On the saints for pilots and more on dear St. Joseph Cupertino

Flying Saints: Who is watching over pilots?

Repeat from 2009

By ERIC CHANDLER, For General Aviation News

Like every cheapskate pilot on a layover, I grabbed the free newspaper, which featured an article about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron saint of pilots.

I was glad to find out who’s on my team. I safely finished my trip and decided to thank the patron saint of my profession by learning more about her.

Thérèse was a French woman from Lisieux who became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15 and died young from tuberculosis. She was known as the “Little Flower” and canonized very soon after her death. She felt she could best serve God with “the little way” — doing what she could for people in the small details of life. Mother Teresa of Calcutta even took her name to honor her. That’s all very interesting, but unsatisfying. I resolved to learn why she was connected to flying.

I got more than I bargained for. It turns out there are actually three patron saints of aviation: St. Thérèse, St. Joseph of Cupertino and Our Lady of Loreto. The latter two were a lot easier to figure out.

St. Joseph was an Italian Franciscan priest who lived in the 17th century. He levitated. Poking him with pins and burning embers wouldn't stop his soaring. “The Flying Friar” would only land when his superiors ordered him down. Like a lot of pilots, he was very dedicated to flight. Okay, St. Joseph, I understand why Pope Clement XIII gave you the nod in 1767.

Our Lady of Loreto also makes a good aviation saint. There is a humble house in the Italian city of Loreto that’s enclosed inside a cathedral. This house is supposed to be where the Annunciation occurred when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear the son of God. Angels reputedly carried this house from the Holy Lands through the air to Italy in 1294. All of these events, combined with some good lobbying by the Italian Air Force, made her a shoo-in to be the patron saint of air travelers by order of Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Photo from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. This oil on canvas painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo depicts “The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto.” Our Lady of Loreto is just one of three saints looking out for pilots.

Our Lady of Loreto flies the highest of the three saints. Many references claim Charles Lindbergh carried her medallion across the Atlantic. Italian Umberto Nobile carried her medallion over the North Pole in the dirigible “Norge” in 1926. He visited Loreto to thank her and paid her back by helping put out a fire in the basilica while he was there. Astronaut James McDivitt carried her medallion on the Apollo 9 space flight in March 1969.

There is a chapel in Loreto that has a painting depicting American astronauts and an image of the angels bearing the Holy House of Loreto. This building is sometimes called the American chapel or the aviation chapel.

St. Therese even visited the cathedral of Our Lady of Loreto on her way to Rome to seek an audience with the Pope to plead her case to become a nun.

None of this gets me any closer to my answer about Thérèse of Lisieux. She describes herself as a “little bird” in her autobiography and she’s also the patron saint of the missions. In the early 20th century, flying would’ve been one of the ways missionaries traveled to the far-flung outposts of the church. Maybe that’s the reason.

I’d like to follow in the footsteps of previous visitors to Loreto, including Mozart, Descartes and St. Thérèse. Maybe the images of flight in the American chapel there would give me a clue about her link to the sky.

Lately, I fly military airplanes. While I still don’t know why St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a patron saint of aviation, I do know one thing: When it was a dark night over Iraq, I was glad there were three flying saints checking my 6 o’clock instead of just one.

Eric Chandler flies F-16s with the Minnesota Air National Guard in Duluth. He’s made two trips to Iraq with the 148th Fighter Wing Bulldogs. He has been on military leave from United Airlines since Sept. 11.

St. Joseph Cupertino, pray for us

Today is the feast of one of my personal patrons, St. Joseph Cupertino. He is one of the patron saints of pilots and one of the patron saints of those students taking exams.

Prayers to him work. I know this from experience. He was "mentally challenged" and I love the story of his examination to be allowed to be a priest.

Apparently, seminarians of religious orders would meet with the Bishop and his team of examiners before Ordination. The examiners would open the Scriptures several times at random and the students would have to give the age-old four-fold interpretation of the passaged pointed to by the examiners. This four-fold interpretation would include a theological interpretation, a pastoral interpretation, an allegorical interpretation and an eschatological interpretation, that is pertaining to the end times.

Being mentally challenged, barely able to read and knowing little Latin, Joseph was put at the end of the line by his fellow seminarians, who thought perhaps, the examiners would give a little slack to the last participant.

However, when Joseph was standing before the team of examiners, the first passage they randomly selected was the Annunciation.

