Fanny Cherburg; Still Life with Vegetables and Fish, 1876

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 most basic and simple processes and rhythms of life, needing to carry out no great feats of action or valor to win his favor  – but mastering the fundamentals only.

(Source)

“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.]

Read More »

Read More »

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

FOR this All Souls Day, readers might appreciate “Three Glances at the Cemetery” by Rev. John Evangelist Zollner, 1884:

If we cast a glance into the grave what do we see? We see:

1. What the dead man has in the grave. Alas! he has nothing but his winding-sheet and the coffin which contains his mouldering body. Though he may have been rich during life, though he may have had money by the millions, superb houses, immense possessions, and a lucrative business, he now possesses nothing of all these things; he must say with Job: “Only the grave remaineth for me.” The Caliph Hesham, who died at Baspha, in the year 742, possessed seven hundred boxes of gold pieces, and so large a quantity of clothes and silk garments, that to remove these goods from one place to another six hundred camels were required. He had scarcely closed his eyes in death, when his palace was plundered, and there was not left even a basin in which to wash his inanimate body, not a piece of linen in which to wrap it for the grave. How poor death made this rich ruler! Did it leave him anything but the grave? How foolishly, then, do Christians act, who fix all their thoughts and cares upon temporal goods and thereby forget God and the salvation of their souls; yea, who suffer themselves to be governed by avarice and covetousness to such an extent, that they hard-heartedly turn the poor and needy from their door, and in their business transactions commit many injustices. Or, is it not the greatest folly and blindness, to forfeit heaven for the sake of such vain, perishable goods of earth, and to incur eternal damnation. Consider this well, and entertain no inordinate love for money and the goods of this world, be solicitous for temporal goods only in so far as they are necessary for your subsistence in this life and never forget the words of the Lord: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”–Matt 16: 26.

Even worse than the mouldering body in the ground is the lifeless pile of cinders, smaller than a pizza box. They clinically call it “cremation,” obscuring the violence of the procedure.

Before You, humbled, Lord, I lie,
my heart like ashes, crushed and dry,
assist me when I die.

Full of tears and full of dread
is that day that wakes the dead,
calling all, with solemn blast
to be judged for all their past.

Lord, have mercy, Jesus blest,
grant them all Your Light and Rest. Amen.

(Dies Irae)

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!” Read More »

A man prays for a relative or friend in New Roads, Louisiana on All Saints Day, 1938

[Reposted]

ALTHOUGH traditionally Catholics visited cemeteries to pray for the dead on Nov. 2, All Souls Day, in parts of Louisiana it has long been the practice to honor deceased relatives and friends on Nov. 1, All Saints Day. When the custom was at its peak, fences were whitewashed and crepe decorations hung. Families would gather with priests in cemeteries before what were often-times humble graves. Black Americans observing All Saints Day in New Roads, Louisiana in 1938 are captured in these photographs by Russell Lee from the Library of Congress. More can be viewed below and here. They show that it’s possible even in poverty to bury the dead with dignity.

According to Ryan Brasseux:

Burial culture in New Orleans and rural southern Louisiana, which is predominantly Catholic, has long intrigued outsiders. High water tables, particularly in the state’s coastal regions, require many undertakers to construct above-ground tombs in graveyards, but these brick and concrete structures can deteriorate in the region’s subtropical climate. Hence, All Saints Day has traditionally served both a practical and a social function. In the past, families repaired tombs and coated them with a mix of lime and water (whitewash) to seal the structure. They also cleared overgrowth and weeds and placed floral arrangements, or coronne de toussaints, on the graves to show their respect for the dead. In years past, women would make wreaths of crepe paper or waxed paper, known as immortelles or couronnes, and sell them at churches and cemeteries on All Saints Day, but that tradition waned as more durable plastic flowers came into vogue. In less-affluent communities, families simply painted wooden crosses to use as grave markers. Modern granite headstones have obviated the need for whitewashing, but some families continue the tradition of cleaning and decorating gravesites on November 1. All Saints Day remains a recognized state holiday in which Louisiana government offices and courts are closed. Read More »

SOME thoughts on Halloween from a 2018 post:

The excesses of Halloween — both its commercialism and occult grotesqueries — have led some  concerned Americans to reject the day altogether. It’s no wonder. Even normal days are creepy and horror-filled — with people walking around with purple hair and fish hooks in their faces. Halloween has likewise become so extreme in some places that it seems like a trip to a super-commercialized corner of hell.

