CHRISTMAS II
—- George Herbert

The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul’s a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.

Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Out-sing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.

I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.

Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev’n His beams sing, and my music shine.

TWICE so far during this Christmas season, Jewish friends have come to our house to share in the happiness of the season, as they have come in past years. I cooked and cleaned in advance, and extended to them all the warm hospitality I consider normal and obligatory at this time of year and whenever they come to visit.

My friends apparently have not gotten the message from the Anti-Defamation League that people like me are to be shunned and treated like criminals. Or maybe they have gotten the message, but they ignore it. I don’t know. I only know that we like each other too much for such things to get in the way. “I will never forget what you did for me,” one of our friends said to me on a previous occasion. What did I do? Nothing really. Her husband lost his job through no fault of his own and I commiserated with her. I did not tire of showing her concern during her depression. And she has never forgotten and has always been warm and kind toward me. She knows about this blog but doesn’t seem to care. Another Jewish friend hugged me on December 23rd, and thanked me in a very heartfelt way for caring for his sick wife, apparently oblivious that I am an “anti-Semite” he should despise.

We cannot share the deepest and most important things in life, at least not yet, but we can share the adventures, hardships and absurdities of everyday living. Many Jews have a finely-tuned sense of humor when it comes to the latter, probably as a result of being outsiders for centuries. We laugh a lot, and part in friendship. But then our friends are not the sort of people for whom politics are a burning religion, so we can truly talk about other things.

I bring this up to make an important point.

I believe it is a moral imperative to criticize the Jewish persecution narrative and Jewish control over society today.  At the same time, I believe it is a moral imperative to show kindness and warmth to Jews — not some kind of calculated or patronizing acceptance, but a natural good will that comes automatically. Read More »

“AT THAT TIME: Joseph, and Mary his mother, were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold, this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted: and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asar; she was far advanced in years, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow until fourscore and four years; who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving day and night. Now she at the same hour coming in, confessed to the Lord; and spoke of him to all that looked for the redemption of Israel. And after they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their city Nazareth; and the child grew and waxed strong, full of wisdom, and the grace of God was in him.” (Luke ii. 33 – 40)

THE other day I saw an interesting and bizarre outfit. A girl who was about 19 was wearing her short winter jacket so that it fell dramatically off one shoulder. It was similar to this except the jacket was a little higher on the arm and she was wearing hardly anything underneath so that her entire shoulder, down to the elbow and including the upper chest and back, was bare. And it was cold outside.

This look is a fashion, but it was the first time I had ever seen it. The girl was with her parents, who apparently were totally indifferent to the sin of immodesty and how it would affect their daughter. In that, they were no different from most American parents.

Clothes are a curtain. They protect privacy. At their best (when they truly cover), they elevate personality by distracting from the body. This girl might have many good things in life but there is one thing I believe she will find hard to get. And that is, intimacy. Nakedness empties people. Intimacy is the sharing of depths. Animals are naked and they mate without intimacy. They have nothing to share, nothing hidden.

Many men are not attracted to the immodest clothes women wear today. They make women less mysterious, less intriguing, less beautiful, less of a treasure to seek, less of a prize. But men will never say so.

When women bare their bodies in public, they empty their souls. The more immodest women are, the more impersonal society is and the more people are creatures of the herd. In the servile society, people are unfree in many ways, but they are free to be nude because the animalized human being is easier to control. The inside is empty. And the inner life is the greatest of threats to tyranny.

That said, the potential consequences of immodesty for women in the next life are far more grave than these negative effects in this life.

Shepherd in a Snowy Landscape, George Morland

He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows.

––   St. Gregory of Nissa

THE EFFORT to turn Christmas into a celebration of universal peace and brotherhood has been underway for many years. This is the principal, and most successful, attack on Christmas in popular culture. It’s an enchanting concept. For who doesn’t want peace? Christmas as  a celebration of material well-being and Marxist justice is related to this Christmas as Peace Fest. See “Pope” Francis’s Christmas message.

