Pray for us, Mother

Parents, don't buy that album and leave that ticket at the box office

When I was in high school I loved listening to Prince. My mother did not.  When he came to town it never even occurred to me to ask her to let me go to his concert and Hell would have frozen over before she would have ever gone to it with me. There was just no way she would have degraded herself in that manner.

Parents, don't try to be your kid's buddy and please don't go along with what's cool with all the other parents. A ten year old girl doesn't have any money of her own. The only way she gets to buy the album of a particular singer is if you buy it for her.  She can't order the singer's merchandise herself, you do it. She didn't go out and find someone to sing about various sex acts to her in the kitchen, you let the filth in the house yourself.

I would have enjoyed listening to Prince in my room with the record player cranked as high as it would go but it was my mother's house and she didn't like that nasty stuff and you know what? I respected her. I think a lot of the buddy/parents who buy crap for their kids and groove to it along with them are robbing themselves of something. You would go completely mad if you found an adult sitting in your living room talking smut to your little girl and you'd cut all ties to your best friend if you caught her instructing your daughter in how to perform a sex act so why do you go along with the nasty music?  If your little girl is singing about a wrist icicle,then the blame is on your shoulders. It's your house. It's your money. It's your child.

Ascension Thursday

There were a lot of people at Mass tonight. I think the Juventutum members really turned out in force.  I saw David Alexander of the Man With a Black Hat blog and there were several beautifully behaved children and cherubic infants in attendance.

Cold fury

I read a short notice from Rachel's Vineyard in my parish bulletin this week that infuriated me. It probably appeared in bulletins all over the diocese. I don't know if I am being fair or not but when I read the words, " Mother’s Day can be difficult for women who have lost children to abortion...."  my ears drums pounded and my cheeks began to burn, I felt a quick wave of nausea and my throat closed up. For a few seconds it felt like I had subjected to a physical blow. 

God bless and protect the women who have turned to Rachel's Vineyard because they are sad and sorry about what they have done but with the exception of the one's who were threatened with violence or whose parents threatened them with being thrown out on the street, they chose at the time to pay an assassin to kill their child. This is not the same as lying in a hospital bed and being told that once again your body has failed you and your child is dead. I lost my child. An unknown number of women in my diocese can say the same.  To put this plainly and yes, forgive me, crudely, the post abortive woman was not minding her own business when she was suddenly set upon by a team of killers from Planned Parenthood. If I knew which Rachel's Vineyard staffer wrote that notice I would probably tell her or him what I think in the most blistering words I could think of. I object to the use of the word, "lost," in the Rachel's Vineyard  context. It puts a polite gauzy veil over the hideousness of abortion and it demeans the pain of those women who suffered from infertility, stillbirth, or the  pre-birth death of an infant.  

Mass before pews

A nun

At Prayer

A nun

Happy Mother's Day

The bishop dressed in white?

Is there anybody in the Vatican who even tries to advise the Holy Father or at least do event  prep? Does he know what Sr. Lucia said happened to the bishop in white? So how does Pope Francis's comment  square with what we were all told about Pope Saint John Paul II? He was supposed to be the bishop dressed in white and his survival of his assassination attempt showed that Our Lady was pleased with him.

J.M.J.  The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.  I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.  After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.  Sr. Lucia

Cardinal Sus Volans, where are you?

When will the Massachusetts, DC and New York clergy's Kennedy fetish finally die?  Sometimes I think they'll have to be winged pork roosting in the trees before a cardinal in any of those cities declines an invitation to a Kennedy function.

random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

• One of my neighbors is a Protestant. She spent half an hour talking to Rocky about Pope Francis and her opinion of him was pretty low. It wasn't the usual Protestant theological ignorance either. Everything she said  was about his political meddling and his trip to Egypt and Rocky said he couldn't come up with a single defense.
  
  
• I just found a blog that has daily recordings of the Lauds from the Divine Office. 

• If you meet a little girl whose non Christian parents are from  Cameroon, Uganda, Niger, Ghana, Togo, Iraq, Benin, Yemen, Central African Republic ,Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania ,Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali, Eritrea, Egypt, Djibouti, Guinea and most especially, Somalia chances are that she's been or will be mutilated. Parents used to send their daughters home for "a visit" to get it done because they knew this didn't fly in America. Now we have doctors who are cocky enough to do it right in here.
  
  
  
• Sometime this Summer I think Rocky and I will visit the Benedictine monastery in Richmond and see if we can get a viewing of their Shroud of Turin exhibit. 

• St. Padre Pio's relics are going to  be at St. Ann's in Arlington, Virginia in May. 

• In your charity could you please pray for the repose of the soul of one of my mother's neighbors? I'll call her Mrs. Stone. About two years ago she took up with a man who was young enough to be her son. Her friends tried to warn her that this was dangerous but she refused to listen.  Eventually, Mrs. Stone's neighbors and relatives realized that they never saw her anymore and that whenever someone tried to call or visit her, the gigolo always had an excuse as to why she could not come to the phone. Finally someone called the police and she was found in her bedroom in a near comatose state.  She died in the hospital the next day.  Mama is pretty upset about this.

