Persecution Watch from Fort Hood

http://www.infowars.com/fort-hood-soldiers-told-christians-tea-partiers-a-radical-terror-threat/

This is important, readers. Please take a minute and read the article and links.

The Fear of Being Loved and the Dark Night of the Spirit

Pysche and Eros

I have written on this subject before on this blog. In ourselves, as one approachs God in the Dark Night, one begins to realize that for a long time, fear has blocked one's openness to the love of God and the love of other people.

When I wrote about this phenomenon before, I was thinking of particular people I knew in the past who never became intimate with another person. I thought of one beautiful young woman who was hurt several times in love affairs and finally decided never to love or be loved again.

She decided to live in the shadows of what it means to be human.

Like a grey ghost, her life was circumscribed to choosing death rather than life, because the soul curls up and dies without love. She decided that the suffering of love was not worth the joy of love. She decided that it was too painful to both love a person who was imperfect and to love herself as imperfect.

Thanks to Wiki for Teresa in Ecstasy 

I thought of three men I knew who closed their lives to the adventure of love for three completely different reasons. The first only wanted to give and not take. He was too afraid to take, which meant that his emotional life was stunted by pain from his past.

The second could only take and not give. He was incapable of breaking through defensiveness and pain, moving into a forgiveness, and letting go of his past so that he could love those in his present life. Again, his life remained ghostly and on the edges of human potential. Although he wanted love, he did not learn how to give and get out of himself.

The third person was too afraid to engage at all in either giving or taking love. The traumas of his life caused to live in a safe world, not taking any chances to love or be loved. Of all these three men, this one remained the most haunted and circumscribed, again, like a familiar ghost, stuck in his small surroundings and highly organized world, not letting anyone break down the walls of fear and self-hatred.

How sad.

In the Dark Night, one faces the real fear of both losing God's love through sin and self-will, and gaining God's love in humility and truth.

Real love demands that one see one's gross failings and yet remains open to love, not hiding, not saying no out of a false pride or false self-loathing.

The balance is all.

In the Dark Night, God comes again and again into the shadow world of the loss of memory, understanding and will to meet one in a completely new way.

A wise priest who understands the way of perfection told me three things today I would like to share with you. I have added ideals from the myth of Psyche and Eros, one of my favorite myths, to help clarify these words.

The first is not to give up on the slow process of perfection, paying attention as one goes along and even finding joy in the painful stages. But, one must pray for all blocks to God to be removed. One of these blocks can be the fear of being loved by a God...remember the myth of Psyche. She did not know she was being loved by God and was tricked into trying to see who it was who was loving her. She should have waited and trusted in the darkness of the night and not lit the candle to see Love. She was rushing illumination and infused knowledge, which the god would have given her if she would have waited. She thought that the most beautiful god in the heavens was a beast who was deceiving her. So, too, one must learn to trust God in the Dark Night.

This joy is part of the knowledge that one is truly following God to the best of one's ability and that God is faithful in His pursuit of His beloved. One must wait for God but also wait for one's self and not do damage to the natural process of the growth to perfection, which leads to the second point.

The second is that the process is faster for some and slower for others totally depending on God's Will and plan for that person. One cannot push the process to go faster, or to slow it down without doing great harm to the soul. Psyche had to perform tasks in order for her to be reunited with Eros. She could not rush these, and several things aided her in these tasks because she was open and humble. So too, one must do the work, but in humility, not always knowing the way. One is afraid that if the other person who loves really knows one, that the love would end. The tasks given to each one of us strengthen one's trust in God. The tasks demand that one learns to be humble enough to accept love even though one is imperfect and still sinning those little venial sins.

The third wise thing the priest said was that God wants to give each one of us more than one can imagine. He desire to reveal Himself to us and to be one with us. So, too, with Pysche, who not only ended up marrying her beloved god, Eros, but having a child with him, named Joy. Sometimes people are afraid of what God will ask of them if they accept God's Love. This fear of responsibility fades away in the Face of Divine Providence.

What the ancients tell us is also what the mystics tell us in that joy only comes through trials and trust and loving God. Joy comes eventually, after fear and false pride die. One must not be afraid. One must trust.

Such are hints for those in the Dark Night of the Spirit....

Re-post from Bloy

Saturday, 8 December 2012

More from Bloy on Sanctity or Perfection........

Posted by Supertradmum

We are created that we may become saints. 

If anything is written, this surely is. Sanctity is so required of us, it is so inherent in human nature, that God presumes its existence, so to speak, in each of us, by means of the sacraments of His Church, that is, by means of mystical signs invisibly making operative in souls the beginning of Glory. Sacramentum nihil aliud nisi rem sacram, abditam atque occultam significat. (A Sacrament is nothing other than a sacred, withdrawn and mysterious thing.) This sacred and mysterious thing thus alluded to by the Council of Trent has the effect of uniting souls to God. The most transcendent theology contains nothing stronger than this affirmation.

There are even three sacraments that imprint a character, and whose mark cannot be effaced. Thus we are virtually saints, pillars of eternal Glory. A Christian may disown his baptism, debar the Holy Spirit from his thought, and, if he is a spoiled priest, reject the succession of the Apostles conferred upon him by holy orders; in short, he may damn himself forever; nothing will be able to disunite him, to separate him from God, and what an unfathomable mystery of terror is this persistence of the sacred Sign even into the infinite pangs of perdition. Hence it must be said that hell is peopled with fearsome saints become the companions of the hideous angels!

