Recent Posts

Tuesday 16 September 2014

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/france-socialist-president-hollande-hates-poor-says-ex-valerie-trierweiler-1463813


ah, The French.....

The Pope of Prophecy, or But One?




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/11098905/Isil-want-to-assassinate-the-Pope-says-Iraqs-ambassador-to-Vatican.html

The Vatican proclaimed the St. Malachy prophecies as forgeries, as these, for one thing, appeared four-hundred years after the death of the saint.

I do not believe these prophecies, but the Net is going wild again with speculation. However, all popes in this century have been in danger from terrorist attacks, from assassins. Nothing new there.

What makes this pope different is his own admission of not thinking he would be pope for long. He has been very, very brave in his travels, imo.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/11043193/Pope-Francis-I-only-have-two-or-three-more-years-to-live.html


My response to twitter and other "discussions" on this point is this. Pray daily for the Pope. Wish him well.


Clergy Police


Reading a famous Catholic newspaper over the past three months, I am truly saddened by the laity who are being clergy police.

If we are doing what we are called to do, evangelizing the world, we would not have time to look with microscopic eyes, on the faults of priests, bishops, cardinals.

Sadly, (my operative word this September), too many lay people think they are called to be clergy police, examining every thing a clergyman does or says. That is the job of other clergy, real theologians, and prophets.....Some Catholic media has become "yellow journalism" a la tradition.

OK, there is nothing wrong with the game of "heresy watch" which I played with my son after particularly dire sermons.

But, to live in the spirit of the Adversary, and we know who is called that, is not to be a holy lay person. There are a few prophets who are called to point out the sins of the fathers. Mr. Voris is one.
We do not need to take this job on ourselves.

Out of all the millennia of the Old Testament, the number of true prophets remained low.

Why?

Prophets must be holier than most laity, and called by God to be prophets, whose main job is to warn of sin and the consequences of sin.

But, too many lay people are wasting breath and print on the evils, (or, worse, incorrectly perceived evils), of the hierarchy.

Are we bringing people into the Catholic Church? Are we spreading the Good News? Are we getting ready spiritually for  being a member of the remnant? Are we making our own immediate families holy? Are we creating Catholic communities so that those on the outside can say, "Look how they love one another!"

There are too many false prophets, some crying peace when there is no peace, and some crying evil where there is no evil.

If you are around people who are constantly negative, know that this is not the way of perfection.

Others posts on this point....

Saturday, 26 April 2014

The Adversarial Spirit in The Traditional Church


Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour 1 Peter 5:8 DR
Pointing out error is a good, but being caught up constantly in an adversarial spirit is not a good.
Who is called the Adversary? Satan.
More and more frequently in the Church, I am seeing traditional Catholics who are laymen stepping out of their worlds, their own spheres of influence and condemning things over which they have no authority.
Our lay world provides enough grist for the mill-we are supposed to be evangelizing our families, our friends, our workplace.
To try and pretend we have the right and duty to continually criticize the clergy, including bishops, cardinals and popes reveals hubris and the adversarial spirit.
If one is continually looking for faults and not giving real answers on how to deal with these faults, in other words, giving remedies. one has fallen into the spirit of the adversary.
The adversarial spirit is not kind, charitable nor fair. It judges and does not bear with the burdens of others. There are few who are pure enough in heart, mind and soul to be real critics.
The adversarial spirit causes hatred, dissension, and eventually, schisms and splits in the Church.
If you are finding that you argue too much and are always finding fault, look towards your own sins and failings first.
Those who want to change priests and bishops only have to raise holy boys to become holy men to go out and change the Church as holy priests and bishops.
It is not only naive but wrong to think the crusader spirit must be aimed at the Church first. No. Our enemies are those of the devil and the world, as well as the flesh. If such enemies have inflitrated the Church, even at high levels, we can pray, but our words mean nothing.
Tearing down is not building up.
A person caught up in the adversarial spirit will not find peace in God, but fall into rancor,anger and depression. If you are merely tearing down, you have let satan use you. Eventually, the person with the adversarial spirit becomes a heresiarch. Those people most likely will find themselves judged as they have judged-severely and without mercy.
We are here for the building up of the Church.
In a grown man, the adversarial spirit could be connected to a male being caught up in teen-age rebellion-a sign of the peter pan. The teen thinks he knows better than the parent and rebels against imperfections, not understanding that he himself is a sinner. It is too easy to point out the evils of another, rather than looking at one's own sin.

Ask yourself if you are constantly arguing.

Ask yourself if you are playing into the hands of the great Adversary of the Church.

