Saturday Detention ... Nuts?

Alert the media!

I found the funniest blog ever.

I'm serious.  It is titled, Priests Have Become Cesspools of Impurity.  Whoever writes it uses laugh out loud gifs and takes slams at the Holy Catholic Blogosphere - ho holds barred.  I don't know the guy's name - but I think we could be friends.  Haha!  He takes down Barnhardt and Skojec and Voris and Matt like no one's business.  The author is SSPX - I think - and devoted to Our Lady of LaSalette.   That combo should maybe be taken as a sort of warning.  The Messages of La Salette  are more mythologized than the contemporary Fatima Secret inventions, and the one seer, Melanie Calvat, who was at least a melancholic towards the end her life, may not have been all that reliable.

That said, it's the funniest religious blog ever.

His Ann Barnhardt commentary is the funniest stuff I've read in a long time.  (Aside from her stuff.)  Here's one from July:

Ann Barnhardt Is Being Passed Around Like A Two Dollar Whore.......

Her first love was GaryVoris 

Then Gary passed her off to Steve Skojec of 1p5

Steve then handed her off to Patrick Archbold of CMR. - PHBCI

Now that's funny.

Seriously - again: Two things I did not know before reading some posts on the site:

• Michael Voris' first name is Gary.  

• Ann Barnhardt has a stalker who likes Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies.  (No - not me - I'm a fan of his wife, Margaret.)

The blogger comes off a little judgmental - but don't we all.  The Catholic Blogosphere is an insane asylum to some extent.  We all blog our thoughts and think everyone else is nuts except ourselves.  Someone is out there always ready to contradict us - that is, if they even pay attention to us.  And we want attention - that's why we are online.  Yes it is.

Scary.  Pouring out your life blood online ... maligning one another, speaking against everyone who disagrees with us.  Insisting we are right.  Boasting we're not like that Publican or tax collector.  Admitting we are sinners and praising ourselves for our conversions and thanking God we're not as bad as that jerk over there.

That's comedic.

Stay away from visionaries...

especially the followers of 

fake prophecies.

Just saying.

Pope Francis speaks about numbing the conscience ...

"The last hope of salvation for them is to flee to My Mercy."

The last state is worse than the first.

“When an unclean spirit goes out of someone,it roams through arid regions searching for restbut, finding none, it says,‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order.Then it goes and brings back seven other spiritsmore wicked than itself who move in and dwell there,and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.” - Lk. 11

It's true.  I know by experience.

A life of compromise.  After the first conversion a person can fall back into the same sin - St. Peter speaks about this: "For if they, having escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of [our] Lord and savior Jesus Christ, again become entangled and overcome by them, their last condition is worse than their first.”

It's true.

Gay people especially get caught up in this snare.  Little by little, accepting this vanity and that enchantment; this delight and that warm and cuddly affection.  Adopting an "an overly benign interpretation" of "the homosexual condition itself."  Falling back into excuses, and then worse sins.

Years ago, I knew a religious... I had heard he left his community, when I ran into him in a bar, during one of my own backsliding episodes.  I was taken aback, since he was obviously heavy into leather - dressing the part and acting the role.  He was a totally different person.  Thanks be to God, I learned not long ago that he repented, again, and was accepted back into the community.  Many people are not as fortunate - because the last state is decidedly worse than the first.

In his homily in the chapel at the Saint Martha residence, the Pope said that in the spiritual life “temptations always return, the evil spirit never gets tired.” If he has been kicked out once, he is patient, waiting to return, and “If you let him in, you fall into a worse situation.”

In fact, Francis said, in the gospel story, at first it was clear that it was the devil who was causing problems. But afterward, “The evil one conceals himself, and comes with his very polite friends, knocking at the door, asking permission, but then moves in and spends time with the man and, little by little, starts giving the orders.”

With his “good manners,” Francis said, the devil makes the man fall into moral relativism, calming his conscience.

We start saying things like “This happens everywhere” and “We are all sinners,” Francis said. Yet “When we say everybody, we mean nobody,” he said. “And so we live this worldliness that is the child of the evil spirit.”

