“BUT the worshipers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious.

“Only let it [the Roman Empire] remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be glorious by its victories, or still better, secure in peace; and what matters it to us? This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes. Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquility; and let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their possessions, and purveyors of their pleasures; not with a hearty reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take cognizance rather of the injury done to another man’s property, than of that done to one’s own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbor, or injure his property, family, or person, let him be actionable; but in his own affairs let everyone with impunity do what he will in company with his own family, and with those who willingly join him. (more…)

JEWISH WOMEN played a prominent role in the spread of feminism.

The significant presence of Jews in the movement is not surprising. Indeed, their zeal for feminism was a natural reaction to the misogyny inherent in the sacred Jewish texts of the Talmud. Just as Jewish capitalism, or the unleashing of the profit motive on society, bred the reaction of Jewish communism and its dream of economic equality, so Jewish disdain for women naturally bred the reaction of Jewish-led feminism and the extreme denial of essential differences between the sexes.

Underneath these polar opposites is a common thread: a dissatisfaction with the natural order and a restless desire to topple it.

Tragically, Jewish-influenced feminism was imposed on a society that did not historically possess the same views of women. As he walked and sailed through the lands of ancient Palestine, Jesus Christ did not disdain women. He healed them, he reasoned with them, he reproached them, he loved them. His mother stood at the foot of the cross, unafraid of Jewish retribution. The first person who saw him rise from the dead was a woman. The Catholic Church later exalted women in their feminine roles. It even offered an honored place for the non-married woman as a consecrated virgin. The birth of a girl was always celebrated every bit as much as the birth of a boy (except perhaps in cases where a king or nobleman wanted a male heir). No woman has been more revered than the Blessed Mother of God. Protestantism lessened this reverence and led to a commercialization of society that women would inevitably be pressured to join. Radical Protestants were the first promoters of feminism in this country. The difference between Protestant feminism and Jewish feminism was that the latter had financial fortunes behind it — and the Jewish talent for word games, for spinning the truth in a web of audacious sophistries that blast common sense to smithereens. It was no accident that Christian women writers were shunted from women’s magazines in the 1960s and replaced by Jewish women, whose every thought against men was broadcast throughout the land.

Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem were understandably dissatisfied and lacking in feminine pride. They did not come from a world that honored women and their varied abilities. They could not help, I suspect, of being jealous of the security of the Christian woman in her traditional place. This dissatisfaction was not the only motivation behind Jewish feminism, which was also a psychological weapon against non-Jewish society, but it surely accounts for some of the passion behind it.

(more…)

"I GREW up in an Orthodox community. I know that when I was born my father said, 'What a shame, it’s a girl.' I know that there were no ceremonies to welcome my arrival within the community. I know that no matter how hard I worked in Hebrew school and how many prizes I won, it didn’t really matter. At the age of thirteen, only the boys would have the official ceremony of the Bar Mitzva, which welcomed them into the world of men. And I have spent hours in synagogue sitting watching the men read from the scrolls, organize the services, and ignore the women completely. .... "... I recently saw a photograph of a Hasidic celebration for the anniversary of the rabbinic scholar, Maimonides. Again, I found myself looking at the newsprint on the page trying to find someone who might look like me, a grown woman and a mother. But along the rows and rows of blackbearded men with dark hats and white faces I didn’t see a single woman. Once again, they had simply disappeared, as if they didn’t exist at all. "That’s how the extreme Orthodox and Hasidic men like to have their women. They believe that women are wicked, unreliable, sexual temptresses, who are put on earth to lead men into evil ungodly ways and tempt them to stop observing the laws and commandments of Judaism." --- The Hole in the Sheet: A Modern Woman…

 Video link  

 Video link  

 THIS 2015 speech at Boston College by politician and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes on the subject of marriage is outstanding and gets to the heart of why there's no such thing as a marriage between two men or two women. "It doesn't matter how many people put their hands together to say something God hasn't said, that doesn't make it true." To deny the essential nature of marriage is to deny the essential nature of God. It was heterosexuals who changed the definition of marriage first, by denying its primary end of procreation.  

