Some Americans have been unemployed for a long time

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384062/jeff-sessions-house-border-bill-surrender-lawless-president-joel-gehrke

Dear Readers

Good News--I now am getting a computer thanks to H. Many blessings today.

It is one which will be much lighter than the one I have been using.

God is good.

So are my readers.

Blogging will continue.

Repeat Link

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~aversa/modernism/Merit%20of%20the%20Mass%20%28Fr.%20Ripperger,%20F.S.S.P.%29.pdf

From Today's Guardian Online

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/29/-sp-ukraine-rebel-igor-bezler-interview-demon?CMP=twt_gu

Politics Do Not Save Us

Years ago, I had an interesting conversation with a seminarian in America who kept bringing the solutions of Church problems to politics. Finally, I said to him (he was one of my students), "You are looking to politics to save us instead of Christ, the Gospel, the Church."

He stopped talking. He admitted that many seminarians were caught up in politics, even leftist politics, instead of looking to Chris on the Cross. He changed.

One reason why so many Catholics vote socialist is that they think the governments will save society and their particular culture. Not so.

Without a moral framework, without religion, all governments fail to protect their own people. Such governments pass immoral laws, as we have seen here.

Politics and governments must serve God first and then man.

From the saintly Pope Leo XII in Immortale Dei:

 Man's natural instinct moves him to live in civil society, for he cannot, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the necessary requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his mental and moral faculties. Hence, it is divinely ordained that he should lead his life-be it family, or civil-with his fellow men, amongst whom alone his several wants can be adequately supplied. But, as no society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. "There is no power but from God."(1)

and


As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its reaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honour the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favour religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavour should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.

More here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei_en.html

Shipwrecked Two

2 Corinthians 11:30 Douay-Rheims

³⁰ If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity.

What does St. Paul mean? He means that he was almost killed several times, scourged, in several shipwrecks, stoned, tossed out of cities, and endured a physical disability.

Many Catholics today would pass by St. Paul. They would say, "Why is he not a bishop? Why is he not the head of a theology department at the University of.....? Why do all these bad things happen to him? He must be a great sinner."

That Protestantism and the Gospel of Success, both heresies, have infected the Church means that those who can boast of their infirmities are ignored.

God is all. And the power of God is all. What happens to us individually does not matter. Our infirmities do not matter. The only thing that matters is that we allow God to work through our infirmities (not sin, of course, that is not what Paul means). Remember, because Paul was shipwrecked, all Malta became Catholic at one time.

God is in control, if, and that is a big if, you let Him be.

 

 

Peter Chrysologus: Doctor of the Church Series, Part 221

Offer your soul to God, make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your soul may be a pure offering

In one of his sermons, St. Peter Chrysologus reminds us that we have to become pure. Most of us are not yet pure, but this is the goal of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, mercy. Those who want to avoid purification simply will not see God without purgatory. Many complain online and in private that the Church is weak. It is weak because few want to be perfect, pure, without ego.

St. Peter Chrysologus knew his audience. Like us, his people were weary, Christ had not come as soon as people anticipated. They were slipping back into paganism, and those who were faithful were overcome by the evils of the ending of the Roman empire and chaos.

Sound familiar?

We are at the end of the American greatness and Europe as a culture and unit, which could only stand firm against evil if those EU nations kept the Catholic Faith. The Pope Emeritus stated this more than once.

No Catholicism, no Europe. No Catholicism, no America. Too many are seeking escapes. Peter Chrysologus states this:

"Those who divert themselves with the devil on earth, cannot rejoice with Christ in heaven.

If you are weary, ask God for strength. As St. Paul writes: 

Hebrews 12 Douay-Rheims

12 And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us:

² Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.

³ For think diligently upon him that endured such opposition from sinners against himself; that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds.

⁴ For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:

⁵ And you have forgotten the consolation, which speaketh to you, as unto children, saying: My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by him.

⁶ For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

⁷ Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?

⁸ But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.

⁹ Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live?

¹⁰ And they indeed for a few days, according to their own pleasure, instructed us: but he, for our profit, that we might receive his sanctification.

¹¹ Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice.

¹² Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

¹³ And make straight steps with your feet: that no one, halting, may go out of the way; but rather be healed.

¹⁴ Follow peace with all men, and holiness: without which no man shall see God.

¹⁵ Looking diligently, lest any man be wanting to the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up do hinder, and by it many be defiled.

¹⁶ Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau; who for one mess, sold his first birthright.