“Calming the conscience, numbing the conscience, this is a great evil,” he said.

“When the devil manages to numb your conscience he has won a real victory,” Francis said, because “he has become the master of your conscience.” - Source

Remember that the next time you think about stopping off at The Eagle for a beer.  Or decide to groom yourself for a cruise ... or hook up with someone online - just to talk and have dinner of course.

Do you people watch TV?

Did you see ABC's Modern Family?

One of the daughters invited her boyfriend to live with her - she asked her dad to square it with mom.  Clare and Phil were trying to be cool dad - cool mom.  In the end they told the boyfriend he had to leave.  But they were okay with it at first and let them sleep together.  I know - it sounds so square to even comment on it.

(My parents did that with my brother and his girlfriend - they were just so happy he was straight.)

Did you see ABC's How To Get Away With Murder?

Nothing less than soft porn - no genital shots - but very realistic sex scenes - and yep - gay sex too.

Disney is the parent company.

Just think, single parents with kids, home alone while mom or dad are gone, and the kids get to watch this stuff.  Just think, kids with parents like mine who let them watch what they want so long as they are home.

Something new for Fr. Z's wishlist!

'If I can see it, I can kill it.'

Death ray gun.

It could be the answer to the rising threat of drones - a 'death ray' that uses radio waves to disable them from up to a mile away. 

The system is being shown off in Las Vegas amid growing concern over the threat from unmanned vehicles.

It uses high powered radio waves to disable drones, effectively blocking their communication and switching them off in midair. - Source

Fr. Z's monthly donors and wishlist shoppers like it too.

Our Lady of Good Remedy

O Mother of the Divine Redeemer, who under the title of Our Lady of Good Remedy 

comes to the aid of all who call upon thee, 

extend thy maternal protection to us. 

We depend on thee, Dear Mother, 

as helpless and needy children depend on a tender and caring mother.

October 8 is the feast of Our Lady of Good Remedy.

800 years ago Christians were being captured and sold into slavery by Muslims, and nobody knew what to do about it. Then, in the year 1198, a man had an idea. St. John of Matha founded the Trinitarians to go to the slave markets, buy the Christian slaves back and set them free. To carry out this plan, the Trinitarians needed large amounts of money. So, they placed their fund-raising efforts under the patronage of Mary. They were so successful at that, over the centuries, the Trinitarians were able to free thousands and thousands of people and to return them safely home. In gratitude for her miraculous assistance, St. John of Matha honored Mary with the title of "Our Lady of Good Remedy." Devotion to Mary under this ancient title is widely known in Europe and Latin America, and the Church celebrates her feast day on October 8.

Pray for the Christians suffering under ISIS, those threatened, those enslaved and those tortured and killed.

Recent reports tell of eleven Syrian Christians who were killed by beheading and crucifixion near Syria's war-torn city of Aleppo after they refused to deny their faith in Jesus Christ. Among them, the 12-year-old son of "a ministry team leader" was mutilated and crucified.  The women raped in front of onlookers.

We need to do something.  At least turn to Our Lady in prayer - especially the prayers of the Holy Rosary.  Perhaps the Holy Father and the bishops will call for at least a rosary crusade to counter Islamic extremists.

Prayers to Our Lady for Syria

Intercede for Syria, O Our Lady, in this grave hour when from all around blow furious winds, bringing cries of death against Your Son and against civilization founded on His teachings, deceiving minds, perverting hearts and lighting the fires of hatred and revolution in the world. Help of Christians, pray for us!

Intercede for Syria, Our Lady, in this troubled hour when the unclean waves of an open immorality, which has even lost the notion of sin, exalt the rehabilitation of the flesh in the face of the very Cross of Your Son, threatening to choke in this world the lily of virtue nourished by the Eucharistic blood of Jesus. Virgin most powerful, pray for us!...

