ALAN writes:

Much of our lives in the 1950s took place in the city block where we lived in south St. Louis.

I had three girlfriends. One of them lived in a house on the corner of our block.  Another corner was occupied by a grocery store, and there was a tavern on a third corner. Our church and my school were across the street from the corner market. At age 5, my world was largely bounded by those outposts.

On some days during kindergarten and first grade, the Catholic nuns allowed pupils to purchase penny candy and soft pretzels from cardboard boxes in our classroom.

I remember the vivid colors — red, blue, silver, purple, green, and black — on 78-rpm records of Big Band music that my mother kept from the 1940s and allowed me to play if I didn’t break too many of them. In 1953 my aunts and uncles teased me about my fondness for Patti Page’s recording “(How Much is That) Doggie in the Window?”  At age 3, I was appalled:  There they were — my own family — poking fun at my dead-serious concern for that little puppy. (more…)

"TO find ourselves forgotten on earth by those whom we love and who have loved us is a cruel trial – but to find ourselves in Purgatory – forgotten by all whom we loved and helped on earth must be a most painful sorrow." Prayer: Our father, three Hail Marys, Gloria, De Profundis O my God, infinitely just, hear our prayers in reparation for the souls suffering in Purgatory for want of charity. Release them from their pains that they may evermore praise Thee and intercede at Thy Judgment Seat for us at the hour of our death. Source  

FOR A LONG TIME, I have felt like a billionaire trapped in a middle class person's body. This psychological condition is so intractable, it must be innate. It has caused me acute distress, especially lately because I need a billion dollars so that I can give it all away to people I know could really use it. I could make a big difference if I had those bucks. I just have this feeling. This inescapable feeling. I'm a billionaire, or maybe just a millionaire, but society refuses to recognize me as such. Yesterday, I was so surprised at the bill at the grocery store that I was overcome by a dysphoric attack of great intensity. I was trapped in a social construct -- an economic identity assigned at birth without my consent. The bank refuses to recognize me as a billionaire. Car dealers, utility companies, the construction industry -- they all refuse to see the truth. That's discrimination. Just because I don't have millions doesn't mean that inside, where it really counts, I'm not loaded. No foundations or organized psychologists are out there to help people like me transition to the super rich. The world is a cruel place. I know a man who lives in a tiny mobile home, all because he is an unrecognized billionaire. His suffering is totally ignored. Maybe those who share the same disorder can someday organize. We should make our plight known because as things stand…

IN A CEMETERY, the dead own a bit of real estate. Each plot is, you might say, a little home. The tombstone says something solid and important exists here. The bereaved visit the dead in a realm set apart from the hectic world. One remembers at the grave the face and the living personality. One's thoughts are drawn to eternity. Fortunately, praying for the dead is a two-way street. What one gives, one gets back. The cemetery is an ancient institution -- so ancient we take it for granted. But more and more, the dignity and reverence it accords the dead are condemned. The cemetery is guilty of elitism, environmental wastefulness, extravagance and other Marxist sins. Five states in response have already legalized a new practice for disposing of the dead: human composting. There is a pseudo-scientific name for every new form of dehumanization and in this case it's Natural Organic Reduction. This is the wave of the future -- the environmentally correct mass grave. In NOR, the body is reduced to dirt by the application of voracious microorganisms and through rotation in straw, woodchips and dirt -- as you would turn the eggshells and tea leaves in your backyard compost pile with a pitchfork. It takes about six weeks and creates enough dirt to fill a pick-up truck, about 800 pounds in all. That's a lot more to dispose of than cremated ashes because the body needs to be…

pic.twitter.com/swNZyEd3L0 — BIPOC Doing Racism (@BIPOCracism) October 30, 2022

VIDEO link  

  These videos can be found here and here  

"A disgusting example or what Scottish academia has become. "Children are convinced that the planets woes are caused not just by co2, but by the white man's c02. Convinced to advocate for concepts such as climate justice, are taught about racism and revisionist history but above all else, are totally indoctrinated." ResistingTheyLies  

DE PROFUNDIS. Out of the Depths. (Psalm 129 in the Vulgate; Psalm 130 in the Hebrew.) "Out of the Depths". Out of the depths, I have cried to You, O Lord: Lord hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive, to the voice of my supplication. If You, O Lord, will mark iniquities; Lord, who shall stand it? For with You there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of Your law, I have waited for You, O Lord. My soul has relied on His word: my soul has hoped in the Lord. From the morning-watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord. Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with Him plentiful redemption. And He shall redeem Israel, from all his iniquities. V. Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord. R. And let perpetual light shine upon them. V. From the gate of hell. R. Deliver their souls, O Lord. V. May they rest in peace. R. Amen. V. O Lord, hear my prayer. R. And let my cry come unto You. V. The Lord be with you. R. And with your Spirit. (Indulgence of 50 days, three times a day, to all who say the De Profundis with the VERSICLE and RESPONSE. "Requiem aeternam (Eternal Rest)." Leo XIII., February 3, 1888.)  

STEPHEN I. writes: Your quotation on sweeping reminded me of that marvellous scene in the film Chariots of Fire where a character observes that: "You can praise God by peeling a potato if you peel it to perfection ..."  I am reminded of one of my favorite biblical admonitions: "Be still and know that I am God" Perhaps God wishes simplicity for us because it's in the simple physical actions, focused only on what is before us or in our hands, that we can quiet our minds and tune out the everyday assaults from the outside, as well as from within in the form of our very own static: our constant plannings, plottings, worrying, desiring, fearing and all the other vanities and distractions. This Catholic faith is so very unlike any belief system that came before it, no? A perfect God that creates an imperfect humanity and loves it; perfection that doesn't just assume the guise of humanity but actually becomes incarnate, becoming weak flesh born to simple, powerless people and living humbly amongst them. With each passing day I become more convinced that truth and the surest path to dignity is only really to be found in the simple and unassuming elements of life. How strange that a perfect and omnipotent God has designed us and the world in such a way so that to be most fulfilled and come to best know him we need only embrace the…

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"Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden and waiting on the sick could be a prayer, if it were offered to God." --- St. Martin de Porres (Source)

CANADIAN psychologist “Alex,” in this 2017 video, explains how the Communism he observed during his childhood in Communist Romania is identical to the Communism in Canada, the U.S. and Western Europe today.

This lecture is almost three hours, but (except for some comments regarding Peterson’s wife) it’s well worth it. [This is not, however, an endorsement of all of his views. “Alex” has some confused and erroneous beliefs.]

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 WARNING: This video should not be viewed with children nearby.  

"What torments the souls in Purgatory is the knowledge that they are no longer able to merit any thing for heaven. They can not help themselves; they are entirely dependent upon others. They wait, and wait, and have nothing to do but to yearn and suffer. Oh, how they grieve and lament that while on earth they thought so little of heaven; that they accomplished so little to gain it, and did so much for this world; that, in fine, they have rashly squandered their precious time! Could they in Purgatory practice good works, spread the kingdom of God, save souls, how readily would they perform these duties; but, alas! it is now too late." -- Father Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876 Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that the souls of Thy servants and handmaidens, the commemoration of whom we keep with special reverence, and for whom we are bidden and are bound to pray, and the souls of all our benefactors, relations, and connections, and all the faithful, may rest in the bosom of Thy Saints; and hereafter, in the Resurrection from the dead, may please Thee in the land of the living. Amen  

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!” (more…)