¹⁷ For know ye that afterwards, when he desired to inherit the benediction, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, although with tears he had sought it.

¹⁸ For you are not come to a mountain that might be touched, and a burning fire, and a whirlwind, and darkness, and storm,

¹⁹ And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard excused themselves, that the word might not be spoken to them:

²⁰ For they did not endure that which was said: And if so much as a beast shall touch the mount, it shall be stoned.

²¹ And so terrible was that which was seen, Moses said: I am frighted, and tremble.

²² But you are come to mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels,

 If you think we are not going into a time of tribulation, you have read my blog.

 If you think we are not going to be persecuted, you are willingly ignorant.

 We are all responsible for our own souls, and part of my salvation is to remind you that we are in a battle. St. Peter Chrysologus exhorted his own people to become perfect.

 We cannot settle for less, or we injure our chances for heaven, as well as weakening the Church. 

 

Perfection is Sacrifice: Doctor of the Church Series, Part 220

From St. Peter Chrysologus, Doctor of the Church. For tomorrow's feast day.

Listen now to what the Apostle urges us to do: I appeal to you, he says, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
By this exhortation of his, Paul has raised all men to priestly status.
How marvellous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering.
He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself.
The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same.
Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill.
Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed.
The Apostle says: I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
Brethren, this sacrifice follows the pattern of Christ’s sacrifice by which he gave his body as a living immolation for the life of the world.
He really made his body a living sacrifice, because, though slain, he continues to live.
In such a victim death receives its ransom, but the victim remains alive.
Death itself suffers the punishment.
This is why death for the martyrs is actually a birth, and their end a beginning.

Enemy Territory Two

Many times on this blog, I have tried to explain that the Church Militant is MILITANT. Sadly, for many Catholics, the Faith has become a hobby and not a lifestyle in enemy territory. We are all in enemy territory now.

It is hard to be a prayer warrior, or a blogger, or someone like Michael Voris, if people do not want to fight.

Can one imagine a war wherein the inhabitants of a country do not want to be rescued? A friend of mine's grandfather was hacked to death by Muslims because he refused to move away from danger.

He was a Catholic. She watched him being killed and thankfully, her father decided to take the family out of danger. They are all living in a free country now, and working for the Church.

What about all those who give up too easily? Giving up is not the stuff of martyrs.

And, those of us who blog and make videos, are very few. We have souls in mind when we type or stand in front of a camera.

Souls will go to hell, people, if the fight does not become personal, interior, real.

We cannot just sit back.

Look at the rise of gross anti-Semitism today in the news-Canada, Florida, France, England, Poland, Italy-all experiencing hatred and yelling about it. Google protects the freedom of speech for anti-Semitic lies and jargon.

Do you think Catholics will be spared? No.

I shall write, or try to, until God tells me to stop. Not having a computer is not a sign. It is spiritual warfare.

Thankfully, Michael Voris has a little community around him. He has staff with whom to pray and he can go to daily Mass.

Some of us on the front lines have been separated from our units, or our units have been decimated.

If you slack off, if you do not know you are in enemy territory, you are being deceived by the propaganda of the evil one. Yes, he is more intelligent than we are and can deceive.

Do not pretend that we should not be fighting. Do not pretend that somehow God will intervene. Not yet. Not yet.

We have a very short time to get ready for out and out persecution. I give in less than 18 months.

If some readers want to persist in ignorance and hide in entertainment or trivia, I beg you to stop.

Stop and pray, read Scripures daily, say the rosary daily. If you can, go to Adoration, and go to daily Mass.

I have tried to show you the way on this blog to holiness through the greats. One is the Doctor of the Church, whose feast day is tomorrow.

Do you think the saints gave up, ever? No. There are too many people who think that one cannot be a saint and be in the world. We are all called to be saints.

I pray many hours a day. I read Scripture, say the rosary, but God gave me the command to write and until He says stop, I shall. God showed me last year in the convent that He wanted me out in the world. Here I am.

I may start an e-book, as a friend wants me to do, but I need a computer for that.

Pray for my needs and if you can help, do so.

Your days for freedom to read and learn and mine to write are numbered, severely, but not yet.

Not yet.

Imagine your house was burning and you were trapped. Would you not want help getting out?

That is what I am doing-trying to pull so many out of the fire.

All the great theologians, including Thomas Aquinas, tell us there are many more people in hell than in heaven.

I grieve at the loss of one soul.