Intercede for Syria, Our Lady, in this hour of passions and doubts when even the good run the risk of being lost…Unite all the Syrian peoples around Your Son in the love of the Church and the cultivation of virtue, in respect for order and fraternal charity. Queen of Peace, pray for us! - Excerpt from the Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Syrian Bishops 2012

Woman complains her clinic didn't offer burial/cremation services for her aborted baby - then complains when they sent a sympathy card with ultra sound pictures of her baby...

Sympathy card.

“Your little one is sleeping soundly. 

Your little one sleeps upon a cloud drifting high above. 

And gently dreams of peaceful things surrounded by your love.”

The world has gone nuts.

I totally do not get this story.  The mother willingly goes to a clinic to have her baby disposed of - would like to have a funeral for the aborted child ... the clinic didn't provide for that.  Woman complains - she doesn't even know what her baby looked like.  The clinic sends a sympathy card with ultra sound images.  Woman is devastated.

In June, 29-year-old Nicky Windsor had an abortion at the Conifer House clinic in England. Then, after the procedure, the clinic sent her a sympathy card that read, “Your little one is sleeping soundly. Your little one sleeps upon a cloud drifting high above. And gently dreams of peaceful things surrounded by your love.” Shockingly, the card came with two ultrasound pictures of her unborn baby. 

The Daily Mail reports that Windsor believes the clinic sent the sympathy card as an apology after she complained to their staff for not offering her a single burial for her aborted baby. However, the card had the opposite effect and devastated Windsor. She explained, “I couldn’t believe my eyes. It’s absolutely disgraceful. I’ve never known anything like it. What were they trying to do to me? Why on earth would I want scan pictures? Going through a procedure like that is traumatic enough so to have it all brought back to me in the way that they did was absolutely shocking.”

She added, “When I first got the card I thought it was a nice gesture but when I opened it up and saw two baby scans it absolutely shattered me. It was just an awful feeling. It felt as if I had to go through the loss all over again.”

She concluded, “Since then I’ve kept thinking of myself holding the baby but when I look down time I can’t see a face – it’s just nothing. How is it right that they can do that to me? Someone could have got seriously depressed after something like this, it’s sick.” - LifeNews

Loss?  She was devastated?  Can't see a face?  How is it right they can do that to you?  Someone could get depressed?  It's sick?

Women!

Melvin Udall when asked, “how do you write women so well?”

For the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary: Nuestra Señora de Rosario de Chiquinquirá

Nuestra Señora de Rosario de Chiquinquirá

Story here.

The rosary is our ladder to Heaven.  Pray the rosary every day, and if you can, pray many rosaries - as best you can.  Gently returning to meditation whenever distracted - as best you can.  We don't know how to pray as we ought, on our own - therefore the rosary is a school of prayer.  It seems to me the rosary is very much like the monastic ladder: Encompassing sacred reading, meditation, prayer-oration, contemplation - within one exercise of devotion.  We announce and consider the mystery-the Word of God; meditate upon it; we ask in prayer; and are lifted out of ourselves in contemplation.  The prayer of the rosary activating as if on it's own, as it were.  The intellect suspended, the spirit elevated above the flesh.  It seems to me this is a signal grace, promised by Our Lady: It is the Holy Spirit praying within us - because we do not know how to pray as we ought. It is the Holy Spirit who wills and accomplishes within us every good.

The Blessed Virgin, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, is the Gate of Heaven ...  "Who is this gate (Ezekiel 44:1-4), if not Mary?" (St. Ambrose of Milan, The Consecration of a Virgin and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, 8:52; c. 391 AD)  "For the Lord has created a new thing on the earth - A woman shall encompass the man." (Jeremiah 31:22).

Special note:  Please pray for a priest friend of mine, who will have some serious surgery on this, Our Lady's feast day.

The Child Jesus in Three Guises ...

Unidentified Artist, "The Christ Child in Three Guises with Indigenous Donors," 1835

How sweet is that?

St. Bruno

Every year I make my lament...

"Many wish to come into this port, and many make great efforts to do so, yet do not achieve it. Indeed many, after reaching it, have been thrust out, since it was not granted to them from above.