Joseph had an idee fixe about the Annunciation. There was nothing humanly possible he did not know about that passage in Luke. He spoke for 45 minutes.

The examiners said something like this, "Well, it is obvious you are an excellent Scripture scholar, so we are not going to ask you to interpret another three passages."

Joseph would elevate at the Consecration. Some of the brothers in his Franciscan monastery thought he was possessed. So, they got the priest to start an exorcism on him and during the prayers Jesus, Joseph and Mary appeared to all in the room, confirming that Joseph was full of the Holy Spirit and not demonic ones.

Pilots, pray to him and students taking exams, pray to him.

He is a dear, dear saint.

If the American Bishops Were Doing Their Job, I Would Not Have to Blog

This takes time and thought, but please watch the whole thing. This is about Shadow Parties. Pay attention to language on politics. Facts, not fiction.

Learn the truth behind the fake Catholics who have helped an atheist billionaire dominate the Democratic party

Was important in 2010, and is more important now...For those who are not Americans, watch this anyway, as the same thing is probably happening in your country as well. And how America goes, the West goes...

A few reasons why you must watch this; Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, (not Catholic), chairman Fred Rotandaro in 2010 on the Huffington Post online stated that "gay sex comes from God", "I have never seen a rational reason why a woman should not be a women priest", and a stark statement against the Church's stand against contraception.

You will notice the George Soros Network segment. Our bishops should be paying attention to this information and stop holding hands with these many influential people. Saul Alinsky groups are mentioned. Pay attention to the graphs.

I am also concerned with the number of former USCCB employers who worked full-time for the Obama campaign. Catholics United, (not Catholic), is another group with which we must be concerned. The Planned Parenthood Interfaith Breakfast mystifies me--one of the speakers there is connected to the leftist, anti-Catholic groups outlined here.

54% of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008. The last 20 minutes are essential viewing. The Pope is highlighted at the end.

"The Catholic Bishops need to put an end to this and put an end to this now," stated Voris.

You must watch the whole thing, all the way to the last few minutes. Watch, pray, reflect, act.

Like Voris states about his own media work, I say, if the Bishops were doing their job, I would not have to blog. "Souls are at stake."

We are the mustard seeds.........

Watch Michael Voris and subscribe to him.

Read JihadWatch and subscribe to that.

Read Courageous Priest and subscribe to that.

Read LifeSiteNews and subscribe to that.

We are in a battle and those who deny it will be swept away.

Learning the Truth is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Richard the Lionhearted outside Parliament in London

So, a child in France has no right to a mother and a father....

No one is happy in France about the gay-marriage bill. France 24 gives an interesting view on this legislation.

There seems to be two sides which clash, while the government plans some type of compromise. Maybe...

Here is part of the article, but the entire approach is a mess.

 (Mr.)Quinqueton heads the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) reflection group, “Homosexuality and Socialism,” which has been working with the Socialist Party on LGBT rights issues since 1993, when even civil unions seemed like a pipe dream. Today, the PACS civil union pact has been in place for 13 years, and Quinqueton and his fellow campaigners are nearing the final step in their battle for the same legal rights as their heterosexual counterparts.

Gay marriage was a hot topic during the run-up to the presidential election in May this year. While incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy laregly evaded the issue, François Hollande pledged to bring France up to date with many of its Western counterparts by making marriage available to all, thereby attracting a large chunk of the LGBT electorate.

Hello, so why does one think Hollande pushed for that vote?

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira unveiled a rough outline of the Socialist government’s proposed bill, pencilled in for spring 2013. The new law “will extend the current arrangements of marriage to members of the same sex,” Taubira told Catholic newspaper La Croix. That means that a gay person can marry, adopt children and become a 'parent' of their partner's biological child in the same way that a straight person can today, she explained.

As to be expected, Taubira’s comments ruffled feathers among French hardline conservatives and Catholic advocates, who used the opportunity to reiterate their belief that marriage should only constitute a union between man and woman and that children should be brought up within a mother-father family unit. Christine Boutin, the leader of France's Christian Democratic Party and one of France’s most vocal conservatives, called for a referendum on the issue and warned of “heavy consequences for society” if the law were to go ahead.

So, as in America and Great Britain, Catholics who follow the teaching of the Catholic Church are called "hardliners".  Sigh, one cannot be a follower of Christ without being pilloried this days. And, the problem with the lgtbs is that they are not getting aid for artificial birth techniques.

