FOR this All Souls Day, readers might appreciate “Three Glances at the Cemetery” by Rev. John Evangelist Zollner, 1884:

If we cast a glance into the grave what do we see? We see:

1. What the dead man has in the grave. Alas! he has nothing but his winding-sheet and the coffin which contains his mouldering body. Though he may have been rich during life, though he may have had money by the millions, superb houses, immense possessions, and a lucrative business, he now possesses nothing of all these things; he must say with Job: “Only the grave remaineth for me.” The Caliph Hesham, who died at Baspha, in the year 742, possessed seven hundred boxes of gold pieces, and so large a quantity of clothes and silk garments, that to remove these goods from one place to another six hundred camels were required. He had scarcely closed his eyes in death, when his palace was plundered, and there was not left even a basin in which to wash his inanimate body, not a piece of linen in which to wrap it for the grave. How poor death made this rich ruler! Did it leave him anything but the grave? How foolishly, then, do Christians act, who fix all their thoughts and cares upon temporal goods and thereby forget God and the salvation of their souls; yea, who suffer themselves to be governed by avarice and covetousness to such an extent, that they hard-heartedly turn the poor and needy from their door, and in their business transactions commit many injustices. Or, is it not the greatest folly and blindness, to forfeit heaven for the sake of such vain, perishable goods of earth, and to incur eternal damnation. Consider this well, and entertain no inordinate love for money and the goods of this world, be solicitous for temporal goods only in so far as they are necessary for your subsistence in this life and never forget the words of the Lord: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”–Matt 16: 26.

Even worse than the mouldering body in the ground is the lifeless pile of cinders, smaller than a pizza box. They clinically call it “cremation,” obscuring the violence of the procedure.

Before You, humbled, Lord, I lie,
my heart like ashes, crushed and dry,
assist me when I die.

Full of tears and full of dread
is that day that wakes the dead,
calling all, with solemn blast
to be judged for all their past.

Lord, have mercy, Jesus blest,
grant them all Your Light and Rest. Amen.

(Dies Irae)

THE Feast of All Saints is “the annual commemoration of all those who are honored in the Church as holy men and women whose lives are worthy of imitation and whose intercession we may profitably seek in prayer.” (The Rev. William J. Lallou)

From The Feast of All Saints: Part 1 by Father Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876:

If on today’s festival we think of the communion of the Saints in heaven, we will undoubtedly exclaim within our soul: “Oh, what a joy, what an ecstasy of delight will there be in heaven on this glorious feast!” Read More »

A man prays for a relative or friend in New Roads, Louisiana on All Saints Day, 1938

[Reposted]

ALTHOUGH traditionally Catholics visited cemeteries to pray for the dead on Nov. 2, All Souls Day, in parts of Louisiana it has long been the practice to honor deceased relatives and friends on Nov. 1, All Saints Day. When the custom was at its peak, fences were whitewashed and crepe decorations hung. Families would gather with priests in cemeteries before what were often-times humble graves. Black Americans observing All Saints Day in New Roads, Louisiana in 1938 are captured in these photographs by Russell Lee from the Library of Congress. More can be viewed below and here. They show that it’s possible even in poverty to bury the dead with dignity.

According to Ryan Brasseux:

Burial culture in New Orleans and rural southern Louisiana, which is predominantly Catholic, has long intrigued outsiders. High water tables, particularly in the state’s coastal regions, require many undertakers to construct above-ground tombs in graveyards, but these brick and concrete structures can deteriorate in the region’s subtropical climate. Hence, All Saints Day has traditionally served both a practical and a social function. In the past, families repaired tombs and coated them with a mix of lime and water (whitewash) to seal the structure. They also cleared overgrowth and weeds and placed floral arrangements, or coronne de toussaints, on the graves to show their respect for the dead. In years past, women would make wreaths of crepe paper or waxed paper, known as immortelles or couronnes, and sell them at churches and cemeteries on All Saints Day, but that tradition waned as more durable plastic flowers came into vogue. In less-affluent communities, families simply painted wooden crosses to use as grave markers. Modern granite headstones have obviated the need for whitewashing, but some families continue the tradition of cleaning and decorating gravesites on November 1. All Saints Day remains a recognized state holiday in which Louisiana government offices and courts are closed. Read More »

SOME thoughts on Halloween from a 2018 post:

The excesses of Halloween — both its commercialism and occult grotesqueries — have led some  concerned Americans to reject the day altogether. It’s no wonder. Even normal days are creepy and horror-filled — with people walking around with purple hair and fish hooks in their faces. Halloween has likewise become so extreme in some places that it seems like a trip to a super-commercialized corner of hell.

