I HEARD an alarming thud on the front door. I quickly went and looked through the glass.

Laying on the walkway on the other side was a mourning dove, his beautiful, multi-colored plumage splayed around him on the ground like a majestic cloak. His chest was heaving. These were the final moments of his life.

Perched darkly on a branch above was a sinister-looking black crow, larger than I have ever seen before, making me wonder whether it was something else (a raven perhaps?).

“Murderer!” I yelled.

He cawed back at me. A thug, and nothing more.

From the way he adjusted his wings, it was obvious he had just landed after a chase. He had been chasing the dove, causing him to crash into the door. The dove breathed his last a few minutes later. The crow remained on the branch. I’m sure he wanted to rip apart his victim. I picked the dove gently up and lay him in a box.

Human beings do much for birds with bird feeders and bird baths. We try to do our part. But we don’t do a thing really to prevent bird-on-bird crime, which is shockingly common.

I once saw a hawk tear a blue jay to shreds in our backyard. There was nothing I could do. It happened so fast and within minutes there were only a few feathers left. Read More »

Read More »

Madonna and Child, Luca Signorelli

“THE Immaculate Mother of God is the model for every mother; her motherhood is the ideal, the basis, the heart, and the goal of all creaturely motherhood. Here in a surprising new way the nature of woman proves once again to be the expression and image of God on earth. The polarity and complementariness of man and woman, which in the interdependence of their different and often opposite characteristics reflects the all-encompassing Oneness of God, appears here in the special relation of mother and child. This is probably the most intimate relationship that there can ever be between human beings.

“In this sense Mary’s Divine Maternity is the most perfect creaturely image and manifestation of the most intimate relation between Father and Son within the Most Holy Trinity. In Mary this is at the same time a spiritual and a bodily reality: bodily, since she is the physical mother of God, and Christ is flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood; spiritually, since she conceived Him “first in her heart and then in her body” (prius in mente quam in corpore). Thus in her own motherhood she becomes the prototype and ideal of all bodily and spiritual motherhood. If God Himself defines the most intimate possible relationship between Himself and a creature as the relation between mother and child, then we can say that all earthly motherhood finds its deepest meaning in connection with the Divine Maternity.

— Fr. Karl Stehlin, The Nature, Dignity, and Mission of Woman, Angelus Press. Kindle Edition

THIS POST from 2011 perhaps offers some food for thought as we see “the endless, feminist hypocrisy” at work this week, after the strange, “leaked” announcement that the Supreme Court may invalidate Roe vs. Wade. The same people who two months ago were bashing bodily autonomy and supporting the destruction of livelihoods for those who refuse to comply are now shrilly demanding the most extreme and radical bodily autonomy — so extreme it involves the elimination of  another person. Feminism feeds on the most blatant contradictions.

Feminism is rooted in a hatred of true womanhood and motherhood. It is promoted with a blazing passion and a feverish hysteria. So many personal lives have been wrecked by this ideology, so many homes destroyed that many people, both women and men, bear an existential wound. They lash out in pain and think the cure is more feminism.

Here is the post:

Writing in the Daily Mail, Amanda Platell berates Britain’s female yobs for binge drinking and whorish clothes. She says, with a straight face, that all this is a betrayal of feminism. Platell writes:

It’s bad enough that so many young women up and down this country dress as though they’re about to do a shift in the local pole-dancing club when they’re out and about on a Saturday night.

Far worse is that, after a century of fighting for women’s rights, they express their equality with men by standing up to go to the lavatory in the street.

How else does she expect the woman of average or below average ability to express her equality, by becoming prime minister?

The professional feminist plunders society and then chastises the lower classes for the resulting chaos in the streets. Read More »

“THE assertion that one religion is as good as another is irrational. It is a first principle of reason that two contradictory statements cannot both be true. If one is true, the other is undoubtedly false. Either there are many gods or one God; either Jesus Christ is God or He is not; Mohammed is either a prophet or an impostor; divorce is either allowed or prohibited by Christ; the Eucharist is the living Jesus Christ or it is mere bread. Read More »

IT IS OFTEN said, accurately, that we are ruled by professional psychopaths, people who glory in lying and manipulating on an inconceivable scale. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Fauci are just a few of many psychopaths that have sat in the government. They have no conscience and no remorse about their lies. They are much more dangerous than serial killers.

