A PROTESTANT family has over the years sought to understand the vocation of farming:

Here is one small highlight from our study:

Genesis 3:23 “God sent him (Adam) forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”

• The first occupation was farming.

• Farming is an occupation that is commissioned by God. It is essential for life. Therefore, it is important that as farmers we view our job as a very essential and important job. We must not merely have a focus on making money and increasing production, but rather have a focus on producing quality crops and food that will provide the nourishment for life and health that others need. (more…)

  FRANK REGA writes at The Shield of Faith: This is a poem I composed when I was able to see in perspective the summer of 1967 (THE Summer of '67), which I spent as a true drop-out in the East Village. As a former Yale graduate school student in Psychology, that summer I got to know, meet, and/or rub shoulders with Harvard drop-out Timothy Leary, artist Peter Max, Alan Ginsberg, Ed Sanders and Tuli of the Fugs, Abbie Hoffman, Nico of the Velvet Underground, Louis Abalofia - artist and "King of the Hippies," Paul Krassner, Lenny Horowitz - N.Y. Times art critic, Diahnne Abbot (before she married De Niro), poetess Anne Waldman, and many of the early and original spiritually-oriented hippies and anonymous drop-outs and Village denizens,  some of whom I met at the old Paradox Restaurant on E. 7th street - a popular macrobiotic eatery and gathering place. That summer the "flower child" movement had a distinctive Franciscan flavor, until it succumbed to the forces of hedonism and sunk into the abyss of Woodstock two years later. Ironically, it was a book called The Little Flowers of St. Francis that restored my Catholic faith, as the decade of the 70s began. This poem was inspired by my love for P. M. [cont.]

DON VINCENZO writes:

There was a time when the U.S. Military Academies were thought to have one – and only one – purpose: to send its graduates, grounded in a “warrior culture,” to aid and abet the security of this nation.  But that was then and now is now.

At the recent graduation of the midshipmen (I will not say or write, (“midshippersons”), the current Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, announced that two of the graduates, Keenan Reynolds and Joe Cardona, would be allowed to “defer their military service” in order to fulfill their dream: play professional football. The fact that these two men knew that, upon entering the academy, there was a five year commitment to serve in the Navy as the quid pro quo of having drawn a monthly wage, as well as having their room and board paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, would not now be applied; Secretary Carter said so. The ruling applied retroactively to Cardona, a 2015 graduate, who has “fulfilled” his service obligations by working once a week at a Navy prep school and the rest of the week for the Boston Patriot football team. Yes, today’s “warriors” come in all shapes and sizes. (more…)

WHEELER writes: As I write these words, I am looking at a vase full of this year's peonies, short-lived beauties that they are. They have passed their so-brief prime and are waiting with simplicity and patience to be reclaimed as dust. I find them more beautiful now than they were when nodding in my wife's garden, hostesses to battalions of ants. They are beautiful in the way that some old people are beautiful, with their knowing eyes hooded by a map of wrinkles and betrayals. I will let them sit here in their vase as long as I can before I take them outside and place them on the ground up in the woods. I cannot bear to put dead flowers in the trash. There is something melancholy about even the bare possibility that they might be even a tiny bit aware, and that they might be dejected at having to sit in reeking quiet in a plastic bag, among coffee grounds and Discover Card envelopes and potato peelings, looking with flower-hope for something merciful to occur, for a hole to appear in the bag and let in the catalyst of air, hoping for decomposition and a chance to touch holy dirt again.

THE CONTRITE HEART THE LORD will happiness divine On contrite hearts bestow; Then tell me, gracious God, is mine A contrite heart or no. I hear, but seem to hear in vain, Insensible as steel; If aught is felt, ’tis only pain, To find I cannot feel. My best desires are faint and few, I fain would strive for more; 10 But when I cry, “My strength renew!” Seem weaker than before. O make this heart rejoice or ache, Decide this doubt for me; And if it be not broken, break,— And heal it if it be. -- William Cowper (1731-1800)

PREVIOUS entries on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is observed today, can be found here, here, and here.

As Charles A. Coulombe has written:

Veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has gotten a bum rap. For many people, Catholics and otherwise, the seemingly effeminate images of Our Lord pointing to His — literally — bleeding heart were dismissed as purely private devotional images best suited for old ladies. For others, such things as placards identifying the driver of a car as a member of the Auto League of the Sacred Heart were the worst kind of kitsch. For still more folks of a thoughtful nature, it was all well enough in its way, but a relatively recent devotion without deep roots in Catholic history. All of these notions are dead wrong. [cont.] (more…)

THE elderly need the truth of God’s love.

To “Pope” Francis, they need jazz and “solidarity” (code for the One-World, Masonic Cult of Man.) (more…)

DR. THOMAS DROLESKEY provides some interesting background at Christ or Chaos about Hillary Clinton’s work for the House Judiciary Committee at the age of 27, during impeachment proceedings against Nixon. Jerome “Jerry” Zeifman, a Democrat, who was a senior attorney on the Committee, wrote about it in his book “Hillary, As I Knew Her,” and is quoted at length.

The sordid history of the Clinton machine is almost too much to absorb. Dr. Droleskey writes:

The gates of Hell have been let loose, and Madame Clinton’s recklessly self-centered disregard for the protection of American national security and classified intelligence information pales into insignificance when one considers the guilt she bears for her many years of supporting the willful murder of the innocent preborn, including her recent unqualified defense of Planned Barrenhood’s Aztec-like savagery, and her full-throated embrace of the agenda of what Mrs. Randy Engel rightly calls the homosexual collective. (more…)

  SEE more spring art at It's About Time.

