In the Bleak Mid-winter

(Based on a poem by Christina Rossetti)

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A heart full of love
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give him my heart.

Anne Swaney

MARK JAWS writes:

When I read about the murders of women who put themselves in such recklessly dangerous situations, I could almost cry. All too often a young white woman loses her life because she thinks she can gallivant throughout the jungles of the Third World, or hitchhike on its highways, worry free, with her hair let down, while singing, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”  Unfortunately and tragically, that is not the case.

I just read earlier today the tragic death in Belize of Anne Swaney, 39, an executive TV news producer at ABC Chicago. Ms. Swaney traveled to Belize alone and stayed at a resort with horseback riding and an organic farm. She was last seen heading down to a river by herself to do yoga.  She was beaten and strangled. Think about that.  Rivers, such as the Mopan River in Belize, are always on low ground, and often concealed by thick foliage. She went down to an isolated place, out of sight, a quarter mile from her cabin, in a land inhabited mostly by poor blacks and browns.   Read More »

JOHN KAMINSKI reflects on Guy Montag, “the enigmatic fireman who burned outlawed books in Ray Bradbury’s epic novel Fahrenheit 451.”

Bradbury’s narrative describes how Montag gradually began to doubt his mission after he saw how important books were to people willing to die rather than give them up, and his brittle life crumbled around him. When the book’s hero changed his mind about books and what he should be doing to them, he brought the power of the totalitarian state down upon him, before escaping into the shadows and yearning for revolution.

Bradbury never mentioned how that revolution turned out, but the future has revealed an uncanny twist in what the famous science fiction author wrote and the way reality has turned out.

Firemen are supposed to put fires out, but Bradbury’s firemen burned books the government deemed illegal.

This is how our future has progressed; what was once the truth is now a lie. Suddenly, forces once thought necessary and beneficial have now turned into their opposite — a destructive menace.

SHULAMIT ALONI, a former minister of education in Israel and recipient of the Israel Prize who died in 2014, described the uses of anti-Semitism accusations in this 20o2 interview with American journalist Amy Goodman. But then I guess Aloni was an anti-Semite.

IS the federal government inciting conflict in Oregon?

From Activist Post:

This week, Harney County Fire Marshall Chris Briels resigned after discovering undercover FBI agents posing as militia members near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which has been the site of a standoff for weeks now. According to Briels, he found FBI agents who were impersonating militia members lurking around the town’s armory. When he inquired about the undercover operation with county Judge Steve Grasty he was told to back off. Read More »

MOTHERHOOD can change even a violent, hate-filled feminist and expose the fact that feminism is inhuman. Sara Fernanda Giromini, a founding member of the radical feminist group Femen, known for its angry, topless demonstrations in churches and other public places, has disavowed the group after the birth of her second child and apologized to the Christians she attacked. She has a new book out, and despite the incentive to market herself, her statements appear sincere. WND reports:

The impetus for Giromini’s shift came with the birth of her second child in October. She says in her new book, “B–ch, No! Seven Times I Was Betrayed by Feminism,” that she has repented for her first abortion, engaging in a same-sex kiss in front of the Church of Our Lady of Candelária in Rio de Janeiro and practicing bisexuality to gain “maximum respect” from other feminists.

“Lesbian and bisexual women have much more voice and respect within the movement, so in the search for recognition of my struggle, with each day that passed, I deconstructed my heterosexuality and was substituting it with an artificial bisexuality,” she says in a Dec. 15 YouTube video titled “I ask Christians for forgiveness for feminist protest,” News.com.au reported Thursday.

Giromini went on to say that while Femen claims to have women’s best interests in mind, the reality is far different.

“For the feminist sect women are not the inspiration, they are prime matter in the worst sense of the term. They are convenient objects useful for the purpose of inflaming hatred against the Christian religion, hatred against men, hatred against the beauty of women, hatred against the equilibrium of families,” Giromini said, the website reported.

SHEILA writes:

An excellent piece by Joe Sobran, and some thoughtful comments.  Like Mark Jaws, I grew up in a Jewish Ashkenazi environment, but was far less marinated in it than he.  I, too, was raised with the “mythological caricature” of history, but always questioned it.  Even as a child, it made no sense to me to be persecuted without some cause or provocation.  That blindness angers me terribly to this day – Jews will harp endlessly on persecution, real or imagined, yet argue vociferously against any possible provocation, even when historically documented.  The sense of grievance combined with the innate sense of superiority seems uniquely suited, to me, to elicit dislike and anger in others. Read More »

David Bowie, Satanist

KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT writes:

I do think David Bowie was a talented pop musician, who did try to go beyond the “pop.” But as he neared old age and death, he began to go “to the other side” as they say. And I think he followed a satanic cult. His last video, which is understandably full of anguish about death, is really an ode to Satan – his “next” meeting place. It is creepy and evil.  Bowie went to the devil.

