipulate us into the same thing over and over again. Right now, fools seem to want to relive the 70s. I was a little kid in the 70s but I know I don't want to go through all that again. As I recall, many of the college kids seemed to be crazy, the clothes were hideous, and the women outside of my church and family all seemed to be mad all the time. Back in the 70s my father could shake his head, turn off the TV and tell me that the people in New York and California were nuts (sorry, if you live there) but that everything was going to be okay as soon as Carter* left and that I should'n't worry. Today, you can't even shield your children by turning off the TV.
  
  
  
  
• Rest in peace, Norma.

• I was very moved by the introit at Mass this week : The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrow of hell encompassed me : and in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice from His holy Temple.   I will love Thee, o Lord, my strength : the Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer. v. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 

• Every single time I've read something by Ann Barnhardt and said to myself, "Oh no, Ann, that can't be right," I've been wrong and she's been right.  This latest post of hers explains everything.
  
  
• India, like Pakistan and Turkey is, once you get past the tourist section and hit the villages, a pretty horrible place. May God have mercy on this poor man who was killed like the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste 
  
  
• Several years ago an man went out to dinner at a well known restaurant. Six weeks later he became sick. His lab work showed that the poor man had typhoid. After an investigation it was discovered that the salad prep boy at the fancy restaurant was a typhoid carrier. The man sued but lost because the strain of typhoid the salad prepper had did not match what the victim had. The restaurant owners saved money in hiring an illegal alien but they lost in bad publicity and in the money it cost to defend themselves in court. One of the major problems with illegals is that they have not had a physical proving that they aren't carrying a dread disease.
  
  

I'm cutting this out and taping it to the inside cover of my 2017 planner

• As rich as Melinda Gates is, she still is not happy. A happy woman does not spend all her time going around meddling in the lives of other women and telling them to kill their children. 

* My father was a straight ticket Democrat but even he was sick of Jimmy Carter  and since he couldn't bring himself to vote for Teddy Kennedy because of the disgusting Chappaquiddick affair he was happy to see Reagan. 

The Divine Shepherdess

Novena to St. Valentine

O glorious advocate and protector,
St Valentine,
look with pity upon our wants,
hear our requests,
attend to our prayers,
relieve by your intercession the miseries
under which we labour,
and obtain for us the divine blessing,
that we may be found worthy to join you
in praising the Almighty for all
eternity: through the merits of
Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pray, then, O holy Martyr, for the Faithful, who are so persevering in celebrating thy memory. The day of Judgment will reveal to us all thy glorious merits. Oh! intercede for us, that we may then be made thy companions at the right hand of the Great Judge, and be united with thee eternally in heaven. 

Antiphon: This Saint fought, even unto death, for the law of his God, and feared not the words of the wicked; for he was set upon a firm rock.

Let us pray:

Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that we who solemnize the festival of blessed Valentine, Thy Martyr, may, by his intercession, be delivered from all the evils that threaten us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen

(Here mention your petitions)

Our Father.., Hail Mary.., Glory Be...

The happy month

My mother and I both have birthdays in February about a week apart and my wedding anniversary comes on March 1. Along with Candlemass we usually are celebrating or planning something for most the month.

A woman to admire

Mother  Mary Alphonsa dedicated herself to caring for cancer patients. She is the founder of the hospice movement. Mother Mary was the daughter of author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. She walked away from Protestantism and a comfortable, pampered life to serve Our Lord.

Pray for us, St. Ignatius

Random thoughts on the second feast of St. Agnes

• Remember the whole Anglican-use Catholic thing?  The Anglicans were told they could become Catholic and keep on using their lovely old rite at Mass.  Promises were made, trust was asked for and received and it's come to this: Bishop Garcia-Siler has ordered the pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement, the first Anglican Use Pastoral Provision parish in the United States to step down. The bishop doesn't say what his problem with the pastor is but it is obvious that there is something about the priest or the parish that the bishop doesn't like and he's decided to fix it using the blunt instrument known as "time off to pray and reflect". Maybe it would be better to just convert and don't worry about bringing the entire parish and building with you. One day a new bishop and a new pope may come along who weren't part of your original deal and may decide that they are not bound to it. 