But, as I said, let’s fight for Halloween, not throw it away.

I hope you enjoy this fun day.

A CELEBRATION of death leads to tragic death. See photos here.

(Not all Halloween celebrations are “celebrations of death.” But judging from the images from South Korea, that was.)

CHRIST’S kingship over society is the antithesis of the New World Order.

You’ll never hear that from Alex Jones or David Icke. Christ and the Divine Society He created are the only alternative to the worldwide “deep state.”

He is not just king over hearts and minds, but rightful king over each and every human nation.

Religious neutrality is an impossibility.  No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be subject to the one and despise the other. That is God’s word and therefore an article of faith… There are no neutral governments, no neutral schools, no neutral press, no neutral clubs, no neutral families … This applies to the life of nations. Periods of neutrality are periods of transition, of groping indecision. They are times of twilight between day and night. After the time of neutrality comes the time of service of one master, in which either Christ or Satan will be king. After the liberal twilight comes either the Russian night of persecution or the new Sun-Day of the Kingdom of Christ.

— Fr. Robert Mader, Cross and Crown

See further reflections on Christ the King Sunday posted here. Read More »

Professional wrestling this campaign season in Pennsylvania

AS election day approaches, I look upon those, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, who believe elections will significantly change things with the same patronizing good-humor with which I would greet someone who believed aliens control his every thought.

Sometimes you have to let people have their illusions. There is nothing you can say.

As Brian Shilhavey writes:

For this system of perceived “democracy” to work where the masses are fooled into believing that they have some kind of control over how the country is run through the election process, there MUST be a two-party system, and two ONLY, and those two parties have to have a perceived opposition to each other on the “issues.”

Because the one thing the Globalists who actually run the country fear the most, is a unified public where the masses wake up and discover that “the emperor has no clothes,” and instead of half the country fighting the other half, they join forces and fight the true enemies of the people: the Wall Street Billionaires and Bankers.

I used to be part of the masses controlled by the propaganda, but I started waking up shortly after the year 2000 when I was in my 40s, and started running my own businesses in the U.S. and finding out that the U.S. Government was my biggest enemy in being successful, and it didn’t matter who was in office.

Now that I am in my 60s, it is all so easy to see, and what amazes me about this current generation, is that they have all observed election fraud in the past 6 years, and yet most of them still believe in their particular political party and voting.

The biggest force, by far, in elections is the media and the media is unelected. Case closed. Television advertising also requires Big Money. You can’t run without Big Money. And Big Money will never fund candidates who challenge Big Money.

Read More »

                                   Thomas Eakins, Baby at Play; 1876

THE TOYS
— Coventry Patmore

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart. Read More »

TERESA BENNS, at her website BetrayedCatholics, has made the astounding and alarming claim that tens of thousands of marriages conducted in Vatican II churches and Traditionalist chapels during the past 60 years are invalid and that spouses are free to leave and contract new marriages. See here and here.

My comments are quoted in both the first and the second entry, but I have to say I am somewhat speechless and overwhelmed by the potentially dire and destructive consequences of this evidently false claim.

A correspondent writes,

“One can extrapolate from her heretical posturing that in fact, practically no one is married today.”

Robert Robbins, at CatholicEclipsed, responds at length to Benns’ posts here and here. Robbins uses strong language (I am not prepared to call Benns a “cult leader”), but he persuasively counters her arguments. He writes: Read More »

ARE Jews dramatically over-represented in admissions at top colleges and positions of influence in our society because, as is often claimed, they have higher intelligence?

Here is a thorough, balanced and reasonable examination of the issue. Read More »

“NEW YORK CITY’S controversial COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers was enacted illegally and employees who were fired for refusing to comply must be immediately reinstated with back pay, a state judge has ruled.

