Now it is very much like this: as if we were sailing in ships across cold water, over the sea-waves, beyond the wide ocean in water-steeds traversing the floods. The waters are perilous, the waves immeasurable, amid which we journey here through this frail world, the stormy oceans, across the paths of the deep. Dangerous was that life before we came to land across the rough waves. Help came to us that we might be led to a haven of healing, God's Spirit-Son, and gave us grace that we might find, by the ship's side, where we could moor our water-steeds, our ancient wave-horses securely anchored. Let us fasten our hope on that haven which the Ruler of the skies opened for us, holy in the heights, when he ascended into heaven. --- excerpt from the Old English poem, Christ II  

"ASK, and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone that seeketh, receiveth; and him that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." --- St. Luke, Ch. XI, 9-10  

"ON a chilly night in November 2022, police in Wildwood, Florida found a woman tied to a chair in the backyard of a home. Officers would soon discover that the woman, Nichole Baker, had developmental and physical disabilities that made it nearly impossible for her to advocate for herself." Source We will never know how many whites -- and blacks, of course --  have been brutalized by their black "caretakers."  

"THE Rogation Days were instituted for another end besides this of averting divine anger. We must beg our heavenly Father to bless the fruits of the earth; we must beseech him with all earnestness of public prayer, to give us our daily bread." -- Dom Prosper Guéranger Read more on these three days before Ascension Thursday (tomorrow).  

 TOO freshly sweet to seem excess, Too animate to need a stress; But wider over many heads The starry voice ascending spreads, Awakening, as it waxes thin, The best in us to him akin; And every face to watch him rais’d, Puts on the light of children prais’d, So rich our human pleasure ripes When sweetness on sincereness pipes, Though nought be promis’d from the seas, But only a soft-ruffling breeze Sweep glittering on a still content, Serenity in ravishment. -- From "The Lark Ascending" by George Meredith  

"WHEN the Lord intends to bestow a particular virtue on us, He often permits us first to be tempted by the opposite vice. Therefore, look upon every temptation as an invitation to grow in a particular virtue" --- St. Philip Neri  

WILLIAM F. Strojie was a great early commenter on the Vatican II Crisis, rightly rejecting both Modernism and "Traditionalism." His views on the papacy, however, were confused and ultimately illogical, similar to what is known today as the Cassiciacum Thesis, or the argument that it is possible to be a pope and not be a pope at the same time. Here's a balanced analysis of Strojie's shortcomings, which he might very well have recognized had he been given more time.  

NOT everyone can own his own business, go into farming, work in the trades, be an independent investor or find a job with a company that supports decency, justice or wholesome values. Many are forced to make a living in the heart of the beast where corporate America and big government form a powerful juggernaut pitted against family and nation. How does one survive it? Circumstances vary, but here are a few general guidelines to consider: 1.  Avoid political and religious discussions at work. 2.  Be considerate and courteous always. 3.  Expect to convert no one and, for the most part, do not try. 4.  Weigh carefully when to seek another job. 5.  When forced to go along, exercise as much detachment as possible. 6.  Seize all opportunities to undermine -- ethically and legally -- your employer's political projects. (For example, if possible, hire those similar to you.) 7.  Away from work, do all in your power to support contrary views. Study and learn. 8.  Do not give mind or soul away. They are yours. 9.  Keep inviolate the truth in your heart.  

 "Being ‘awake’ is sometimes a great burden. On Memorial Day, all I have left to feel is profound sadness for every veteran who lost his life to wars they were lied about, in [God-]forsaken places, for the benefit of some of the worst actors to ever pollute this planet… Their honor, and sacrifice squandered, and their lives forfeited to unbeknownst evil." --- Commenter on Gab  

"In a 1987 (!) speech in Johannesburg, Donald McAlvany (editor of McAlvany Intelligence Advisor) explained the long-range Soviet strategy to flood the USA with migrants, leading to public panic, the withdrawal of troops from [Europe], and the death of NATO." Source McAlvany's full speech can be found here.  

"[I]F one says that race is destiny, soul, in a word, everything, then one has explained nothing, but has significantly increased the confusion. According to the Christian worldview, the natural moral scale of values is: God, soul, family, race, people, state, humanity. ... Many farming families in our Alpine countries, who have lived on their ancestral farms for hundreds of years, with 10 to 15 children who are Christian and nationally minded, do not give the impression that they have been racially degenerated in terms of their ideology. They show through their large offspring that they are racially much healthier than the many representatives of this racial science, who often barely have two children, although they could write very beautifully about the importance of race for our German people." --- Bp. Alois Hudal, 1937  