Therefore, my brothers, you should consider it certain and well established that whoever partakes of this desirable good, should he in any way lose it, will grieve to his death, if he has any concern for the salvation of his soul." -Letters of St. Bruno. Office of Readings.

Each year I read it, what I know by heart...

Pray for us St. Bruno, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

In a parable to Br. Leo, I think it was, St. Francis explained it was perfect joy to be rejected and not admitted to the friary.  Thus, barring admittance to the ermetical life, it seems to me St. Catherine of Siena tells us where we can go to find that holy solitude which unites us to God:

Build yourself a spiritual cell, which you can always take with you, and that is the cell of self-knowledge; you will find there also the knowledge of God's goodness to you. There are really two cells in one, and if you live in one you must also live in the other, otherwise the soul will either despair or be presumptuous; if you dwelt in self-knowledge alone you would despair; if you dwelt in knowledge of God alone you would be tempted to presumption. One must go with the other, and thus you will reach perfection. - St. Catherine of Siena

Oh, a storm is threat'ning ...

My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away...

Jerry Brown once worked with M. Teresa.

Changed his life, he said.

Speculative spittle-flecked-nutties over the Synod is simply a diversion from real life.

You want something to worry about?  I'll give you something to worry about.

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a dangerous bill today to make the state the 4th to legalize assisted suicide, following Oregon, Washington and Vermont.

In his signing message, Brown said he signed the bill because he wouldn’t want to be in pain in his final days — regardless of the fact that pain relief is readily available without killing patients. - Source

Storms and earthquakes forecast for October.

It's so strange how news items like legalizing assisted suicide can be taken in stride.  The recent murders in Oregon - I heard it on the news, and pretty much took it for granted.  In Minnesota it seems there is a shooting or knifing nearly every day - a murder every week or so.  Last I heard Minneapolis has had 35 murders so far this year.  Domestic abuse can be deadly.  What did Mother Teresa say about a country which permits mothers to kill their child in the womb?

One doesn't have to be a prophet to know a storm is threatening.  A 1000 year flood on the East Coast?  I bet that confirmed a lot of prophecies, huh?

Song for this post here.

Synod fatigue. Already? Really?

Such drama ... unbecoming a priest.

Snap out of it.

Lorenzo of Detroit has some suggestions on how to cope here.

Works for me.

October is Domestic Violence Month. Just in time for the Synod on the Family.

I wonder if you can buy greeting cards to send?

Always use soft foods and liquids when hitting in the face.

October is filled with holidays, huh?

I have fond memories of how my parents handled things.  After many years of domestic violence, and great expense for emergency care and glasses replacement for my mom, my dad stopped hitting and would grab the glasses from my mother's face and pop the lenses out.  Then he'd slam her head into the wall.  One Christmas we came over and though she was black-eyed and puffy, and the phone was pulled out of the wall and there was a huge hole in the sheet-rock, her glasses were just fine.

"What happened to the wall mom?"

"Nothing."

And everything was fine after that.

“There are always fights in a marriage, aren’t there? Sometimes plates fly. You’re laughing, but it’s the truth." - Pope Francis

Isn't that cute?  Isn't that true?

"Just be careful when you fight, family - don't create a lot of unnecessary expense.  We love you!" - Bob and Penny Lord.

Guys, if you're unmarried and still living in the basement,

be kind to your mothers.

Francesco ... One Love

Happy feast day to all the little ones.

Song for this little portion here.

The sad story of Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa ... more thoughts, and prayers.*

-source-

Thinking about the story of Fr. Krzy (Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa)

There is a lot of hateful stuff on line - understandably so, since the priest in question appears to have made an attempt to hijack the Synod on the Family which began today.  Sodomite is the operative word to drive home the point this guy is a filthy homosexual.  That's the language I'm encountering - not unfamiliar to my ears either.

I've never felt more sad over a story like this.

When I first read the story, I thought it was sad, unfortunate, and felt badly for the guy.  I imagined something sudden must have happened - and he fell in love and simply wanted to find 'happiness' with his lover and attempt to live happily ever after.  Turns out he had a sort manifesto, a list of demands that the Church change her teaching, even rewrite Scripture, to accommodate and approve LGBTQ lifestyle and relationships, and so on.  Equality and liberty for all.  That's essentially Antichrist, anti-Christian.

