“THE suffering of adversity does not degrade you but exalts you. Human tribulation teaches you; it does not destroy you. The more we are afflicted in this world, the greater is our assurance for the next.”

— St. Isidore of Seville

(Source: Thuletide)

“DIVERSITY is colossally detrimental to individuals and society alike, in almost very conceivable way: physical and mental health, social cohesion, violence, trust, criminality, etc. The more diverse a society is, the more pronounced and severe these negative effects are, however, even small amounts of racial or ethnic diversity are enough to cause a quantifiable negative impact. Individuals of every race fare worse within racially and ethnically heterogeneous societies, though racial heterogeneity has a greater negative impact than ethnic heterogeneity (when the ethnically heterogeneous society is mono-racial).”

‘Diversity’ means serfdom:

“While the data presented in these studies is undeniably accurate and consistent, almost all of the “solutions” put forward by the authors are, to be frank, utterly ludicrous. There is only one valid solution that will sufficiently solve the problems of “diversity,” and that is no diversity at all. Segregation. A total annulment of “multiculturalism” and a return to the natural, tribalistic societies that are deeply ingrained in human behavior. This solution would be best for people of all races and ethnicities, as no race or ethnicity functions better within a racially heterogeneous society than they do in a racially homogeneous society.

“Unfortunately, most people are either too politically compromised or too terrified of potential social and economic repercussions to publicly make this argument (they fear being branded a “Nazi,” threats to their employment and employability, or losing friends and relatives). Additionally, this solution is in direct opposition to the agenda of the most powerful elites on the planet today, who very much benefit from the havoc and chaos inflicted upon their serfdom via multi-racialism.”

[emphasis added]

PRESIDENTIAL candidates never mention the most important problems we face. National elections are political theater and nothing more.

Politicians are grifters, paid off to promote the interests of the Money Power.

“NOW whilst they were speaking these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them, and saith to them: Peace be to you; it is I, fear not. But they being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit. And he said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. And when he had said this, he shewed them his hands and feet.

“But while they yet believed not, and wondered for joy, he said: Have you any thing to eat? And they offered him a piece of a broiled fish, and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them.  And he said to them: These are the words which I spoke to you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.”

— Luke, 24: 36-45

Caravaggio, The Incredulity of St. Thomas

FROM an essay by Peter Kreeft:

We believe Christ’s resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies:  The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.

The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.

1. Jesus died. Jesus rose. [ Christianity ]

2. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceived. [Hallucination]

3. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles myth-makers [ Myth ]

4. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceivers [ Conspiracy ]

5. Jesus didn’t die. [ Swoon ]

Read more.

Easter hoodlums in St. Louis in the 1950s

ALAN writes:

As my thoughts amble back down Memory lane, over the Easter Sundays of yesteryear, my most precious remembrances are those day-dreamy St. Louis Easter Sundays.

Always balmy, warm, windless…..folks walked to and from church.

After Easter Sunday services everybody joined the Easter parade. We’d promenade through Forest Park, Shaw’s Garden, and along Kingshighway.

 The ladies done from head to toe in fashionable “hobble skirt” creations of the era strutted alongside their escorts, arms linked, smiling their prettiest, bowing to this one and that one….

 The promenades reeked of elegance. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief brushed elbows in the Easter promenade, disguised by Easter finery, inspired by the scent of new grass, lilac and magnolia blossoms….”

  — Madeline Dahl Nagle, “A St. Louis Easter Back Then,” Letter to the Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 25, 1951

I can’t remember scenes like those from a hundred years ago, when I imagine many such people found themselves “in the rotogravure” in the big weekend newspapers. But I can remember Easter Sundays in the 1950s.

In March 1956, my mother took me to see the Easter Seals Parade on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis. It was held on National Crippled Children’s Day and included floats decorated with an Easter Lily floral theme.  Members of clubs, schools, and scout groups marched in the parade along with thousands of American service men.

On Easter Sunday that year, my mother took this color slide, as I stood in the back yard of Aunt Leona and Uncle Gus’s home in southwest St. Louis. Read More »

“WE LIKE to think we live in a democratic society, but actually democracy was only allowed when they knew they could control it and it was no threat to their power and wealth.”

