“NOW during the season of Advent, our Lord knocks at the door of all men’s hearts, at one time so forcibly that they must needs notice him; at another, so softly that it requires attention to know that Jesus is asking admission. He comes to ask them if they have room for him, for he wishes to be born in their house.”

— Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year

MANY YEARS AGO, when I was working and living at home with my parents after graduating from college, our family dog, Jenny, began to decline dramatically.

Before I explain her final illness, some background about Jenny is in order:

She had lived with us for more than ten years and had come to our home in a miraculous way. One night we were all sitting around watching television when we heard a girl scream outside. Our neighborhood was generally safe, but the girl, who was walking back from an event at the high school, was being attacked by a man, who was trying to drag her into his car.

My father instantly ran out the door. He bounded down the driveway and across the street. The man saw him and he took off, leaving the terrified girl there on the sidewalk. My father was a hero. Indeed, all was well with the world.

That was the very night Jenny came to live with us. Read More »

“THE Incarnation lies at the bottom of all sciences, and is their ultimate explanation. It is the secret beauty in all arts. It is the completeness of all true philosophies. It is the point of arrival and departure to all history. The destinies of nations, as well as of individuals, group themselves around it. It purifies all happiness and glorifies all sorrow. It is the cause of all we see, and the pledge of all we hope for. It is the great central fact both of life and immortality, out of sight of which man’s intellect wanders in the darkness and the light of a divine life falls not on his footsteps.”

— Frederick William Faber, D.D., Bethlehem (Tan Books, p. 51)

CONSERVATIVES tend to be happier than liberals. From “Why Do Conservatives Report Being Happier Than Liberals? The Contribution of Neuroticism:”

Previous studies suggest that conservatives in the United States are happier than liberals. This difference has been attributed to factors including differences in socioeconomic status, group memberships, and system-justifying beliefs. We suggest that differences between liberals and conservatives in personality traits may provide an additional account for the “happiness gap”. Specifically, we investigated the role of neuroticism (or conversely, emotional stability) in explaining the conservative-liberal happiness gap

See also “Mental Illness and the Left.”

“HUMAN beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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SUPPORT for toxic drugs that prevent pregnancy is one of the most glaring hypocrisies of feminism. Soon these drugs may be sold over the counter instead of by prescription.

A 2021 piece at Thuletide includes many scientific citations about the proven harms:

Doctors often forcefully and unnecessarily proscribe birth control to women (particularly young women) under false pretenses. These endocrine-disrupting steroids are offered to pubescent girls around the world as soon as their periods begin, which is generally around 12-years-old but can be as early as 8-years-old. They are told that these drugs will “help minimize blood flow, prevent painful period cramps, and reduce acne,” which is simply not true, in many cases.

What these girls are not being told is: Read More »

DAVID Z. writes:

Taken from Novena For the Relief of the Poor Souls in Purgatory:

To open Heaven to the Poor Souls is to increase the number of those who praise and glorify God, the number of hearts that love Him. “Such a work,” says [16th century French Jesuit preacher Father Louis] Bourdaloue, “is an apostolate more noble, more meritorious than the conversion of sinners, and even of heathens.“

Greenwich Village, Beulah Bettersworth; 1935

“But, if the tenderness and the attractiveness of this mysterious coming make no impression on you, because your heart is too weighed down to be able to rise to confidence, and because, having so long drunk sin like water, you know not what it is to long with love for the caresses of a Father whom you have slighted–then turn your thoughts to that other coming, which is full of terror, and is to follow the silent one of grace that is now offered. Think within yourselves, how this earth of ours will tremble at the approach of the dread Judge; how the heavens will flee from before His face, and fold up as a book (Apoc. vi. 14. ); how man will wince under His angry look; how the creature will wither away with fear, as the two-edged sword, which comes from the mouth of his Creator (Ibid. i. 16. ), pierces him; and how sinners will cry out, ‘Ye mountains, fall on us! ye rocks, cover us (St. Luke xxiii. 30.)!’ Those unhappy souls who would not know the time of their visitation (Ibid. xix. 44. ), shall then vainly wish to hide themselves from the face of Jesus. They shut their hearts against this Man-God, who, in His excessive love for them, wept over them: therefore, on the day of judgment they will descend alive into those everlasting fires, whose flame devoureth the earth with her increase, and burneth the foundations of the mountains (Deut. xxxii. 22. ). The worm that never dieth (St. Mark ix. 43.), the useless eternal repentance, will gnaw them for ever.”

— Dom Gueranger, The Practice of Advent, 1910

A FEW WORDS from Fish Eaters:

“Though most Protestants — and far too many Catholics — see this time of year as a part of the ‘Christmas Season,’ it isn’t; the Christmas season does not begin until the first Mass at Christmas Eve, and doesn’t end liturgically until the Octave of the Epiphany on January 14. It goes on in the spiritual sense until Candlemas on February 2, when all celebrations of Christ’s Childhood give way to Septuagesima and Lent.

“The mood of this season is one of somber spiritual preparation that increases in joy with each day, and the gaudy ‘Christmas’ commercialism that surrounds it in the Western world should be overcome as much as possible. The singing of Christmas carols (which comes earlier and earlier each year), the talk of ‘Christmas’ as a present reality, the decorated trees and the parties — these things are ‘out of season’ for Catholics; we should strive to keep the Seasons of Advent holy and penitential, always remembering, as they say, that ‘He is the reason for the Season.'”

