HE IS old and approaching death, yet he never wavers in a mysterious premonition.

One day he is drawn to the temple. He sees and he understands.

Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace. Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.

“Happy Simeon! figure of the ancient world, grown old in its expectation, and near its end. No sooner has he received the sweet Fruit of Life, than his youth is renewed as that of the eagle, and in his person is wrought the transformation which was to be granted to the whole human race,” wrote Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his essay on today’s Feast of the Purification, also known as Candlemas, the celebration of the appearance of light in this fallen world and the purification of our souls through the elevated mysteries of the Christmas season.

“We must hold as a principle of our spiritual life, that the mysteries brought before us, feast after feast, are intended to work in us the destruction of the old, and the creation of the new man,” said Guéranger.

Happy is he whose life is animated by hope and expectation. (more…)

CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMAS EVE
(adapted from a poem by Robert Herrick)

DOWN with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box to show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer
Until the dancing Easter day,
On Easter’s eve appear.

Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old. (more…)

"OUR task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda; Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world." --- St. Ignatius of Antioch  

There is a certain class of maudlin, sentimental writers who are forever bewailing the rapid disappearance of the Indian tribes from the American continent. We must confess we don’t fraternize with our brother scribblers on this point. They have evidently taken their ideas of the Indian character from Cooper’s novels and similar productions, which give about as correct delineation of it as are the grotesque figures a school boy draws on his slate of the animals or objects he intends to represent.  — J.W. Wilbarger

FROM Indian depredations in Texas: reliable accounts of battles, wars, adventures, forays, murders, massacres, etc., together with biographical sketches of many of the most noted Indian fighters and frontiersmen of Texas by J.W. Wilbarger, 1890:

THE Comanche Indians were to Texas what the Pequot Indians were to New England and what the Sioux were to the traders and trappers of the west. Their incursions were for many years a terror to the border settlers of Texas, for they were a warlike, cruel and treacherous tribe, and as they always traveled on horseback they could swoop down unexpectedly from their distant 1838 stronghold upon the settlements, commit murders and depredations, and retreat before any effective pursuit could be made. It was a party of this tribe of Indians who captured the young lady whose sad story we are about to relate. Her father, Andrew Lockhart, emigrated from the State of Illinois in the year 1828 and settled on the Guadalupe river, in what is now DeWitt county — then De Witt’s colony. It was in the fall or winter of 1838 that Matilda Lockhart, Rhoda Putnam, Elizabeth Putnam, Juda Putnam and James Putnam left the houses of their parents one day and went to the woods to gather pecans. While they were thus engaged a party of Indians suddenly rushed upon them. They discovered the Indians too late to escape and were all captured. (more…)

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— Charles H Worthington (@CFoxtrot52) January 31, 2025

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“WITH justice might one of the faithful who wishes to assist at the Sacrifice ask [the priest]: ‘Tell me, in whose name do you stand there and who has sent you? You claim to be here to be able to offer to the eternal God my adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and petition in union with the adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and petition of Jesus. ‘Tis well. But who has given you this commission and this plenitude of power?’ A serious startling question this, and one of momentous importance; for it depends upon the answer whether the Mass is the most exalted and the most holy of all actions, or whether it must be called the most miserable and sacrilegious of all deceptions.” --- Rev. Winifred Herbst, Holy Mass (1932)  

FROM Peter Eric Hendrickson, author of “Cracking the Code, The Fascinating Truth about Taxation in America” come these reflections on the ‘Deep State’:

THERE ARE TWO PHENOMENA typically complained of (by conservatives, especially) in regard to Washington, DC: the “Deep State” and the “Swamp”. Often the two terms are used interchangeably.

Both terms refer to real things (metaphorically speaking). There IS a “swamp”. and there IS a deep state. They are NOT the same thing.

But the creatures of the real Deep State encourage the conflation of the two Washington infections as a means of providing themselves with cover from meaningful political attention which would otherwise be a threat.

This conflation serves the purpose because the “swamp” is merely the envelope of corruption, incompetence, bloat and waste which pork-and-patronage-larded oversized central-state bureaucracies always generate around themselves. The “deep state”, on the other hand, is a lean, purposeful competitor of the Constitutionally-limited republic on the prosperity of which it parasitically feeds. The notion that both are just parts of the same clown show makes the evil of the latter more difficult to discern and to effectively declaim. (more…)

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"THOUGH stormy billows should rise up against me, though the sea should open to swallow me, though the wrath of kings should be enkindled against me, I will heed them no more than if they were so many spider's webs. Had not my love for you kept me, I would have started this very day on my exile, for this is my constant prayer: 'O Lord! thy will be done, I will do thy will; not what such or such an one may will, but what thou willest.' This is my tower of strength, this is my firm rock, this is my trusty staff. If God will that I go, I will go." --- St. John Chrysostom, Homily before his exile  

"BECAUSE children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again'; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." --- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy  

"THE concept of envy – the hatred of the superior – has dropped out of our moral vocabulary... The idea that white Christian civilization is hated more for its virtues than its sins doesn’t occur to us, because it’s not a nice idea... Western man towers over the rest of the world in ways so large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the world to itself. Other races feel like subjects of Western power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have disappeared. The charge of racism puzzles whites who feel not hostility, but only baffled good will, because they don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation. The white man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t conscious of it. And, superiority excites envy. Destroying white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call minorities." --- Joseph Sobran, April 1997  

"LET us, therefore, forsake the vanity of the crowd and their false teachings, and turn back to the Word delivered to us from the beginning."                     ---- St. Polycarp  

St THOMAS Aquinas on Man’s Relations with Foreigners (Source):

Man’s relations with foreigners are twofold: peaceful and hostile: and in directing both kinds of relation, the Law contained suitable precepts.

The Israelites offered three opportunities for peaceful relations with foreigners.

First, when foreigners passed through their land as travellers; secondly, when they came to dwell in their land as newcomers; and thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. (more…)

PLEASE don't use the phrase "Artificial Intelligence," or A.I., if you can avoid it. It is misleading. Machines don't have intelligence, which is essentially an immaterial faculty. Computers process information fed to them by human beings and use mechanical power to do it. They can't reason. Machines can't think. See Peggy Hall's Substack post on this subject in connection with "Stargate A.I.," the ridiculously-named, high-tech program (it sounds like a video game) introduced last week by Trump. She writes: Let’s get one thing straight—I really don’t like the term “AI.” It’s not just a personal pet peeve; I flat-out reject the idea of “artificial intelligence.” And don’t even get me started on this whole "machine learning" nonsense. Machines don’t learn—they get programmed by humans. We’re not machines, we’re people. And our brains are not computers. They are brains. Human brains. And it’s the human brains that program these computers, so there. I only refer to it as “AI” because it’s the phrase everyone uses, but I do not care for the term at all. I'm also bothered by the idea these tech gurus are promoting that AI can somehow solve problems that humans can't. This technology is being elevated while minimizing the incredible creation that we are—humans, God's greatest creation. I entirely reject that notion of computers being “better than” humans. The further implication of the phrase "artificial intelligence" is that the human mind is a machine --- and that human beings in…

“HISTORICALLY, the poorest of the poor are rarely, if ever, the ones who migrate from poor countries to rich countries. Quite frankly, the poorest of the poor are so undernourished, and physically disabled, that they don’t have the stamina to migrate. It’s those who don’t share these characteristics who migrate. (more…)

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"Remember that even Stalin had to take a step back and grant 'concessions' to those disappointed with Communism. Trump is in that concession-granting phase, but it's merely a ploy. Many of these concessions aren't even real concessions. Read everything carefully." [Source]