FROM English Folk-Carols by Cecil J. Sharp (The Wessex Press, 1911):

There is, perhaps, no branch of folk-music in the creation of which the unconscious art of the peasant is seen to greater advantage than the carol. For his peculiar and most characteristic qualities, mental and emotional, are precisely those which in this case are most needed — his passion for simple, direct statement, his dislike of ornament and of the tricks of circumlocution, his abhorrence of sentimentality, and above all his courage in using, without hesitation, the obvious and commonplace phrase, of words or music, when by its means the required expression can most easily be realized. What cultivated musician would dare to set to such words as “The Virgin Unspotted” the graceful, flowing, three-time melody given in this collection, even if he had the luck or skill to think of it? What, again, could be more concise in its diction or clearer in its meaning, than the last stanza in “King Herod and the Cock,” or more vivid than the following lines in “The New Year’s Carol:”

Then Christ He called Thomas
And bid him: Come and see
And put thy fingers in the wounds
That are in my body;
And be not faithless, but believe!
And happy shalt thou be

which will, I venture to think, bear comparison with the parallel stanza of the Easter carol “Ye Sons and Daughters,” translated by Neale.

It is just his transparent sincerity, his freedom from affectation, self-consciousness and conventional restrictions, that makes the unlettered rustic pre-eminently fitted to translate into music and poetry the dramatic incidents of the Christ story. His simplicity disarms criticism; just as his pious, intense, child-like belief in every detail ot the Gospel narrative banishes skepticism. Nor did he trouble himself about the place of performance; village Church or village inn —it mattered not. A tune, so long as it expressed his feeling, harmonized with the sense and fitted the metre of the words, served his purpose wherever and whenever it was destined to be sung.

THE “Huron Carol,” sung here by Heather Dale in Wendat (Huron), French and English, was written in 1643 by St. Jean de Brébeuf, one of the eight North American Martyrs. This is said to be the first carol ever written in America. St. Jean, who was later captured by the Iroquois and tortured to death, adapted a 16th-century French folk song to his Jesous Ahatonnia (Jesus is Born). According to the early missionaries, the Hurons had a great devotion to Christmas once it was introduced and built Christmas chapels out of fir and cedar.

A much different version of the carol can be found here. Read More »

                                          Fra Angelico

“THERE is surely something inexpressibly touching in this presence of the inferior animals at the nativity of the Incarnate Creator. In the Incarnation God has been pleased to go to what look like the uttermost limits of His divine condescension. He has assumed a material, although a rational, nature; and, according to our understanding, it would not have been seemly that He should have assumed an irrational nature. Nevertheless He is not unmindful of the inferior creatures. Their instincts are in some sort a communion with Him, often apparently of a more direct character than reason itself, and bordering on what would commonly be called the supernatural.

“At times there is something startling in the seeming proximity of the animal kingdom to God. Moreover all the inferior animals, with their families, shapes, colours, cries, manners, and peculiarities, represent ideas in the divine mind, and are partial disclosures of the beauty of God, like the foliage of trees, the gleaming of metals, the play of light in the clouds, the multifarious odours of wood and field, and the manifold sound of waters. Read More »

FBI crime statistics for 2012, the year of the alleged Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, show zero homicides for Newtown, Connecticut, where the school was located.

Look for yourself.

The FBI, in this case, is honest. They could not show homicides in Newtown for that date because the alleged massacre was a government propaganda drill that involved dozens of actors and other government staff for the purpose of terrorizing the public into accepting gun control legislation and tighter government security measures. Propaganda of this kind was legalized under the Obama Administration.

In the following video, First Selectman Patricia Llodra of Newtown states under oath that an electric sign that read, “Everyone Must Check In” was erected by the Department of Homeland Security near the school. Some say the sign appeared as early as Dec. 13th, the day before the alleged shooting.

TODAY is the 12th anniversary of the alleged shooting of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Find independent reporting on the event here, here and here.

MANY articles and books on the points made in this video can be found here.

“NO one’s body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will.”

— St. Lucy, virgin and martyr

The story of St. Lucy’s life and martyrdom can be found here.

When the youth who had asked her hand in marriage heard of this, his love was changed into hatred, and he accused her to the Governor, Paschasius, as well for refusing to become his wife, as also for being a Christian and despising the gods. Paschasius called Lucy into his presence, and admonished her to sacrifice to the gods, as well as to keep her promise to the young nobleman. “Neither will be done,” replied the virgin; “I sacrifice only to the true God; to Him have I given my faith; not to any man.” “I obey the command of the Emperor,” replied Paschasius; “you must sacrifice to the gods, and keep your word.” “You obey the command of the Emperor,” said Lucy, “and I obey the command of God. You fear a mortal man, I fear an immortal God, and Him I will obey.”

She died in the year 303 AD after a sword was thrust into her throat.

ALAN writes:

With perhaps a few exceptions like the Amish and a small percentage of others, modern Americans have proven conclusively that they are not guilty of common sense.

Celebrities are NOT “sick people”.  They may be stupid and they may do evil things.  That does not make them “sick”.  It makes them stupid or evil.  Propositions like “celebrities are sick people” or “murderers are sick people” are moral judgments couched in the vocabulary of fake-medicine.

It is standard procedure nowadays to attempt to discredit people by calling them nasty-sounding names like “crazy”, “insane”, “mentally ill”, “mentally sick”, “psychopathic”, “psychotic”, and “sociopathic”.  I contend that such name-calling is both a measure and a consequence of moral cowardice.  It is as if breaking rules or laws were not itself sufficiently wrong or evil.  I submit that all of that pseudo-medical vocabulary is nonsense, evasion, and theater. Read More »

VOTING is a sham. Both sides work for Big Brother.

Is jury nullification the solution?

Legalman offers a primer on jury nullification. “People are scared to death of the government and even of speaking out. And ultimately it all goes back to jury nullification and the rights of the people. And that’s why you will never hear about it.”

It’s worth a listen.

I don’t endorse all of Legalman’s views and I wish he would clean up his language, but he has some interesting things to say. Read More »

“ALL the world’s helpfulness was but a ray out of his helplessness. No man’s work, be it for himself or for his fellows, has any true strength in it, no man’s strength is any thing better than effort and gesticulation, except the weakness of Chris have touched it, nerved it, and made it manful with heavenly manfulness. What are half the literatures and philosophies in the world but gesticulation, men in attitudes which effect nothing, voices raised to screaming partly to save appearances and counterfeit strength by noise? The strong man is he who has gone deepest down into the weakness of Christ. The enduring work is that which Christ’s humiliation has touched secretly, and made it almost omnipotent.”

— Fr. Frederick Faber, Bethlehem (Tan Books, p. 75)

NEIL writes:

Saw a story yesterday that Charlize Theron’s two sons (whom she considers girls) have become a handful.

Maybe it’s been scrubbed from the Internet, but when her two boys realize at the time they are at peak testosterone that they are the products of a sick psychological experiment, I won’t feel sorry for her. Read More »

MORE on the Brian Thompson psyop:

“The narrative allows them to harness and direct the anger the collective feels towards the criminal health system. Dangling a cash prize as a reward increases the participation. Simultaneously, they will push for AI recognition and tracking. They will also be pushing for gun control, digital ID’s and methods to recognize an individual that may be a threat to the “community”. The psyop also serves to glorify the police that strive to “protect” them, while they practice anticipated scenarios so they can effectively hunt someone down when instructed to do so.”

Don’t forget: They want you to approve of and participate in manhunts. Read More »