“[T]HE successes of most of the successful women are much less tangible [than those of men]. As a rule they are contributions to life as it passes -- influence, care, nurture, direction, companionship; valuables of the highest order, but which finally appear, not as properties of the woman from whom they proceeded, but of the men or the children who received them, and the families and communities that they have blessed. "The evidences of the success of men stand on pedestals and hang on walls and are recorded in books and occupy safe-deposit boxes in bank vaults. They stretch across the country in the form of steel rails or copper wires, or stand as buildings in stone and steel. On every one of them is the woman's hand. In every one of them she has had her share. There is no success of any kind, no power, no progress, which is not half hers. But ordinarily she does not much appear; not, at least, in a degree at all commensurate with her importance. Her work is not expressed -- not much -- in things. It is made in flesh. "Is that unjust to her? Is it unfair that man should seem to outdo her? Who shall say what is fair and what not in the management of this universe? We flatter ourselves with the idea that the Almighty has chosen to express Himself in mankind. Admitting that, it is a…

FROM NPR (2012): Ron Silver, the owner of Bubby's restaurant in Brooklyn, recently put a word on his menu you don't often see anymore: lard. The white, creamy, processed fat from a pig. And he didn't use the word just once. For a one-night-only "Lard Exoneration Dinner", Silver served up lard fried potatoes. And root vegetables, baked in lard. Fried chicken, fried in lard. Roasted fennel glazed with lard sugar and sea salt. Pies, with lard inside and out. All from lard he made himself in the kitchen. "It seems funny," Silver says, "but for thousands of years this was the thing that people cooked with. A century ago, lard was in every American pantry and fryer. These days, lard is an insult. "The word lard has become this generally derogatory term associated with fat and disgustingness," says Dan Pashman who hosts a food podcast called The Sporkful. "Think about Lard-ass, the character from the movie Stand By Me. I mean, he didn't want to be called Lard-ass." How did this delicious, all-natural fat from a pig become an insult? Who killed lard? Lard didn't just fall out of favor. It was pushed. It was a casualty of a battle between giant business and corporate interests. Read more. See also How Crisco Toppled Lard  

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IT ONLY takes a few externals — traditional vestments and a public prayer or two in Latin — for crowds to hail the new leader of the Vatican II church as a break from more than 60 years of apostasy and sacrilege. So weak are would-be Catholics in their knowledge of the faith.

In a world dominated by material values, they are as blind as the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem and the mob at the foot of the crucifix. They will have their earthly kingdom no matter what, even if it means denying their Redeemer and his message. It doesn’t matter whether they are “conservative” or liberal, “traditionalist” or open fans. They are joined together in an up-swelling of public fantasy and escapism. They resort to Catholic-appearing sacramentals as if magic objects that make the faith itself unnecessary. But the unchangeable doctrines and dogmas defined over the course of almost 2,000 years are necessary. The faith is more than wishful thinking and religious impulses. The faith is more than individual desires and attachment to business as usual. The supernatural has never ceased to be at odds with our fallen nature.

Leo 14, the latest pretender to the papacy, does not profess the Catholic faith, however much he embraces aspects of it. His ordination as a Vatican II cleric was a public profession of a different faith. He likes that belief system. He wants that belief system. He freely embraces that belief system, a system of contradictions which proclaims universal salvation and a dogma-less, humanistic, One World religion that encompasses all faiths, even Traditional Catholicism. It’s a syncretistic, polytheistic, existentialist, pagan religion that denies objective truth and divine attributes that can be known with certainty by the human intellect. The perfect counterpart to secular globalism and the all-encompassing State, it is another stage in the Protestant Revolt, which held that the Church was wrong in the past and Christ’s promises had failed it. Hence its easy irreverence and its blasphemous public apologies for the corporate actions of Christ’s Mystical Body.

What does all this betrayal mean for us, for all the confused lay believers, since Christ has promised to be with his Church until the end of time?

Could it mean, we must love the faith more? Could it mean, we must accommodate our desires, our religious feelings, our personal preferences and frustrated expectations to supernatural reality?

Christ’s promises cannot be fulfilled by adhering to false shepherds, by wanting that earthly kingdom as the Jews wanted theirs. (more…)

"THE Spiritual Kingship of Christ, participated in by the Pope and the Bishops of the Catholic Church, being no longer acknowledged, authority over spiritual affairs passed to the Temporal Rulers… As there was no Infallible Guardian of order above the Temporal Rulers, the way was paved for the abuses of State Absolutism… The principle of private judgment prepared the way for the opposite extreme error of 'holy rebellion' and the 'right' of people to overthrow authority whenever it displeases them. The doctrine, that all men are equal in the Mystical Body and are their own priests, sowed the seeds of that spirit, which was given a body in the naturalistic Masonic society, when the advance of time had brought about the decay of belief in the supernatural life." --- Rev. Denis Fahey, CSs.P., The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, 1938.  

“TO have a good will is to have something far more valuable than all earthly kingdoms and pleasures; to lack it is to lack something that only the will itself can give, something that is better than all the goods that are not in our power. Some people consider themselves utterly miserable if they do not achieve a splendid reputation, great wealth, and various goods of the body. But don’t you consider them utterly miserable, even if they have all these things, when they cleave to things that they can quite easily lose, things that they do not have simply in virtue of willing them, while they lack a good will, which is incomparably better than those things and yet, even though it is such a great good, can be theirs if only they will to have it?”

— St. Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will (more…)