The alluring and utopian concept of “peace on earth” is not, however, consistent with the real Christmas. When the angels appeared to the shepherds, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke, they did not herald an era of non-conflict.

And the angel said to them: Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people… (Luke, 2:10)

The good tidings are universal. They are meant for all, without exception. But what do the angels say of peace?

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying:

Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. (Luke, 2:14-15)

Here we see the angels praying to God for peace, not predicting universal peace, and petitioning for peace among men of good will, not for everybody.

The Christmas story also involves the gruesome slaughter of babies, hardly a peaceful event. For when King Herod finds out that a child of royal lineage is born in Bethlehem, he is filled with jealousy and orders the death of all male children under two years old, as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 2. The famous English carol, The Coventry Carol, is an imagined lullaby sung by the mothers of the doomed children.

So here we find in the Nativity narrative, mothers mourning their murdered children! It is indescribably sad and painful. Darkness and conflict are inherent in the Christmas story, as G.K. Chesterton noted in his greatest book, The Everlasting Man: Read More »

The Mystical Nativity (detail), Sandro Botticelli; 1500

I SINCERELY WISH all readers of this site a joyous Christmas. May you and your families be filled with confidence and hope today. May the astonishing and beautiful mysteries of the Incarnation, of God born as a helpless child, deepen and grow in splendor for you. “Fear not. for behold, I bring you good tidings of exceeding great joy, that shall be to all people.” Fear not, for God is truly with you.

‘On this the Day which the Lord hath made darkness decreases, light increases, and Night is driven back again. No, brethren, it is not by chance, nor by any created will, that this natural change begins on the day when he shows himself in the brightness of his coming, which is the spiritual Life of the world. It is Nature revealing, under this symbol, a secret to them whose eye is quick enough to see it; to them, I mean, who are able to appreciate this circumstance of our Saviour’s coming. Nature seems to me to say: Know, O Man! that under the things which I show thee Mysteries lie concealed. Hast thou not seen the night, that had grown so long, suddenly checked? Learn hence, that the black night of Sin, which had reached its height by the accumulation of every guilty device, is this day stopped in its course. Yes, from this day forward its duration shall be shortened, until at length there shall be naught but Light. Look, I pray thee, on the Sun; and see how his rays are stronger, and his position higher in the heavens: learn from that how the other Light, the Light of the Gospel, is now shedding itself over the whole earth.’

                         — St. Gregory of Nyssa, Homily On the Nativity

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I hope you enjoy this gentle medieval carol, Angelus ad Virginem, performed here by the Sixteen. The most terrible of all the enemies of Satan is a woman whose humility is unbearable to him. We have no cause to despair at the condition of our world. We have her to bring us closer to sublime reality and help us bear difficult truths.

The angel came to the Virgin,
entering secretly into her room;
calming the Virgin’s fear, he said, “Hail!
Hail, queen of virgins:
you will conceive the Lord of heaven and earth
and bear him, still a virgin,
to be the salvation of mankind;
you will be made the gate of heaven,
the cure of sins.”

More of the lyrics are here.

Jenna Bush Hager Christmas card/ Credit: Jenna Bush Hager/Instagram

CELEBRITIES can be trusted to support the script. They are hired actors in a morality play. Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of George W. Bush and host of the Today show, is a major character in celebrity culture. She is pretty and talented, to be sure, but also willing to sacrifice her privacy and family for the cause.

A recent interview of Hager on her return to her job after three months of maternity leave for the birth of her third child is a revealing look into the dictates of our rulers. Hager has two daughters, ages 4 and 6, and now a three-month-old son, whose childhoods will likely be almost as heavily exposed as the childhoods of the children of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Americans having as little choice over the royal lineage as the British do.

The interview is a classic case of “Nanny-for-Me, Slavery-for-Thee” feminism.

