For all my trad friends.....

The Deceit is Becoming Obvious--

Finally, someone else besides Dr. Sanity, myself and a few others online, are beginning to recognize the deceit of POTUS. That the Wall Street Journal condemns the insider, narcissistic president as out of touch with the populace and his own Dem party. The Voice of Sauron has cracks it in....

An American president has to make cooperation happen.

But we've strayed from the point. Mr. Obama has a largely nonexistent relationship with many, and a worsening relationship with some.

Dr. Sanity says it best, and here is part of her brilliant take on her blog.The traditional medical definition of sociopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of social responsibility and failure to adapt to ethical and social standards of the community.

If we think about that definition for a moment, we can perhaps begin to understand what is going on in our world today; and the reason that a huge number of people have embraced a fundamentally sociopathic--and "progressive" lifestyle, all the while convincing themselves that they are "compassionate", "post-racial" and just.

Under the pervasive influence of postmodern philosophy and rhetoric, the ethical and social standards of the community have, unfortunately, been slowly evolving and eroding. 

In western culture, ethical and moral standards used to be anchored to the real world (i.e., to reality); but in the postmodern wilderness in which the political left and most of its most visible spokespeople--i.e., leaders in the Democratic Party-- wander aimlessly, ethics and morality are relative and "anchored" to feelings and whim; which inevitably unleashes the baser and more vile aspects of human nature. 

The 20th century became the playground (and litter box) for the narcissist; and by the time the 21st century rolled around, malignant narcissism was not even considered deviant, it had gone mainstream. Since psychopathology continually evolves and worsens if it is not confronted and dealt with, what we have now in our culture, particularly the political system, is the endstage of psychological evolution under postmodernism: the sociopath who disguises his or her sociopathy by selflessness (now marketed as "hope and change").

These selfless sociopaths are people who basically could not care less about an individual human being.

They think in terms of movements and achieving some grand scheme of "social justice"--which is far from real justice and the search for truth. 

Individual human beings are expendable; it is the collective or State that matters; and, as long as they stand in the way of the implementation of the sociopath's great ideas and compassionate execution of those ideas they can be ignored, marginalized and even killed. To this type of mind, individuals are merely the fodder used to build "great" societies from the all the utopian fantasies and collectivist wet-dreams.

It used to be that with the rise of civilization, political sociopaths--selfless and selfless-- were (thankfully) few and far between. Even so, when they appeared in history, they wreaked havoc and destroyed lives with great abandon for "the greater good". Needless to say, a central aspect of the 'greater good' was always the advancement of their own glorious self and their ideas.

We can thank primarily the postmodern political left and its useful idiots for the persistent, unyielding, and willful celebration of--and ultimately mainstreaming of--malignant narcissism. We have entered the age of postmodern sociopathy and nihilism.

What does it matter if the lives and freedoms of so many individuals are sacrificed to the murderous oppressors of the world; or, for that matter, even the compassionate oppressors of the Democratic Party--who, after all, want only the best for you of? 

If you "kick out the wealthy" then you have the wonderful socialist paradise of Cuba or the currently evolving one of California; or the magnificent utopia of North Korea with all their misery, poverty, oppression and progressive enlightenment!

Under the uber-enlightened and progressive reality-based left, wealth will be redistributed and the human mind enslaved--but so what? As the eminent leftist and quintessential nihilist Joseph Stalin once remarked, "Death solves all problems - no man, no problem." 

In the long run we are all dead anyway, right?

A Chance for the French President to Show His Resolve--from the Great Spencer

Reuters photo caption: "Masked special forces police escort a member of the Islamist community under heavy guard in Coueron, near Nantes, March 30, 2012." Islamist community?

French police arrest 19 on suspicion of misunderstanding Islam

They had rifles and were apparently preparing for more jihad in France. "French police arrests 19 people in a bid to crackdown suspected Islamists," by Charles Sicurani and Nicolas Gaudichet for Agence France-Presse, March 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

PARIS — French police swooped down on suspected Islamist networks Friday, arresting 19 people as President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed a crackdown would continue after an extremist gunman's killing spree.

