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Tuesday 16 July 2013

The Queen's Coronation Oath, without Comment

http://www.royal.gov.uk/ImagesandBroadcasts/Historic%20speeches%20and%20broadcasts/CoronationOath2June1953.aspx

For New Readers-Notes Against the Warning

26 Apr 2013
This time, He will not come as man in the flesh. Found here. OOPs our friends at the Warning have contradicted Catholic Teaching yet again. When Christ returns, He, of course, will come as the Incarnate God.
23 Apr 2013
More against the Warning-from another source not me and GOOD. Posted by Supertradmum · http://blog.newadvent.org/2013/03/a-closer-look-at-false-prophecies-of.html · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to ...
31 Aug 2012
A Warning on False Seers Again--Oh, Foolish Galatians. Posted by Supertradmum. The errors spilling forth from some websites already mentioned on this blog are leading Catholics astray. A reader has brought to my ...
04 Mar 2013
Catechist Kev said... Readng through the comments kind of tells the story for me, SuperT. The way some of those who say they are devoted to MDM attack Mr. Akin (sometimes with vehement vitriol)is all this Catholic needs to ...

23 May 2013
We need to hear this type of guidance and warning from the pulpit. I, personally, besides reading the statements of some of the bishops, not all, have heard only ONE priest talk about the changes in the life styles of the young, ...
07 Jul 2012
If people who read this post, as they did my list of errors on The Warning, are offended, I suggest they consider whether they are true Catholics, choosing to follow the Church in matters which are too difficult for them to discern, ...
18 May 2013
Now that the good Bishop in Australia has given the kibosh to the evil of The Warning site, I can concentrate on another one brought to my attention and through the blog carer a few days ago. Thanks to CS for this information.

06 Jun 2013
For example, last summer, I told someone in Walsingham about the dangers of The Warning site and how she should not be passing out print outs in the National Shrine. She contradicted me, and ignored me. But, I did my ...
Also use labels on side-private revelations

On Pillars and Wraiths; And, A Nod to Zombies

For several years, I have had a strange experience around people. Now, this experience is not something which is described in Scripture or in spiritual writings, except in a few contexts which I have found. Let me explain the experience, and then the contexts.



The experience is one of sensing people as solid or as not solid, spiritually and physically. When I am around certain people, such as Fr. Z. or Mr. C, or Mrs. S., I am struck with how they spiritually feel solid as well as are physically.

Frequently, I "sense" this automatically about a person and then later find out that this man or woman is a person of intense prayer. This person feels solid, and I call him or her a pillar.

Sometimes I sense this without knowing much about the person. 

Around other people, I have a sense of them being like wraiths. That is, these people seem shadowy and insubstantial.

This is not a value judgement, but a reaction or a sense which just happens. Most of the time, I do not even know the people. It is like being in a movie where the zombies look like normal people except for one thing. 

Now. there is a third category, and those are the solidly evil. Like the holy pillars, these people are solid, but, and a big but, these people have demonstrated evil propensities and decisions in their lives. This group is very small. and I can say that I have met few which strike me as bad pillars. Most of those people who have shared with me that they are freely living sinful lives, such as witches I have met, or businessmen who admitted being dishonest have seemed like bad pillars, while the vast majority of people who have shared with me that they are contracepting, or that they are living in fornication are not bad pillars, but wraiths. There are more wraiths than pillars of both types, even in church.

Why this happens, I do not know. The amazing thing I have noticed is that the wraiths are afraid of the pillars. Very---afraid. I am not afraid of anyone, except that being who can kill the soul.

To me, the pillars are the most alive people around. Their persons exude life. They are more alive than most people, than the wraiths. Sadly, the bad pillars get their solidness from being committed to evil, while the good pillars are the rocks which build the Church. They are solid and good because they are full of God. God makes them strong.

I wonder if anyone else experiences this odd phenomenon? 

Now, here are two contexts which help understand this.

The first is purely linguistic. We call certain people pillars of society, that is, they have a certain moral authority and give back to the community what they have been given. They are like the salt of the earth.

Of course, as in Ibsen's play, some people can seem to be good and really be bad. There are many examples of  good and bad pillars, and wraiths in literature. The character of Bulstrode in Middlemarch is an excellent example of the arch-hypocrite, but he is a wraith. 

A wraith has a dead soul. I was a wraith but God had mercy on me and brought me back to Christ and His Church. A wraith may not know he or she is dead. Pillars are powerful and alive.