• St. Agnes is one of the few saints who has two days of honor. Her feast day is on January 21 and today is  her second feast shared with St. Peter Nolasco.
  
  
  
• Remember how "experts" told us to calm down about Pope Francis because he doesn't care about liturgy? Well, the pope has ordered a review of the Mass translation we currently use. Some people are upset. I am not. Constant change in the Novus Ordo Mass is not a bug, it is a feature. Every few years there will be something new and damn the complainers. That's just the way it is. Now, what if the New, New, New Mass comes with rubrics that are so heretical that they might as well be Lutheran with a dash of voodoo and a side a Pentecostalism, will regular lay Catholics do? For the most part, nothing.The folks who grumble will be told to shut up and they will. Some people will stop going to Mass, either completely or will be C&E and Ash Wednesday Catholics. Others who can do so, will go to the Eastern rites parishes or go Orthodox. A few, very few will go to a Christ the King parish or to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter for as long as they exist. An even tinier number will head to the Anglican rite churches or to the SSPX mission chapel.
  
  
• On Thursday evening we had six seminarians who came for the March for Life attend Mass. It was great seeing them. They were all so young and they looked like angels.
  
  
  
• Ann Barhardt is reporting that the Knights of Malta have been crushed because the Grand Master made a mistake which led to his forced resignation. As I've said before, if you want to be a public Catholic you must be clean. That is to say, that you must be above reproach. There must not be anything in your past or your private life that can be used against you. If you committed a mortal sin by yourself or have been an accessory to someone else in their mortal sin, go to Confession, do penance and resign your post now or make a public announcement  about what you did before an enemy finds it out---because the enemy will. The blackmailer is evil yes, but you brought in on yourself by committing the sin and thinking you could excuse it by all the good work you are doing for Our Lord and His Church.
  
  
  
• Young men, did your girlfriend or the girl you've been wanting to ask out on a date go that so-called Women's March in DC last week? Take that as a sign and ditch her. Unless you want to play weakling Ahab to her Queen Jezebel get away from her now.  

The Holy Face

Today would have been my father's 77th birthday. May God have mercy on his soul, may he rest in peace, my he see the Holy Face in glory.

The Holy Sepulcher Chapel

The DC Franciscan monastery has a replica of the Jerusalem chapel. I read a book written by a priest pilgrim in 1910, who complained about the Orthodox management of  the chapel and later I read a book by another pilgrim priest written in 1950, who complained about the same thing and still another priest in the 1990s who also the same complaint. All of them were so discreet and assumed that the readers were well familiar with what they were writing about that they didn't plainly say what was so wrong. 

A Catholic lady's every day carry

Wallet
Keys for my home and my mother's
Charger
Flashlight
Pen
Prayer book
Rosary (it's a replica of the WWI US soldier's combat rosary--finally one that I can't break)
Mascara
Lipstick
Pocket knife with a bottle opener-- I love this thing
Emergency kit with gloves, travel sized over the counter medicines, a contact lens case, hand sanitizer, an N95 respirator mask (there have been frequent smoke incidents on my commuter train) an emergency space blanket which only weights a few ounces, Razac hand lotion and a chapel veil with bobby pins
Not shown but they are always with me:
My phone, which I used to take the photograph
The brown scapular that I'm wearing

The Divine Shepherdess

St. Michael the Arcangel, defend us in battle

Mother of Mercy, Pray For Us

A careless nun's influence

Too many orders have fallen a long, sad way from the path this nun tread

A friend of mine once told me the story of an incident from the 70s when her family had an  an unhabited, pantsuit  nun as a weekend house guest. The nun was so difficult to deal with that she couldn't live with the other nuns in the convent. Instead of dismissing or correcting her the order simply paid for an apartment for her to live in.  At some point my friend and her brother, who were both quite young at the time  went to the refrigerator to get a candy bar which was the last of their Easter treats. It was gone. The wacky nun, who really liked candy, ate it during the night and  laughed at the disappointed little boy. Today my friend's brother never goes to Mass except for funerals and weddings. It's a silly reason to lose one's Faith but life is often silly and he was just a kid.  Sister Modern said and did a lot of foolish things over the eight years the children were in elementary school and the boy was repulsed.

random thoughts on a three day weekend

• If anyone had fantasies about moving to Malta I suggest you read the recent statement by the Maltese bishops. There is no Catholic wonderland, not Ireland, not Italy and not Malta.
  