What bothers me greatly is the quotation here below, that a child has NO RIGHT to a mother and a father.

What? Who decided that? Not God.

Judith Silberfeld, editor of LGBT magazine Yagg, told FRANCE 24 that the website’s readers were “incensed” by the Socialists' apparent change of tune. “We didn’t know exactly what to expect [concerning the precisions of the bill], but we had, nonetheless, been promised medically assisted procreation (MAP),” she explained. “Ms Taubira’s comments on Tuesday threw everyone into confusion.”

Confusion is the word of the day here..................

MAP, which involves methods such as artificial insemination, is popular among lesbian couples starting a family in countries where they are able to access services legally (such as Belgium and Spain). In the run-up to the May election, in which Hollande was elected president, the Socialist Party promised to make MAP – already available to straight couples in France – accessible to lesbians too. “Whether someone is heterosexual or homosexual, for us that doesn’t matter,” Paris MP George Pau-Langevin said during a debate in February. “What counts for us is prepared, stable parenting.”

Well, people God gave us the paradigm for stable parenting....these people are so self-righteous. 

Catherine Michaud, who heads GayLib, an LGBT movement associated with the conservative UMP party, agrees. “A child doesn’t have the right to a mother and father,” she told FRANCE 24. “It has the right to two loving parents.” Michaud, 28, argued that the very process same-sex couples are forced to go through proves their commitment to parenting. “As a lesbian couple, me and my partner can’t just wake up in the morning and say, we’re going to have a baby,” she said. “But without MAP, procreation is near impossible. It would be terribly hypocritical for the Socialists to introduce an ‘equality’ bill without allowing us the same parenting rights as our heterosexual peers. Half-hearted equality is not equality.”

Once homosexuality became part of the civil rights argument, people have become more and more confused. 

A snippet from Pat Buchanan

Part of an article from Pat Buchanan:

The Islamic word, especially across the Arab region, is undergoing a transformation, a Great Awakening. Muslims from Nigeria to Mali to Ethiopia to Sudan to the Maghreb and Middle and Near East are growing more militant and more hostile toward Christianity and other faiths.

And as we are not going to change our position on Israel, or our culture, such as it is, or our First Amendment, clashes between us are inevitable.

Perhaps the best course of action for America is to lower our profile in that region, bring most of our diplomats and troops home, and let these people work out their destiny themselves.

Second, given the costs and consequences of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and intervention in Libya, let the Syrians settle their war themselves. There is no guarantee the fall of Bashar Assad, given the jihadist and al-Qaida presence in the forces seeking his overthrow, will be an improvement for the United States.

Third, the United States should tell the Egyptian government that its failure to provide security for our embassy was an outrage, that if we cannot see them as a friendly government with common interests, we will not hesitate to cut off aid and warn U.S. citizens not to travel to Egypt.

From Courageous Priest and if you do not know this site check it out...

Orthodoxy is Indispensible and Inseparable to Ordained Ministry Posted: 17 Sep 2012 11:44 AM PDT Dissenting Clergy Have No One To Blame But Themselves Father John Trigilio, Jr., President of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of more than 500 priests and deacons), publicly repudiates the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, “Call to Disobedience.” Recently, Msgr. Helmut Schüller gave an interview to CNS (Catholic News Service) where he reiterated his group’s dissident agenda: making clerical celibacy optional, allowing Protestants and divorced and remarried (without annulment) Catholics to receive Holy Communion, accepting same-sex unions, and ordaining women to Holy Orders. The CCC, on the other hand, “unequivocally and completely renews the sacred promise of obedience taken by every cleric. Orthodoxy (assenting to all Magisterial teachings) and orthopraxy (obeying the lawful disciplines of church authority) are indispensible and inseparable to ordained ministry.” Confraternity of Catholic Clergy The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in the U.S.A. (www.catholic-clergy.org) has fellow associations in Australia (ACCC) and the UK (British CCC) with more than 300 and 100 members, respectively. All three branches espouse fidelity to the Roman Pontiff and to the full deposit of faith as taught by the Pope and Bishops in union with him. “It is incomprehensible how the Austrian Priests’ Initiative can blame Rome for their dissent. Such an act of rebellion against church doctrine is nothing less than heretical and rebellion against church discipline is just plain schismatic.” Thomas McKenna, Executive Director of the Confraternity said, “The Catholic faithful need to know that these miscreants are not by any means representative of the majority of clergy. Most priests and deacons are faithful sons of the Church but they do not get the same publicity and attention the secular media lavishes upon the vocal minority of dissidents.” Father Trigilio is asking all members of the CCC to renew the Oath of Fidelity every Thursday (in honor of the Last Supper when Holy Orders was instituted by Christ) during the upcoming YEAR OF FAITH (Oct. 11, 2012-Nov. 24, 2013) to show solidarity with the Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church

From men to women on modesty: "My greatest temptation... was in church".