So, I blog and I pray in enemy territory.

The Trenches Two

So, tomorrow is today. The man is unique. He has eyes which see into the soul. He should have been a priest.

He will see me next week, whether I want to see him or not.

In the meantime, he agrees that I should be a rememberer. So, we agree on that point. But how does and why does one remember?

Years ago, a good priest told me that my imagination needed to be purified. I listened. I agreed.

Then, another priest told me that St. Ignatius tells us of purifying the memory. What does that mean, I wonder?

My writings look like the pen was leaking. I splodge ink everywhere. I cross out. I renew. Is this purgation, purgation with a pen? But, I have not written anything for a very long time. Someone has my papers. Maybe H. or D.


To purify the memory means many things, I think, as I sit in this room with the vase of one pink rose, which is drooping a little.

It is raining, and I think of the mud, the Killer Mud. Jameson disappeared.

Never mind, today I want to think of the green hills of the Brecon Beacons and of a woman with a long, lovely neck. But, St. Ignatius wants me to purify the imagination. He wants me to forget Ypres and the girl who could see I was too "celibate". Yes, I am a natural celibate.

Why? I am married already. My mistress is beyond all words. She is mysterious, but demanding.

Like Boethius, I see her in the day and in the night, but only when she wants to come to me.

Like Boethius, I listen to her, and does she like to talk.

How can a bard forget anyone, anything, anytime? I remember my first sketch in France, in March of 1916. I remember the paintings, each one, under my bed, kept because I do not want to forget.

I do not want to forget because He is there in the memory. He is there, bleeding, waiting for release, the release of death.

I found Him and I do not want to lose Him, but the Lady talks to me again and again. Not the Old Lady.

Marry it man! Marry it!
Cherish her, she’s your very own.
Coax it man coax it–it’s delicately and ingeniously made
–it’s an instrument of precision–it costs us tax-payers,
money-I want you men to remember that.
Fondle it like a granny–talk to it–consider it as you would
a friend–and when you ground these arms she’s not a rooky’s
gas-pipe for greenhorns to tarnish.
You’ve known her hot and cold.
You would choose her from among many.
You know her by her bias, and by her exact error at 300, and
by the deep scar at the small, by the fair flaw in the grain,
above the lower sling-swivel–
but leave it under the oak.
Slung so, it swings its full weight. With you going blindly on
all paws, it slews its whole length, to hang at your bowed neck
like the Mariner’s white oblation.
You drag past the four bright stones at the turn of Wood
Support.

This old lady was a strumpet, my false lover. 

She was forced upon me, but I accepted her. and yes, she saved me.

But, now, the new lady, My Lady, speaks a less brutal language. Yet, she is just as demanding, like my good angel, who reminds me to pray, but I pray like a child, saying the same things over and over and over. I look for Him through her eyes. I try, so hard, to see with the pure imagination of Ignatius.

I try not to miss the quiet voice. Celibacy is good for the quietness, the simplicity of mind

I am rather simple, but no one understands me, no one but the Lady.

I have been on my guard
not to condemn the unfamiliar.
For it is easy to miss Him
at the turn of a civilisation.

This is what I said to C-M today. I do not want to miss anything, but everything is too painful, to new, too real.

Everything. Why?

Part of me, the artist within me, has never left the trenches.

Sometimes, her voice becomes the bellowing of the bombing officer.

Sometimes, her voice is that of the long necked girl.

She is never Gwenhwyfar, the White Lady. Never. Never Guenever. 

And not one of The Four Queens. No. but today the unpurified memory grappled my senses, like the old bucinator at the Wall-loud and clear. This new lady tells me to be simple. Back and fro, I am simple.

No one believes me when I say that and I wonder if C-M will believe me.

Be simple. Be obedient. But be open, and remember.

 It’s not for the likes of you and me to cogitate high policy or to
guess the inscrutable economy of the pontifex
from the circuit of the agger
from the traverse of the wall.
But you see a thing or two
in our walk of life
walking the compass of the vallum
walking for twenty years of nights
round and round and back & fro
on the walls that contain the world

 Part of me, the artist within me, has never left the trenches.

Those who are not Roman do not get it. We all are always in the trenches.

They do not understand. They do not hear My Lady, nor see the Bloody Hands, the Side, the Feet.

I do, always here and there, in France, in London, in Wales in Rome...

My trade is in abeyance. 

