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Thursday, 20 September 2012

From The Rule of St. Benedict Again


To despise one's own will.
To obey the abbot's commands in all things, 
even if he strays from his own path, 
mindful of the Lord's command: "What they say, do, but what they do, do not perform"
 Matt. 23:3).
Not to desire to be called holy before the fact, but to be holy first, then called so with truth.
To fulfill God's commandments in one's activities.
To love chastity.
To hate no one.
Not to be jealous or envious.
To hate strife.
To evidence no arrogance.
To honor the elderly.
To love the young.
To pray for one's enemies for the love of Christ.
To make peace with an adversary before sundown.
Never to despair of God's mercy.

These are the tools of our spiritual craft.

Roses and Colors

Those of you who have followed this blog know I love roses.

A friend gave me a bouquet of a dozen yellow and orange roses to enjoy in my last week here in London.

Yellow roses indicate friendship and orange roses indicate new beginnings and a journey.

How appropriate.


Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Keep up with Pat Buchanan

Here is a great site, Newsmax and an article about Pat Buchanan calling POTUS, the drug dealer of welfare.

We need to clone Pat as there is no one who speaks like he does. Here is a snippet.

“We used to have FDR talking about relief being a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. We've got to get off this welfare, is what he said. And in that sense it’s a narcotic.”

Romney wants to avoid turning welfare into a narcotic, Buchanan says. “We believe in temporary help for anybody that’s in trouble. You should have a floor of decency under every family. Unemployment should be temporary. Unemployment benefits should be temporary. Food stamps should be temporary. What are we doing with 47 million people who permanently have to be fed by the government?”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Pat Buchanan: Obama a ‘Drug Dealer of Welfare’


Another record post day for Supertradmum. But, all good things come to an end soon....

New Media vs. Old Media

Well, it is statistical now. The Old Media is suffering from the stranglehold of the leftist, doctrinaire agendas and the blogosphere is taking over the New Media real politics journalism.

Romney is probably ahead but we would never know it from the mainstream media. Ron Paul has a sizable following among the young conservatives, yet we would never know it, unless we read online, independent news sources.

The reason for the rebellion online is simple. Too many people are tired of not having a voice.

Compare the independent media sites with the giants and one can hardly believe the difference.

Different news, different opinions, different facts.....hello! Check this out and keep looking at the real deals.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/18/Newspaper-Ad-Revenues-Collapses-to-1950-Levels




from France 24 on cartoons

http://www.france24.com/en/20120919-naked-mohammed-cartoons-fuel-muslim-outcry-france-charlie-hebdo-french-paper

A Poem for My Mother


I write lots of poetry. This is really my little loaf and fish gift from God. I love poetry and specialized in Medieval and Modern poetry at Notre Dame.

I share a "Found Poem" with you I wrote today. A "Found Poem" uses something which the poet has found, like a thing, or scrap of writing, or a photograph.

This is from an inscription carved into the side of a building in a private closed-up ancient alley in London.

I call my poem

Soul Propriete No. 3

As I stand at the large, half-opened window in the convent,
facing ancient bits of walls and new Victorian additions,
the voice of some clerk in London, whose duty was
to mark the beginnings and ends of properties
speaks to me in the sunlight.

His statement, etched in stone, until the last days of London,
clearly show the sole proprietor. 
"Half the Thickness of This Wall is in Paddington Parish" 
How exact the English were then, which they are not now.
How comforting was the Georgian mind for details.

1806, 1826, 1866, 1886, 1906, 1966, 2006, 2012
His voice clears the centuries with clear early 19th century
feet and inches. Does Paddington Parish really care about
half a thickness of wall? Taxes? Wall maintenance? Sole proprietor
of a closed alleyway which no one sees

Except me and a robin, clearly not interested in the mind of 
this maker. But, I am. Wondering at the great interests of
the new industrial world breaking into new views of walls
and ownership across England, those satanic mills
conquering small alleyways and arches.

There is still conquest in these words, an old lettering
a new idea of propriete mocked much later by Dickens,
who most likely walked this way at least once or twice.
Who knows? The footsteps of the past leading me, as 
I stare at a wall separating sole from soul.

My ideas are elsewhere, but the clerk's words ring out
reminding me of the little world I am leaving for awhile, 
a world I shall not miss that much, or at least that is
what I think today, listening to the cheeky robin
mocking the past and reminding me that even

The birds of the air have nests. I know Who is in charge.


Obama is targeting the video gamers for political support

http://cleveland.cbslocal.com/2012/09/18/obama-running-campaign-ads-on-video-games-in-battleground-states/

Hmm, all the gamers I know are Ron Paul supporters. This topic would make for an interesting survey. I have added another poll at the side.


Putin on Romney and Obama-worth a look

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/romney-at-least-hes-direct-says-putin/2012/09/17/3452a0b8-ff5b-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html

This is my second night sky report for September

Four planets are up now and only now. However, you have to be looking at different times to see these beauties.