We prepare for His second coming too, now more than ever since we are living in the Great Apostasy and are bereft of faithful churches:

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved; And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and majesty. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. And he spoke to them in a similitude. See the fig tree, and all the trees: When they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is nigh; So you also, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen, I say to you, this generation shall not pass away, till all things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. (Luke: xxvi)

Do you ever wonder why Christmas decorations look so tawdry after Christmas? It’s because they speak of missed opportunities. The dazzle was all. If you don’t have the spirit of Christmas within, what difference does it make how many sprigs of fake holly you own or how enchanted your children are on Christmas morning?

There are moments of euphoria in the hectic “holiday season.” But there are moments of euphoria in a dose of heroin too. That euphoria has a price: anxiety, stress, financial insolvency and distraction from the essence of Christmas.

Thomas Droleskey explains why we must separate ourselves from pre-Christmas excess:

The principal of a fully traditional Catholic school some years ago now explained some basic Catholic teachings about Advent in a letter sent home parents to explain why the school would not be participating in a tree lighting ceremony in a nearby park:

This letter is to inform you that the students will not be participating in the annual tree-lighting ceremony.

The ceremony, scheduled for December 1st, is to be secular in tone, featuring such songs as “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Frosty the Snowman,” so as to be politically correct by modern standards. We, as faithful Catholics, do not condone the premature celebration of the feast of Christmas itself, nor do we approve of the purely secular “holiday” celebrations which the world in general promotes as a “Christ-less” alternative to Christmas. Therefore, we cannot participate in the planned festivities on Stepney Green.

The mind of Our Holy Mother the Church must be our rule of action. The Church would have us observe Advent. Although, to be sure, Advent is not another Lent, as regards fasting and other penitential practices, nevertheless it is a reverent hush, so to speak, during which we recollect ourselves and joyfully anticipate the glorious feast of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Nativity. When Christmas arrives, we shall celebrate it all the better for having piously observed Advent.

We must not allow ourselves to get swept up by the spirit of these worldly times. The spirit of the Catholic Church is not one of yielding to human respect and emotionalism, or of compromising with the world. “Peace on Earth; good will to men” is not synonymous with “Peace on Earth to men of good will.”

                     George Henry Boughton, Pilgrims Going to Church

“TODAY, the most progressive lands in America remain the regions firmly steeped in Puritan lore, tradition, and history, or the regions that were settled by New England Puritan diaspora (the West Coast).

“The Puritan’s DNA is rooted in restless iconoclasm, reform, and protest.  It is the only trinity Puritanism ever knew, and it remains the only trinity known to all the descendants and inheritors – consciously and unconsciously – of puritanism today.  After all, it is only in Puritan and Calvinist countries where iconoclasm still manifests itself today.  It is precisely modern secularism’s revolutionary, iconoclastic, utopian, and progressive spirit as to why most sociologists and philosophers see secularism as ‘the preservation of certain Biblical habits and ideas even after the atrophy of Biblical faith.’ Alan Simpson’s 1954 article captured the essence of Puritanism in its title: Saints in Arms: English Puritanism as Political Utopianism. The Puritans may be dead, but their soul is still marching on.”

— Hesiod’s Corner, “Puritanism and the Utopian State of Mind” Read More »

“NOW, why is it that the riches and pleasures of this world cannot make us happy? It is because the soul was not created by and for them, but by God for himself. It is God who made our heart, and he made it for himself. When man first came forth from the hand of God, his heart turned to God naturally, and he loved creatures only as loving keepsakes of God. But sin and death came into the world. The heart of man was defiled and degraded. He turned away from the pure and holy love of God, and sought for love and happiness amid creatures. But our heart seeks in vain among creatures. Our heart is small indeed, but its love is infinite. It can find rest only in God. Whatever we love out of God brings only pain and bitter disappointment.

“A thing is made better only by that which is better than the thing itself. Inferior beings can never make superior beings better. The soul, being immortal, is superior to all earthly things. Earthly things, then, cannot make the soul better. God alone is the soul’s supreme goodness and happiness. He who possesses God is at rest. The more closely we are united with God in this  life, the more contentment of mind, and the greater happiness of soul we shall enjoy,”

— Fr. Michael Mueller, The Church and Her Enemies, 1880

MY God, I give Thee thanks for what Thou givest, and for what Thou takest away; Thy will be done.

Indulgence of 300 days (Pius X, 1906) The Raccolta

A READER writes:

Just also to let you know how I came across your website originally. I’m Catholic and used to follow a wide number of blogs concerning Church issues between, say, 2010 and 2015, and yours popped up along the way, recommended by others. I’ve always been eager to hear your opinion on many matters, even where we might differ slightly, because you’re unafraid to stand firm on what you believe, regardless of the opinions of others, and that’s so good!

Also, whilst having a terrible time personally in 2015 and beginning to understand the nature of sociopathic behaviour in individual people and systems of power (especially in the Church), I one day saw your re-posting of a video of interviews of New York firemen during 9/11 (I think the video may have been connected with Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth) and that changed everything for me. It really did!

You posted the video with a disclaimer saying that you didn’t want to be dragged into this ‘conspiracy’ nonsense but that the video itself presented something which indicated an enormous scandal, a lie which had been told to us for so long that we simply had to acknowledge it to get our proper bearing of who really held the reins of power.

I thank you for that because this sort of knowledge can change and yes, ultimately save lives in this era.