But, as I said, let’s fight for Halloween, not throw it away.

I hope you enjoy this fun day.

A CELEBRATION of death leads to tragic death. See photos here.

(Not all Halloween celebrations are “celebrations of death.” But judging from the images from South Korea, that was.)

CHRIST’S kingship over society is the antithesis of the New World Order.

You’ll never hear that from Alex Jones or David Icke. Christ and the Divine Society He created are the only alternative to the worldwide “deep state.”

He is not just king over hearts and minds, but rightful king over each and every human nation.

Religious neutrality is an impossibility.  No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be subject to the one and despise the other. That is God’s word and therefore an article of faith… There are no neutral governments, no neutral schools, no neutral press, no neutral clubs, no neutral families … This applies to the life of nations. Periods of neutrality are periods of transition, of groping indecision. They are times of twilight between day and night. After the time of neutrality comes the time of service of one master, in which either Christ or Satan will be king. After the liberal twilight comes either the Russian night of persecution or the new Sun-Day of the Kingdom of Christ.

— Fr. Robert Mader, Cross and Crown

See further reflections on Christ the King Sunday posted here. Read More »

Professional wrestling this campaign season in Pennsylvania

AS election day approaches, I look upon those, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, who believe elections will significantly change things with the same patronizing good-humor with which I would greet someone who believed aliens control his every thought.

Sometimes you have to let people have their illusions. There is nothing you can say.

As Brian Shilhavey writes:

For this system of perceived “democracy” to work where the masses are fooled into believing that they have some kind of control over how the country is run through the election process, there MUST be a two-party system, and two ONLY, and those two parties have to have a perceived opposition to each other on the “issues.”

Because the one thing the Globalists who actually run the country fear the most, is a unified public where the masses wake up and discover that “the emperor has no clothes,” and instead of half the country fighting the other half, they join forces and fight the true enemies of the people: the Wall Street Billionaires and Bankers.

I used to be part of the masses controlled by the propaganda, but I started waking up shortly after the year 2000 when I was in my 40s, and started running my own businesses in the U.S. and finding out that the U.S. Government was my biggest enemy in being successful, and it didn’t matter who was in office.

Now that I am in my 60s, it is all so easy to see, and what amazes me about this current generation, is that they have all observed election fraud in the past 6 years, and yet most of them still believe in their particular political party and voting.

The biggest force, by far, in elections is the media and the media is unelected. Case closed. Television advertising also requires Big Money. You can’t run without Big Money. And Big Money will never fund candidates who challenge Big Money.

Read More »

                                   Thomas Eakins, Baby at Play; 1876

THE TOYS
— Coventry Patmore

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart. Read More »

TERESA BENNS, at her website BetrayedCatholics, has made the astounding and alarming claim that tens of thousands of marriages conducted in Vatican II churches and Traditionalist chapels during the past 60 years are invalid and that spouses are free to leave and contract new marriages. See here and here.

My comments are quoted in both the first and the second entry, but I have to say I am somewhat speechless and overwhelmed by the potentially dire and destructive consequences of this evidently false claim.

A correspondent writes,

“One can extrapolate from her heretical posturing that in fact, practically no one is married today.”

Robert Robbins, at CatholicEclipsed, responds at length to Benns’ posts here and here. Robbins uses strong language (I am not prepared to call Benns a “cult leader”), but he persuasively counters her arguments. He writes: Read More »