  
• Rocky and I went to a wedding yesterday. It was in the traditional latin form and the couple had a Misa Cantata. It was beautiful. The guests were wonderful. I didn't see one scantily clad woman and not one man made a vulgar speech or got drunk at the reception. The bride and bridesmaids all were modestly dressed and the bride's gown was gorgeous. She seemed to float like a fairy queen down the aisle. They had five priests at the wedding and incredible food for the luncheon. I think it's the best wedding we've been to in years.
  
  
• In order to make it as a top model you have to strip naked and let strangers photograph you.  We know from reading the news and biographies that many models suffer from eating disorders and drug use. Kathy Ireland couldn't go along with this because of her Christianity and got out of the modeling game. She's done spectacularly well in the Christian and lifestyle and furniture  marketplaces, but she's the only one. Other models realize that they just can't do the things required in order to make it to supermodel status and don't try to go beyond steady catalog work.  Others use it as a means of meeting marriageable men they never would have run into back home. Like Ireland, the sensible ones get out as soon as they can.
  
  If a young singer wants to make it to the top in the pop and hip hop world you have to either embrace occultist behavior or just ape the symbols whenever you perform.  Talent has very little to do with who makes it. One of the most talented Soul singers around was a lady by the name of Sharon Jones. She died last year and most people have never heard of her because despite that big powerhouse voice she was short, plain, plump and was not about to make a fool of herself in public by performing lewd dance moves or wearing ridiculous for her age costumes on stage. If you would admire pop and hip hop artists for anything but their music remember that drug use, alcoholism and sex with everything that moves is normal for this industry.
  
  To be an A list actor one must do pornographic love scenes, go almost naked when attending public functions if you are young and female, and have sex with the people who cast you in movies. Tales of the casting couch have been a joke for 100 years in Hollywood but it's really not funny. Hollywood is so full of drugs, alcoholism, tacit approval of pedophilia on screen and it is rumored, massive practiced pedophilia in private that it's like a perpetually clogged sewer pipe. Why on earth do Americans with IQs in the normal range give a hoot about what any of these people think or say outside their own purview?
  
  
• The Doloran Fathers had to leave Oklahoma but have found a new place in Colorado.
  
  
• I saw this snippet of a talk  by Charles Coulombe  on Twitter this morning. He explains one powerful reason, other than the ever present sword, why Muslims are so persuasive in their conversion efforts.  https://twitter.com/TumblarHouse/status/814678605229735936  
  Coulombe  sounds like a  bad John F. Kennedy imitator mixed with Foghorn Leghorn and has a strong not particularly funny comedic streak. Both these things can get a bit tiresome when he's giving long talks but if you can get past that, his talks on Catholic history are very interesting.

A nun

The Divine Shepherdess

When the poisons in the mud hatches out....

I  should not have to say this but in case anyone reading this doesn't get it: out of wedlock motherhood is not the same as being a divorced mother or a widow. This choice comes with a whole basket of social pathology.

Back in the 60s and 70s black women were told that they didn't need one particular  man and that things would be better financially if they didn't marry their child's father and instead relied on everybody else's man in the form of welfare.  I have one relative with five out of wedlock children who in our 20s made more money from welfare than I was making from going to work.  One of her daughters has already had a child out of wedlock and is continuing the sad cycle. Single motherhood was put on a pedestal and mothers who never married or even maintained a relationship with their children's fathers were treated as heroines. You were roundly criticized if you dared say anything against it. The fact that Mommy's boyfriends frequently abuse her children was ignored by everyone but police officers, and emergency room medical personnel. Eventually people couldn't ignore it but shrugged their shoulders because it had nothing to do with them.