Kristine Cranley has an excellent article on the blog, http://marysaggies.blogspot.sg/2012/05/reflections-on-questions-of-modesty.html, which is a group of Catholic students from Texas A and M. Smart kids.

She asked men about modesty and her article is revealing in many ways. To be honest, I am tired of fighting the modesty battle with Catholic women, and even some priests who do not want to deal with this serious problem and it is serious. Leading people into sin is sin. One good priest I know said it was a terrible thing to see girls dressed as they are. But, this needs to be said from the pulpit.

Read what Kristine writes here. You can follow the link to the entire article.

I’ll never forget my shock when in college a friend admitted to me that he found it difficult when women wore white shirts to Mass because you could often see one’s bra straps through them. I had never thought to check! I thanked him for the information, and thanked God I wasn't wearing a white shirt at that moment! 

Or when my own brother discretely told me that my smashing new white pants were … well … see through. “When girls wear white pants” he informed me authoritatively, “guys check”. 

Or, perhaps most embarrassing of all, the time a man asked me to stop wearing ‘midriff shirts’ to Mass. I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know what a midriff shirt was. (I have since googled it and am quite certain that I have never owned a midriff shirt, but my pants that fateful day had been a little loose and fallen below my shirt line, and he had noticed). 

Too loose. Too tight. Too low. Too high. Who teaches us about these things anymore?

I thank God for the men who have been courageous enough to share with me the ways my clothing has affected them. Certainly we are all responsible for guarding our eyes from what might cause us to sin. And yet I’m confident that most of you ladies reading this desire to help our brothers in Christ to live purity of heart, just as we are grateful when they help us to do the same. But how are we to learn to love each other well in this regard?

...

Why Modesty?

First of all, I want to assert that the reason we dress modestly is NOT because our feminine bodies are bad or ugly or intrinsically ‘occasions of sin’. Simultaneously, it is NOT because all men think about is sex, or that they are incapable of looking at us without lust. Rather modesty involves speaking the truth with our bodies. While women are generally aroused through emotional warmth or physical touch, men are aroused through visual stimuli. Whether we intend to or not, revealing too much of our bodies sends a message that we are sexually available to them. As one young man recently explained to a group of women here at St. Mary’s,“there are two steps to having sex. Taking off one’s clothes and actually having sex. If someone is already half undressed, it’s difficult for one’s mind not to go to the second step”.

But meanwhile, the world seems ‘hell-bent’ on destroying in women a proper sense of what is and is not modest. Has not modern day fashion slowly desensitized us to exposing almost every part of our body that can possibly be exposed? One style may show off more and more of the leg, another the chest, the navel, the back, etc., so that slowly we’ve become increasingly comfortable with having any or every part of our bodies revealed to the public. Is it possible to wear any less clothing than a string bikini? Even being clad in solely our undergarments would cover more than many swimsuits do nowadays. 

It is true that norms of modesty do shift somewhat from culture to culture. There have been cultures where women have never worn shirts and therefore their being topless was not considered sexually suggestive for the men in their society. But question of importance for us today is what message do our outfits, in our present culture and day, send to the men we are blessed to know and love?