But as society degenerates on an inner level, we are more and more likely to encounter psychopaths in our personal lives. Family breakdown, atheism, militant political ideologies and a highly competitive spirit create manipulative personalities and an unleashed thirst for power and control over others.

Tactics used by egotistical or “narcissistic” personalities are discussed here. Despite the psychological jargon, trendy wording and approval of family destruction in this piece (and the immodest image), it accurately describes some common strategies. One tactic is “name-calling:”

Narcissists preemptively blow anything they perceive as a threat to their superiority out of proportion. In their world, only they can ever be right and anyone who dares to say otherwise creates a narcissistic injury that results in narcissistic rage. As Mark Goulston, M.D. asserts, narcissistic rage does not result from low self-esteem but rather a high sense of entitlement and false sense of superiority.

The lowest of the low resort to narcissistic rage in the form of name-calling when they can’t think of a better way to manipulate your opinion or micromanage your emotions. Name-calling is a quick and easy way to put you down, degrade you and insult your intelligence, appearance or behavior while invalidating your right to be a separate person with a right to his or her perspective.

Name-calling can also be used to criticize your beliefs, opinions and insights. A well-researched perspective or informed opinion suddenly becomes “silly” or “idiotic” in the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot make a respectful, convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your argument, they target you as a person and seek to undermine your credibility and intelligence in any way they possibly can. It’s important to end any interaction that consists of name-calling and communicate that you won’t tolerate it. Don’t internalize it: realize that they are resorting to name-calling because they are deficient in higher level methods.

Arm yourself against aggressive manipulation, which is so often covert in nature. Understand the psychopath. He will use your conscience — the very thing he lacks — against you.

These tactics are as old as humankind. Psychopathy is not new. The best defense is spiritual:

Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief,  A deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren. My son, keep the commandments of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother.

Bind them in thy heart continually, and put them about thy neck. When thou walkest, let them go with thee: when thou sleepest, let them keep thee; and when thou awakest, talk with them. Because the commandment is a lamp, and the law a light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life Proverbs 6:16-22

Finally, we should earnestly pray for skilled manipulators and offer our sufferings to God in reparation for our own sins and those of others. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

The Lad’s Love By The Gate
— Fay Inchfawn

Down in the dear West Country, there’s a garden where I know
The Spring is rioting this hour, though I am far away —
Where all the glad flower-faces are old loves of long ago,
And each in its accustomed place is blossoming to-day. Read More »

“A client does all in his power to secure his patron’s influence and favor. Art thou not weak and miserable in the highest degree? Dost thou not stand in need of the aid and protection of this gracious and powerful Virgin? Dost thou not need the intercession of this Mother of Mercy, to enable thee to find favor with her Son, thy Creator and thy Judge? Therefore I urge thee to render all possible homage to her throughout this month, and make it thy daily endeavor to become more worthy of her powerful intercession.”

—The Very Rev. Father Beckx, Month of Mary; 1884

Interior of a Kitchen (detail), Martin Drolling, 1815

“OUR fidelity to little things, commonplace duties, is a truer index of love than the acceptation of greater difficulties. It requires great strength of character and solid virtue to do little things well. There is no human applause to be won, nothing to arouse enthusiasm, no consciousness that we are doing something praiseworthy. To be gentle and patient at home, to keep one’s temper month after month amid the friction and petty annoyances which we encounter in our daily life, needs more courage than it requires to perform some heroic act at which the world marvels. All have not the opportunity of doing great things, but all can be faithful in little things, and so merit to hear from the lips of our dear Lord the ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'”

— Madame Cecilia, Cor Cordium

The human heart craves and seeks unceasingly for happiness. Many find but a small measure of happiness in this world, because they lose sight of their eternal destiny— the object of their creation— which is to know God, to love Him, to serve Him, and to be happy with Him forever. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’’ (Matt, xxii, 33, gg.) The whole law depends on these two commandments; so Our Lord Himself assures us. The fullest measure of happiness even here on earth is attained by harmonizing one’s conduct with the commandments of God, by doing well one’s duties to God and man; for this means the possession of a peaceful conscience, a clean heart, a sinless soul; and this is essential to happiness.”

