THE BLESSED VIRGIN ON PENTECOST MORNING Maid and Mother, pure and kind, ’Tis the Whitsun morning; May hath wearied sun and wind For the world’s adorning,— Earth is blossomed like a bride For the blessed Whitsuntide. Thrice the mighty Spirit wrought For thy soul’s completing: First, thy stainless self He brought To the world’s entreating; Next, to work thy “Fiat” came; Last, He crowns thy brow with flame. ’Tis Elijah’s olden rite, Slow in sign preparing: First, God built thee, altar bright,— Christ, the Victim, bearing; Last, from Heaven, at thy desire Flashed the Lord’s consuming fire. ---- Edward F. Garesche, S.J

A READER writes:

Your reader, Kyle, mentioned the legal battle between Katy Perry and a few nuns in Los Angeles. I think he is idealizing these nuns. I’ve done a tiny bit of searching into this story and came across the nuns’ website Stand with the Sisters and a link to a documentary on the story (which I’ve not spent my time watching).

The documentary opens with these words:

“Would you be surprised to find out that this is actually a case about women’s rights? For millenia religious women have persevered silently under the patriarchy of the Catholic Church. Their status has always remained secondary, behind the male clergy. Courageously, two women have taken a stand against this injustice.” (more…)

THIS IS A PUBLIC letter to David Leonhardt, columnist for The New York Times:

Dear Mr. Leonhardt,

I am writing in response to your fascinating opinion piece, “I’m not Quoting Enough Women.”

I understand that you are interested in quoting more women in your articles. Too many male experts, you believe, are asked for their input and you have decided to discriminate on the basis of sex alone to include a greater number of women in your reports. (more…)

ALAN writes:

Western Europeans are now fleeing into Hungary to escape from the tyranny of diversity-and-multiculturalism imposed upon them by their governments.  Sixty years ago it was the other way around:  Families were fleeing out of Hungary to escape from the tyranny of Communism.  I came to know one such family.  They would find rich irony in that historic reversal.

One day in or about 1961, a new boy appeared in my class at St. Anthony of Padua parochial school in south St. Louis.  He and I were the same age but he was a little bigger than me and he spoke two languages, while I was still learning to deal with one.

I can’t recall precisely how we became friends.  Perhaps he asked me for advice or perhaps our teacher encouraged us to become acquainted because she knew I was a good pupil who wouldn’t steer him wrong and because his family lived only a block away from mine.

My new friend’s name was Leslie. Some fellow students taunted him because when speaking to his younger brother, he spoke in his first language: Hungarian. It sounded strange, of course, and some boys believed (wrongly) that they were talking about them when in fact they were talking only about family or personal matters.

Whatever they talked about did not bother me.  I saw no point in taunting them.  I was a loner of sorts, quiet, obedient, an only child, and somewhat naïve. Leslie and his younger brother treated me right, so I did the same in return.  Thus we became friends.  On some days we walked home from school together.  His mother had an appointment at some doctor’s office whose whereabouts were a complete mystery to her.  So my mother offered to drive her there. They became friends.

Leslie’s parents and their four children were one of tens of thousands of families who fled from Hungary in 1956 because they preferred to go on living rather than be tyrannized or murdered by the Communist goons who reasserted their power in response to the short-lived Hungarian Revolution.  (more…)

FROM THE ONION: On the heels of this week’s decision lifting a federal ban on sports betting, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 7-2 ruling Wednesday that legalizes all worldly vices, with the justices decreeing that immoral behaviors such as gambling, drug use, prostitution, and incest are “all good now.” “It is the opinion of this court that the right to participate in various forms of debauchery, whether heroin injection, illicit sex, or cannibalism, should not be impeded by any law,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority, adding that if something is considered unethical or depraved, but you feel like doing it anyway, the court “doesn’t give a s***t” and you should just do whatever you want. “The government has no legitimate constitutional basis upon which to police any wicked or immoral actions that serve to satisfy an individual’s basest desires or appetites. As far as we’re concerned, everyone can just have at it.” At press time, reports confirmed the court adjourned for a brief recess during which several of the justices personally tested the waters with necrophilia.

THE MET GALA at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is an annual fashion extravaganza  on the first Monday of May — an expensive celebration of ugliness, arrogance, raw flesh and ego by celebrities who parade on a red carpet before banks of photographers.