Unlike the wraiths, the Nazgul, in LOTR, the wraiths have no power, none. They may have a bit of will, but no power. Pillars are powerful.

We also have the image in the Old Testament of God appearing as a Pillar of Smoke by day and a Pillar of Fire by night to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt into the Promised Land. So a pillar leads, and guards, as God guarded His People in the Wilderness.

The second context is that Mary, Our Mother and Blessed Lady is called, among other things, Tower of David, Tower of ivory, House of gold, Gate of Heaven. Now, a Gate has pillars, to hold it up and towers usually need pillars, as well as houses, grand houses. Mary, herself, is referred to in liturgical, architectural and historical terms. She is the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant. She is the pillar in the house of David, being of that lineage and she, like ivory, one of the strongest natural things, is solid.

Mary is a rock which evil can dash itself against and be ruined.

So too, we are called to be pillars-to be strong and for the building of the Church. In fact, Timothy calls the Church THE pillar.

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. 1 Timothy 3:15 DR


I cannot claim any special gift for feeling wraiths and pillars, and I hope I am wrong about so many wraiths. I do not want to think about other people, either, being in training to keep my eyes on Christ totally. However, I think it is good to recognize the pillars, of both kinds, and especially pray for the wraiths.

from The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot

Unreal City,  60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.  65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!  70
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!  75
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
\
London Bridge in 1894-It is now in Lake Havesu since 1971










Ratzinger on The Future of The Church-1969

“She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members….
It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. "The church will become small." from Faith and the Future (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009). Originally published in 1969. One can buy it on the link.





The Flower of Carmel



Flos Carmeli, vitis florigera, splendor caeli, virgo puerpera singularis.
Mater mitis sed viri nescia Carmelitis esto propitia stella maris.
Radix Iesse germinans flosculum nos ad esse tecum in saeculum patiaris.
Inter spinas quae crescis lilium serva puras mentes fragilium tutelaris.
Armatura fortis pugnantium furunt bella tende praesidium scapularis.
Per incerta prudens consilium per adversa iuge solatium largiaris.
Mater dulcis Carmeli domina, plebem tuam reple laetitia qua bearis.
Paradisi clavis et ianua, fac nos duci quo, Mater, gloria coronaris. Amen. (Alleluia.)

FLOWER of Carmel, Tall vine blossom laden; Splendor of heaven, Childbearing yet maiden. None equals thee.
Mother so tender, Who no man didst know, On Carmel's children Thy favours bestow. Star of the Sea.
Strong stem of Jesse, Who bore one bright flower, Be ever near us And guard us each hour, who serve thee here.
Purest of lilies, That flowers among thorns, Bring help to the true heart That in weakness turns and trusts in thee.
Strongest of armour, We trust in thy might: Under thy mantle, Hard press'd in the fight, we call to thee.
Our way uncertain, Surrounded by foes, Unfailing counsel You give to those who turn to thee.
O gentle Mother Who in Carmel reigns, Share with your servants That gladness you gained and now enjoy.
Hail, Gate of Heaven, With glory now crowned, Bring us to safety Where thy Son is found, true joy to see. Amen. (Alleluia.)  thanks to wiki for this

For my suffering friends, two




Matthew 10:16-23

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

16 Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.
17 But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.
18 And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles:
19 But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak.
20 For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.
21 The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death.
22 And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.
23 And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come.

Thoughts on encouragement from The Devout Life


David continually asks the Lord to strengthen his heart against cowardice and discouragement; and it is our privilege in this war that we are certain to vanquish so long as we are willing to fight.

...

Be sure, my daughter, that if you seek to lead a devout life, you must not merely forsake
sin; but you must further cleanse your heart from all affections pertaining to sin; for, to say
nothing of the danger of a relapse, these wretched affections will perpetually enfeeble your
mind, and clog it, so that you will be unable to be diligent, ready and frequent in good works,
wherein nevertheless lies the very essence of all true devotion. Souls which, in spite of having
forsaken sin, yet retain such likings and longings, remind us of those persons who, without
being actually ill, are pale and sickly, languid in all they do, eating without appetite, sleeping
without refreshment, laughing without mirth, dragging themselves about rather than
walking briskly. Such souls as I have described lose all the grace of their good deeds, which

are probably few and feeble, through their spiritual languor. St. Francis de Sales