When white women began choosing to have children without marriage the "You Go Girl," culture sprung up. Movies, TV, and the Internet all celebrated Mom and condemned worthless, wicked Dad. All the family's hardship was Dad's fault and nothing--ever--- was Mom's fault. If you go to Pinterest or Tumblr or Facebook you will see a celebration of single Mom but you probably won't see too many posts on what's like to have your mother's boyfriend molest you or what it's like to find yet another strange man at the breakfast table on Saturday morning. You don't find too many memes on what it's like to live with relatives because your mother's new husband doesn't like you or what it's like growing up watching your mother with her new man and their kids and feel like you are always on the outside.. A lot of kids born in the 90s and aughts grew up like feral cats and for the most part, until they commit crime Americans either don't care or are too cowed to say anything. The problem is not just in the cities. I know a woman who was a foster mother in a small Southern town for many years. She saw some horribly damaged kids and they mostly came from single mother led homes. The human monsters who kidnapped and tortured a mentally impaired 18  year old in Chicago this week probably grew up in  households without fathers or even dedicated grandfathers. This does not excuse them, they did a disgusting thing and they must pay for it but don't be surprised by this crime. The poisons hidden in the mud always hatch out eventually.

Catholic owned businesses that I liked in 2016

The Catholic Planner



Hummingbird DS mantillas



The Veiled Woman


Sisters of Carmel


Holy Reflections (she actually doesn't count as a business because she gives her art away for free but she is so talented and the site is just a treasure trove)

Mother of the Good Shepherd

Happy New Year and Have a blessed Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord  and Feast of Mary Mother of God (depending on what liturgical calendar you follow)

another favorite Nativity

I think I may turn this into next year's greeting card. 

Holy Family Flight into Egypt

I love this painting. Mary sees the angel but she doesn't interfere. She makes no move until Joseph wakes up and tells her that an angel told him it's time to put on their traveling shoes again and Baby Jesus, who is perfectly capable of commanding, "Herod is after me. My Father will deal with him later but right now, you need pack up and get us to Egypt," does not. He trusts Joseph enough to let him do the job God gave to him. It's a rich scene to meditate on.

Holy Innocents & St. Thomas a Becket

• Herod was a monster but today's politicians are no better than the old usurper king 

• Rocky ushered for the Christmas Eve Family Mass. I'll be honest. It's not my favorite Mass. We get a lot of visitors and a surprising number are rude, drunk and cranky about not being able to find a seat in the crowded church.This year, however,  went very well. There was only one girl dressed like a cocktail waitress and the one person who had a noticeable nip of alcohol before Mass was sweet and cheerful instead of  unpleasant. Two not so lovely people decided to tell our elderly organist that they didn't like the music. I told him not to let them get him down. After Mass the ushers made quick work of straightening up and taking out the trash. The ushers who were coming back for Midnight Mass got last minute instructions from Father and then headed home to rest for a few hours. 

• Hilary White has written about the need for a revival of the beguine movement, that is devout, unmarried lay women coming together to pray and serve God in charitable works. She points out that the Vatican doesn't seem all that friendly to real nuns and as we saw in Oklahoma recently, things can get really interesting when a new bishop takes over. Mother Miriam's young religious community is being kicked out.  Beguines would not be dependent on the bishop's good will.  A few women have chosen the consecrated virgin route and work in the private sector but spend as much time as they can serving in their parishes. There is nothing to stop them from joining together and finding a house to rent. A band of lay women pursuing holiness in community is not a solution to the terrible damage that has been dealt to religious life but it's an option.
  