THE Internet is filled with good websites and pages that offer instructions about basic home repairs. For those of us who are embarrassed to ask too many questions at the hardware store, it’s great to be able to look up things and learn the names of all those pipes, fasteners, cutting tools, circuits and valves that make up an ordinary home. For instance, I had no idea what the little collar around a pipe that extends from a wall to a bathroom faucet or toilet is called. I looked on the Internet and found that it is an escutcheon. 

Those things are disgusting when they get rusty. Here is one woman who does much of the repair work and remodeling around the house herself, an example of what you can find on the Internet. She explains how to replace an escutcheon. (more…)

FROM the BBC: More than 45 million people are living in modern slavery, with Asia accounting for two thirds of the victims, a new report says. The 2016 Global Slavery Index, from the Walk Free Foundation in Australia, defines slavery as "situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception". Modern forms of slavery can include debt bondage, where a person is forced to work for free to pay off a debt, child slavery, forced marriage, domestic servitude and forced labour, where victims are made to work through violence and intimidation. The BBC looks at five examples of modern slavery. [cont.]

BROTHER NATHANAEL, the (formerly) Jewish critic of Jewish power who has been seriously considering running for president in 2020, responds to an article by Paul Craig Roberts, in which Roberts says that Americans have become “serfs” to the “One Percent.” The “One Percent” is Roberts’ term for the shadow government.

Brother Nathanael writes:

May I ask a stupid question? What is this entity, the “One Percent” that PCR keeps citing over and over?

I don’t recall ever seeing such a thing, have you ever seen it? And if so, what does this “One Percent” look like?

And if this is the ‘thing’ that has conquered the American people making them into serfs, then how can we ever have this “revolution” that PCR calls for if we don’t even know what this oppressor looks like? Who do we “revolt” against? Does this “One Percent” have a hideout that we can surround?

Which brings me to another perplexity.  (more…)

AN INTERESTING interview with Paul Fromm, director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression who has fought "hate speech" laws and excessive immigration in Canada for many years, can be found here.

THE BABYLON BEE reports important developments in the Bible Belt. Here's the latest: According to reports coming out of Grace Fellowship, church intern Greg Barona completed the eighth perfect tech performance in Evangelical history Sunday at the church’s 10:30 a.m. service. Barona looked totally in control from the very first song all the way until the benediction, according to multiple sources. The congregation reportedly held their breath as the pastor gave the verbal cues for media like illustrative pictures, movie clips, and seemingly endless sermon points, but Barona held it together, retiring all slides with no delays, errors, or false starts. The second the 28-year-old Barona fired off the final slide, the audience erupted in emotional, wild cheering, knowing they had witnessed history. After the teaching pastor dumped a vat of old coffee over his head, the congregants swept him up on their shoulders and carried him outside, where the unrestrained celebration continued. “It looked dicey there for a minute when the worship leader called an audible and went right into the chorus of ‘Good Good Father,’ but Greg pulled through. A real clutch player,” head tech Paul Stark told reporters during the post-service bash, shouting over the cheers from the congregation. “Guys like Greg make it look easy.”

COOL celebrities love Francis!

But then, in general, the more a person rejects Catholic faith and morals, the more he loves Francis. Celebrities and politicians literally drool over Francis the Fake because they crave the approval of the Catholic Church, which they secretly know is the most powerful institution on earth, without paying any of the costs, even the cost of believing in it. Fortunately for them, Francis doesn’t require that.

Doesn’t that tell you something?

Here’s a quick quiz to test your logic on all this. (more…)

ONE of the world’s top-ranked women’s soccer teams was defeated last week by boys who were under 15. The Australian Matildas, who are headed for the Olympics in Rio, fielded some of their top players but still lost 7-0 to the boys team.

A commenter at The Daily Mail wrote:

See I think this is one of the more tragic aspects of feminism along with the mistreatment of boys and men. Women under feminism are taught that their self worth is tied into their ability and willingness to compete with men, and if they can’t or won’t do that, they’re seen as lesser women. Then when they try to compete with men and nature takes its course like it did in this soccer game, they’re made to feel inferior because they couldn’t measure up to the boys.

These women have traded their feminine dignity to be faux men.

Not many people are interested in watching women’s soccer. On an international and national level, it’s affirmative action athletics. (more…)

A COMMENTER at Henry Makow writes:

In the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, a certain percentage of young American men from blue collar families would typically join some branch of the US military to gain employment, free medical and dental care, free meals and housing, technical training, perhaps some college, and above all, have an adventure and see the world.  (more…)

  THE "Navy Hymn," or "Eternal Father, Strong to Save," (lyrics here) was recently sung by a men's glee club, apparently connected with the Naval Academy, on the California coast. Here is a description of the recording: Last Sunday, despite the persistent drizzle and fog, a small group from the Men's glee club opted to catch a bus to the Marin Headlands for a hike. After a morning on the damp trail, we passed through a concrete tunnel leading to an abandoned coastal defense battery which was marked as Battery Townsley. This secret military installation was built to defend the city of San Francisco during World War II. Overlooking the fog-carpeted San Francisco Bay, Battery Townsley gave us momentary relief from the cold rain as we rested for the last leg of the hike. As we exited through the same tunnel, the chiming of nautical bells from a distant buoy could be heard faintly over the sea breeze and the echoes of raindrops in the concrete passageway. Inspired by acoustic qualities of the tunnel and the somber atmosphere, we sang the most fitting song we knew, the Navy Hymn. Meanwhile, a man who was set up nearby to record the ambient sound surrounding Battery Townsley captured our song emanating from the entrance of the tunnel. Thankfully, Byram Abbott generously shared the recording with us. This is the un-doctored result from the fantastic accident that occurred at Battery Townsley. The recording captures…