I HAVE a great devotion to this saint because I have so often experienced that he can obtain so much from God. For many years I have been accustomed to ask a special grace on his festival, and my prayer is always answered. -- St. Alphonsus de Liguori  

(more…)

THOMAS H. Kinane wrote in St. Joseph: His life, His virtues, His privileges, His power: In the supernatural, as in the moral and physical order, the infinite wisdom and power of God suit the means to the end. God gives grace and sanctity to His Saints to fulfill the office and rank for which His Divine Providence has destined them.* The nearer a soul is destined to approach God, and the more intimately and largely she enters into the scheme of Redemption, the greater is her dignity, and in proportion is her sanctity. In the above principles we have the origin and the source of the sanctity, privileges, and choicest graces, showered, in all the plenitude of their abundance, upon the soul of St. Joseph by the Almighty. Devotions to St. Joseph for today his feast day and everyday can be found here. And some customs of his feast day.  

 Prayer to St. Joseph O my beloved Saint Joseph! Adopt me as thy child; take charge of my salvation; watch over me day and night; preserve me from occasions of sin; obtain for me purity of body and soul, and the spirit of prayer, through thy intercession with Jesus. Grant me a spirit of sacrifice of humility, and self-denial; obtain for me a burning love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and a sweet tender love for Mary, my mother. Saint Joseph, be with me in life, be with me in death, and obtain for me a favorable judgment from Jesus, my Merciful Savior. Amen  

His Meditation Upon Death
—by Robert Herrick

Be those few hours, which I have yet to spend,
Blest with the meditation of my end:
Though they be few in number, I’m content:
If otherwise, I stand indifferent.
Nor makes it matter Nestor’s years to tell,
If man lives long, and if he live not well.
A multitude of days still heaped on,
Seldom brings order, but confusion.
Might I make choice, long life should be withstood;
Nor would I care how short it were, if good:
Which to effect, let ev’ry passing-bell
Possess my thoughts, “next comes my doleful knell”; (more…)

FROM The Contemplative Observer:

Based on the removal from the West’s eyes of the communist threat, Moscow went one decisive — and very bold — step further: They shape-shifted, more than under Yeltsin, into a “Russian-nationalist and Christian nation”. This was of course all eyewash. The Party people weren’t even able to properly cross themselves. Church attendance throughout so-called “Russia” remained as miserable as in Soviet times. If you think abortion is bad in America (and it is), look at the numbers in Russia. And Russian society stayed what it had been in Soviet times: dysfunctional and rotten to the core. But this new theme of alleged Russian traditionalism (with strong Stalinist characteristics!) opened new strategic avenues for Moscow to even further shake up and confuse the West: They were now infiltrating and manipulating the Western Right. Communism was gone, it was believed, and the Russians were all just wonderful, weren’t they? (more…)

FOR three centuries, the Irish refused to give up their Catholic altars on pain of heavy fines, imprisonment and death. The practice of their religion was strictly prohibited by the British crown and their churches, including St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, which was dedicated in 1191, were all taken over by the new clergy. It is one of the great mysteries and miracles of history that the Irish persisted for so long, establishing secret altars in homes, on rocks, in caves, in ditches and even in holes in the ground. Those who could not find their way to these hidden places often turned toward the direction of those sacred altars and prayed their Spiritual Communions as the unseen Host was lifted. "From the golden hour in which St. Patrick as bishop said his first Mass on Irish soil down to the coming of the Normans, love of the Blessed Eucharist was one of the dominant characteristics of the Irish race," Fr. Augustine Hayden wrote in 1933. This devotion was never diminished by oppression. On April 14, 1655, to cite one example of that oppression from Hayden's book Ireland's Loyalty to the Mass, three priests were brought before a Protestant jury in Wexford. The jury concluded that no crime had been committed, to which the judge replied, "No crime could be more heinous than to be a priest," and the three priests were hung. Priests and bishops were constantly on the run…

“Patrick, a native of that part of Britain now called Scotland, was born about the middle of the 4th Century. The Romans having left this Island naked and defenseless, it’s inhabitants were an easy prey to their troublesome neighbors the Irish, who made several incursions, and carried off considerable booty. Our Saint was sixteen years old, when he fell into the hands of those plunderers; and was carried into Ireland, where the hardships of slavery were to prepare him for the labors of an Apostle; and the experience he had of the spiritual necessities of that people was to inspire him with the charitable design of carrying the Light of the Gospel amongst them. (more…)

ST. PATRICK’s BREASTPLATE

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward, (more…)