The arrests took place in several cities including Toulouse, where Mohamed Merah was shot dead by police last week after a series of cold-blooded shootings in southwestern France that left seven dead.

Sarkozy said the arrests targeted "radical Islam" and that the trauma in France after the shootings in Toulouse and Montauban was somewhat like that felt in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"What must be understood is that the trauma of Montauban and Toulouse is profound for our country, a little — I don't want to compare the horrors — a little like the trauma that followed in the United States and in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks," he told Europe 1 radio....

The operation "is not linked only to Toulouse, it's on all of French territory, is linked with a form of radical Islam and is in full accordance with the law," Sarkozy said....

"We have some extremely precise questions to ask a certain number of people and what happened this morning will continue," said Sarkozy, in the thick of a heated campaign for France's two-round April-May presidential election.

"There will be other operations that will continue and will also allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people," he added.

Sarkozy also defended France's decision this week to bar some Muslim preachers from entering the country, saying: "We don't want people who advocate values contrary to the republic to be invited to our territory."

Police sources said the raids were "not directly linked" to the Toulouse shootings but targeted at extremists networks.

Police said Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons were seized during the raids.

Among those arrested was Mohammed Achamlane, the head of a suspected extremist group called Forsane Alizza, the sources said, with three Kalashnikovs, a Glock pistol and a grenade were seized from his home..

The Language of Hatred and a Man Who Speaks Truth

Patrick Buchanan is one of the last voices of rationality in our country today. He has integrity and a brilliant mind. That he is a conservative and a Catholic helps place him in the mainstream of traditional conservatism, not the neo-Con branch. I have read most of his books and I follow his blog. In an article titled, "It's all about race now" on the Human Events website, notes that the black community has used the Florida shooting for its own reasons. Here is a snippet:  

As Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has written, from January to June 2008 in New York City, 83 percent of all identified gun assailants were black and 15 percent were Hispanics.
    
Together, blacks and Hispanics accounted for 98 percent of gun assaults.
    
Translated: If a cabdriver is going to be mugged or murdered in New York City by a fare, 49 times out of 50 his assailant or killer will be black or Hispanic.
    
Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers has told his drivers, "Profile your passengers" for your own protection. "The God's honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these guys are blacks and Hispanics."
   
Fernando Mateo is himself black and Hispanic.

........if the purpose here is to turn this into a national black-white face-off, instead of a mutual search for truth and justice, it is succeeding marvelously well.

This is not a statement or an article on racism. This is a bold statement of truth, exposing hatred and the agenda of revenge. I have written much on the hatred seething under the skin of many of the Irish Republicans, which is unforgiveness. America is witnessing the same trend. Revenge blackens the heart of the person who holds unforgiveness in his or her spirit. It is a downward spiral of envy hatred, conspiracy, death. For those who believe in an afterlife, revenge spells Hell, eternal damnation. How to break the the spiral is only, only by forgiving those who hate you. That is the only way. As we enter Holy Week, we hear the Divine cry, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The Downside of Cute

One more downside of some anime is the preoccupation with little girls in short skirts, or the "doll look". Now, I really do not like quoting the Daily Mail, but this article points out a problem I have guessed myself from the Japanese popularity of "cute" or "kawaii" in Japanese. This cult of trying to look very young and very cute, like a child, and even speaking like one, in imitation of anime heroes, both male and female. I have written on Japanese narcissism in January here on this blog and now, I think the dress and make-up reveal how far this cultural illness has gone. At first, it did seem like being cute was, well, just cute. But, now it has the horrible characteristics of androgyny as well as an inclination for child-sexual attraction. Having said all this, in European countries I have visited in the past year, the Japanese young women have not only been the most modest, but very stylish in retro clothes of high quality. They also act more feminine than their European peers.

Here is a link to the Mail article. I must confess, however, that I did have a Hello Kitty toaster, but all who know me, really, really, know I am not cute.

Voris continues his ideas on real men.