Survey Says

Personally, I have found the responses given on the ‘modesty survey’ extremely enlightening in this regard. This survey anonymously interviewed men seeking to live chastity on their views regarding women’s clothing. Their answers were astounding. The following is a sample of some of the survey questions, followed by the men’s responses (emphasis original):

• Girls can dress attractively without being immodest. 98% agree/str. agree
• Age 20 - I actually had a T.A. in one of my classes who was a beautiful woman who dressed modestly, and I had trouble paying attention to anyone but her! Her clothing never caused me to stumble and never once did I have a physical reaction to her. Instead, my heart warmed (maybe even fluttered a few times hehe) and it just made me smile. There's also a young woman from my home town who I've known for some time who has MASTERED this art. She is just gorgeous....wait, I'm rambling.... sorry. But see what I mean? The women who dress modestly AND attractively leave a much longer lasting impression on men.
• Age 20 - There is a huge difference between being beautiful and being hot. Beauty is being attractive for who the girl is as a person. Hot is being attractive as nothing more than sex appeal.
• Showing any cleavage is immodest. – 70% agree/str. agree
• Age 40-49 - I find it totally distracting. It's EVERYTHING I can do to keep my eyes on her eyes when cleavage is showing.
• Age 22 - Why? Why must you? What is your reasoning for doing it? You can be fashionable with out doing it, so why?
• Age 20 - This is the biggest thing which causes me to fall.
• Immodest clothing is not a problem (for you) when a girl in your own family wears it. – 21% agree/str. agree
• Age 24 - Maybe I am alone in this, but my "Hey! Female skin!" radar doesn't stop to check DNA first
• Age 16 - I radically disagree. It does not matter if the girl is my sister or not, it is still an assault on godly beauty, and my chastity. You see, what lust (and the whole industry that is producing all the magazines you see at the grocery store and worse) does, is it takes away the personhood of the object of lust. So then, immodesty in a mind surrendered to evil turns the woman into a thing -- it removes personality, true beauty, being made in God's image, and leaves only a thing that satisfies evil desires. Therefore, because of how destructive lust is it does matter that my sister and my best friend dress modestly.
• Bending over so that cleavage is visible down the front of the shirt or dress is a stumbling block. 90% agree/str. agree
• Age 16 - Um... Yes. That image usually sticks in my head for weeks.
• Age 21 - I cannot agree stronger. This is a big one for me. It would appear some shirt are MADE to do this. I appreciate it when girls hold there hand to their chest as they bend over. It demonstrates not only a respect for themselves, but also to me.
• Age 16 - STRONGLY AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GAH! THIS IS SOOOOOO DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH!!!!
• General comments to women
• Age 24 - Sisters in Christ, you really have no concept of the struggles that guys face on a daily basis. Please, please, please take a higher standard in the ways you dress. True, we men are responsible for our thoughts and actions before the Lord, but it is such a blessing when we know that we can spend time with our sisters in Christ, enjoying their fellowship without having to constantly be on guard against ungodly thoughts brought about by the inappropriate ways they sometimes dress. In 1 Corinthians 12 the apostle Paul presents believers as the members of one body - we have to work together. Every Christian has a special role to play in the body of Christ. That goal is to bring glory to the Savior through an obedient, unified body of believers - please don't hurt that unity by dressing in ways that may tempt your brothers in Christ to stumble.
• Age 26 - In high school, the place of greatest temptation toward lust was my church. Girls wore things to church that they thought were fashionable and dressy, but they would not have passed the dress code at my public high school. Church should NEVER be a guy's greatest source of temptation, in any way. Please, be especially careful when picking out your dress clothes for church, and make sure they are modest when sitting and kneeling (if you kneel in church), not just standing in front of the mirror. 

In summary: cleavage, tight pants, short shorts, the infamous ‘midriff shirts’, exposed backs or bra straps: all these things compromise the grace-filled beauty of our feminine presence to our brothers in the Lord.

Who is God and Who is Man?

I have been thinking of this all week and the Great Spencer has written it. And just in case you forgot the references, here are snippets on both:

Piss Christ is a 1987 photograph by the American artist and photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition,^[1] which was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects. A print of the photograph was damaged using a screwdriver or icepick on April 17, 2011 while on exhibit in Avignon, France. from Wiki

And the dung Mary, which I remember, wherein all those in favor of freedom of speech screamed bloody murder when the lawsuit was initiated. This bit is from Wiki as well, with no photos, please.....