He has been defeated but is still looking maliciously for souls to bring down with him in defeat.
29 Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth; but that which is good, to the edification of faith, that it may administer grace to the hearers.
30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God: whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamour, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice.
32 And be ye kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you in Christ. Ephesians 4:17-32 DR

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Are you fighting the wrong battles? Could be a sign of spiritual sloth.

Lay people are in the world to make the world holy. We are called to convert, to evangelize those who are falling away. We are the salt of the world.
Christ said this of us:

Matthew 5:13-16

Douay-Rheims 

13 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house.
16 So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
But, too many Catholics are not being salt or light. The main reason for this is the lack of their own holiness. The mediocre cannot be salt or light.
A second reason has been the clericalization of the laity, a theme on my own blog in 2007 or so. Too many lay people want to be seen being Eucharistic Ministers, or readers.
But, the third reason is more subtle. 
The vast majority of the laity are picking up battles which are not theirs to fight. We are not clergy, we do not work in the Vatican or have influence in the chancery offices.
We are not privy to what goes on in the deanery meetings regarding priestly formation.
We are lay.
So what fights are the laity picking up which are not their "business" and what fights should we be fighting?
One, wherever we live or work, our first job is to evangelize or re-evangelize our siblings and co-workers. We should be honest, and defend the Church when we can. We should not be accepting evil. We should be reaching out to the unbelievers.
When I had my own house, no unmarried couples stayed as guests in the same room. That is a decision of a real lay Catholic.
When I had my own house, and it was Friday, only fish or vegetarian dinners were served. That was showing solidarity with the entire Church, and under my watch as the cook.
As a teacher and a tutor, I only spoke the truth. I never inflated grades or compromised the Faith.
That is what we as lay people are called to do. Be salt in the world.
It is not our job to tell bishops or cardinals what to do. Can we pray? Yes.
Example. Too many lay people waste time working on the consecration of Russia. Folks, this is not our business, but the Pope's and the bishops'.
Example. Too many lay people waste time praying for changes in the Church regarding apparitions. Folks, this is not our business, but the bishops' and the Pope's.
They have their area of authority and we have ours.
The fact that the lay men and women in the Church are weak is the fault of the faithful laity.
I see this weekly.
Why are not Catholic men and women talking to others in the congregation about the evils of Common Core and not having kids in the public schools? Why are they not presenting the need for home schooling if there are no independent Catholic schools in the area not using Common Core? Your children's involvement in education is your business, primarily.
Why are Catholic men and women accepting discussions about petitions to Rome on topics the bishops and Pope need to decide, rather than talking about things we can do daily to make the Church strong?
Why are Catholic men and women not supporting pro-life candidates actively? Why are the laity not running for office when some can afford this?
Why are Catholic men and women not steering their peers away from yoga classes, Reiki, chiropractic procedures, certain occult books their children are reading, and so on?
Why are Catholic men and women not telling Catholic home schoolers not to use protestant books, which are slanted against the Church; parents continuing to give money to those publishers which hate the Catholic Church?
Why are men and women not speaking to those in the TLM who are calling Francis a fake Pope, which he is not, but our true Pope?
Why are men and women at the TLM saying that the NO is invalid, when it is not? Why do some not receive Communion at the NO, giving bad example and being holier than Rome?
Why are men and women pretending that members of their own families are not exhibiting evil, those who are living in serious sin, and not just sexual, instead of facing this and dealing with this?
Why are parents not teaching their children the Faith in the home, not disciplining, not forming the children in the virtues?

Why are Catholics not boycotting stores like Starbucks or brand names like Pepsi, one of the biggest supporters of PP? Lay people buy things and need to lead in boycotts, not the clergy. One of my TLM priests relied on me to give him boycott details.

Why are so many of the laity not studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or not reading such documents as Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life? 

Why are the laity wasting time with old forms of groups which do not speak to the times and not forming new groups?
To be a lay person is hard.

To not follow Rome is to be a protestant, either on the left or on the right.
We are the Church Militant, not the Church Pansy.
It is easier to concentrate on things not under our authority than to deal with things that are. But, this is spiritual sloth.
Think about this. If you are not acting like a lay person, not living up to your baptismal vows, even though you are attending the TLM, your own soul may be in danger for not living out your vocation.
The Church is not a democracy, folks. It is a hierarchy. And the lay life is not that of the clerics.
Period.