Michael Voris continues my theme on real men in the Church with a twist on this video. He connects the new Church Militant and manhood with the Traditional Latin Mass. Here is the video.

Anti-Life Britain is not a civilized nation...

Prayer and people support for the Bedford Square 40 Days for Life is necessary for all Catholics

.Bishop Hopes will be there on Friday from 7pm-8.30pm, today. The media has become more and more hostile to this peaceful protest against the murder of babies in the womb in Great Britain. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which is anti-life, is against bishops being there, but this death-group, which supplies abortion counseling, abortions, contraception, vasectomies and sterilizations, all contrary to Catholic and natural life teaching, is supported by the Department of Health. This group was criticized years ago for sending women to Spain for abortions over 24 weeks. 

http://bakwaspoint.blogspot.fr/2011/05/dont-listen-to-your-heart.html

That the Guardian newspaper and others side with such a death-organization, rather than the life groups, shows the prevailing anti-life sentiments in Great Britain. Please pray today, especially. I am using a real photo of a dead aborted baby. If this were a dog or a cat, the person doing these heinous crimes would be in jail for cruelty. Can we call any nation which allows this "civilized"?

Poem for Anne, Countess of Arundel

St. Robert Southwell, poet and martyr, became chaplain to Anne Dacre, Countess of 
Arundel. Recently, I discovered that she was a poet in her own right. I have written a poem about her, and here it is.


Poem on Anne Dacre Howard March 29th, 2012




Woman of youth, married in unlove, but learning
the ways of God through countless sorrows 
and the movement of uncertainty


Lady, who lived and wrote without comfort
like a small animal hidden in a field of corn
unable to reach the grain for her children


How are we to understand your incessant
wanderings, your loss of home and honor
covenanted to the old Church, the Pope


and the glory of Rome? Those who rest
in peace wonder at your persistence of
memory and kindness, wonder at


the love for the sick and the poor
when you yourself suffered such
and did not mind the memory?


Woman of Faith, who lost her found
love too early, fought stories and fables
who was told lies, but understood


the treachery of the times to translate
hatred into love and propaganda
into prayer. We, who are gasping


for breath in a new age of disturbing
hatred of the good, look to you for
guidance and intercession.


Anne, whose son never saw his 
father and whose husband never
saw his son, but embraced the Son


of God, and a title of immortality
for fading riches, Anne, remember
us in our complacency and help


us to gather our wits, to be ready
in poverty or loss of self in order
to be Church Militant.


Anne Howard, pray for us. 

POTUS is fanning the flames

Just a comment on the recent statements of POTUS on the shooting. We all know what it is about, but the language coming from various groups of hatred and creating an atmosphere of anti-white, anti-authority, that is anarchy. This president simply does not represent all the people of the United States. It is so unnecessary to create and use racist language from that level, from the White House.

The Ladder of Perfection

St. John Climacus, also known as St. John of Sinai, wrote a book for the monks of the famous monastery of St. Catherine, wrote a book for Lent, called the Great Fast, called either The Ladder of Perfection or The Ladder of Divine Ascent. As his feast day is tomorrow, I am highlighting parts of his book, which can be found and ordered from here. Orthodoxwiki has a great article with links as well.

The steps are:

1. On renunciation of the world
2. On detachment
3. On exile or pilgrimage; concerning dreams that beginners have
4. On blessed and ever-memorable obedience (in addition to episodes involving many individuals)
5. On painstaking and true repentance which constitutes the life of the holy convicts; and about the Prison
6. On remembrance of death
7. On joy-making mourning
8. On freedom from anger and on meekness
9. On remembrance of wrongs
10. On slander or calumny
11. On talkativeness and silence
12. On lying
13. On despondency
14. On that clamorous mistress, the stomach
15. On incorruptible purity and chastity, to which the corruptible attain by toil and sweat
16. On love of money, or avarice
17. On non-possessiveness (that hastens one Heavenwards)
18. On insensibility, that is, deadening of the soul and the death of the mind before the death of the body
19. On sleep, prayer, and psalmody with the brotherhood
20. On bodily vigil and how to use it to attain spiritual vigil, and how to practise it
21. On unmanly and puerile cowardice
22. On the many forms of vainglory
23. On mad pride and (in the same Step) on unclean blasphemous thoughts; concerning unmentionable blasphemous thoughts
24. On meekness, simplicity, and guilelessness which come not from nature but from conscious effort, and about guile
25. On the destroyer of the passions, most sublime humility, which is rooted in spiritual perception
26. On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues; on expert discernment; brief summary of all aforementioned
27. On holy stillness of body and soul; different aspects of stillness and how to distinguish them
28. On holy and blessed prayer, the mother of virtues, and on the attitude of mind and body in prayer
29. Concerning Heaven on earth, or Godlike dispassion and perfection, and the resurrection of the soul before the general resurrection
30. Concerning the linking together of the supreme trinity among the virtues; a brief exhortation summarizing all that has said at length in this book

I hope this section makes you want to follow this saint's writings. God continue to bless your Lent.

Children Need Confirmation, a Sacrament of Initiation

I wonder how the Catholic Church's teaching on Confirmation got so convoluted? Why are so many parents unaware that Confirmation is a Sacrament of Initiation and not a Bar Mitzvah? Confirmation is not a "coming of age" in the sense that one holds off the sacrament until the young people are in their middle to late teens. Why the confusion and how can some of us who have been involved in Confirmation prep help teach the adults what is appropriate?

Confirmation is one of the three Sacraments of Initiation. Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Exhortation,  Sacramentum caritatis notes that the traditional order of the Sacraments of Initiation need to be re-examined according to the pastoral needs of our times. Here is part of this document I would like to emphasize again, as I have done this before.

Link is here.

17. If the Eucharist is truly the source and summit of the Church's life and mission, it follows that the process of Christian initiation must constantly be directed to the reception of this sacrament. As the Synod Fathers said, we need to ask ourselves whether in our Christian communities the close link between Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist is sufficiently recognized. (46) It must never be forgotten that our reception of Baptism and Confirmation is ordered to the Eucharist. Accordingly, our pastoral practice should reflect a more unitary understanding of the process of Christian initiation. The sacrament of Baptism, by which we were conformed to Christ,(47) incorporated in the Church and made children of God, is the portal to all the sacraments. It makes us part of the one Body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12:13), a priestly people. Still, it is our participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice which perfects within us the gifts given to us at Baptism. The gifts of the Spirit are given for the building up of Christ's Body (1 Cor 12) and for ever greater witness to the Gospel in the world. (48) The Holy Eucharist, then, brings Christian initiation to completion and represents the centre and goal of all sacramental life. (49)

The order of the sacraments of initiation

18. In this regard, attention needs to be paid to the order of the sacraments of initiation. Different traditions exist within the Church. There is a clear variation between, on the one hand, the ecclesial customs of the East (50) and the practice of the West regarding the initiation of adults, (51) and, on the other hand, the procedure adopted for children. (52) Yet these variations are not properly of the dogmatic order, but are pastoral in character. Concretely, it needs to be seen which practice better enables the faithful to put the sacrament of the Eucharist at the centre, as the goal of the whole process of initiation. In close collaboration with the competent offices of the Roman Curia, Bishops' Conferences should examine the effectiveness of current approaches to Christian initiation, so that the faithful can be helped both to mature through the formation received in our communities and to give their lives an authentically eucharistic direction, so that they can offer a reason for the hope within them in a way suited to our times (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).

Initiation, the ecclesial community and the family

19. It should be kept in mind that the whole of Christian initiation is a process of conversion undertaken with God's help and with constant reference to the ecclesial community, both when an adult is seeking entry into the Church, as happens in places of first evangelization and in many secularized regions, and when parents request the sacraments for their children. In this regard, I would like to call particular attention to the relationship between Christian initiation and the family. In pastoral work it is always important to make Christian families part of the process of initiation. Receiving Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion are key moments not only for the individual receiving them but also for the entire family, which should be supported in its educational role by the various elements of the ecclesial community. (53) Here I would emphasize the importance of First Holy Communion. For many of the faithful, this day continues to be memorable as the moment when, even if in a rudimentary way, they first came to understand the importance of a personal encounter with Jesus. Parish pastoral programmes should make the most of this highly significant moment.

