The Witch
—–Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

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The Little Ghost
—- By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.

And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone—
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.

By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown’s white folds among.

I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do—and oh! (more…)

One hears too often from the secular world that “Hallowe’en is a pagan holiday” — an impossibility because “Hallowe’en,” as said, means “All Hallows’ Evening” which is as Catholic as it gets. Some say that the holiday actually stems from Samhain, a pagan Celtic celebration, or is Satanic, but this isn’t true, either, any more than Christmas “stems from” the Druids’ Yule, though popular customs that predated the Church — such as the use of holly to decorate — may be involved in our celebrations (it is rather amusing that October 31 is also “Reformation Day” in Protestant circles — the day to recall Luther’s having nailed his 95 Theses to Wittenberg’s cathedral door — but Protestants who reject Hallowe’en because pagans do things on October 31 don’t object to commemorating that event on this day).

FROM Fisheaters:

31 October and 1 and 2 November are called, colloquially (not officially), “Hallowtide” or the “Days of the Dead” because on these days we pray for or remember those who’ve left this world.

The days of the dead center around All Saints’ Day (also known as All Hallows’) on November 1, when we celebrate all the Saints in Heaven. On the day after All Hallows’, called “All Souls’ Day,” we remember the saved souls who are in Purgatory, being cleansed of the temporal effects of their sins before they can enter Heaven. The day that comes before All Hallows’, though, is one on which we unofficially remember the damned and the reality of Hell. The schema, then, for the Days of the Dead looks like this:

31 October: Hallowe’en: unofficially, per folk custom, recalls the souls of the damned. Practices center around recognizing and remembering the reality of Hell and how to avoid it.

1 November: All Saints’: set aside to officially honor the Church Triumphant (the souls in Heaven). Practices center around recalling our great Saints, including those whose names are unknown to us and, so, are not canonized (more…)

“If we should say: ‘I had not sufficient grace to be saved,’ God will answer: ‘Why did you not ask it of Me?'”

— Fr. Michael Mueller, Prayer, The Key to Salvation

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“PRAYER is the transfiguration of the soul.”

— Cornelius a Lapide

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“Prayer, considered in its nature or quality, is a familiar conversation and union with God; considered in its efficacy, it is the preservation of the world, the reconciliation with God, the mother of tears, the companion on journeys, the propitiation for sins; a bridge over the high waters of temptation; a bulwark against all assaults or afflictions: the suppression and extinction of wars; the office of the Angels; the nourishment of all souls; the anticipation of future joy; a perpetual occupation, the source of all virtues, the channel of all graces.

“Prayer is the lever of the spiritual life; the medicine of the soul; the light of the understanding; the expeller of despair; the ground-pillar of Christian hope; the solution of melancholy and sadness; the riches of monks; the treasure of hermits; the cessation ot anger; a mirror to show the progress in the spiritual life; the thermometer of the soul; a declaration of the dispositions of the heart; a moral certainty of heavenly glory.”

—- St. John Climachus

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“AH, my dear brethren, let prayer never leave your hearts, and the grace and mercy of God will never leave your souls. Kest assured that the Lord will never withdraw from you, nor cease to enlighten, guide and protect you as long as you pray to Him. You complain of the difficulty of saving your souls in the midst of a corrupt world, in which you are exposed to so many dangers. Do you wish to escape them all and to fear none? Arm yourselves with prayer. Prayer was the daily food and strength of the prophet; it was his whole delight; he understood but too well all its advantages.”

— Pope Celestine V to the bishops of France

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“WHEN a country’s Christianity is reduced to the proportion of domestic life, when Christianity is no longer the soul of public life, of the power of the state and of public institutions, then Jesus Christ will treat such a country as He himself is treated. He will continue to bestow His Grace and His blessings on those who serve Him, but He will abandon the institutions and authorities that do not serve Him. And such institutions, authorities, kings and races become like sands in the desert or like the dead leaves of autumn which can be blown away by a gust of wind.”

— Cardinal Pie, Bishop of Poitiers (1815-1880)

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A Leaf-Treader

I have been treading on leaves all day until I am autumn-tired.
God knows all the color and form of leaves I have trodden on and mired.
Perhaps I have put forth too much strength and been too fierce from fear.
I have safely trodden underfoot the dead leaves of another year.

All summer long they were overhead, more lifted up than I.
To come to their final place in earth they had to pass me by.
All summer long I thought I heard them threatening under their breath.
And when they came it seemed with a will to carry me with them to death.

They spoke to the fugitive in my heart as if it were leaf to leaf.
They tapped at my eyelids and touched my lips with an invitation to grief.
But it was no reason I had to go because they had to go.
Now up, my knee, to keep on top of another year of snow.

— Robert Frost

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FROM “A Survival Manual During the Great Tribulation and the Operation of Error (XLVI)“:

[W]e are indeed fully immersed in the Great Tribulation, which we were told would take place in the last days preceding the Parousia of Our Lord Jesus Christ in glory and majesty. This great tribulation, we insist, must be understood in a spiritual and bloodless way, rather than physically and bloodily, as many unfortunately interpret it. Time has shown that this interpretation was erroneous, since all the persecutions suffered by the Holy Church throughout its history until the second half of the 20th century with atheistic communism never managed to defeat it, for the blood of the martyrs was always the seed of new Christians. (more…)

FROM 2 Mac 6:18-28:

18 Eleazar one of the chief of the scribes, a man advanced in years, and of a comely countenance, was pressed to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh.

19 But he, choosing rather a most glorious death than a hateful life, went forward voluntarily to the torment.

20 And considering in what manner he was come to it, patiently bearing, he determined not to do any unlawful things for the love of life.