The Holy Virgin Mary is a painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996. It was one of the works included in the Sensation exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000. The subject of the work, and its execution, caused considerable controversy in New York, with Rudolph Giuliani – then Mayor of New York City – describing Ofili's work as "sick".^[1]

The potent mixture of the sacred (Virgin Mary) and the profane (excrement and pornography) became a cause of controversy when the Sensation exhibition moved to New York in 1999. The City of New York and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani brought a court case against the Brooklyn Museum, with Giuliani describing the exhibition of Ofili's work as "sick" and "disgusting". Giuliani attempted to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the museum, and threatened it with eviction. The museum resisted Giuliani's demands, and its director, Arnold L. Lehman, filed a federal lawsuit against Giuliani for a breach of the First Amendment. The museum eventually won the court case.^[3]On a yellow-orange background, the large painting (8 feet high by 6 feet wide) depicts a black woman wearing a blue robe, a traditional attribute of the Virgin Mary. The work employs mixed media, including oil paint, glitter, and polyester resin, and also elephant dung and collaged pornographic images. The central Black Madonna is surrounded by many collaged images that resemble butterflies at first sight, but on closer inspection are photographs of female genitalia; an ironic reference to the putti that appear in traditional religious art. A lump of dried, varnished elephant dung forms one bared breast, and the painting is displayed leaning against the gallery wall, supported by two other lumps of elephant dung, decorated with coloured pins: the pins on the left are arranged to spell out "Virgin" and the one on the right "Mary". Many other works by Ofili in this period – including No Woman No Cry – incorporate elephant dung, particularly as supports for the canvas, inspired by a period that Ofili spent in Zimbabwe.^[2]

Giuliani was reported as claiming that Ofili had thrown elephant dung at a painting of the Virgin Mary: "The idea of having so-called works of art in which people are throwing elephant dung at a picture of the Virgin Mary is sick."^[4] The press also reported that the painting was "smeared", "splattered" or "stained" with dung.^[5][6] Ofili, raised as a Roman Catholic commented that "elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object."^[7]    

It is ok if nations blaspheme the Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Real God-Man, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Founder of the One, True, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church, but it is not OK to criticize a man-made religion created by a man (which is the teaching of the Catholic Churchon Islam).

Here is the article. The difference has to do with the fact that we do not kill people or burn down buildings when Christ is blasphemed.

The politics of terrorism seems to be working. Too bad. See my Men of the West series in the recent past.

Where are the bishops' statements on this?  Here is Spencer on the New York Times.

When the target was Christianity, the Times said that artists had an obligation to "challenge the public." When the target is Islam, the Times starts talking about respecting religious faith. As Tim Blair notes, Islam has earned that "respect" at the point of a gun.

"Times Changes," by Tim Blair in the Telegraph, September 14 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

The New York Times editorial of October 2, 1999, defends the display of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary: 

A museum is obliged to challenge the public as well as to placate it, or else the museum becomes a chamber of attractive ghosts, an institution completely disconnected from art in our time. 

The New York Times editorial of September 12, 2012, condemns the display of The Innocence of Muslims: 

Whoever made the film did true damage to the interests of the United States and its core principle of respecting all faiths. 

Whatever happened to “challenging the public”? Or is that obligation rendered non-obligatory when a certain public responds to challenges by killing people?

Meditation from St. Ambrose Books on the Death of His Brother

A good priest over the weekend suggested I read the two books of St. Ambrose on The Death of Satyrus. Obviously, from the text, Ambrose had a great love for his brother.

But the section recommended to me is the one following: let us go through this together.

35. I die daily, 1 Corinthians 15:31 says the Apostle. Better certainly is this saying than theirs who said that meditation on death was true philosophy, for they praised the study, he exercised the practice of death. And they acted for themselves only, but Paul, himself perfect, died not for his own weakness but for ours. But what is meditation on death but a kind of separation of body and soul, for death itself is defined as nothing else than the separation of body and soul? But this is in accordance with common opinion.

First, Ambrose in true classical style notes that those who are reflective, the true philosophers, think about death and the sacrifice of some deaths. This is a good start. Then, the saint divides death into three parts.

The first is dying to sin but living in God. This happens when we turn from sin and an embrace immortal life over the here and now.

The soul is freed from the fetters of this world, the flesh, and the devil in choosing Christ and His Kingdom. We freely choose this. We choose to live in Christ and not in sin.

Ambrose calls this "spiritual death", when we die to those things which distract us from the Love of God and the Indwelling of the Trinity.

The second death is the real leaving of this world. We all have experienced someone dying in our lives and we understand the grief and separation this causes. We are forever changed in these losses.