Irish Pro-Life News




http://prolifecampaign.ie/main/portfolio/detail/22-08-2014-plc-launch-little-one-fund/

T-Shirt Wars

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/09/16/report-rgiii-told-by-nfl-not-to-wear-know-jesus-know-peace-shirt-for-his-press-conference/

http://eagnews.org/students-virginity-rocks-t-shirt-banned-from-arkansas-middle-school/

and some famous older ones...do you have some to add?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/27/justice/california-school-american-flag-shirts/index.html

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/28/charge-dropped-against-student-who-refused-to-remove-nra-shirt/

Do not think this will not cause YOU grief in some way

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/exclusive-millions-of-banknotes-sent-to-scotland-in-case-yes-vote-sparks-run-on-atms-9734658.html

An old act of terrorism today in history...

Interesting--no one was ever tried for this act of terrorism so long ago.

Maybe the situation should be re-opened.

The Wall Street bombing occurred at 12:01 pm on Thursday, September 16, 1920, in the Financial District of New York City. The blast killed 30 people immediately, and another eight were to die later of wounds sustained in the blast. There were 143 seriously injured, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds.[1]:160-161[2] The bombing was never solved, although investigators and historians believe the Wall Street bombing was carried out by Galleanists (Italian anarchists), a group responsible for a series of bombings the previous year. The attack was related to postwar social unrest, labor struggles and anti-capitalist agitation in the United States.
The Wall Street bomb caused more fatalities than the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times, which was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil up to that point.[3] The death toll was exceeded in the Bath School disaster in 1927. Wiki


God Will Not Let This Go On Much Longer

2014 USA Abortion Deaths

Sept 16

883,190 babies in the womb killed so far this year.

#ProLife
#PraytoEndAbortion 

2014 Worldwide Abortion Deaths

Sept 16

29,751,330 babies in the womb killed so far this year.

Good News for Mundelein


Deacon Guillermo Trevino with a not-so-famous blogger in Davenport, and with a very, very famous Scripture scholar.

A great day for Mundelein Seminary to have Dr. Scott Hahn teaching there.


On Missionaries

Matthew 28:19

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,


Most Catholics do not see, understand, or realize the movement against missionaries in the world. But, it did not start with the seculars, but within the Church herself.

In the mid-sixties, more and more missionary orders were accepting vocations. Groups like the Maryknolls, Marianists, Marists, Lazarists, Redemptorists, Paulists, as well as Jesuits, Franciscans and Benedictines fell from great heights in numbers to practically zero vocations.

Some of the missionary orders are dying off fast, becoming extinct. Many did it to themselves for two reasons. The first is relativism, which states that all religions are equally valid, and the second is the Marxist-based, condemned Liberation Theology.

Priests and nuns who succumbed to such heresies made their own orders die from the inside out.

I remember phoning Paulist Press years ago for some older encyclicals which this order use to publish. The woman told me they were no longer going to publish certain key encyclicals as they did not consider this part of their vision any longer.

Amazing.

But, it is clear that the desire to be obedient to Christ and make disciples in all nations, a command directly from the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, has vanished.

Now, newer orders cannot get permission to enter countries which need missionaries, including once Christian countries, such as England and Australia.

I know this from several person both within orders and some laity who want to support missionaries that visas are being rejected.

The devils have their day now regarding missionary activity. The problem is political correctness. One is not longer to convert people from other cultures, from paganism, from ignorance of God as most people, in and out of the Church, no longer believe that their is just one true religion.

Sorry, read this document....

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html

We Catholics either believe in missionary work or not. We either believe and obey Christ's command or not.

There is no middle ground.Without missionaries, many people will never hear the Gospel, never be taught the Truth of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

This is our fault, for compromising, for accepting relativism. All "religions" are not the same and there is only one real one.

Sponsored Ride in Folkstone!

Two of my friends were in the recent sponsored ride. Here is a short note from my friend, Carole, a great pro-lifer! Fr. Stephen is one of the wonderful Ordinariate priests in Kent.


This year there were 3 riders.  Father Stephen and I visited 25 churches in the areas of Folkestone, Cheriton, and Hythe.  Parish Secretary Sarah visited 28 churches. I must tell you that the hand of God must have been protecting Fr Stephen.  We left a church at the top of a hill in Cheriton and coasted very fast downhill into Seabrook, which is near the seafront.  We really whizzed down the hill which was rather bumpy due to many potholes.  We alighted from our bikes, and as Fr Stephen picked up his bike to walk, the wheel fell off!!!  It was a miracle it didn't come off on the hill.  The consequences don't bear thinking about.  He knows that he could have been killed or badly injured.  Many prayers of thanksgiving were said after that.  See picture of him fixing his bike.  Luckily I had some tools which helped him fix it properly.

 http://www.rideandstrideuk.org/counties/kent/

God bless them all.