At prayer and random thoughts

• Last night I ate something that fought back and I was sick from 3 AM to about 5 AM. I normally do a light cleaning on Saturdays and save the deep clean for once a month but as soon as I stopped feeling shaky I had to get out the Hexol and get to work. Saint Zita and Martha, patronesses of housekeepers pray for us...
  
  
  
  
• This sister belongs to the Holy Child nuns who are at my old elementary school now.

• Rocky got off work early yesterday and we stopped by our parish to pray because big dogs in the corporate office have lost their minds...again and it makes life difficult for the managers.  We walked in and the Spanish baptism class was just breaking up. They looked at us like we were invading their space.  I am highly sensitive to non verbal cues and I could almost feel the unfriendly stares. Rocky is not sensitive that way but he felt it too and was mightily pissed. That was just a tiny illustration of what goes on at many suburban parishes. The Spanish speakers are uncomfortable when Americans are present.  The Americans won't even set foot in the church until the Spanish parishioners leave or if they do accidentally go in while the Spanish speakers are there, they get this crazy look on their faces and flee. Perhaps it comes from the Vatican II mindset of "my Mass" and nobody else is part of this parish or perhaps it's what I believe to be the poisonous fruit of the US decision to split Catholics up based on ethnicity. Catholic means universal. There is no slave or free, no Jew nor Greek in the church. We are all supposed to be Catholic. aren't we? It's not supposed to be about us anyway. It's supposed to be about Him.
  
  
• My Aunt Evangeline died. She was 83 and my late father's eldest sibling. She had ten children and  was a comforting angel to many people her her town. She was like the Valiant Woman of the Old Testament. When she was young she had masses of long black hair and when  I was five I thought she looked just like Loretta Lynn. May she rest in peace.
  
  
• Up until the 19th century we had debtor's prison. In England the whole family could go to jail with the debtor. The family could come and go as they pleased but the debtor was not at liberty until he served his time or the debt was paid. A lot of people, Charles Dickens being one thought this was terrible. Dickens himself had to leave school at 12 years old to help support the family. Today we don't do this sort of thing. When you commit a crime you go to jail or prison and your kid either goes to relatives, foster care, orphanage or a group home. Our bishops want illegal aliens to have their families with them while waiting in detention and while doing and saying nothing to politicians who are public sinners, are actually proposing the threat of  "canonical penalties" to Catholics who administer our immigration laws. Are they seriously going excommunicate someone who calls the police after noticing that there are ten people in their  neighbor's shed who arrived in a truck during the night and  who will disappear in a few days like the last bunch did?  Are they really going to excommunicate every Catholic man and woman who works for the border patrol and ICE?  Yes they make a lot of money from immigration (go to  USAspending.gov  and put "U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops"  in the search box) and I see that they're going to fight to keep it but this proposal is insane and will drive people from the Church. 

Question time for my pastor

Ann Barnhardt has a new post on the Eucharistic Fast that really got my attention and left me feeling a bit worried. She's absolutely right about the softness of the one hour fast. For most people who aren't sick or who don't work a non 9-5 shift it is easy.What alarmed me was her argument that the three hour fast  isn't much better because the stomach is not empty and if one really loves the Lord, volunteering to do the fast from midnight to Mass is a better practice. I started wondering if I am actually showing Our Savior a rank insult by practicing the one hour fast. I'm going to ask Fr. Hawk (that's his nick name because he rather resembles a Red Shouldered Hawk) what he thinks.

Random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

June is the month of the Sacred Heart. I neither acknowledge, bow my head nor bend my knee to 
anything else.

I know someone who married a narcissist. He isolated her and made the rest of us think that she was crazy. Eventually she stopped the gas-lighting and left him.  Looking back on it, I now remember certain things he did or said and realize that he was telling us all what kind of man he was but we just didn't see it. It was as if he'd worked some kind of glamour* that masked his true self. Bad people always tell us exactly who they are. The elites hate ordinary people. Deep down, hate is their meat and drink. They can't just enjoy their money leave the rest of us in peace. The urge to dominate, destroy and make the victim say "thanks," is just too demonically strong. Sometimes it takes wisdom to recognize this and sometimes it's so obvious that even a blind man can see when the glamour weakens and the mask slips off. 