Stars at the event have for a long time flaunted blasphemy with crosses and religious images on their bodies, but this year’s event on May 7th reached new heights of indecency, sacrilege and Satanism with a theme that coincided with the museum’s new exhibit, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”

The fleshy stars were dressed in sacred vestments and objects donated by the Vatican. Yup, that’s right. Archbishop “Timothy Dolan was in attendance to further give a “Catholic” seal of approval. The actual exhibit was sponsored by Jewish billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, who gave $5 million to stage “Heavenly Bodies.”

“Hellish Bodies” was more like it at the star-studded ball.

The singer Lana del Rey did a parody of Our Lady of Sorrows complete with an image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the seven swords on her bodice.

“Victoria’s Secret model Stella Maxwell [wore] a tight strapless column gown stamped with six large icons of Our Lady; actress Sarah Jessica Parker ‘wore” a Neapolitan nativity scene on her head; [and] actress Zendaya Coleman dressed up as a back-and-cleavage-showing Saint Joan of Arc,” writes Luiz Sérgio Solimeo at The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.

“Actress Anne Hathaway was dressed in a red cardinal’s outfit, with a bare back and equally indecent, cleavage-displaying front. Rapper Nicki Minaj sported a cardinal-type flowing red cloak, and her impure top was not outdone by the front of her dress which was slit almost to her waist, revealing her bare legs when she walked. To media Minaj declared: ‘I’m dressed as the devil.’ Another Victoria’s Secret model, Taylor Hill, wore a red-trimmed cleavage-showing black dress, a pectoral cross, and what looked like a cardinal’s red sash and pellegrina.” (more…)

Chemi Shalev reports in Ha’aretz (read more at If Americans Knew):

The stark contrast that played out on split screens throughout the world Monday, between the Israeli celebration in Jerusalem and the Palestinian casualties in Gaza, was worthy of Charles Dickens’ immortal opening to “A Tale of Two Cities:” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” (more…)

  FROM an outstanding Mother's Day piece by Stella Morabito at The Federalist: Motherhood is the first and last line of defense against totalitarianism. If you think this statement sounds over the top, you ought to ponder why the family has always been the ultimate target of tyrannical systems of government such as communism. Advocates of cultural Marxism tend to view families as akin to subversive cells that get in the way of centralized state power. The driving force in each of those “cells” is a devoted flesh-and-blood mother who defends, nurtures, strengthens, and teaches her children well. She magnifies this power by teaming up with the child’s father in that effort. Such a family represents, at the most elemental level, the “little platoon” philosopher Edmund Burke referred to: To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage. As healthy, cohesive families go forth into the world as little platoons, they are a force for goodwill and real justice in…

FROM TODAY'S Anti-New York Times: Five separate stories, with one common theme, spread like hot feces all throughout a single Sunday issue of Sulzberger's Slimes. Here's a brief summary of the essence of each article: Women good -- men bad Women good -- men bad Women good -- men bad Women good -- men bad Women good -- men bad  The angle here is obvious. The Marxist-inspired "women's movement" ™ which began with the suffrage movement of the late 19th century eventually metastasized into the feminist revolution of the 1960's and beyond. Today, many loony and thoroughly miserable ladies, having abandoned motherhood for the pursuit of "equality" in government and the professions, now hold some of the highest corporate and government positions in major nations throughout the West, and constitute a majority of the university student population. Yes indeed -- you've come a long way, baby. How's it workin' out for ya? Given this amazing "progress," one would think that the "women's movement" ™ would settle down and savor the "equality" it has won. Instead, the loony ladies are becoming even more aggressive in their holy war to tear down "the patriarchy." The goal now is not merely "equality," but rather, a perceived superiority over de-balled and dispossessed men. Note our use of the adjective, "perceived" in front of the word "superiority." That's because, at the very tippy-top of the New World Order pyramid, it has always been and will always be a men-only club calling the shots. Ever…

MELANIE NOTKIN has some wise reflections on the rise of the childless mother --- the woman who wants children but fails to have them because she never finds the right man. But Notkin fails to see the solution -- a reversal of the Sexual Revolution and the feminist quest for autonomy.

  HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Mothers who find their lives exhausting may enjoy this diary of a 19th-century Indiana farm wife. The account may make their lives seem easy by comparison. Sarah Young Bovard brought many children into the world (12 --- though not all survived childhood) and gave herself entirely to the vocation of motherhood. She was the sustaining heart of her home before refrigerators and dishwashers helped with the work.

CHRISTOPHER writes:

We were in London in yesterday and crossed a road at Trafalgar Square when a strange pedestrian signal caught my eye. I thought I had seen something a little strange but wasn’t sure, so I went back across the road to get another look. It was exactly what I thought: an LGBT logo.

It turns out, they have been there for quite some time.