How do people fall away like this?

For a religious person, I think it usually begins with a falling off of interior devotion.  Faith without devotion, that is, love, weakens and is easily shaken.  In Krzy's case, it might have begun shortly after arriving in Rome.  Rome is incredibly romantic and dazzling, the Italians are fun, beautiful, and seductive.  He may have been impressed by the glamour.  He may have been seduced by the prestige of working in the Vatican.  Encountering and dining with influential visitors, young acquaintances, perhaps - always happy and fun and in a Roman holiday spirit - all of which is enough to sap devotion.  To neglect prayer and mortification and self-denial.  To blunt humility.

One kiss ...

The lyrics from a Bozz Scaggs song came to mind as I was thinking of these things.  Strange as it seems, I was reminded of St. Teresa of Avila's account of her 'falling away', as well as her tale of a priest she'd met, who had been 'charmed' by a woman.  Not following that?  Here's the lyric that influenced my thoughts, occasioned by some of the photos of Krzy and Edouard.

I can still remember
What you told me with your eyes
One kiss
Now it's down to this
Guess it's time you realize ... song here.

Mix that song, or one like it, with a sexually attractive person gazing at you from across the room, penetrating your 'heart' with his eyes - and you can fall - just like lightning from the sky ...

One kiss, with the eyes ... when faith and love and devotion has grown cold it is amazing how easily, how quickly we can be seduced.  Like lightning - a tsunami of hot, flowing, emotion enveloping the depths of your being.  The time must be ripe, the lonely heart shivering cold, the danger signals muted, the emotions and senses open to the occasion.  It can happen in an instant.  Through a simple, though evocative scent, a familiar taste reminding you of an earlier encounter or fantasy.  Suddenly ....  the fall.

The more serious the sin - or the propensity for it - the more fervent our prayer - our devotion must be.

Prayer - devotion - is incompatible with self-indulgence.  (Hence my tie-in to Teresa of Avila.)  Self-love, self-pleasure and self gratification cannot exist together in the devout life.  Either little by little, or in one fell swoop we can return to our former way of life - which tugs at our heart - sometimes violently, inviting us to look back - perhaps just for an instant, just to glimpse the destruction of Sodom - which has a strange, fantastic appeal and exhilarating music all its own.

Back in my arms again...

The love, the passion, the vain rejoicing in natural goods ... the misappropriation of  a false mysticism, leading to coveting what is lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not yours - all of that is forbidden to celibates, and when indulged, foments contempt of what is holy and sacred.  The person rebels against nature.  Then God and his Church.  He blames the Church for his sin - and insists the Church absolve and erase the law from its books - because only the law defines it as disordered.  The person sets himself in opposition to Christ - and is therefore, anti-Christ.

That.  That is the scary part, as well as the extremely sad part of this story.  Obstinacy in sin, rejection of the Commandments, leads to the denial of God - it makes us enemies of Christ and his Cross.  We declare: I will not serve.

Yet we ask why the Blessed Virgin weeps... 

I hope and pray this priest and his friend will come to understand the delusion homosexuality and lgbtq-gender-theory presents today.  Fr. Krzy's apostasy demonstrates why it is so necessary to take care to avoid that 'an all too benign interpretation be given to the homosexual condition itself'.  Sometimes this benign interpretation leads to the very fall we seek to avoid.

Be careful how you condemn as well - lest a worse fate fall upon you.  Fr. Krzy and Edouard have the opportunity to repent and return - we may not if we condemn.  And remember - no Pope caused this or accommodated this situation.  Not any more than the Law or the Church invented this sin, as Krzy seems to suggest.  Christ warned us and left an example of all of this in and through the conduct of his disciples.

Go and sin no more.

Jesus, I trust in you.

Our confidence is our salvation.

*If anyone reading this sees or knows these guys, tell them I will pray for both of them, Krzystof and Eduard, for the rest of my life, and give them a hug.