Firstly, in this day of tremendous temptations to sin, the young person needs the special graces of this important sacrament. Our time is similar to that of the Roman Empire, when Christians found themselves living in a culture and governmental structure of paganism. No longer are the cultures Christian and those who go out into the world daily need grace to withstand the assaults of the Evil One. the world, the flesh and the devil are huge pulls on the souls of youth. The gifts of the Holy Spirit should not be denied to the younger ones, at early adolescence or even younger, as these gifts are necessary for  the fight, and fight it is, against the media, the peer groups, and even misguided parents.

I have been using Garrigou-Lagrange on my mini-series on perfection. This is what he writes on the gifts from the Holy Spirit.

Here is reminder of of those gifts:

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness, and He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord."

 "The just man, that is to say, he who lives the life of divine grace and acts by the fitting virtues as by means of faculties, has need of those seven gifts, which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to be able to obey more easily and promptly His voice and impulse. Wherefore these gifts are of such efficacy that they lead the just man to the highest degree of sanctity; and of such excellence that they continue to exist even in heaven, though in a more perfect way. By means of these gifts the soul is excited and encouraged to seek after and attain the evangelical beatitudes which, like the flowers that come forth in the springtime, are the signs and harbingers of eternal beatitude. . . .

Secondly, the problem with parents is that they somehow forget that children have need for sanctity. I wrote below that children can be saints. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are an absolute necessity for growing in holiness. Why deny younger children these gifts? 

When I hear parents blaming the Church or priests or bishops for the fact that their youth leave the Church after Confirmation, I am shocked. The parents are the primary persons responsible for the development of their children's spiritual life. No one can take the place of the parents in the home, as a young person's spiritual life is a daily experience of prayer and formation. 

Formation is practically missing in the homes of many Catholic parents, who seem not to have enough time for their own spiritual lives. To leave learning the Faith and prayer to the last minute or not at all. Parents have only themselves to blame if the children at any age leave the Church. Religion must be part of the daily rhythm of life in the family. To think that someone other than the parents or the peer group can influence a child is a misunderstanding of the needs of the child. The media and whatever computer games the young one play are also huge influences spiritually, which should be painfully obvious. Confirmation gives all of us the strength and the boost to the virtuous life necessary to be holy. This sacrament should never be delayed for social or liberal Catholic reasons.

Obamacare and the Supreme Court

I am following the Supreme Court case against Obamacare. I am waiting for the decision.

Prayer for Priests, Nine; for all those priests who we know, who say the Tridentine Mass in Europe and in America

O Jesus, eternal Priest,

keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,

where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands,

which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,

daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,

sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and

shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and

may the souls to whom they minister
be their joy and consolation
here and in heaven their beautiful and

everlasting crown.

Amen. St. Therese of Lisieux and http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.fr/2009/06/prayer-for-priests-by-st-therese-of.html

Notice on Latin Mass for Palm Sunday

         There will be a Mass at 8.00 am on Palm Sunday, at St Mary Magdalene, Bexhill.

Oh, my goodness, the microphone was on, again....

Duh, the microphone does not lie. look at this from The Washington Times online: SEOUL — Unaware that a microphone was recording him, President Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday for breathing room until after Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign to negotiate on missile defense.
“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev at the end of their 90-minute meeting, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is possibly being handed American secret defense policies on a plate by POTUS. That the President does not seem to have a clue about foreign policy is no surprise to some of this, but this last move "takes the biscuit". In an article on The Washington Free Beacon, online. Michael Turner in the House has challenged Obama's seemingly naive, yet worrying overture to Vladimir Putin.


