ALAN writes:

And when the Congress put their hands, not into their own pockets, but into the National Treasury, for the purpose of bestowing alms on a selected portion of our citizens, it may be well to pause and recall the description given by [Guglielmo] Ferrero, the noted modern historian of ancient Rome, of some of the causes which led to the fall of that proud and prosperous Empire:

‘Little by little, the State let itself be persuaded to do for each of its cities what it had done for Rome….  With a view to easing the misery of the urban proletariat, it took public works in hand in every direction, regardless of their utility.  It distributed victuals free or at half-price….

‘But all these schemes cost money…. The intensification of the evil was met by an increase in the dose of the very remedy which aggravated it….  Matters went from worse to worse, until the system reached the limit of its elasticity, and the whole social fabric collapsed in a colossal catastrophe.  This is precisely the mistake which modern civilization must learn to avoid….’

It is dangerous folly to teach people to regard Government as something which exists to pay their bills.  What we, each of us, need today is a good stiff dose of robust, local, self-reliance.  Self-help breeds self-respect….

— American legal scholar Charles Warren, Congress as Santa Claus  [Charlottesville, Virginia, The Michie Company, 1932], pp. 144-46

Do those words not apply precisely to the gargantuan Welfare State that Americans who work for a living agree to support for the benefit of those who don’t work and don’t want to? Read More »

“BEETHOVEN wrote but one oratorio, “Christus am Oelberge” (“Christ on the Mount of Olives”). It was begun in 1800 and finished during the following year. The text is by Huber, and was written, with Beethoven’s assistance, in fourteen days. The first performance of the work is entirely took place at Vienna, April 5, 1803, at the Theater an der Wien.

“The closing number, a chorus of angels (“Hallelujah, God’s almighty Son”), is introduced with a short but massive symphony leading to a jubilant burst of “Hallelujah,” which finally resolves itself into a glorious fugue. In all sacred music it is difficult to find a choral number which can surpass it in majesty or power.”

Source

“OUR Redeemer owed it to us, therefore, that our certainty with regard to His Resurrection should be perfect. In order to give this master-truth such evidence as would preclude all possibility of doubt, two things were needed: His Death was to be certified, and the proofs of His Resurrection were to be incontestable. Jesus fulfilled both these conditions, and with the most scrupulous completeness. Hence, His triumph over death is a fact so deeply impressed on our minds, that even now, nineteen hundred years since it happened, we cannot celebrate our Easter without feeling a thrill of enthusiastic admiration akin to that which the guards at His tomb experienced when they found their Captive gone.”

See this essay by Dom Prosper Guéranger on proofs of the Resurrection.

IN THIS interesting debate from last September, Peter Dimond and Jeff Cassman take opposing positions on whether the Vatican II popes are true popes.

I recommend listening in full. Dimond makes the far stronger case here, but please note that neither man draws the logical conclusions. A reader elaborates below.

By the way, I found it odd that the moderator was drinking beer.

I guess that’s to make serious theological discussion seem cool, which it most definitely is not and never will be.

Read More »

IT is not the soul alone that lives forever. Our bodies will rise one day to immortal glory or banishment.

Our bodies are sublime, even now.

The martyrs and all the saints loved their bodies far more than does the most sensual voluptuary; they, by sacrificing it, saved it; he, by pampering it, exposes it to eternal suffering. Let us be on our guard: sensualism is akin to naturalism. Sensualism will have it that there is no happiness for the body but such as this present life can give; and with this principle its degradation causes no remorse…. If, therefore, the Christian can see what the Son of God has done for our bodies by the divine Resurrection we are now celebrating, and feel neither love nor hope, he may be sure that his faith is weak; and if he would not lose his soul, let him henceforth be guided by the word of God, which alone can teach him what he is now, and what he is called to be hereafter.

— Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year

WYATT STAGG looks at the actor Brendan Fraser who once played confident heroes, but received his ultimate acclaim as the morbidly obese protagonist, Charlie, in the 2022 movie The Whale, thereby becoming an anti-hero who portrays the repellent and perverse as morally appealing and redemptive.

According to Stagg, who sees this film as nothing more than a propaganda piece, Fraser sold his soul to Hollywood and its ongoing ritual humiliation of the white man.

“The goal of this story is to coerce its intended audience, white Westerners, into believing we are terminally ill and can only find deliverance in death.” Read More »

 BLACK South African admits things were better under whites.

GREAT comments at minute 4:44 by Neil Oliver on how middle class mothers are driven out of their homes to seek paid employment by stresses and incentives deliberately created by the government and financial system.

Resurrection of Christ and the Women at the Tomb (detail), Fra Angelico

THEY ARRIVED on the early morning of that world-changing day. They came with precious spices to dress the body of the deceased, as was the ancient custom. They were so motivated in this task they did not consider in advance how they would roll away the enormous stone placed at the mouth of the tomb. How like women to fail to think of this.

Men cowered and hid behind closed doors.

Others feared for their safety.