You need to go to the full magazine article to see the photo of Jenna in her daughters’ bedroom, a scene of luxurious chaos with toys strewn everywhere and her husband, Henry Hager, lounging on a bunk bed, playing the part of the incompetent Dad which is now sadly the reality for the culture at large now that masculinity and the male provider have been so thoroughly demonized and trashed. He lies beneath a Communist-style framed poster of the head of woman and the words, “Women are Perfect.”

Jenna waxes on about her happiness as a mother. But she also repeatedly mentions the messiness of her family’s life, especially messy since she now is hardly ever home. The fact that she has a nanny — and surely much more paid help — is glossed over, leading readers to believe very mistakenly that her life is just like theirs.

“Since Henry and I both have big jobs, I’m hoping that our kids realize the biggest job and the biggest priority is them,” she adds.

That’s hard to believe. Surely, Jenna does not even remotely need her job, financially speaking, and yet she spends more of her waking hours with it. Her husband is managing director of a financial firm for the gas and petroleum industries, Waterous Energy Fund, which is worth close to $1.4 billion.

Our financial system requires that most women get back to their jobs. They must work as long as possible to pay the mounting taxes and prices that are inherent in debt-based capitalism. Capitalism resembles Communism more and more every day. Both lead to highly concentrated wealth. Both are conducive to slavery.

Jenna certainly wouldn’t keep her celebrity status if she didn’t get back to her trashy, high-profile job right away, at the absurdly early date of three months after the birth of her son though she probably genuinely does prefer being at her job than being with her children, which would be much harder on a gal like Jenna.

That people at large are becoming poorer and poorer has been masked thus far by their willingness to work more at the expense of domestic life. Beautiful celebrities and their bubbly vitality reassure them that all is well. The reason their houses are messy, their meals are rushed and unhealthy, they have no time to pass on manners and meaning, and they have so little leisure that they can only collapse with exhaustion in front of a TV at the end of the day — is because that’s just normal.

The Bushes have always promoted social revolution under the guise of middle class respectability. One can already see the signs of uncontrolled behavior on the part of Jenna’s adorable daughters. That’s just part of the chaos, right? Americans are told to sacrifice the very character of their children on the altars of material well-being. The mother as provider has replaced the mother as sculptor of character.

“What was really a joy of maternity leave was that I got to take my girls to school every single morning,” Bush Hager recalls, admitting she “definitely [has] missed a lot” in her girls’ schedules — “but at the same time, I try to focus on what I can do and what I do bring because I think if we beat ourselves up for everything we miss, then we’re not as happy of a parent as we can be.”

Parents, it’s true, should not beat themselves up for what they cannot possibly do. But they definitely should berate Jenna and others who encourage them to deny the real causes of the mess.

Life with children has an inherent chaos under the best of conditions. But the chaos ordinary people are being encouraged to accept is hellish and nothing less than the fall of civilization. Feminism never was a grassroots revolution. It was — and is — a revolution from above, and it no more serves the interests of humanity than the philosophy of Karl Marx.

A RUSSIAN HACKER who has emptied bank accounts around the world and is alleged to have stolen hundreds of millions from UK victims alone lives in Moscow and has connections with Russian intelligence. From The Daily Mail:

[Maksim] Yakubets is alleged to have run the operation since May 2009 from the basements of Moscow cafes. He is said to have employed dozens of people to steal money from victims in 43 countries using computer viruses that are designed to target only victims outside Russia. The ‘malware’ is downloaded when a victim clicks on an email attachment. It remains hidden on their computer to harvest their personal and financial data such as online banking details – which is subsequently used to drain their accounts.

Operating online under the name Aqua, the hacker and his associates are accused of stealing at least £76 million. US treasury officials also say Yakubets has provided ‘direct assistance to the Russian government’ by acquiring confidential documents for the FSB. He was also said to be part of a scheme in which Russian intelligence agencies recruit criminals to hack national security targets.