Congress has made exquisitely clear to your administration and to other nations that it will block all attempts to weaken U.S. missile defense,” Turner stated in the letter. “As the chairman of the strategic forces subcommittee, which authorizes U.S. missile defense and nuclear weapons policy, I want to make perfectly clear that my colleagues and I will not allow any attempts to trade missile defense of the United States to Russia or any other country.”


Our national defense is at stake and if Americans do not wake up, they will wonder what happened not only on our own frontiers, but in Europe. Of course, any man trained in the Saul Alinksy communist school of activism does not see anything wrong with playing footsie with Putin. America has lost so much ground in foreign status under this present president, that i wonder how it will all end.....

Lepanto Remembered

It is time to post the great poem of Chesterton on Don Juan. Especially after the news coming from France today on the filming of the killings by the late Mohamed Merah. Disgusting.

G. K. Chesterton.

Lepanto

WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;	5
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.	10
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,	15
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.	20
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold	25
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,	30
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.	35
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,	40
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,	45
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea	50
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.	55
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,	60
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!	65
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!	70
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.
St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)	75
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,	80
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,—
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.	85
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria	90
Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.	95
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,	100
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!	105
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,	110
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;	115
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung	120
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,	125
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,	130
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!	135
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,	140
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

The Latin Mass in the Diocese of Shrewsbury

Damian Thompson in The Telegraph has this fantastic story about the  Bishop of Shrewsbury, Rt. Rev. Mark Davies supporting Summorum Pontificum in his diocese. Here is the link and a section of the article. Take heart, Traddies.


 Summorum Pontificum has finally been fully implemented by a diocesan bishop – the Rt Rev Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, who has entrusted the Shrine Church of Ss Peter and Paul and St Philomena in New Brighton, Wirral, to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. This much-loved building, once known as "the dome of home" to returning sailors, had previously been closed. Bishop Davies saw no reason why this dynamic apostolic institute should not revive it.

I must say that other bishops have encouraged the TLM in their dioceses by allowing it and responding to priests who want to say the Mass of the Ages. At this time, more than ever, Britain needs the Latin Mass. 

On the Lunge Line

Virtue is an extension of the interior life of the spirit. Narcissism is a result of many things, including a lack of discipline, as well as an inherited disorder. Narcissism can be taught. Some of the  children of today believe that the world revolves around them and that their parents are there to meet their needs. This narcissism has been created by the lack of parental authority in families Many parents praise their children without the children earning the praise. This is the irony of the over-use of the self-esteem. Like a horse on a lunge line, one needs to break the will, but not the spirit. The life of the virtue cannot be taught until the will is under an authority. The life of virtue follows the breaking away of a life of the habit of sin. Habitual sin must be broken before a child can develop the virtues. But, an emphasis on the virtues is necessary and the earlier a child learns kindness, humility, charity, honesty and the other virtues the better.

Habits learned early create a happier adolescent time. Children need to learn and love boundaries. Boundaries and virtues go together. The so-called modern idea that children can express anger or hatred without compunction creates a child without boundaries. How far have we moved away from natural law and the common sense rearing of children is too sadly seen in deviant behavior. The popular anarchist movement, in my mind, is connected to this lack of boundaries and lack of virtue. We only have ourselves to blame as parents if there is now one or two generations of children who have and are being raised without virtues. If the parent is not honest with himself or herself with regard to sin and perfection, the children will follow in the sad footsteps of those who do not understand the interior life. The interior life can only be won with discipline and dying to self. Such a journey must be part of child-raising by parents who have gone before them in mercy and justice.

Materialism, Socialism and Civil Unions

Yet, again, I am surprised at the number of Catholic adults who not only are socialists, but have never bothered to study the teachings of the Catholic Church on this cleverly deceitful ideology. I have written many times on this blog of the evils of socialism and have several encyclicals linked at the side for further study. What is also not understood is that socialism, as well as communism, in our cultures and societies, have degraded the parental roles and the nature of marriage. In fact, I shall make the case here that the push for homosexual and lesbian civil marriages is not only part of the lgtb agenda, as stated in After the Ball, but part of the socialist agenda. And, why?