They were not deterred by the risks. They were not afraid of being associated with a convicted political criminal, even one who had been executed.

And what a turn of events! The stone was already removed.

And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed with a white robe: and they were astonished.

“He is not here.”

This caused them fear at last.

God could have revealed the Resurrection to men, in keeping with those times and that place, where women did not hold positions of public power or authority. He chose to reveal it to women first. How paradoxical. How meaningful.

Their greatness consisted in their determination to proceed with a practical, private step to honor the dead, rather than in swashbuckling action. Their greatness was in their devotion. Their monumental place in history began in the invisible depth of their hearts.

The beauty of their souls illuminates the darkness still.

Miles David (Wikipedia)

“IF somebody told me I only had one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow. If I got tired I’d stop, have a glass of water, and choke him some more.”

— Miles David, 1985

Video link

(I’m not sure who made this video.)

Deposition of Christ, Francesco Cabianca; 1711

MANY magnificent works of art such as this 18th-century altarpiece depict the Passion of Our Lord dramatically and movingly.

Though these works are viewed as morbid by the world at large — especially in a society that engages in mass panic over the seasonal flu —  they rarely depict the full horrors of the Crucifixion. It was much more bloody, gruesome, brutal and humiliating than is typically shown, even by some of the greatest artworks.

In 1950, Pierre Barbet, chief surgeon at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paris, published A Doctor at Calvary: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ as Described by a Surgeon. Other physicians have since published similar books, and, though none have produced accounts as seemingly thorough or as moving as Barbet’s, they dispute some of his anatomical conclusions. Even if the French doctor was in error on some points, his sincerity in seeking to know more is not in doubt and his book constitutes a compelling and realistic examination of the physical sufferings and humiliations Christ endured.

Here are conclusions Barbet defended: Read More »

Behold how the righteous dies
and no one takes notice.
The righteous are taken away
and no one pays attention.
From facing iniquity
the righteous is removed.
And his memory will be in peace.

His resting place is in peace
and his dwelling place in Zion.
And his memory will be in peace.

“THERE IS no sinner, however great may be his crimes, there is no heretic, or infidel, who has not his share in this precious Blood, whose infinite merit is such, that it could redeem a million worlds more guilty even than our own.”

— Dom Prosper Guéranger, “Wednesday in Holy Week,” The Liturgical Year

 “HIS Name should be the sweetest music that we know; His words the laws of all our life. He wishes us, as it were, to forget the precise amount of our actual obligations to Him. Indeed what is the use of remembering them, when we know that it is beyond our power to fulfill them? He would have us deal with Him promptly, generously, abundantly, with the instincts of love, and not as if the life of faith were a spirit of commerce, the balance of justice, the duty of gratitude, or the wise calculations of an intelligent self-interest. We should cling to Him as a child clings to its mother. We should hang about Him as a friend whose absence we cannot bear. We should keep Him fondly in our thoughts, as men sometimes do with a sweet grief, which has become to them the soft and restful light of their whole lives. Now the way in which our Lady’s dolors keep His Passion continually before us, has a special virtue to produce this tenderness in us. We love Him, who is infinitely to be loved in all ways, in a peculiar manner when He is reflected in His Mother’s heart; and although it is absolutely necessary for us perpetually to contemplate His Passion in all the nakedness of its harrowing circumstances and revolting shame, for else we shall never have a true idea of the sinfulness of sin, yet there is something in the Passion, seen through Mary, which makes us forget ourselves, and tranquilly engrosses us in the most melting tenderness and endearing sympathy towards our Blessed Lord. The emotions, which are awakened by the Passion in itself, are manifold and exciting, whereas the spirit of tenderness presides over Mary’s sorrows with one exclusive, constraining presence.”

— Fr. Frederick William Faber, The Foot of the Cross, p. 80

The Kiss of Judas; German, 16th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

[Reposted]

GOD in his Sacred Passion drew our attention to human betrayal. He helped us understand what it is and what to do about it. He commiserated with the betrayed. He recognized betrayal, one of the most painful of human experiences. His Passion is a microcosm of all the greatest sufferings and this world of suffering was filled with more acute pain than ours because of the incomparable sensitivity and guiltlessness of the Victim.

No harder experience in life exists. Friends, spouses, relatives are betrayed in acts of hidden treachery every day and their suffering is often hidden. Judas was one of Jesus’s chosen, elected as a friend. And yet he betrayed Jesus not in an impetuous moment, but in a calculated plot.

Why do people betray each other? Read More »

JANICE writes:

This video [about the Trumptard] was my laugh of the week!

Now I’m thinking of the “Q”ers, who log on regularly to 8chan (or whatever it is, now) to receive those indecipherable-to-everyone-else communiques from the “White Hats!” Puh-leeeeze!!

It’s like the 50’s kids who mailed in cereal boxtops to get decoder rings from “Commander Bob.” The kids actually had an excuse for such credulity and feelings of specialness – they were kids!