“‘It is time for the City of New York to do what is right and what is just,’ Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio wrote in a decision made public Tuesday.

“More than 1,750 city workers were fired for refusing to get vaccinated, including 36 members of the NYPD and more than 950 Department of Education employees.”

Read more.

TREES
— Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Read More »

“LIFE IS bound to prove a disappointing adventure for those who, through a weak yielding to their emotional and imaginative impressions, tend to substitute feeling for thought. Such persons develop minds that are but a passive reflection of phenomena.They are unable to transform a fact into an idea. They have no power to synthesize their experience into a judgment. They see only what meets the eye. Their determinations are but an automatic response to external stimuli. Their views are mere emotional reactions to outward circumstances. They are at the mercy of every fashion. Their impressions are without analysis and their reflections without comparison. Their observations are a query and their wisdom a platitude. Their sayings are an echo, and their lives a quotation. Recent times have been prolific in the growth of this type of human being. Their mentality is that which, in the jargon of the day, is described as bourgeois. It is marked by a smug self-satisfaction and is very resistant to spiritual impressions. The deep things of existence always elude this bourgeois mind. Such a mind merely touches but the fringe of reality. It is shallow, without individuality, lacking in noble ideals and unspiritual. The bourgeois type drifts through life without discovering itself or its God or even the world in which it passes its days. The rapid increase of men of this kind has made of the world a spiritual desert. “With desolation is all the land made desolate, because there is no one that considereth in the heart.” (Jer. xii. 11)

— Fr. Edward Leen, Why the Cross? (Sheed and Ward, 1938), pp. 213-14

Jasper Francis Cropsey; Lake George, 1877

“WHOSOEVER drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever. But the water that I will give him shall become in him, a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.”

— St. John, iv, 14

ALAN writes:

The skeptical attitude that many Americans adopted in response to the Covid and “vaccines” propaganda should be applied equally to the self-serving claims of all other medical, psychiatric, and “behavioral science” propagandists and racketeers.

Recently I spoke with a friend whose brother was my fourth-grade classmate just as the 1960s were dawning. He and I remained friends for six years. His family then moved to New York City. He died in 1972. It was always my understanding that he died of natural causes.  He seemed a healthy, husky, robust fellow and had taken an interest in weightlifting, which I imagined may have put a lot of strain on his heart. But several years ago, his sister told me that he had had some involvement with drugs. I never suspected it, because he was not the type.

This matter came up in our recent conversation. She told me her brother had had a “mental breakdown.” At age 23? It seemed to me that most people at that age are energetic and eager to go on, not give up. Even if it were so, why would it lead to death? Many older people who are said to have had a “breakdown” live nonetheless for years after. Why would my friend have been any different?

I did not doubt what she told me because I am confident it was what she and her parents were told by some doctor or doctors at the time of his death. My interest was to penetrate the fog of those words: “mental breakdown.”

Precisely what did it mean? Read More »

“THE air is full of objections to religion, and every objection should be met on the spot and refuted. If any one denies, in your hearing, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, or any other truth of religion, it is your duty to affirm these fundamental truths at once, and it is a great honor to do so. If you say you have no learning, I answer, that the highest learning is not so good a quality as sincere conviction; and I answer again that those who assail the truth in common conversation are generally the reverse of learned. The enemies of religion are, for the most part, as ignorant as they are bold. Learning is good, but it is not learning we need most. We need to have sincere convictions, and we need to have the courage of them. ‘I believed,’ says the Psalmist, ‘and therefore did I speak.’ Truth sounds so well that its bare mention is a powerful argument. Furthermore, the honest Christian who defends his religion will not be without the divine assistance to do it well.

“But we should not only defend the truth; we should attack error. If you have friends who are in error, you can do them no better service than to set them right. This must be done with discretion, to be sure. But do not be too anxious about discretion. When you see error attack it; in such cases kindliness is the chief rule for securing a hearing. It is amazing that men and women can piously love the truths and practices of religion, and live along from day to day without vigorously attacking the error and vice everywhere about them. What coward is so mean as the pious coward?”

— “Showing Forth Our Faith,” 1893