— Rev. F.X. Lasance Remember: Thoughts on the End of Man, Four Last Things, Passion of Christ, Human Suffering, Humility and Patience (1936)

“SINCE the time he was a young boy and his grandmother sewed him a purple dress and told him how beautiful he looked, Walt Heyer had struggled with transgenderism. Through elementary school and high school, where he was a successful student and athlete with a beautiful girlfriend, he hid his secret identity as a woman, and continued to do so through college and prestigious careers at both NASA and Honda, until he went through destructive therapy sessions and became an alcoholic, losing his job and nearly all of his respect. But then something changed–while sitting with a friend who was praying for him, he saw Christ, who promised Walt that “you are now safe with Me forever.”
 

FROM A Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves, compiled by the Federal Writers Project, 1936-38:

Cordelia lives in a small shack with some friends. She is quite an actor and a tireless teller of yarns. She still ties her head up in a white rag and has large eyes set far apart and a very flat nose. She is ebony colored. She is a firm believer in her religion and she enjoys shouting on any occasion for joy or for sorrow.

“White folks tells stories ’bout ‘ligion. Dey tells stories ’bout it kaise dey’s ‘fraid of it. I stays independent of what white folks tells me when I shouts. De Spirit moves me every day, dat’s how I stays in. White folks don’t feel sech as I does; so dey stays out. Can’t serve God all de time; allus something getting in de way. Dey tries me and den I suddenly draps back to serving de Holy God. Never does it make no difference how I’s tossed about. Jesus, He comes and saves me everytime. I’s had a hard time, but I’s blessed now—no mo’ mountains.

“Ever since I a child I is liked white folks. Dey’s good and dey does not know why dey tells stories ’bout Jesus. I got a heap mo’ in slavery dan I does now; was sorry when Freedom got here. I ‘specks I is nigh to a hundred, but dat’s so old. I jest calls myself any whars twixt seventy-five and a hundred. I recollects slavery, though. Ma was Charlotte Anderson and she lived in Union County wid de Tuckers, jest across from de Richards Quarter.

“Biggest sight I ever see’d was dat balloon when it come down on Pea Ridge. De man in it everybody addressed as Professor (Prof. Lowe—1861). He let uncle Jerry git in it. Mr. McKissick helped uncle Jerry up in it. It was de first balloon ever come to Union county, and ’til dis day I don’t like no balloons. Read More »

Jacques Maritain, French author of “Integral Humanism” (1936)

FROM The Undermining of the Catholic Church (Christian Book Club of America, 2007) by journalist Mary Ball Martinez:

Integral Humanism, not unlike the theories of Teilhard de Chardin, envisions religions of every kind converging toward a single human ideal in a world civilization wherein all men will be reconciled in justice, love and peace. Friendship among men will guide all life toward a mysterious accomplishment of the Gospel. As the French theologian Henri Le Caron explains, “Integral Humanism is a universal fraternity among men of good will belonging to different religions or to none, even those who reject the idea of a creator. It is within this framework that the Church should exercise a leavening influence without imposing itself and without demanding that it be recognized as the one, true Church. The cement of this fraternity is twofold, the virtue of doing good and an understanding grounded in respect for human dignity.

“This idea of universal fraternity”, continues Le Caron, “is neither new nor original. It was already advanced by the philosophers of the eighteenth century and by the French revolutionaries of 1789. It is also the fraternity beloved of Freemasons and Marxists. What distinguishes [philosopher Jacques] Maritain’s humanism [in 1936] is the role it allocates to the Church. Within the universal fraternity the Church is to be the inspiration and the Big Sister, and it goes without saying that if she is to win the sympathy of her little brothers, she must neither be intransigent nor authoritarian. She must learn how to make religion acceptable. She must be practical rather than dogmatic.” Read More »

“GOD wants one religion and many nations; the devil wants many religions and one nation.”

— Fr. Denis Fahey

TO AN OLD TEAPOT
— Fay Inchfawn

Now from the dust of half-forgotten things,
You rise to haunt me at the year’s Spring- cleaning,
And bring to memory dim imaginings
Of mystic meaning.

No old-time potter handled you, I ween,
Nor yet were you of gold or silver molten;
No Derby stamp, nor Worcester, can be seen,
Nor Royal Doulton.

You never stood to grace the princely board
Of monarchs in some Oriental palace.
Your lid is chipped, your chubby side is scored
As if in malice. Read More »