• A comedian said publicly that he hopes the economy crashes into another Great Depression and regular American suffer because the person he voted for didn't win the presidency. Most of his fans laughed at his witty little "joke".....
  
  
• Anthony Bourdain  apparently hanged himself with his own bathrobe belt. The elites call this a tragedy but  cheer when the old, the depressed and the sick are coerced into "assisted suicide" or when babies are dismembered, stabbed or poisoned in abortion....
  
  
  
•  The pope says even the poor must do their part to save the earth and give up using fossil fuel. Taken to the extreme that means no cooking, heating one's home or traveling further than your horse can carry  you. This sounds like something out of the gulags. The pope himself has not pledged to never get on a plane again and remain in Rome for the rest of his papacy and I haven't heard anyone complaining about heat and body odor at the Vatican because of the lack of air conditioning.....

• In England the authorities have known for decades that poor girls and girls in foster care frequently fall victim to slick talking, seducing pimps and did nothing. Social workers and police officers who tried to their jobs were told to hush because the girls were just fast, common little tramps anyway and anyone who interfered were racists. I've never seen a single news/gossip story about an upper class 13 English year old girl openly "dating" a Pakistani man with her parent's approval. Funny that....

*Glamour

noun

• 1. the quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, especially by a combination of charm and good looks.
  2. excitement, adventure, and unusual activity:the glamour of being an explorer.
  3. magic or enchantment; spell; witchery.

Holy Family

A prayer for the redemption of bad priests

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

 Amen 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh Mary Conceived Without Sin, Pray For Us

If I was rich I'd have a copy of this statue made as a gift for my parish.

A nun

Random thoughts on a Saturday night

• Prince Harry of England went through a parody of a wedding to a woman who is already married and some Catholic bloggers went completely gooey.  That was disappointing.

• One of my earliest memories from childhood is of being taken by my godmother to St. Mary Mother of God church in DC and being awed by a pieta similar to this one. Rest in peace dear Miss Catherine and thank you for putting my feet on the path to the one true holy and Catholic apostolic Faith.
  
  

• Rocky and I came home from church this evening and he noticed that birds all seemed disturbed. I didn't see any hawks but something had them agitated. A few minutes later when we inside the sky became very dark and there was heavy rain. The birds sensed what was coming. God's creation is simply amazing.
  

• It's hiring season at my job and at many law firms around the country. I've seen bright and shiny young men and women come in and I've heard  parts of the evaluations afterwards. Here's one tip that is often overlooked: Don't be satisfied in just glancing at the firm website. Read everything you can about the firm you're applying to. Do a a litigation history check on Westlaw and see what the majority of the firm's cases are. Pay close attention to the partner bios because they'll tell you what they are most proud of in their career and often times what activities outside the firm that he or she is devoted to. If it's a huge firm you should at least read a selection of bios from each practice group. Be ready to explain what it is about this particular firm that you love and why you want to be a part of it.  These are simple things but ignoring them has caused more than one candidate to be cut from the second round of interviews.

• Working in Washington DC means that you never know what Catholic personality you might run into.  It's a small city and the Catholic areas are concentrated. I've met Cardinal McCarrick on the street, sat in the same pew with Raymond Arroyo, noticed George Wiegel heading to Mass and observed Charles Coulombe after Mass.

• Good grief. Did the earth just shift on it's axis? Did Hell just freeze over?  Michael Voris said the pope was wrong.  

• I read a comment on Twitter that Ireland was following America in legalized abortion. No. In 1973, the Supreme Court imposed abortion on the United States.  The Irish people went to the polls and overwhelmingly voted to kill their own children and there are crowds of people celebrating in the streets.