Interesting analysis of our economy based on usury and “turbo-charged inequality” can be found in the first 30-minutes of this talk.

LEARN more about “The Six Pillars of Intellectual Insanity” in this summary of the work of Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty.

EASTER
— Gerard Manley Hopkins

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day.

Build His church and deck His shrine;
Empty though it be on earth;
Ye have kept your choicest wine—
Let it flow for heavenly mirth;
Pluck the harp and breathe the horn:
Know ye not ‘tis Easter morn?

Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter’s robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day. Read More »

Duccio di Buoninsegna; Entombment (scene 22), 1308-11

“TODAY a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”

— Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

ANDREA DA FIRENZE, Descent into Hell; 1366-67 Fresco

MORE ANALYSIS of the controlled demolition of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, presented in the news as an accident, can be found here.

            Lamentation, Andrea Di Bartolo

FROM The Foot of the Cross (Tan Books, page 292-293) by Frederick William Faber, D.D.:

The love of God brings many new instincts into the heart. Heavenly and noble as they are, they bear no resemblance to what men would call the finer and more heroic developments of character. A spiritual discernment is necessary to their right appreciation. They are so unlike the growths of earth that they must expect to meet on earth with only suspicion, misunderstanding, and dislike. It is not easy to defend them from a controversial point of view; for our controversy is obliged to begin by begging the question, or else it would be unable so much as to state its case. The axioms of the world pass current in the world, the axioms of the Gospel do not. Hence the world has its own way. It talks us down. It tries us before tribunals where our condemnation is secured beforehand. It appeals to principles which are fundamental with most men, but are heresies with us. Hence its audience takes part with it against us. We are foreigners, and must pay the penalty of being so. If we are misunderstood, we had no right to reckon on anything else, being as we are out of our own country. We are made to be laughed at. We shall be understood in heaven. Woe to those easy-going Christians, whom the world can understand, and will tolerate, because it sees they have a mind to compromise! Read More »

Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460 (detail), Rogier Van Weyden

“BUT the couching of our spiritual sight is not the only operation which the senses of our soul undergo on Calvary. All souls are hard of hearing with respect to the sounds of the invisible world. The inner ear is opened upon Calvary. The sounds of Jerusalem travel up to us through the darkness, and perhaps the sounds of labour in the gardens near. But they rise up as admonitions rather than as distractions. They come to us softly and indistinctly, and do not jar with the silence of our endurance, or the low whisperings of prayer. Least of all do they muffle the clearness of our Saviour’s words when He vouchsafes to speak. Down below, how the world deafened us by its tumultuous noises, and jaded our spirits with its multiplicity of sounds! We knew that Jesus was at our sides, and yet we could not converse with Him. It was like trying to listen, when the loud wheels are rattling harshly along the streets, when listening is no better than an unsuccessful strain, or a perplexed misunderstanding. The mere noise the world makes in its going so amazes us that it hinders our feet upon the road to heaven. It is only on Calvary that earth is subdued enough to make music with heaven; for it is there only that God is heard distinctly, while the low-lying world murmurs like a wind, a sound which is discordant nowhere, because it is rather the accompaniment of a sound than a sound itself.”

Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (or the Sorrows of Mary) (TAN Books, 1956 edition); p. 281

“THE house of sorrow is always a house of love. This is what takes place in us regarding Mary’s dolors. One of the thousand ends of the Incarnation was God’s condescending to meet and gratify the weakness of humanity, forever falling into idolatry because it was so hard to be always looking upwards, always gazing fixedly into inaccessible furnaces of light. So are Mary’s dolors to her grandeurs. The new strength of faith and devotion, which we have gained in contemplating her celestial splendors, furnishes us with new capabilities of loving; and all our loves, the new and the old as well, rally round her in her agony at the foot of the Cross of Jesus. Love for her grows quickest there. It is our birthplace. We became her children there. She suffered all that because of us. Sinlessness is not common to our Mother and to us. But sorrow is. It is the one thing we share, the one common thing betwixt us. We will sit with her therefore, and sorrow with her, and grow more full of love, not forgetting her grandeurs,— Oh surely never! — but pressing to our hearts with fondest predilection the memory of her exceeding martyrdom.”

    — Frederick William Faber, The Foot of the Cross, p. 85