36. But according to the Scriptures we have been taught that death is threefold. One death is when we die to sin, but live to God. Blessed, then, is that death which, escaping from sin, and devoted to God, separates us from what is mortal and consecrates us to Him Who is immortal. Another death is the departure from this life, as the patriarch Abraham died, and the patriarch David, and were buried with their fathers; when the soul is set free from the bonds of the body. The third death is that of which it is said: Leave the dead to bury their own dead. Matthew 8:22 In that death not only the flesh but also the soul dies, for the soul that sins, it shall die. Ezekiel 18:4 For it dies to the Lord, through the weakness not of nature but of guilt. But this death is not the discharge from this life, but a fall through error.

The third type is the most serious, that is another type of spiritual death, wherein one turns from the Truth to heresy and deceit. There are consequences in this last death and just as Adam lost all the preternatural gifts by sinning, so too, we are punished. Death was also a gift for the hard life which followed the loss of innocence and Eden. 

37. Spiritual death, then, is one thing, natural death another, a third the death of punishment. But that which is natural is not also penal, for the Lord did not inflict death as a penalty, but as a remedy. And to Adam when he sinned, one thing was appointed as a penalty, another for a remedy, when it was said: Because you have hearkened unto the voice of your wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I had commanded you that of it alone you should not eat, cursed is the ground in your labor; in sorrow shall you eat its fruit all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face shall you eat your bread, till thou return to the earth from which you were taken.

38. Here you have the days of rest from penalties, for they contain the punishment decreed against the thorns of this life, the cares of the world, and the pleasures of riches which shut out the Word. Death is given for a remedy, because it is the end of evils. For God said not, Because you have hearkened to the voice of the woman you shall return to the earth, for this would have been a penal sentence, as this one is, The earth under curse shall bring forth thorns and thistles to you; but He said:In sweat shall you eat your bread until thou return to the earth. You see that death is rather the goal of our penalties, by which an end is put to the course of this life.

Ambrose writes much more, but I am going to examine just a few more paragraphs.

39. So, then, death is not only not an evil, but is even a good thing. So that it is sought as a good, as it is written: Men shall seek death and shall not find it. Revelation 9:6 They will seek it who shall say to the mountains: Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. Luke 23:30 That soul, too, shall seek it which has sinned. That rich man lying in hell shall seek it, who wishes that his tongue should be cooled with the finger of Lazarus. Luke 16:24

Sometimes, death is a good thing. We know this from experience, but only God decides when one dies.

40. We see, then, that this death is a gain and life a penalty, so that Paul says: To me to live is Christ and to die is gain.Philippians 1:21 What is Christ but the death of the body, the breath of life? And so let us die with Him, that we may live with Him. Let there then be in us as it were a daily practice and inclination to dying, that by this separation from bodily desires, of which we have spoken, our soul may learn to withdraw itself, and, as it were placed on high, when earthly lusts cannot approach and attach it to themselves, may take upon herself the likeness of death, that she incur not the penalty of death. For the law of the flesh wars against the law of the mind, and makes it over to the law of error, as the Apostle has made known to us, saying:For I see a law of the flesh in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity in the law ofsin. Romans 7:23 We are all attached, we all feel this; but we are not all delivered. And so a miserable man am I, unless I seek the remedy.

I have highlighted in bold the part I want to emphasize. Daily, we should be inclined to die, in some way. We can get into the habit of dying daily. This is the practice of the religious, who gives up his free will to his superior and follows a rule. This should be the way of the wife, who must defer to her husband at times, as when someone must defer, it should be her. In these ways, our wills are detached from things, people, places and events. One sees artwork showing saints looking at skulls. This is part of the habit of momento mori, the thinking of death. "Remember you will die."

Here are some of those paintings.

St. Jerome--Caravaggio and thanks Wiki

41. But what remedy? Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.Romans 7:24-25 We have a physician, let us use the remede. Our remedy is the grace of Christ, and the body of death is our body. Let us therefore be as strangers to our body, lest we be strangers to Christ. Though we are in the body, let us not follow the things which are of the body, let us not reject the rightful claims of nature, but desire before all the gifts of grace: For to be dissolved and to be with Christ is far better; yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sakes. Philippians 1:23-24

Again, we see that we can deny even what is natural to ourselves for the sake of holiness. The pagans and atheists do NOT understand this. They are dumbfounded that we would fast and abstain, or be chaste, or celibate.