Starting at night, Mars and Saturn are visible at dusk here in England and in parts of America where it is dark about 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm. Both are up at sunset but can be seen if one is looking in the southwest. Tonight look for Mars next to the crescent Moon

Saturn will disappear in October so try and see it now.

Mars is obvious with its red tinge.

Venus and Jupiter start out from the morning sky clearly. I have seen these in the eastern dawn sky and the planets are worth an early morning view.

Earth from Mars, 2006
Look now, as the sky changes in October and I shall not be here to help you look. By the time I am writing to you again, even for a short while, my favourite, Strider, Orion, will be dominant in the December sky.

St. Januarius, pray for us.

This is one of the three days when the blood of St. Januarius liquifies. I, for one, have never been to Naples, but would love to go on this day and honour this martyr. Blessed Cardinal Newman could not deny the miracle of the blood.

I would also, of course, visit the museum. Here is a great link for a commentary on both.


May this powerful intercessor pray for all of us in the West at this time of confusion and turmoil. May he raise up men like himself to witness to the faith in season and out of season.

Covered Phial of the Blood of St. Januarius

From La Stampa-Vatican Insider

September 18th: an article from Vatican Insider indicates some interesting points which are in the air regarding the SSPX. No surprises.

Here is a section from the article.


Vatican Insider has learnt that Fellay’s much anticipated response should still be interlocutory and contain certain conditions. If these involve requests that are to do with pastoral matters or discipline, the Holy See is willing to take these into consideration. Some conditions were discussed following the July chapter. The first three were considered “absolute” and were to do with the “freedom to correct the promoters of the errors or the innovations of modernism, liberalism, and Vatican II and its aftermath.” The second condition involved the “exclusive use of the Liturgy of 1962,” whilst the third requires “the guarantee of at least one bishop.” Other less binding conditions included the possibility of having a separate ecclesiastical court of the first instance and the exemption of the houses of the Society of St. Pius X from the diocesan bishops.

Agreement can be reached on most points and the Holy See is prepared to discuss these and incorporate changes in the draft about the future canonical normalisation of the Society of St. Pius X. What are not subject to discussion are the doctrinal issues outlined in the preamble. Lefebvrians are required to accept the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. Therefore, although they will be allowed to celebrate mass using the old Missal (an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite), they will still have to recognise that the ordinary form was introduced as a result of the post-Conciliar reform, whose validity and lawfulness is unquestionable.

Cute Wednesday

New piggies in a photo taken by a friend on September 15th, 2012


Ah...not Iowa pigs, but owner is from Iowa.

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Am I missing something......

here?

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



Flying Saints: Who is watching over pilots?

Repeat from 2009
By ERIC CHANDLER, For General Aviation News
Like every cheapskate pilot on a layover, I grabbed the free newspaper, which featured an article about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron saint of pilots.
I was glad to find out who’s on my team. I safely finished my trip and decided to thank the patron saint of my profession by learning more about her.
Thérèse was a French woman from Lisieux who became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15 and died young from tuberculosis. She was known as the “Little Flower” and canonized very soon after her death. She felt she could best serve God with “the little way” — doing what she could for people in the small details of life. Mother Teresa of Calcutta even took her name to honor her. That’s all very interesting, but unsatisfying. I resolved to learn why she was connected to flying.
I got more than I bargained for. It turns out there are actually three patron saints of aviation: St. Thérèse, St. Joseph of Cupertino and Our Lady of Loreto. The latter two were a lot easier to figure out.
St. Joseph was an Italian Franciscan priest who lived in the 17th century. He levitated. Poking him with pins and burning embers wouldn't stop his soaring. “The Flying Friar” would only land when his superiors ordered him down. Like a lot of pilots, he was very dedicated to flight. Okay, St. Joseph, I understand why Pope Clement XIII gave you the nod in 1767.
Our Lady of Loreto also makes a good aviation saint. There is a humble house in the Italian city of Loreto that’s enclosed inside a cathedral. This house is supposed to be where the Annunciation occurred when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear the son of God. Angels reputedly carried this house from the Holy Lands through the air to Italy in 1294. All of these events, combined with some good lobbying by the Italian Air Force, made her a shoo-in to be the patron saint of air travelers by order of Pope Benedict XV in 1920.
Photo from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles  THE PATRON SAINT OF PILOTS: This oil on canvas painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo depicts “The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto.” Our Lady of Loreto is just one of three saints looking out for pilots.
Photo from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. This oil on canvas painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo depicts “The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto.” Our Lady of Loreto is just one of three saints looking out for pilots.
Our Lady of Loreto flies the highest of the three saints. Many references claim Charles Lindbergh carried her medallion across the Atlantic. Italian Umberto Nobile carried her medallion over the North Pole in the dirigible “Norge” in 1926. He visited Loreto to thank her and paid her back by helping put out a fire in the basilica while he was there. Astronaut James McDivitt carried her medallion on the Apollo 9 space flight in March 1969.
There is a chapel in Loreto that has a painting depicting American astronauts and an image of the angels bearing the Holy House of Loreto. This building is sometimes called the American chapel or the aviation chapel.
St. Therese even visited the cathedral of Our Lady of Loreto on her way to Rome to seek an audience with the Pope to plead her case to become a nun.
None of this gets me any closer to my answer about Thérèse of Lisieux. She describes herself as a “little bird” in her autobiography and she’s also the patron saint of the missions. In the early 20th century, flying would’ve been one of the ways missionaries traveled to the far-flung outposts of the church. Maybe that’s the reason.
I’d like to follow in the footsteps of previous visitors to Loreto, including Mozart, Descartes and St. Thérèse. Maybe the images of flight in the American chapel there would give me a clue about her link to the sky.
Lately, I fly military airplanes. While I still don’t know why St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a patron saint of aviation, I do know one thing: When it was a dark night over Iraq, I was glad there were three flying saints checking my 6 o’clock instead of just one.
Eric Chandler flies F-16s with the Minnesota Air National Guard in Duluth. He’s made two trips to Iraq with the 148th Fighter Wing Bulldogs. He has been on military leave from United Airlines since Sept. 11.