  
  
• Do you remember how weird things kept happening to Pope Benedict? He went to Israel and an unscheduled Palestinian girl "surprised" everyone when she stood up and screamed a poem about life in Gaza. His valet stole from him. His most trusted aide allowed him to be photographed with a hat that was far too big for him and that made him look ridiculous, like an old woman wearing her clothes from her youth. A homoerotic circus act performed for him during the annual Golden Circus festival, and the cameramen did not avert the cameras to the pope, the audience or the floor but lingered the  frankly lewd looking acrobats. Vatileaks happened. His brother, who may be in his dottage said embarrassing things and apparently nobody in the Vatican tried to keep reporters away from him or even bravely and honestly said to the pope, "Every time your big brother opens his mouth he makes you look a fool." Rumors were spread that he had a penchant for wandering around Rome in a regular priest's cassock and that there was a pedophilia scandal in Germany about to break.... it was as if  none of the men who are supposed to help the pope did their jobs either due to massive total incompetence or malice. Isn't it interesting how these things suddenly stopped when Francis took over?

• A few days ago members of my husband's parish men's group were shocked to learn that a former member and friend, "Pauley" has left the church. He has joined the Orthodox. He did not tell anybody beforehand and simply posted it on Facebook. I was not surprised. A lot of people are upset right now and  being crushed by what is coming out of the Vatican on a daily basis.  Pauley is a young man with a wife and children. He was devout and hungered for holiness. His career took him to a pagan country where the Orthodox are vigorously evangelizing. He looked at their passion and manly vigor and looked at Catholicism which is currently controlled by men who seem to think everything goes except for piety, self control and following the Faith of the saints. He's not the only one who is  quietly going East. You can't keep feeding people garbage and expect them to say thanks. None of the men in Rocky's group are great preachers but even if they were nothing they  or any good priest can say would change Pauley's mind right now. He  is a long way from home and his Orthodox priest and new church family are surrounding him with new convert love. Please, in your charity pray for him and all the other Pauleys' out there. 

Pray for us, St. Thomas

Nativity of the Lord

In the Bleak Midwinter

Our Lady of Guadalupe Extremadura of Spain

The Mexican image of Our Lady is more famous but the story of the Spanish image is no  less fascinating. HT to OnePeterFive.

Mass without pews

The Angel Gabriel Down From Heaven Came...

Stillness

This painting reminds me of my favorite time in church. Just before Mass it's still dark except for the sanctuary and candles.

Random thoughts while fighting off a headache

• I love this painting. It's such a peaceful little moment in the Divine Infancy.
  
  
  
• Our Lady was NOT an unwed mother.  She and Joseph were betrothed.   Under the betrothal system the bride and groom wouldn't live together until the wedding which would happen as soon as  the groom had the household ready and the date was one that good for all the parties involved,  but  to put it plainly, they had all the rights and duties of marriage. You do not contemplate divorcing a fiancee, you divorce a wife. If you want to make an unwed mother feel better about herself you could tell her about St. Margaret of Cortona but do not her that the pure mother of God was once just like her and things worked out...
  
  
  
• Jesus was NOT an illegal alien. His parents fled local strong man,  Herod but they were moving from one Roman territory to another. It was like moving to Pennsylvania because things in Virginia got too hot for you with the local constabulary, something that happened to one of Rocky relatives. No matter where you went in Rome's territory, no matter what language was spoken or what gods the people were enthralled by, your overlord was Caesar Augustus.
  
  
  

• Cowardice doesn't work. It disgusts your own people and just encourages the attacker.

• The next big pedophilia scandal of the future will occur because people showed willful stupidity in the present.  One day, men, not even born yet will curse the people who allowed this horror to take root.

• I only find statues with electricity in Italian or Polish parishes in Baltimore and Pennsylvania so it's always a little thrill when I see them.

I found the  most gorgeous antique holy card blog. Holy Reflections has prayer pages, crafts and samples of the restoration work that the site owner does. I downloaded a card and then laminated it. Rocky and I gave them as gifts to his fellow ushers.

Do you have a good priest? Stand by him. Pray for him.

My parents subscribed to  National Geographic because they thought it was educational for me. I would spend hours reading the articles and enjoying the photos but sometime in my teen years I stopped reading it because  instead being about anthropology, wildlife and earth sciences it became political and strident. Now it's showcasing victims of Munchhausen's Syndrome by proxy.