Here’s the film:

(more…)

THE fifth-century hymn Aeterne Rex altissime, on the Feast of the Ascension, is sung here by the Choir of St. John’s College. A translation by J.M. Neale:

Eternal Monarch, King most high,
whose blood hath brought redemption nigh,
by whom the death of Death was wrought,
and conquering Grace’s battle fought.

Ascending to the throne of might,
and seated at the Father’s right,
all power in heaven is Jesus’ own,
that here his manhood had not known.

That so, in nature’s triple frame,
each heavenly and each earthly name,
and things in hell’s abyss abhorred,
may bend the knee and own him Lord.

Yea, angels tremble when they see
how changed is our humanity;
that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained,
and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned. (more…)

  I say that we are wound With mercy round and round  As if with air: the same Is Mary, more by name. She, wild web, wondrous robe, Mantles the guilty globe, Since God has let dispense  Her prayers his providence: Nay, more than almoner, The sweet alms’ self is her And men are meant to share Her life as life does air. ---- Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe"

  SARA writes: I have been reading your blog for a while, and want to thank you for being a voice of sanity in an insane world.  I don't know what I would do without your words. It seems one of the biggest issues in today's world is what few are acknowledging.  It takes place in our skies daily and if people would just look up they would see it. Euphemistically called "geoengineering," it is the aerosol spraying of aluminum particulates, ostensibly to moderate climate change.  There is a website the explains all of this better than I ever could, done by a man who has given his life to wake people up to this global threat to all living things. [Here is Dane Wigington's introduction to the jet spraying of aerosols or "chemtrails."] The scope and implications of this demonic activity are shocking. This documentary is comprehensive, a must-watch on this issue. It is eye-opening (and disturbing); if you can take the time to watch it, you will see this health crisis approached from multiple angles.

STEPHEN IPPOLITO writes from Australia:

Kyle does  excellent work pointing out that those who so loudly and so often shriek their membership in the so-called “resistance” are the people least resistant to all forms of temptation – bodily or spiritual.

I had an experience just a week or so ago that taught me a lesson very much along the same lines.

It occurred, of all places, at the new KFC outlet in my neighborhood.

(Yes, mea culpa! I confess it: I have a weakness for the Colonel’s chicken fillet burgers – and his coleslaw too. Since its opening, it has run some great dinner specials  and that, combined with the unusually comfortable tables and chairs, has caused me to stop off there once or twice a week. In my defense, I can only plead that at least I am not at the local Pizza Hut or Dominos!)

Anyway, I was approached at my table by a lady who introduced herself as the store manager. She was accompanied by a few of the young staff from behind the counter. The manager explained that she had been told by “my kids,” (in the usual way of fast food places the staff are all about 17 or 18), that I was always very polite to them and always treated them courteously. The lady explained that very few customers did that and that “so many” customers were rude to her young staff over even minor things. She appeared a very kind, motherly lady and was protective of her young staff, (as all good mothers and true leaders are). She then presented me with  some lovely corporate freebies as a thank you. (more…)

KYLE writes:

“Resist” is the moniker of the cultural revolution and a call to action for those who share in impotent, child-like rage towards patriarchal authority. If anger qualifies for proof of their sincerity, then those who use this slogan must be for real but, does it seem that the average person resists much of anything these days? Is there a solitary moment in their daily lives when they don’t indulge their every desire?

Recent studies show that the average person touches [his] cell phone 2,617 times per day. Do they resist picking up their iPhone every 30 seconds to receive their brain treat dopamine from a text message or Facebook notification? Do they resist the urge to eat out every day of the week? Nope, as  American obesity rates have hit all-time highs according to the most recent CDC study on the prevalence of obesity among adults and youth in the United States.

We live in a world where one can purchase anything on their Amazon wish-list and have it delivered to their doorstep the next day. In the days when stores closed at 6:00 pm, if you needed an item not carried in the store, you special ordered it from the catalog and sometimes had to wait for weeks to receive it. Today you can sit in bed and do some online shopping on your iPhone before dozing off, increasing the chance of impulse purchases. Where’s the restraint in consumer spending when Americans are headed towards $1 trillion in credit card debt? (more…)

KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT, at Reclaiming Beauty, briefly analyses a photo of this year's "UN Champions of Change for Gender Equality." The vast majority of women today favor black --- the color of death. Perhaps they are unconsciously mourning their own femininity. Power masks emptiness. The UN wants women around the world to be black-clad drones. As a commenter at Tradition in Action says, in analysing a photo originally posted here: Satan's hatred for women knows no bounds. Indeed, the Prince of Darkness is immensely enjoying the spectacle of female "empowerment."