LEARN about Josquin des Prez, who was one of the most famous composers of the 16th century, here.

Yet in spite of Josquin’s colossal reputation, which endured until the beginning of the Baroque era and was revived in the 20th century, his biography is shadowy, and virtually nothing is known about his personality. The only surviving work which may be in his own hand is a graffito on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, and only one contemporary mention of his character is known, in a letter to Duke Ercole I of Ferrara. The lives of dozens of less revered Renaissance composers are better documented than that of Josquin.^[9]

Josquin wrote both sacred and secular music, and in all of the significant vocal forms of the age, including masses, motets, chansons and frottole.

Here is his beautiful Ave Maria performed by the Hilliard Ensemble.

FROM Thomas Mūller, on the election of Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister:

The giveaway is Boris Johnson’s pedigree of hardcore globalists and internationalists. Like Trump, he represents the right but is, in reality, a Trojan horse sent in to bring down the nation. Look for him to drop the ball on Brexit.

The sistema is using the same Worldwide Wrestling formula with Boorish as with Trump: reality T.V. cult of celebrity personality.

Asked why they support Boorish, a common reply among his voters was, “I’m voting for Boris because he is a laugh.”

As prime minister, it will be Johnson who gets the last laugh.

Ginevra de’ Benci, Leonardo da Vinci; 1478

SINCE the Renaissance, human beings have become progressively more fascinated with the human face. With the advent of digital technology, we are now surrounded by faces, faces everywhere. Some people have their picture taken many times a week. By the time a child is three, he is already the subject of a vast archive of photos.

Do we know ourselves better because we see ourselves in photos more?

For that matter, do we know ourselves better by looking in the mirror? I’d say, some things we learn. But not enough. Not anywhere near enough.

The camera does most justice to the human face when used by a craftsman, who employs the mechanical to capture the non-mechanical. The portrait of the nineteenth century Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, (below) was made by the famous London photographer Henry Rose Barraud. We see here the thing most worth getting at in a photograph: the inner life. Judging from what we know of Manning and his piercing insight, it is a brilliantly faithful portrait. (View it more closely here.) With the effects of light, Barraud gives a sculptural quality to the face, as if it was molded from bronze. We see age, wisdom and the power of conviction.

Leonardo da Vinci, in his famous portrait of the 15th-century Florentine aristocrat Ginevra de’ Benci, conveyed far more than an ordinary camera ever could. In her pale, downturned lips; her directed gaze, falling just short of a trance; her wide, marble-toned forehead, we see the mystery of personality.

Notice how Ginevra is not concerned with pleasing the viewer. She is not pandering to you. From way back then, when women were supposedly slaves, we find an independent and pensive being able to make profound judgements and to match virtue with intelligence.

Thousands of amateur photos cannot portray what one picture well done can. Today, in our world of Faceburg, many people ironically don’t have one decent picture of themselves, worthy to pass on to posterity, but do have thousands of photos. The human face is losing its human qualities from over-exposure.

Do we know ourselves better? I’d say no. As the greatest portraits tell us, it is not the surface that matters but the powers of reflection. We know ourselves best not by looking at ourselves in photos but by reflecting upon and painfully gazing into that which is better than we are.

Then we see the truth — the truth that Manning and Ginevra saw, the truth that the artists who portrayed them saw. And that is, we are not much.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning

Read More »

Joel Roberts Poinsett

“IN 1828, as first Ambassador to the new Republic of Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett (Bio) while visiting the Taxco region, discovered the ruby red-bloomed plant and was so fascinated with it that he sent clippings to his home in Charleston, South Carolina. Poinsett, a doctor and soldier by trade, was also an amateur botanist. Upon his return to Charleston, he forwarded clippings to friends.