Cloud shielded her bright disc-rising yet her veiled influ-
ence illumined the texture of that place, her glistening on
the saturated fields; bat-night-gloom intersilvered where she
shone on the mist drift,
when they paraded
       at the ending of the day, unrested
             bodies, wearied from the morning,
       troubled in their minds,
             frail bodies loaded over much,
..'prentices bearing this night the full panoply, the complex
..paraphernalia of their trade.

 I shall write of this time later on, after my memory is purified. When I am "better".

When I am not interrupted for tea and biscuits...(How I would love a small glass of scotch-someone brought me some Black and White a bit ago, but the nurses took it away-good thing, too.)

Ezechiel's dream comes back to me at night...et aspectus rotarum et opus earum quasi visio maris et una similitudo ipsarum quattuor et aspectus earum et opera quasi sit rota in medio rotae 

He remembered. He wrote. 

Some say the poet is the prophet. Poor s..s...poor Shelley-no I do not think prophecy is an attribute of poetry. Not that I assert poets to be prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events: such is the pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not.

Rubbish. We take part in something much greater. I wrote this from my impure memory. History, memory, my time, My Lady's time...

It is often remarked with a certain amount of perplexity that the modern artist, though he be a Catholic and of sensitivity and ability at his work, seems none the less to be not at his happiest when required to do a job closely connected with the liturgical life of the Church. His preoccupations and enthusiasms seem commonly to be of another sort. The artist himself may find this none too easy to explain. I was once asked: 'Why does Mr. X. paint only chimneypots and pots of flowers when he has the whole Christian mythology, which he talks enough about, to inspire him? This question, so put, is indeed many questions in one, but still it has bearing on our problem, and it asks for elucidation.

It is necessary to have in mind the position of our epoch on what may be called, for convenience, the graph of history. For the relationship between what the Church wants for her use, and the characteristic art of any given epoch, will determine what sort of art is available for the Church's requirements.

It is said that 'the best' of what Mr. Wilfred Childe calls 'Man's own creative power' should be, in any epoch, at the direct service of the sanctuary -- yes -- but in the arts 'the best' can only easily and naturally be available to the hierarchic, corporate, symbolic demands of the Church if the epoch itself is characterized by those qualities. This cannot, by any means, be said of our epoch. The characteristic bents and virtues of modern painting, for instance, are not in fact easily amenable to these demands. This has little or nothing to do with the will or wishes of this or that artist. He cannot by taking thought change himself into an artist of some other culture-sequence.  

I am a Roman.

  
No, we are the ones who remember the past and hold it in our hands like the altar boys hold the cruets. Softly, carefully, quietly....we are the carriers, mimesis not poesis.....I gag on this one...
A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. My Lady laughs and laughs and laughs.

But, I am back to the wheels in my head, in my impure imagination. I need the burning coals on my lips. I think of this world around me. I hear a car horn. I hear voices in the hallway, echoing against the glass, against the steel hidden in the walls, in the souls. My memory is creating something new, something sad....but I have not lost Him. He has not lost me.

I have watched the wheels go round in case I might see the
living creatures like the appearance of lamps, in case I might see
the Living God projected from the Machine. I have said to the
perfected steel, be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I
felt some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a Domine Deus,
My hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible
crystal a stage-paste …Eia, Domine Deus.

to be continued...

poetry by David Jones

The Trenches

I have been "invalided for three months".  They did not invalid me for long twenty years ago, but now, thirty years after, yes-- now again. No, it is different now. Now, one can take one's time being ill. Today, I am sitting on a porch near Harrow-on-the Hill, staring at a man in a white rocking chair across from me. I do not like rocking chairs, so I am sitting in an iron chair designed by William Kent. Few people know that Kent designed outside furniture. I know because I, too, am an artist.

The man in the white rocking chair is named Timothy. He has a good mind and we can talk about things, anything but the war, of course. No one here talks about the war. I have forgotten some things already. But, then, I have shell-shock, only thirty years late.

Timothy has no face. Where his jaw is there is nothing but white bandages. One of his eyes is gone and half of his nose is gone. But, Timothy is not sad. He is amazingly positive. Why, I do not know yet. Timothy is from another war. He is not from my war. His war was on a ship, which was blown up. He survived the Hood. Ventis Secundis. He has been here for five years. I cannot imagine sitting in a rocker for five years. Timothy is a forgetter, but I am a rememberer. Artists must remember. We are the keepers of the stories.

his mess-mates sleeping like long-barrow sleepers, their
dark arms at reach.
Spell-sleepers, thrown about anyhow under the night.
And this one’s bright brow turned against your boot leather,
tranquil as a fer sidhe sleeper, under fairy tumuli, fair as
Mac Og sleeping.