• The Orthodox have married priests and yet they have  had pedophilia cases. Rabbi's get married and yet rabbi's have been arrested for seducing boys.  In order to avoid the mess of a dating pastor some  Baptist congregations never  hire a pastor unless he shows  up to the first interview already married. The situation of the married preacher having sex with women members of the church is such a common story it's the subject of many, many jokes, books and films. Those married preachers have been caught with under-aged boys and girls too.  A lot of church's have had scandal, misery and financial expense over the Youth Minister.
  
  The pervert who enjoys sex with pre-pubescent children or teenagers is a crafty monster.  He will assume any disguise in order to get access to them. He will marry a woman he has no sexual interest in just to get at her children and in some cases, their friends. He will join organizations that cater to children. The Boy Scouts have paid out a lot of money due to  predatory Scout Masters.  Numerous Summer camps have had "trouble" with married and presumed normal, camp counselors molesting the young campers.  A new story about teachers and their students seems to make the headlines every day. Dedicated perverts have sat for years in seminary  classrooms and gotten themselves ordained in order to  hide behind a clerical collar or cassock. Do you actually think that sex with a woman or even just a farcical marriage can cure perverted sexual desires? That's about as pitiful and dangerous as the South African men who cling to the filthy superstition that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS.
  

All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain by Randy Engel--- a sobering read

“If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.”

----from “The Murder at the Vicarage” by Agatha Christie

I was reading the Restoring DC Catholicism blog and saw a post about Randy Engel's latest article. Miss/Mrs.(?) Engel is the author of the The Rite of Sodomy — Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church,  and she  is as close to the fictional Miss Marple as you’ll find in Catholics circles. In the Christie novels the villains never gave Miss Marple any thought right up until the moment she connects the dots for everyone. Randy Engel has been an investigative journalist for nearly five decades and now with her long article,  "All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain, ”  she's doggedly connected a very messy pile of dots. If you’ve ever spent money on Church Militant TV, Fr. Paul Nicholson or to E. Michael Jones you need to read this. If you are curious as to why even some of the most gentle and fair minded  Catholics get apopletic  about Opus Dei, you need to read this.  It is not a defense of Michael Voris but an assessment of some things in and left out of the book E. Michael Jones wrote about him last year. It's an unnerving article that will probably be ignored by most of Catholic blogland and that is too bad. One thing I don't understand is this: many devout Catholics if asked about Opus Dei will say that while they don't necessarily want to join it,  St. John Paul II embraced it and that's good enough for them. If CMTV is/was  a media apostolate of OD why hide it?



PS
I wrote to Miss Engel with Oakes's questions and  a couple of my own. I don't know if the email address I found is still active or how often she checks it but hopefully she'll get back to me. 

How was your Triduum?

On Holy Thursday we went to our parish and Rocky ushered. On Good Friday we visited St. Francis de Sales in DC. It's a tiny little church with a priest who is a remarkably good confessor. After St. Francis we picked up my mother and headed to the Franciscan Monastery for the burial of Christ service. To our amusement we saw two people from St. Rita's among the crowd. My mother and I enjoyed watching a fat baby in the pew ahead of us who discovered that she could crawl under the pew and escape until her father noticed and caught her.

For Easter Vigil we went to a Josephite run parish, St. Vincent de Paul in DC. It was the sweetest Easter Vigil we've ever  been  to. The people were so genuinely happy and kind and the young African priest sang the Exsultet beautifully and preached well. I hope to go back to visit them.  Suburban parishes have more parking and are in better neighborhoods but the people can be very cold. Visiting a small parish in a tough neighborhood can be a truly joyful experience. 

Easter

Holy Saturday

Good Friday

The Hours of the Passion by St. Alphonsus Ligouri

P.M. 5-7 8 9 10 11 MIDNIGHT 1 2 3 4

Jesus, having taken leave of Mary, celebrates His last supper. Jesus washes the feet of the Apostles, and institutes the Most Holy Sacrament. Discourse of Jesus; He goes to the Garden of Olives. Prayer of Jesus in the garden. Agony. The sweating of Blood. Jesus is betrayed by Judas, and is bound. Jesus is led before Annas. Jesus is taken before Caiphas, and receives a blow in the face. Jesus is blindfolded, struck, and scoffed at.

A.M. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 MIDDAY 1 2 3 4 5 6

Jesus is led to the council, and declared guilty of death. Jesus is taken to Pilate, and accused. Jesus is mocked by Herod. Jesus is conducted to Pilate, and Barabbas is preferred to Him. Jesus is scourged at the pillar. Jesus is crowned with thorns, and exhibited to the people. Jesus is condemned to death, and goes to Calvary. Jesus is stripped and crucified. Jesus prays for His murderers. Jesus recommends His spirit to His Father. Jesus dies. Jesus is pierced with a lance. Jesus is taken down from the Cross, and delivered over to His Mother. Jesus is buried and left in the sepulchre.

Palm Sunday

After Mass while Rocky and the ushers were cleaning up I sat and made palm crosses and a crown of thorns. Eventually one of the young newly wed ladies came up and asked me to show her how to do it so I passed on a traditional craft.  

There are a lot of palm craft videos out there but I've found two that are my favorites. I still can't make a decent looking beehive.

Dark was the night, cold was the ground