PRESIDENTIAL candidates never mention the most important problems we face. National elections are political theater and nothing more.

Politicians are grifters, paid off to promote the interests of the Money Power.

“NOW whilst they were speaking these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them, and saith to them: Peace be to you; it is I, fear not. But they being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit. And he said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. And when he had said this, he shewed them his hands and feet.

“But while they yet believed not, and wondered for joy, he said: Have you any thing to eat? And they offered him a piece of a broiled fish, and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them.  And he said to them: These are the words which I spoke to you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.”

— Luke, 24: 36-45

Caravaggio, The Incredulity of St. Thomas

FROM an essay by Peter Kreeft:

We believe Christ’s resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies:  The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.

The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.

1. Jesus died. Jesus rose. [ Christianity ]

2. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceived. [Hallucination]

3. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles myth-makers [ Myth ]

4. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceivers [ Conspiracy ]

5. Jesus didn’t die. [ Swoon ]

Read more.

Easter hoodlums in St. Louis in the 1950s

ALAN writes:

As my thoughts amble back down Memory lane, over the Easter Sundays of yesteryear, my most precious remembrances are those day-dreamy St. Louis Easter Sundays.

Always balmy, warm, windless…..folks walked to and from church.

After Easter Sunday services everybody joined the Easter parade. We’d promenade through Forest Park, Shaw’s Garden, and along Kingshighway.

 The ladies done from head to toe in fashionable “hobble skirt” creations of the era strutted alongside their escorts, arms linked, smiling their prettiest, bowing to this one and that one….

 The promenades reeked of elegance. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief brushed elbows in the Easter promenade, disguised by Easter finery, inspired by the scent of new grass, lilac and magnolia blossoms….”

  — Madeline Dahl Nagle, “A St. Louis Easter Back Then,” Letter to the Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 25, 1951

I can’t remember scenes like those from a hundred years ago, when I imagine many such people found themselves “in the rotogravure” in the big weekend newspapers. But I can remember Easter Sundays in the 1950s.

In March 1956, my mother took me to see the Easter Seals Parade on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis. It was held on National Crippled Children’s Day and included floats decorated with an Easter Lily floral theme.  Members of clubs, schools, and scout groups marched in the parade along with thousands of American service men.

On Easter Sunday that year, my mother took this color slide, as I stood in the back yard of Aunt Leona and Uncle Gus’s home in southwest St. Louis. Read More »

“WE LIKE to think we live in a democratic society, but actually democracy was only allowed when they knew they could control it and it was no threat to their power and wealth.”

Interesting analysis of our economy based on usury and “turbo-charged inequality” can be found in the first 30-minutes of this talk.

LEARN more about “The Six Pillars of Intellectual Insanity” in this summary of the work of Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty.

EASTER
— Gerard Manley Hopkins

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day.

Build His church and deck His shrine;
Empty though it be on earth;
Ye have kept your choicest wine—
Let it flow for heavenly mirth;
Pluck the harp and breathe the horn:
Know ye not ‘tis Easter morn?

Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter’s robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day. Read More »

Duccio di Buoninsegna; Entombment (scene 22), 1308-11

“TODAY a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”

— Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

ANDREA DA FIRENZE, Descent into Hell; 1366-67 Fresco

MORE ANALYSIS of the controlled demolition of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, presented in the news as an accident, can be found here.

            Lamentation, Andrea Di Bartolo

FROM The Foot of the Cross (Tan Books, page 292-293) by Frederick William Faber, D.D.:

The love of God brings many new instincts into the heart. Heavenly and noble as they are, they bear no resemblance to what men would call the finer and more heroic developments of character. A spiritual discernment is necessary to their right appreciation. They are so unlike the growths of earth that they must expect to meet on earth with only suspicion, misunderstanding, and dislike. It is not easy to defend them from a controversial point of view; for our controversy is obliged to begin by begging the question, or else it would be unable so much as to state its case. The axioms of the world pass current in the world, the axioms of the Gospel do not. Hence the world has its own way. It talks us down. It tries us before tribunals where our condemnation is secured beforehand. It appeals to principles which are fundamental with most men, but are heresies with us. Hence its audience takes part with it against us. We are foreigners, and must pay the penalty of being so. If we are misunderstood, we had no right to reckon on anything else, being as we are out of our own country. We are made to be laughed at. We shall be understood in heaven. Woe to those easy-going Christians, whom the world can understand, and will tolerate, because it sees they have a mind to compromise! Read More »