In the ideology of socialism, there can be no private property. All things, including people, belong to the State. The State becomes the Perfect Parent, knowing how to raise one's child better than one's self. The State dictates that home schooling must be bad, as the State has no power over what is being taught. Sweden and Germany have outlawed home schooling, and POTUS, as I have shown below in another post, wants to do the same. It is not only a power game, but who has control of the children has control over the future.

Socialism denies that there are any differences in people, as all are equal in the eyes of the State with regard to private property and supposedly talent. To bend the perceptions of people to make them deny that we are not all talented in the same manner, or that there are not differences in aspirations among people, is again, to make the State decide who does what when, how, where. The great social engineers of education, Bismarck in Germany and Dewey in America, planned an education system which would create non-thinking but obedient citizens, who would believe propaganda and deny free will. This has happened in America and most parts of Europe, creating a non-thinking populace, who are so used to the media controlling their minds, and the lack of logical discourse, that one is hard put to find a thirty-something who has actually learned how to think. Socialism demands conformity. The socialist redefines the nature of the individual, denying person-hood, as it the case of abortion or euthanasia, and redefines also the role of the individual in society. There are no differences in people.

The irony of socialism is that it also destroys the State. The State is not only subjected to the undermining of those States which are Catholic, but the very nature of a State, as a free organization of individuals contributing to the common good. The State becomes the end of all energy and organization, thus becoming the end of all individual accomplishments, including finances. To some Catholics who do not understand that it is the individual who should benefit from the State, this sounds like heresy. The State becomes something other than the servant to and for the people. It becomes god.

But, of course, the greatest evil of socialism is that it is based on the philosophy of materialism. There is no eternal life, no spiritual life, no Church, no Revelation, no Sacraments, etc. The materialistic philosophy pushes the idea of utilitarianism and production. Nothing, therefore, is important but things, which are temporary and ephemeral. In addition, authority does not belong to God, but to the State, or rather, those who control the State. So, what has all this to do with civil unions?

The push for civil unions not only undermines the sacrament of Marriage and the status of the natural family, but the State. Why? Socialism takes away the natural definitions of the individual, so that a person is merely there for the State. Civil marriage obviously takes away authority from the Church, but ultimately, it takes away authority from the State and undermines the entire concept of authority. By definition, sexual unions outside of the traditional heterosexual ones, are materialistic and ultimately, anarchic.  In a socialist system, the materialistic philosophy means there is no afterlife, no sin, no judgement. The entire idea of civil unions is based on the here and now, that there is no sin, no judgement, only the now, only the present pleasure. One needs a basis of morality in order to make spiritual decisions. Socialism denies this. There are no authorities which can dictate moral frameworks--the churches cannot impose religious views on society, as it is materialistic and never points to the Eternal. which does not exist. The gay lifestyle, which seems so capitalistic and free actually feeds into the denial of the individual as a person with a soul and a spiritual goal. All that is important is the same type of hedonism which pushes utilitarianism and the obsession with production. If I had to categorize this tendency as sin, I would call it the ultimate Idolatry of the Material.

Civil unions do not point to salvation. Gay marriage does not entail spiritual love. Civil unions by definition are materialistic. Such a false definition of marriage fits into the socialist agenda. All that does not serve God, all that does not admit of the spiritual life will bring spiritual death.

May I add that the misuse of language in socialist propaganda is similar if not the same in that of the lgtb factions. Words, such as freedom, liberty, brotherhood, justice, equality, and solidarity are the language of propaganda, the original meanings distorted for the use of an ideology. Socialism has murdered the English language, just as Nazism distorted the German language for at least three generations. The lgtb factions do the same thing, changing the definitions of words, like those listed above, to mean something else than the traditional meanings, based on a shared cultural and moral framework. Even claims to "love" and "caring" as words which mean something in a heteosexual relationship, have been used in a twisted and unnatural manner. That ideologies have much in common is obvious, but that the socialist agenda of disturbing the natural concept of the family, the State and marriage makes it a real partner with the gay marriage proponents.