21 But they that stood by, being moved with wicked pity, for the old friendship they had with the man, taking him aside, desired that flesh might be brought, which it was lawful for him to eat, that he might make as if he had eaten, as the king had commanded of the flesh of the sacrifice:

22 That by so doing he might be delivered from death: and for the sake of their old friendship with the man they did him this courtesy.

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“WE say, we, and the Catholic Church teaches, that God, by a free act of His love, has established a superior and transcendent bond between our nature and His; we say that a similar bond had not been necessary in itself, that it had not been commanded nor even formally demanded by any requirement of our being; it is due solely to the immense charity, to the gratuitous and excessive liberality of God towards His creature; we proclaim that the bond as a result of the divine will has become obligatory, irrefutably necessary; that it eminently subsists and that it will eternally subsist in Jesus Christ, God and Man altogether, divine and human nature always distinct, but irreversibly united by the Hypostatic Union; we add that the bond must be extended, according to divinely instituted proportions and means, to the whole race of which the Incarnate Word is the Head and that any moral being, be it individual and particular, or be it public and social, could not reject it or break it up, in all or in part, without falling short of its end, and consequently without mortally injuring itself and without incurring the wrath of the sovereign master of our destinies. Such is not only the doctrine, but the very substance of Christianity.[emphasis added]

….”We do not omit nor allow to be omitted, that which the great Apostle teaches, that Jesus Christ, after having descended from heaven, determined to fill up all things: ut impleret omnia. He did not act in His capacity as God, since this presence had always been there, but in His capacity as God and Man altogether. — In fact, Jesus Christ is thence present to all, upon earth, as well as in heaven; He filled up the world with His name, His law, His light and with His grace. Nothing is placed outside of His sphere of attraction or repulsion; no thing nor any person could remain totally foreign and indifferent to Him; He has been set as the corner-stone: building-block for some, stumbling-block and scandal for others, a stone that touches all. The history of humanity, the history of nations, the history of peace and of war, the history of the Church, above all, is not other than the life of Jesus filling up all things: ut impleret omnia.”

        — Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers

Source

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“PHILOSOPHERS who proclaim the decline of Jesus Christ, you cannot take His place, and if it were true that Christian society no longer exists upon earth, you will no longer be able to rebuild, even, a society of honest pagans.”

— Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers

Source

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“AS to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that Belief has the good Consequence, as probably it has, of making his Doctrines more respected and better observed; especially as I do not perceive, that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the Unbelievers in his Government of the World with any peculiar Marks of his Displeasure.

“I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the Goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously thro’ a long life, I have no doubt of its Continuance in the next, though without the smallest Conceit of meriting such Goodness.

— B. Franklin

“P.S. I confide, that you will not expose me to Criticism and censure by publishing any part of this Communication to you. I have ever let others enjoy their religious Sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All Sects here, and we have a great Variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with Subscriptions for building their new Places of Worship; and, as I have never opposed any of their Doctrines, I hope to go out of the World in Peace with them all.”

— Benjamin Franklin, A letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College

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“BECAUSE the legislation has made a profession of neutrality and of abstention concerning the existence of God, upon what foundation will its proper authority be established? In permitting me to not acknowledge God, am I not authorized to belittle God Himself? We have not elected to place dogma in the law, you tell me. And I respond to you: If the dogma of the existence of God is no longer in the law, the reason for the law is no longer in the law, then the law is no longer so in the true sense of the word, it is nothing but a pipedream.”

 — Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers

Source

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“AT the present hour [October 31, 1870], among those of our fellow citizens who do not close their eyes to the light of the terrible lessons afflicting our nation, who hears us and who understands us? To be sure, it is not unusual to encounter men who confess, who deplore, who condemn and, finally, who wish to repair the faults and personal omissions of their lives, in keeping with the fulfillment of their religious duty. There is a sufficiently large enough number who even visualize in these harsh truths a chastisement and a remedy to the notions of pride, in the habits of greed, of luxury, of excessive sensualism and of naturalism which would invade nearly all social circumstances. But who is there that proceeds to think of and ask if this complete collapse of a great nation, would not have its cause in a great national sin; that is, if [sic] the temporary abandon where God permits us to not respond to the political systems of which He has given leave?

….

“O France, more than fifty years have passed since the name of God, for the first time, has been taken out of thy constitution. Now, I implore thee today to show the fruits of this half-century experience. I lend an ear and I hear a confused murmur which bursts out in all places. O my country, I do not judge thee rashly, for I judge thee according to thy own words: Ex ore tuo te judico.[From your mouth you will be judged.] There is no more morality, no more justice; all is going, all is wasted away, all is admittedly gone from every corner of the country. There is the result, see there the progress obtained since we have been given over to excluding God.

“There is no more public morality, no more justice, you will say. These results astonish you; it should have been easy to predict. Isn’t this as a pagan saying has it, that it would be easier to build a city in the air than to have a society without God? Isn’t this what the Roman orator had said, that the stability of commerce and the greatest of virtues, which is justice, would be undermined along with loss of respect for a strong faith in the divinity? Hasn’t the Holy Ghost declared in most energetic language that wherever the impious rule, men can expect nothing other than their ruin: Regnantibus impiis, ruinae hominum!’ [When the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn. (Prov. 29:2).]”

— Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers

Source

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“IT is there and nowhere else that one must go to seek the cause of all our evil. There is the sad beginning of our faults and consequently the point of departure of all our misfortunes. We have for a long time now overthrown a premier throne, that of God, denied a premier sovereignty: the divine sovereignty…. All our mistakes pale alongside this premier assault. It is against God alone that we have sinned.”

— Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers

Source

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“TO say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine.”

— Cardinal Pie(1815-1880), Bishop of Poitiers,

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