The Cherry Tree Carol

The Cherry Tree Carol goes back to the 15th century and it was carried by Scottish and Irish immigrants from Great Britain to the Appalachian mountains.

A Rose Is Blooming

Puer Natus Est

I could have done without that.

Many decades ago my newlywed mother went out to dinner with my father and his family. She was impressed by the incredibly stunning woman sitting at another table. To her astonishment my aunt whispered to  her that the woman was not a woman at all but a man dressed up like one. My mother was 21 and it was 1963. She'd never known such a thing existed when she was a country girl and would have preferred not to know that it did now that she was in DC. Many Catholics who read about the pope's latest astonishing comments really could have done without knowing that there are men who get  sexual enjoyment from eating feces and they are horrified that a priest, bishop or pope would bring that up in public.  Randy Engel , Ann Barhardt and Maureen Mullarkey  all had something to say about this. I could add my comments but that would be like being a pretty good  okay singer and having to go on stage after  Ella Fitzgerald.

Immaculate Conception

Mass without pews

Possibly my favorite image of St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas, it was said would reward good children and punish bad ones on Christmas Eve. The first time  I saw this I was startled but then I saw how relievd both the parents look and giggled. Obviously their son was quite a little stinker. 

St. Nicholas

The whole Santa Claus thing is cute but the real St. Nicholas was far, far more interesting.

Random thoughts after a week of travel

This old painting of St. Francis with the Stigmata is very different from the feminized, cartoon-like versions we see today.

• This really has been a dizzying, stunning year, Brexit, the Cubs win, Trump wins and Fidel Castro died.

• An autistic woman had to flee from church last week. The noise from the out of control children in a family that came late was just too much for her. I hope she can find her way to a Tridentine Mass.

• Bishop McElroy of San Diego promises a "mass mobilization" if any "immigrants" (people who strolled in the US and continue to live here illegally) are deported.  I have a feeling that the Bishop is going to be very surprised because there are probably a lot of people in San Diego don't dare speak out but are privately fed up with all the social ills that have come with massive illegal immigration.  Perhaps the bishop should take a page from Bishop "Dagger" John Hughes of New York. Bishop Hughes heroically defended his Irish flock but he also ordered his school nuns to teach that thrift and order was good, drunkenness was bad and that good citizens work hard and contribute. He did not condone using the US as a flop house and spent his life trying to  integrate his people into the fabric of America. He had his priests back him up in their preaching and in encouraging parish groups dedicated to self help and civic minded behavior. Within one generation Irish violent crime  dropped from 60% to less than 10%.  Instead we have Bishop McElroy  turning a blind eye an endless wave of crime and social insecurity. 

• The Somali "teen" who tried to kill people at Ohio State was originally supported by Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities picked his family up from the airport, housed them, fed them and probably provided medical care for 23 days in Texas.  When that little tidbit made the various news outlets the comments from readers were pretty harsh. Even the people who identified themselves as Catholic were horrified.

• My mother and I went on a short visit to South Carolina  to visit relatives and the family graves. It was beautiful but I missed Rocky, who couldn't come with us this time.  I'm exhausted from the train travel but I'm so glad we made this trip.

• Oh.....no Father....just no. 

• The Captain: Why do you weep?  

  The Creature: He was my father.
  
  
  
  
  Whenever I look at a picture of the pope or read the latest thing he's said I am reminded of the last two lines from Kenneth Brannagh's "Frankenstein," movie.  It was a silly, bloated movie  and there was no explanation as to why the monster, played by Robert DiNiro sounded like he was from Queens but it did have a few near perfect moments and that last scene was one of them. The monster weeps because of all that has happened between him and Frankenstein and  for what might have been. When you realize that your father doesn't love you it is an occasion for grief whether you are a seven foot tall monster from fiction or Catholic sighing in the pew. Most of my family is Baptist and it's been very hard defending the Faith to them this year more so than ever. 
  
  

Behold this heart, which so loved men.....

And the Word was made flesh..