Timothy remembers nothing, not even the name of the Mighty Hood. He does not remember the cold waters of his baptismal sufferings or the sound of the torpedoes.

I remember sounds, mostly those of the nights in the trenches, the screeching sounds of the shells. The screams of my mates.

Some were never buried. We do not know where some disappeared in the smoke and chaos.

Is the tump by Honddu
                              his lifted bolster?
                              does a gritstone outcrop
incommode him?
                              does a deep syncline
                              sag beneath him?
or does his dinted thorax rest
                              where the contorted heights
                              themselves rest
on a lateral pressured anticline?
Does his russet-hued mattress
                              does his rug of shaly grey
ease at all for his royal dorsals
                              for faulted under-bedding

Maybe I shall know someday where my friend Tom was buried. Somewhere in Wales... Right now, I wish I lived in the times of King Arthur and his lady. I would be dead, not living in this half-life of death and terror. Tom claimed he came from royal blood. He claimed his ancestors scoured the valleys where I lived for awhile. Those green hills above St. Llanthony, the fog coming in so quickly I got lost once or twice, hearing the soft neighing of the horses in order to get back "home".

Home, where is that now? The mess is still growing damp over my painting of the dying Christ.


Do the small black horses
                                        grass on the hunch of his shoulders?
are the hills his couch
                                        or is he the couchant hills?
Are the slumbering valleys
                                        him in slumber
                                        are the still undulations
the still limbs of him sleeping?
Is the configuration of the land
                                        the furrowed body of the lord
are the scarred ridges
                                        his dented greaves
do the trickling gullies
                                        yet drain his hog-wounds?
Does the land wait the sleeping lord
                                        or is the wasted land
that very lord who sleeps?

My doctor is the best there is. And, I am to meet a new type of doctor tomorrow. His name is Crichton-Miller, Hugh Crichton-Miller. I do not want to speak with this man. I do not want to speak to anyone.

Nor, do I want to paint. I am sick of painting as no one cares, why should I care? But, deep down, I want to preserve, transfigure, guide. I am not just a painter, but a teacher, a bard, reminding the younger ones of what is to come, what has been and what will be. But pens bore me and brushed freeze to my hand. I could not finish the poem I was writing.

I was in hell again. But, now, it is different.

It is just the present I cannot face.
 

to be continued....

poetry by David Jones

Happy Name Day to all the Marthas, Marys named after Mary of Bethany, and Lazarus-named persons. Martha is a great saint, but sadly gets bad press for her unholy time. Imagine being rebuked by the Son of God in person. Oh, dear. Apparently, she changed and started to be a Mary.

She had a moment. or maybe, a habit of anxiety. Many of us have had to be purged of that sin. But, she was a friend of Jesus. The Scriptures tell us that she was loved by Jesus along with her brother and sister.

At the raising of her brother, she is the first sister to run out and meet Christ. She is the one who knows that Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. She is a woman of Faith.e

She also proclaims that Christ is the Son of God. This is no small witness. In the Eastern Church, she is called one of the Myrrh-bearing Women.

John 11:20-27 Douay-Rheims

²⁰ Martha therefore, as soon as she heard that Jesus had come, went to meet him: but Mary sat at home.

²¹ Martha therefore said to Jesus: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

²² But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

²³ Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again.

²⁴ Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day.

²⁵ Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live:

²⁶ And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this?

²⁷ She saith to him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of the living God, who art come into this world.

She is called a "Disciple of the Lord." Nice title.

The important part of her life for me is after the Resurrection, she is supposed to have gone to Cyprus, according to the Orthodox, with her brother and sister, where they all eventually died in Larnaca. The Orthodox apparently took their relics, which the French took back to Marseilles. No one knows where these relics are now. But, in the Western Church, all three sailed to Provence and spread the Gospel in France. The great Cathedral of Autun is said to have Lazarus' relics. I watched an EWTN video on these facts earlier this year. The historical evidence for this French trip is both convicing and mysterious, as how could relics be found in Cyprus, if they all went to France.

Being a Western Catholic, I shall go with the French stories, but the Cyprus one must be considered.

Actually, today is technically the Feast of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, but my wall calendar only states Martha. Other calendars have all three.