Poinsettia Pulcherrima. Showy Poinsettia. This truly splendid plant was discovered by Mr. Poinsette, in Mexico, and sent by him to Charleston in 1828, and afterwards to Mr. Buist of Philadelphia; from Mr. Buist, it was brought by Mr. James McNab to the Botanical Garden Edinburgh, where it flowered twice last year, and again in February of the present year…
(From “Paxton’s Magazine of Botany” Published 1837)”

Read more here.

[Thanks to Joseph S.]

Poinsettias at Longwood Gardens

PUTIN’S Russia is not a bastion of Christian values. It’s Communism with a new look — and Communism never was about liberating the people. Critics of the state are imprisoned and assassinated. It’s illegal to evangelize outside a state-recognized church. Highly-concentrated wealth (always a characteristic of Communism), taunting militarism and cruel power rule. Yegor Zhukov, 21, a university student heading to prison for dissident views, stated, according to Moscow Times:

“The only traditional value that the current Russian state truly honors and strengthens is autocracy. Autocracy that tries to break the life of anyone who sincerely wishes the best for their homeland, who doesn’t hesitate to love and take responsibility.”

“As a result, the citizens of our long-suffering country had to learn that no good deed goes unpunished, that the authorities are always right simply because they’re the authorities, that happiness here may be possible — but not for them.”

“Having learned that, they began to gradually disappear.” Read More »

“[I]n order to rid ourselves of  self, we must die to ourselves daily. That is to say, we must renounce the operations of the powers of our soul, and of the senses of our body. We must see as if we saw not, understand as if we understood not, and make use of the things of this world as if we made no use of them at all. This is what St. Paul calls dying daily, — Quotidie morior. “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone,” and bringeth forth no good fruit. (Jn. 12:24-25) If we die not to ourselves, and if our holiest devotions do not incline us to this necessary and useful death, we shall bring forth no fruit worth anything, and our devotions will become useless. All our good works will be stained by self-love and our own will ; and this will cause God to hold in abomination the greatest sacrifices we can make, and the best actions we can do; so that at our death we shall find our hands empty of virtues and of merits, and we shall not have one spark of pure love, which is only communicated to souls dead to themselves, souls whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God (Col., 3:3).

“We must choose, therefore, among all the devotions to the Blessed Virgin, the one which draws us most towards this death to ourselves, inasmuch as it will be the best and the most sanctifying. For we must not think that all that shines is gold, that all that tastes sweet is honey, or all that is easy to do and is done by the greatest number is sanctifying. As there are secrets of nature by which natural operations are performed more easily, in a short time and at little cost, so also in like manner there are secrets in the order of grace by which supernatural operations, such as ridding ourselves of self, filling ourselves with God, and becoming perfect, are performed more easily.

“The practice which I am about to disclose is one of these secrets of grace …”

— St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary (transl., Fr. Frederick William Faber)

 
Above, Ave Maria [Composer: Franz Biebl) Read More »

Fra Filippo Lippi, Adoration in the Forest (detail), 1459.

“IT IS MARY alone who has found grace before God, without the aid of any other mere creature: it is only by her that all those who have found grace before God have found it at all; and it is only by her that all those who shall come afterwards shall find it. She was full of grace when she was saluted by the Archangel Gabriel, and she was superabundantly filled with grace by the Holy Ghost when He covered her with His unspeakable Shadow; and she has so augmented, from day to day and from moment to moment, this double plenitude, that she has reached a point of grace immense and inconceivable; in such sort that the Most High has made her the sole treasurer of His treasures, and the sole dispenser of His graces, to ennoble, to exalt, and to enrich whom she wishes; to give the entry to whom she wills into the narrow way of heaven; to pass whom she wills, and in spite of all obstacles, through the strait gate of life; and to give the throne, the sceptre, and the crown of the King to whom she wills. Jesus is everywhere and always the Fruit and the Son of Mary; and Mary is everywhere the veritable tree, who bears the Fruit of life, and the true Mother, who produces it.”

— St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary