ALAN writes:

One day recently an old song came spontaneously out of the catacombs of memory and into my awareness.  Decades had gone by since I last listened to “Puff, the Magic Dragon” in its original recording by Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I remember when it was brand-new in 1963.  I knew who Peter, Paul and Mary were because one of my classmates and I enjoyed their song “Lemon Tree” in 1962.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the old days, 1954-’63.  When “Puff” became popular, I was in 7th grade at St. Anthony of Padua school.  I had left boyhood behind, but I could still enjoy a charming story-song like “Puff”.  How fondly I remember those nights in the warm, secure, and serene setting that my mother created for us in our modest apartment on Dewey Avenue in south St. Louis.  It was so long ago that I can remember seeing civilized human beings in that area. On such nights in 1963, “Puff, the Magic Dragon” was one of several favorite songs I would listen to before falling asleep.  It was a most agreeable way to top off the day.

Of course I took the song at face value. I could not have imagined in 1963 that the “true meaning” of its lyrics would become a matter of controversy in later years, with some contending it was really about smoking marijuana.

Did the lyrics mean what they appeared to mean — a story of boyhood days and an unlikely friendship — or were they code for something else? Or did the words represent both meanings simultaneously to different audiences? Read More »

“Like the ‘Stabat Mater,’ the ‘Dies Irae’ was originally intended for private devotion,–a sort of pious meditation on the Last Judgment, whose appeal lay in the graphic portrayal of the emotions that fill the soul of man when, conscious of his guilt, he is reminded of the all-knowing and just Judge. Its excellence caused its adoption as a sequence in the Mass for the Dead as early as the second half of the fourteenth century, but it was not until the sixteenth century that its use became universal through a rubric of the Roman Missal as revised by Pius V.

“The ‘Dies Irae’ rests upon a biblical foundation. The contents of the sequence are taken mainly from the prophetical descriptions of the Old Testament, from the eschatological sermons of Christ, and from the teaching and the references of the Apostles concerning the consummation of the world. The description of Christ’s return as Judge of the universe is in full harmony with Holy Scripture, especially the Letters of the Apostles. The time when the end of the world will come is, and will ever remain, a sealed mystery to angels and men. Even the Divine Master refused to answer the question when put by His Apostles (Matth. XXIV, 36), but admonished them to be watchful and ready at any time to render an account of themselves, as the Son of Man would come suddenly and unexpectedly.”

cont.

“WHEN the righteous soul has thus arrived in purgatory, losing sight of everything else, it sees before it only two objects — the extremity of suffering, and the extremity of joys. A most tremendous pain is caused by knowing that God loves it with an infinite love, that He is the Chief Good, that He regards the soul as His daughter, and that He has predestined it to enjoy Him for ever in company with the Blessed: and hence the soul loves Him with a pure and most perfect charity. At the same time it perceives that it cannot see Him or enjoy Him yet, though it so intensely yearns to do so; and this afflicts it so much the more, as it is quite uncertain when the term of its penal exile, away from its Lord and paradise, will be fulfilled. This is the pain of loss in purgatory, of which the Saint says that it is a pain so extreme, that no tongue can tell it, no understanding grasp the least portion of it. Though God in His favour showed me a little spark thereof, yet can I not in any way express it with my tongue.”

— Purgatory, Rev. Frederick William Faber

November is devoted to praying for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. See more here.

Dante and Virgil Entering Purgatory, Luca Signorelli; 1499-1502

MORE than a thousand years ago, a pilgrim visited a monastery in Cluny, France and reported a vision of demons who were annoyed by prayers for the dead. The prayers had the alleged effect of getting souls to heaven faster. St. Odilo then ordered a commemoration of all the faithful departed to be celebrated in his monasteries every year on November 2nd. The custom spread throughout Europe and became a general feast of the Catholic Church. The entire month of November was dedicated to prayers for the dead.

Praying for the dead is only reasonable if there is some intermediary state between heaven and hell. Today most Christians reject the belief in purgatory. Many even reject the belief in hell and prefer to think all suffering ends with death. Hell, they say, occurs in this life with the normal trials brought about by immoral actions. A Christian who doesn’t believe in hell is a walking contradiction.

All Souls Day is also often, in practice, a day of prayer to the dead. May all those in paradise befriend us. Read More »

“THE saints are friends of God. They are like the angels in heaven. We honor them, not as we honor God, but on account of the relation they bear to God. They are creatures of God, the work of His hands. When we honor them, we honor God; as when we praise a beautiful painting, we praise the artist.

“We do not believe that the saints can help us of themselves, but we ask them to “pray for us.” We believe that everything comes to us “through Our Lord Jesus Christ.” With these words all our prayers end. It is useful, salutary, and reasonable to pray to the saints and ask them to pray for us. No doubt all will admit the reasonableness of this practice if the saints can hear and help us.

“That they hear and help us is evident from many passages of Scripture. The patriarch Jacob would not have prayed to the angel to bless his grandchildren Manasses and Ephraim (as we learn he did from Gen. xlviii.), unless he knew the angel could do so. We are informed (Luke xv.) that the angels rejoice when one sinner does penance. We are also informed (Matt. xxii.) that the saints are like the angels–i.e., have the same happiness and knowledge. Hence the saints, as well as the angels, can hear us, can help us, and are acquainted with our actions, words, and thoughts.

“It is generally conceded that it is reasonable to ask pious persons on earth to pray for us. St. Paul, in his epistles, frequently asks the Christians to pray for him. “Brethren,” he says, “pray for us.” It is well known that God was pleased to answer the prayer of Abraham in favor of Abimelech. “More things are wrought by prayer than this world knows of.” Now, if we poor sinners here on earth do not pray in vain for one another, will the saints in heaven, the friends of God, who rejoice when a sinner does penance, pray in vain for us? No. We have hosts of friends in heaven to speak a good word for us. And as a child who has disobeyed his parents wisely asks a better brother or sister to intercede with his parents for mercy, so, too, having disobeyed our heavenly Father by sin, we have recourse to others better than ourselves, to our better brothers and sisters, the Blessed Virgin and saints, to intercede with God for us. Is not this a reasonable practice?”

Source

May all the Saints intercede for us!

“WHAT We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. ‘With God and Jesus Christ,’ We said, ‘excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation.’

— Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, 1922, on the Feast of Christ the King (last Sunday of October)

Theodore Robinson

FROM The Nature, Dignity and Mission of Woman by Fr. Karl Stehlin (Kolbe Publications, 2018):

“… One of the most beautiful and fortunate things a human being can experience is the assurance that he has a home, a place where he can rest and withdraw from the commotion of everyday cares and concerns and renew his strength and vitality. And that is the woman’s role. That is why God, as we have already observed, designed her to have the qualities of constancy, “inertia”, patience and endurance. Constant change is not in her nature. On the contrary, she likes to be at home, beside her own hearth. She is not simply a place of rest; she actively opposes the agitation and unrest of the world, takes it into herself, so to speak, and thus causes it to come to rest. So it often happens that a child comes back home excited, worn out, upset, trembling and heavy-hearted. The child throws its arms around the mother’s neck, perhaps has a good cry and commends itself to her care, and then after a few moments his heart is peaceful and calm again. How indescribably important the restful, imperturbable qualities of a wife are for the husband, too, in his struggle to make a living today. This composure that soothes and radiates peace, this poise when everyone else is losing his temper—that is the great mission of woman in our time, which she can accomplish, however, only if she draws strength from the source of all peace, when she herself comes to rest at the feet of Him who is everyone’s final home. Read More »

JARED TAYLOR looks at the recently opened Hindu temple in New Jersey, the largest in the United States, that used ‘Untouchables’ from India as quasi-slave labor in construction. Hindu immigrants have brought their own definitions of inequality with them to this country. Read More »

FROM Cliff Kincaid:

A “National March on Washington” to “Free Palestine” and “End all U.S. aid to Israel!” is scheduled for November 4 and is sponsored by several openly communist groups, including the ANSWER Coalition and the Party for Socialism & Liberation. Other sponsors include:

Palestinian Youth Movement
American Muslim Association
The People’s Forum
National Students for Justice in Palestine
Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR)
Maryland2Palestine Read More »

FROM The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich:

On June 8th, 1939, the Schwarze Korps published the following reflections on religion under the title “The Nature of God.”’

We have long considered the problem: Which Christian doctrines are repugnant to the moral dispositions of the German race, and must be regarded, according to the clear teaching of Article 24 of the Party Programme of the NSDAP, as incompatible with racial conceptions? We have come to the conclusion that a host of Christian conceptions are, indeed, incompatible with our own. .

Those of us who travel through the German countryside and suddenly, in the midst of some view of snow-covered Alpine peaks or on some solemn Westphalian moorland, meet with the figure of the Crucified must feel deep down in our hearts—if we have any true blood-consciousness at all—a strange, enduring sense of shame. The Gods of our forefathers were not like that. They were true men, men with weapons in their hands, typifying the innate view of life and the dynamic realisation of personal responsibility of our race. How different is this pale crucified one! His attitude of passivity, the deeply-engraven sorrow of His features, expressing humility and complete self-abandonment—these are all qualities which contradict the heroic, fundamentai presuppositions of our blood-consciousness. Read More »

Reporters and politicians deliberately use emotionally-charged words in their scripts to psychologically trigger the masses. The targeted audience then projects themselves into the story given.

