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A LAWYER analyzes the efforts to exclude Trump from state ballots, riling up conservatives against a “threat to democracy.”

It’s a tempest in a teapot to get your mind off issues that matter.

ROBERT Robbins writes at CatholicEclipsed:

It is no exaggeration to say that video games are the new main medium of entertainment and high art, more so than paintings in museums, theaters, opera or drama works, novels, concert halls, etc. The reason is video games, like Halo, are all those things plus the immersive experience of being a part of the plot. Video games are the cultural repository of art and beauty. Read More »

“DURING this new year I resolve to begin a new life. I do not know what will happen to me during this year. But I abandon myself entirely to you, my God.”

—- St. Gemma Galgani

THE STRANGER
— Rudyard Kipling

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk—
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wonted to,
They are used to the lies I tell.
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy and sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control—
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood. Read More »

HAPPY New Year to readers near and far. I wish you contentment, confidence and peace in 2024.

“EVERYTHING is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love – difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs – everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events – to the heart that loves, all is well.”

— St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Quelle est cette odeur agréable
Traditional French Noel (Lorrain)

[Translation by A. B. Ramsay]

WHENCE is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away?
Never the like did come a-blowing,
Shepherds, from flow’ry fields in May.
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away?

What is that light so brilliant breaking
Here in the night across our eyes?
Never so bright the day-star waking
Started to climb the morning skies.
What is that light so brilliant breaking
Here in the night across our eyes? Read More »

“WE ALL know the story of how Herod, alarmed at some rumor of a mysterious rival, remembered the wild gesture of the capricious despots of Asia and ordered a massacre of suspects of the new generation of the populace. Everyone knows the story; but not everyone has perhaps noted its place in the story of the strange religions of men. Not everybody has seen the significance even of its very contrast with the Corinthian columns and Roman pavement of that conquered and superficially civilized world. Only, as the purpose in his dark spirit began to show and shine in the eyes of the Admen, a seer might perhaps have seen something like a great gray ghost that looked over his shoulder; have seen behind him filling the dome of night and hovering for the last time over history that vast and fearful face that was Moloch of the Carthaginians; awaiting his last tribute from a ruler of the races of Shem. The demons also, in that first festival of Christmas, feasted after their own fashion. ….Herod had his place, therefore, in the miracle play of Bethlehem because he is the menace to the Church Militant and shows it from the first as under persecution and fighting for its life. For those who think this a discord, it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the Christmas bells. For those who think the idea of the Crusade is one that spoils the idea of the Cross, we can only say that for them the idea of the Cross is spoiled; the idea of the Cross is spoiled quite literally in the cradle.”

—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 1925

Christmas commemorates not just the birth of a divine baby, but the death of little ones — the young children under the age of two killed in Bethlehem by soldiers of King Herod, who feared a royal rival. If the Christmas narrative was the creation of fiction writers would they have included in the romance of Bethlehem this unsettling account of murdered children known so touchingly as the “Holy Innocents?”

There’s an important message in this incident:

“These infant Martyrs represent … what must in its measure befall everyone who draws near to Jesus. Suffering goes out of him, like an atmosphere. The air is charged with the seed of crosses, and the soul is sown all over with them before it is aware. Moreover, the cross is a quick growth and can spring up, and blossom, and bear fruit almost in a night, while from its vivacious root a score of fresh crosses will spring up and cover the soul with the peculiar verdure of Calvary. They that come nearest to our Lord are those who suffer most, and who suffer the most unselfishly,” Fr. Frederick Faber wrote in his great work, Bethlehem (Tan Books, p. 195).

Read More »

SINCE many people are up in arms about the blatant apostasy of Francis, it’s a good time to remember that his predecessor was, though more subtle, just as dangerous and also head of the counterfeit church of Vatican II. See more here.

[This is not a blanket endorsement of Novus Ordo Watch, which promotes the traditionalist error of independent chapels.]

PART TWO of a recent interview with Gerry Matatics — who comes to all the right conclusions about the state of the papacy and what the ordinary Catholic should do about it — can be found here.

Part One is here.

His explanations are clear and easy to grasp.

“THE wildest rage took possession of them, their hearts were torn with fury against St. Stephen. He failed not to perceive it, and knew well that they would sacrifice him to their rage. Hence, he turned his eyes to heaven, to receive thence strength for the approaching struggle.”

Readings and history of St. Stephen’s Day can be found here and here.

FROM “Keeping the Spirit of Christmas,” G.K. Chesterton, St. Stephen’s Day, 1925:

“Now I notice the same contradiction about Christmas—and, indeed, about Christian traditions generally. It is apparent in the people who tell us, in the papers and elsewhere, that they have emancipated themselves from dogmas, and propose to live by the spirit of Christianity. To which I reply: “All right—go ahead,” or words to that effect. But then I always find myself confronted with this extraordinary fact. They start out to live by the spirit of Christianity, and proceed to fling themselves with frenzy into preventing poor people from getting any beer, preventing oppressed nations from defending themselves against tyrants (because it might lead to war), tearing backward children away from their heart-broken parents and locking them up in some sort of materialistic madhouse, and so on. And then they are quite surprised when I tell them that I think they have far less of the spirit of Christianity than they have the letter of it, of the actual words and terminology of its dogmas. Read More »

      FROM New Heaven, New War
–           —- by Robert Southwell, S.J. (set to Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols)

This little babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake.
Though he himself for cold do shake,
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field;
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall,
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

The Nativity with the Adoration of the Shepherds, Giorgio Vasari

I WISH you joy and happiness this Christmas, dear readers. May the miracle of Christ’s birth fill you with wonder. May it grant you many graces and confidence.

From a beautiful Christmas greeting I received in my e-mail this morning from Patrick Henry:

As we celebrate the birthday of Jesus, the Eternal Truth, I pray that He will obtain for you every grace you need to seek the truth, to find the truth, to understand the truth, to know the truth, to accept the truth, to live your life according to the truth, to love the truth, and to never again reject or impugn any known truth.

I extend my sincere prayers for all of you. Merry Christmas!