“THE house of sorrow is always a house of love. This is what takes place in us regarding Mary’s dolors. One of the thousand ends of the Incarnation was God’s condescending to meet and gratify the weakness of humanity, forever falling into idolatry because it was so hard to be always looking upwards, always gazing fixedly into inaccessible furnaces of light. So are Mary’s dolors to her grandeurs. The new strength of faith and devotion, which we have gained in contemplating her celestial splendors, furnishes us with new capabilities of loving; and all our loves, the new and the old as well, rally round her in her agony at the foot of the Cross of Jesus. Love for her grows quickest there. It is our birthplace. We became her children there. She suffered all that because of us. Sinlessness is not common to our Mother and to us. But sorrow is. It is the one thing we share, the one common thing betwixt us. We will sit with her therefore, and sorrow with her, and grow more full of love, not forgetting her grandeurs,— Oh surely never! — but pressing to our hearts with fondest predilection the memory of her exceeding martyrdom.”

    — Frederick William Faber, The Foot of the Cross, p. 85

FROM “Democracy Is an Ideal Government for Jewish Influence,” by Thomas Dalton at The Unz Review:

Thus we can see that modern democracy perfectly serves Jewish interests. The “freedom” and rights granted to Jews allow them to accrue vast wealth. With this wealth in hand, they can then (a) buy controlling interests in mass media, and (b) buy politicians, who in turn do their bidding. Via the mass media, they then hide their own roles and hide their effect on politicians, keeping the public confused and in the dark about the manipulations of their political system. Pro-Jewish candidates are the only ones taken seriously (by the Jewish media and pro-Jewish politicians) and thus are the only ones in a position to win elections. The masses then vote under conditions of either ignorance, fear, resignation, or despair. The system of Jewish democracy, or Judeocracy, thus reinforces and solidifies itself, locking in its gains and blocking any individuals or groups who might pose a threat to this system.

Please read this outstanding piece in its entirety.

“SINCE the body he had assumed was about to be taken away from their bodily sight, and was about to be carried to the stars, it was necessary that, on the day of His last supper, He should consecrate for us the sacrament of His body and blood, so that what, as a price, was offered once should, through a mystery, be worshipped unceasingly.”

—- St. Eusebius

Pange Ligua Gloriosi

Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory, Of His flesh the mystery sing;
Of His Blood, all price exceeding, Shed by our immortal King,
Destined, for the world’s redemption, From a noble womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin Born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing, Stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
Then He closed in solemn order, Wondrously His life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper, Seated with His chosen band,
He the Pascal victim eating, First fulfills the Law’s command;
Then as Food to all His brethren, Gives Himself with His own hand. Read More »

The Last Supper, Jaume Serra; 1370

“Where is the Christian who can speak or even think of this evening without the most holy sentiments of love arising in his heart as the scene of the Holy Paschal Table, round which Jesus and His disciples were seated, rises up before his spiritual view? What mighty love was that which impelled the Son of God to institute this Most Holy Sacrament, that He might remain with us even to the consummation of the world! What a pledge of this faithful love! And, of all the Apostles, none more fully realized this than St. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved; and who, on that evening, enjoyed the privilege and happiness of being nearest the Lord at the Last Supper, and of leaning his head on the bosom of Jesus. In the whole course of his life St. John never forgot that evening. He styles himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, and to whom this great grace was granted; but gives us to understand that we also are permitted to participate therein in its plenitude, for he says expressly: “Those whom Jesus loved, He has loved until the end of time.”

— Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876