***

“THE truth about Fake Mass Shootings and Hoaxes has been available for over a decade. In 2015, researchers with hundreds of channels exposed these theatrical productions. Researchers would immediately go to YouTube after the Hoax of the Week was presented on the mainstream news and fill the comment section with refutation and evidence to contest the lies. In 2017-2018 there were a ton of Fake Shootings and Hoaxes. They really amped up the frequency dramatically. Simultaneously all these channels were removed. Now, the comment section is highly monitored and full of bots/trolls that support every single fake event. So let me give you a timeline for you to understand the progression and sprawl of this agenda that is slowly taking down America by deception.

“The real kickoff for incessant hoaxes began in 2011, when Obama introduced the ‘Strong’ Cities Initiative. The Strong Cities Network was created in the interest of combating ‘domestic violent extremism’ on the local level. This was done to set the stage for fake events and the take down of America – one ‘Community’ at a time. Obama then introduced the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which provided legal protection to the government for broadcasting propaganda to its own citizens. There has been an endless parade of “Strong” labeled events that have occurred over the past 10 years. Keep in mind that this is only one branch that they have in their operations, not all hoaxes make the cut for ‘Strong’ status. Here are some additional articles to understand this is an … agenda to take down America with psychological operations.” [bold added; edited excerpt]

Read more here

SALLY writes:

The Lewiston madman has exited the stage, allegedly found dead last night by suicide. The scene was set in a once French Catholic city in Maine (and home to a magnificent Basilica), more recently the target of aggressive immigration policy, and now the stage of a freak show.

No doubt Hannaford groceries stores and Bangor Savings Bank, among the biggest of the many essential businesses to shut down during the Maine terror show, were incentivized by our government to replay the lockdowns of the Covid script, including school closures.

But the play is not over. The madman in the script may be dead, but more madmen are at large, even if they have to use the back door. Biden clamors for the ability to sue gun manufacturers, and, yet to be publicly announced, DHHS will be requiring agencies to administer (anti)-gun training for people dependent on government.

I’m not afraid of the madmen, either real or fictitious, but I am afraid of a government that terrorizes its own citizens and threatens to take away the ability of citizens to defend themselves against its tyranny.

Much more about the Lewiston Shooting Psyop can be found here:

This Manhunt/Lockdown drill is a big production, involving multiple states including New Hampshire and Massachusetts (Boston conducted their own Manhunt-Lockdown Drill in 2013 so they are happy to assist). They even involved the Coast Guard for this one, which I have never seen before. This event is reminiscent of the Eric Frein Manhunt/Lockdown drill conducted in 2014 – same dynamic, with way more fanfare. This conditions the unwitting masses to obediently remain in their homes when commanded and to report anything seen – such participation assists with the simulated exercise and contributes to the “realism” they strive to create within the minds of the masses. This is a huge psychological operation that is currently controlling the city of Lewiston. Read More »

JUST when you think this ship of fools can’t get any worse, Republican Mike Johnson comes aboard.

The anti-white propaganda is relentless. Nowhere to run from it. Truth is, his black son will be overwhelmed with college scholarships. His white son will rack up quarter of a million for his degree in collective guilt. His white son’s future will be a tale of racial discrimination.

“The first bill that I’m going to bring to this floor will be in support of our dear friend Israel.”

Thanks, Mike. We knew you wouldn’t let us down. Our borders are down, but we’re itching to spend billions more on border security for Israel. Read More »

SALLY writes:

By now you have probably heard the reports of a gunman in Lewiston, Maine. Here’s one that just popped up on my search, since this incident in Maine is now national news and this was headlined on Drudge Report.

If you watch the woman who has broken down in tears, you won’t find any tears – this is some bad acting.

Lewiston was the target of Catholic Charities for a massive influx of Somalian immigrants about 30 years ago, which turned the place upside down. Anyone who questioned it, including the mayor at the time, was branded as a racist. As you probably know, Maine, one of the poorest states, has continued to receive immigrants, and is slated for 75,000 more immigrants over the next decade.

With all that as a backdrop, I find it interesting that this gunman is white, looks like a normie who has been involved in gun training in a state with a lot of guns, and is already identified. With all the people with cell phones, I haven’t seen any footage of carnage at the bowling alley, and I am not going to waste any time looking. A mom and daughter were interviewed in another report. Supposedly the young girl was grazed by a bullet at the bowling alley last night, but she didn’t look the least bit traumatized as she discussed the incident in front of a camera. Read More »