Tintoretto--St. Mary Magdalen

Cornelius the Centurion by Trevisani

El Greco-Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

One of my favorite paintings--The Ambassadors --Hans Holbein the Younger  and thanks Wiki

42. But this need is not the case of all, Lord Jesus; it is not so with me, who am profitable to none; for to me death is a gain, that I may sin no more. To die is gain to me, who, in the very treatise in which I comfort others, am incited as it were by an intense impulse to the longing for my lost brother, since it suffers me not to forget him. Now I love him more, and long for him more intensely. I long for him when I speak, I long for him when I read again what I have written, and I think that I am more impelled to write this, that I may not ever be without the recollection of him. And in this I am not acting contrary to Scripture, but I am of the same mind with Scripture, that I may grieve with more patience, and long with greater intensity.

I like the idea of patience here. For me, this is the hardest thing to do--to wait for whatever and many times in my life I have made mistakes because of impatience and not waiting.

43. You have caused me, my brother, not to fear death, and I only would that my life might die with yours! This Balaam wished for as the greatest good for himself, when, inspired by the spirit of prophecy, he said: Let my soul die in the souls of the righteous, and let my seed be like the seed of them. And in truth he wished this according to the spirit of prophecy, for as he saw the rising of Christ, so also he saw His triumph, he saw His death, but saw also in Him the everlasting resurrection of men, and therefore feared not to die as he was to rise again. Let not then my soul die in sin, nor admit sin into itself, but let it die in the soul of the righteous, that it may receive his righteousness. Then, too, he who dies in Christ is made a partaker of His gracein the Font.

Ambrose reminds us to look towards the Resurrection. The reference to Baptism is key. In Baptism we receive new life and are born again in Christ, given eternal life as a pledge of our inheritance as children of God.

We must be baptised to be saved. And the baptismal rite is a dying to self efficacious act of removing eternal death and giving us eternal life.

44.Death is not, then, an object of dread, nor bitter to those in need, nor too bitter to the rich, nor unkind to the old, nor a mark of cowardice to the brave, nor everlasting to the faithful nor unexpected to the wise. For how many have consecrated their life by the renown of their death alone, how many have been ashamed to live, and have found death a gain! We have read how often by the death of one great nations have been delivered; the armies of the enemy have been put to flight by the death of the general, who had been unable to conquer them when alive.

There are many ways to consecrate one's life to death. Think on this.

45. By the death of martyrs religion has been defended, faith increased, the Church strengthened; the dead have conquered, the persecutors have been overcome. And so we celebrate the death of those of whose lives we are ignorant. So, too, Davidrejoiced in prophecy at the departure of his own soul, saying: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. He esteemed death better than life. The death itself of the martyrs is the prize of their life. And again, by the death of those at variance hatred is put an end to.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/34032.htm

Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for Us

In the face of false visions and confusion, let us pray to Our Lady of Fatima, for wisdom and obedience.

For strong leaders in the Church. For the laity and for priests.  Pope Benedict XVI at Fatima in 2010 said "it is a profound consolation to know that you are crowned not only with the silver and gold of our joys and hopes, but also with the 'bullet' of our anxieties and sufferings"

A Real Warning to Well-Intentioned Catholic Charismatics

Last year when I was in Walsingham for three months, I met many Catholic charismatics. One of the things I noticed was that they were using regularly the long version of the "Prayer Against Satan and Rebellious Angels Published by Order of H. H. Pope Leo XIII.

I mentioned to some of those I met that this prayer was not to be used in meetings. I was rebuked. I also came to realize this prayer is not to be used except by priests and not by the laity.

This is a warning via an excellent priest who confirmed my suspicions that this prayer is dangerous if used incorrectly.

What do I mean?

Demons and especially Satan himself, a person albeit spirit, is highly intelligent, more than all of us.

They literally watch us over the years, learn our weaknesses and prey upon those.

They cannot read our minds but these spirits can watch, wait and tempt.

When we say prayers against them and we are not holy, are not fasting, are not disciplined or AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT, not under the diocesan authority of the bishop with regard to exorcisms, we are actually calling down these beings into our own homes and persons.

I know this from this wise priest and from others who have had personal experience of attempting to address demons without the authority of the Church.

What I have seen is this. When those who use this prayer continue to do so, they fall into deceit and heresy.

Period.

Weakness leads to disobedience and ignorance leads to disobedience.

Disobedience leads to heresy and the loss of one's soul.

Please do not use this prayer and correct those who are using it.