Another fascinating thing about Bowie is that he was married to this Somali model, Iman. I don’t think she denounced her Muslim background, and Bowie never “converted.” But he must have been influenced by Mohammed to some extent. Read More »

Konvalescens, 1899

THE SWEDISH painter Carl Larsson, born in Stockholm in 1853, created a vision of domestic harmony that is loved and appreciated by many today. He was an anti-modernist who embraced form. He rejected the bleak and the abstract. He adored children.

Karin Och Kersti, 1898

PATRICK MARTIN offers a summary:

The final State of the Union speech delivered Tuesday night by President Barack Obama was a demonstration of the incapacity of the American political system to deal honestly or seriously with a single social question.

Obama evaded the real issues that affect tens of millions of working people in America every day of their lives. He painted a ludicrous picture of economic recovery and social progress that insulted the intelligence of his television audience—and went unchallenged by the millionaire politicians assembled in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Read More »

“POPE” Francis is having an undeniable influence. See here:

… [S]ouls are now using the new, false gospel of mercy to refuse correction in the confessional, and, even more, express an unrepentant, almost proud attitude towards their sins, even very grave ones (including abortion).  They basically go into the confessional now expecting absolution (and approval to receive the Blessed Sacrament, which is odd) irrespective of their lack of contrition or their total lack of purpose of amendment.  And they often directly quote Pope Francis in defense of their new-found reprobate sense. Read More »

“Rock has always been the Devil’s music, you can’t convince me that it isn’t. … I feel that we’re only heralding something even darker than ourselves.”

 — David Bowie in Rolling Stone, February 12, 1976

MARGARET GALITZIN at Tradition in Action writes of the death of David Bowie and praise for him coming from the Occupied Vatican:

When rock star David Bowie, considered the most influential of rockers, died of cancer on January 10, 2016, I expected his world to applaud him. Hollywood stars and the rock world – soft rock, punk rock, heavy metal – did exactly so.  Tributes from Madonna, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Kendrick Lamar and other rock singers poured in.

Then, more unexpected eulogies came from prominent figures of the political and scientific world, e.g., David Cameron, Tony Blair and astronaut Tim Peake. It seems the 21st century is as eager to acclaim this blatantly Satanist, androgynous creature as the 13th century great personalities honored St. Bernard at his death. Read More »

THREE CHEERS for Fr. Nicolas Desposito, theology professor at Most Holy Trinity Seminary in Brooksville, Florida.

If I were not a sedevacantist, I would have to live in a world of such intense contradiction that I wouldn’t be able to think straight. I would have to stop thinking.

I POSTED the original heretical “pope” video. Now here’s a perfect revision of it by Louie Verrecchio of akaCatholic.com.

RESEARCH suggests that the more children women have, the slower the aging process.

Offering Baby a Rose, James Goodwyn Clonney

IF most women did not live under self-imposed censorship, 99.99 percent of them would be openly repulsed by the idea of spending years studying physics and engineering, and then years doing all kinds of repetitive exercises in T-38 supersonic jets, underwater tanks and ‘vomit comets,’ in order to be launched into that stultifyingly boring void known as Outer Space. But because most women do not have that freedom of speech and have lost their natural instincts, many will probably be outwardly impressed by NASA’s latest gimmick: a class of astronauts that is 50 percent female, including some mothers. A few of these lucky women, we are told by the liars officials at NASA, may even go to Mars someday, leaving their children behind on Planet Earth for a trip that will be overwhelmingly an adventure in nerdy button-pushing. Read More »

The Tribe … embraces the mythical charge of “Christ-killing” in order to reverse it: Christians are Jew-killers. — Joe Sobran

JOE SOBRAN, a courageous writer fired from the conservative flagship magazine National Review, apparently for being too outspoken, noticed in the 1980s the pall cast over intellectual discourse by fear of offending Jews. This was odd, he said, given the Jewish loathing of their timid critics. In  “The Jewish Faction,” Sobran, who died in  2010, wrote of the intensity of this hatred:

The organized Jewish faction is what I call the Tribe. It’s a bit more specific than “the Jews”; but it includes most Jews, who, as many opinion polls show, overwhelmingly support the state of Israel and, furthermore, overwhelmingly favor “progressive” causes like legal abortion, “sexual freedom,” and “gay rights.”

What is striking about the Tribe is not that its positions on such matters are necessarily wrong, but that they are anti-Christian. They are even anti-Judaic, in that they contravene the moral code of Moses. Jews today define themselves formally by descent (or, less politely, race, though the term is taboo) rather than by religion; and, less formally, by antagonism to Christianity. It would be inaccurate to say that the Tribe adopts certain social attitudes and political positions even though these are repugnant to most Christians. It adopts them chiefly because they are repugnant to Christians.

Within the Tribe, one of the worst sins a Jew can commit is to become a Christian, as witness Jewish hostility to Jews for Jesus. An irreligious or atheist Jew may claim Israeli citizenship at any time, but a Jew who has converted to Christianity may not. Read More »

“Pope” Francis: “I can read my life in light of chapter 16 of the book of the prophet Ezekiel.”

Tradcast: “We’re thinking your life is covered in Chapter 13 of the Apocalypse, Frankie.”