St. Joseph Cupertino, pray for us


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is a dear, dear saint.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Watch Michael Voris and subscribe to him.

Read JihadWatch and subscribe to that.

Read Courageous Priest and subscribe to that.

Read LifeSiteNews and subscribe to that.

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

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

Richard the Lionhearted outside Parliament in London



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

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

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

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


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

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

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

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira unveiled a rough outline of the Socialist government’s proposed bill, pencilled in for spring 2013. The new law “will extend the current arrangements of marriage to members of the same sex,” Taubira told Catholic newspaper La Croix. That means that a gay person can marry, adopt children and become a 'parent' of their partner's biological child in the same way that a straight person can today, she explained.
As to be expected, Taubira’s comments ruffled feathers among French hardline conservatives and Catholic advocates, who used the opportunity to reiterate their belief that marriage should only constitute a union between man and woman and that children should be brought up within a mother-father family unit. Christine Boutin, the leader of France's Christian Democratic Party and one of France’s most vocal conservatives, called for a referendum on the issue and warned of “heavy consequences for society” if the law were to go ahead.

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

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

What? Who decided that? Not God.

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

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

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

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

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

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



A snippet from Pat Buchanan

Part of an article from Pat Buchanan:


The Islamic word, especially across the Arab region, is undergoing a transformation, a Great Awakening. Muslims from Nigeria to Mali to Ethiopia to Sudan to the Maghreb and Middle and Near East are growing more militant and more hostile toward Christianity and other faiths.
And as we are not going to change our position on Israel, or our culture, such as it is, or our First Amendment, clashes between us are inevitable.
Perhaps the best course of action for America is to lower our profile in that region, bring most of our diplomats and troops home, and let these people work out their destiny themselves.
Second, given the costs and consequences of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and intervention in Libya, let the Syrians settle their war themselves. There is no guarantee the fall of Bashar Assad, given the jihadist and al-Qaida presence in the forces seeking his overthrow, will be an improvement for the United States.
Third, the United States should tell the Egyptian government that its failure to provide security for our embassy was an outrage, that if we cannot see them as a friendly government with common interests, we will not hesitate to cut off aid and warn U.S. citizens not to travel to Egypt.

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

Posted: 17 Sep 2012 11:44 AM PDT

Dissenting Clergy Have No One To Blame But Themselves

Father John Trigilio, Jr., President of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of more than 500 priests and deacons), publicly repudiates the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, “Call to Disobedience.” Recently, Msgr. Helmut Schüller gave an interview to CNS (Catholic News Service) where he reiterated his group’s dissident agenda: making clerical celibacy optional, allowing Protestants and divorced and remarried (without annulment) Catholics to receive Holy Communion, accepting same-sex unions, and ordaining women to Holy Orders.


The CCC, on the other hand, “unequivocally and completely renews the sacred promise of obedience taken by every cleric. Orthodoxy (assenting to all Magisterial teachings) and orthopraxy (obeying the lawful disciplines of church authority) are indispensible and inseparable to ordained ministry.”


Confraternity of Catholic Clergy
The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in the U.S.A. (www.catholic-clergy.org) has fellow associations in Australia (ACCC) and the UK (British CCC) with more than 300 and 100 members, respectively. All three branches espouse fidelity to the Roman Pontiff and to the full deposit of faith as taught by the Pope and Bishops in union with him. “It is incomprehensible how the Austrian Priests’ Initiative can blame Rome for their dissent. Such an act of rebellion against church doctrine is nothing less than heretical and rebellion against church discipline is just plain schismatic.”
Thomas McKenna, Executive Director of the Confraternity said, “The Catholic faithful need to know that these miscreants are not by any means representative of the majority of clergy. Most priests and deacons are faithful sons of the Church but they do not get the same publicity and attention the secular media lavishes upon the vocal minority of dissidents.” Father Trigilio is asking all members of the CCC to renew the Oath of Fidelity every Thursday (in honor of the Last Supper when Holy Orders was instituted by Christ) during the upcoming YEAR OF FAITH (Oct. 11, 2012-Nov. 24, 2013) to show solidarity with the Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church