However evil such saints or angels may be, they have God in them. Otherwise they would not be able to subsist, even in the state of nothingness, since nothingness, also inconceivable without God, is the eternal reservoir of Creation.

All that God has made is sacred after a fashion which only He could explain.Water is holy, stones are holy, plants and animals are holy, fire is the devouring likeness of His Holy Spirit. His entire work is holy. Man alone, who is more holy than other creatures, will have none of sanctity.e considers it ridiculous and even insulting to his dignity. Such is, in the twentieth century of the Redemption, the visible and perceptible result of the unfaithfulness of so many shepherds, of the monstrous blindness brought about by those who should have been the light of the world, and who extinguished all light.

It is certain indeed that never, at no age of the world’s history, were men as far from God, as contemptuous of the Sanctity which He demands, and yet never has the necessity for being saints been so manifest. In these apocalyptic days it truly seems as though only a film of nothingness separates us from the eternal gulfs.

“Not all men are called to saintliness,” says a Satanic cant phrase. To what then are you called, O wretch? and above all in our day and age? The Master said you must be perfect. He said it in an imperative, absolute way, giving to be understood that there is no alternative, and those whose duty it is to teach His word, by themselves presenting an example of perfection, ceaselessly assert that it is not necessary, that a reasonably trifling average of love is more than enough for salvation, and that the desire for the supernatural way of life is rash, when it is not culpable presumption.

Aliquam partem, “a certain portion,” they argue, debasing an expression in the Liturgy, a tiny little corner in Paradise, that is what we need. To this base retreat, to this formal denial of the divine Promise, they give a color of humility, cunningly omitting the heroic sequel to the two liturgical words, in which is specified that the “portion” in case is nothing less than “the company of the Apostles and the Martyrs.”

But cowardly minds and mediocre hearts can avail nothing against the Word of God, and the Estote perfecti (Be ye perfect) of the Sermon on the Mount continues to weigh upon us infinitely more than all the globes in the firmament.

Sanctity has always been required of us. In older days, it was possible to believe that sanctity was demanded from afar, like a debt due on a vague date, which might possibly lapse. Today sanctity is laid on our doorstep by a wild-eyed, blood-smeared messenger. Behind him, a few steps behind him, are panic, fire, pillage, torture, despair, the most frightful death ..

And we have not even a moment in which to choose!

I began 2012 writing about the pursuit of love and perfection without any idea this would lead to almost the entire them of this blog.

The journey continues, moving from the specific to the general and back to the specific.

Be a saint, through love, wherever you may be.

Statistics on English Catholics

White British	74.6%
White Eastern European	9.5%
White Irish	4.4%
White Other	3.9%
Black African	2.5%
Mixed other	1.9%
Afro-Caribbean/Other	1.7%
Asian	1.5%

Does this list surprise you? It did surprise me. From 2008 statistics on Catholics in England, which make up only 4.2 million of the entire population. We are a minority Church.  And dropping. There are less Catholics in England now than a hundred years ago by some statistics. 

In the 2001 UK census, there were 4.2 million Catholics in England and Wales, some 8 per cent of the population. One hundred years earlier, in 1901, they had represented only 4.8 per cent of the population. The percentage of Catholics was at its highest in the 1981 census, with 8.7 per cent.^[7] In 2009 an Ipsos Mori poll found 9.6 percent, or 5.2 million, Catholics in England and Wales.^[8] Sizeable Catholic populations include North West England where one in five is Catholic.^[9] This includes Liverpool which has the highest proportion of any city in Great Britain at 46 per cent; historically, this is due both to a large influx of Irish migrantsafter the 1800 Act of Union, in which Ireland became part of the United Kingdom,^[10][11] as well as a high concentration of English recusants living in Lancashire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_England_and_Wales

To Our Father in Heaven

Pater noster qui es in coelis,

sanctificetur nomen tuum;

adveniat regnum tuum,

fiat voluntas tua, 

sicut in coelo et in terra.

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,

et dimitte nobis debita nostra, 

sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.

et ne nos inducas in tentationem

sed libera nos a malo.

The Unknown God vs. The Known God

We do not worship the Unknown God, as St. Paul reminded the Athenians. We worship a God Who came to earth and made Himself vulnerable to the very creatures He had created.

This vulnerable God is Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God and Son of Man. His vulnerability is met by us daily in the Holy Eucharist.

This God comes to us in abject humility. Can we do less than meet Him in humility? God has already endured a Dark Night which none of us could endure. He let Himself be killed on the Cross and experience all the sins, depressions, abandonments, failings of every human being who was ever created.

This God is Pure Love. And, He calls each one of us daily to find Him, as He wants to be found.

He calls and calls and calls. Only fear and pride keep one from responding.

Do not be afraid.

God desires that we know Him and love Him. This is a call to freedom.

Love is only given freely, and is only responded to freely if it is real love.

Manipulation, greed, self-will stop love, both the giving and the taking.

Do not be afraid. From Acts 17...

22 But Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.

23 For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you:

24 God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

25 Neither is he served with men's hands, as though he needed any thing; seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things:

26 And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation.

27 That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us:

28 For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring.

29 Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.

30 And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance.

31 Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed; giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead.

32 And when they had heard of the resurrection of the dead, some indeed mocked, but others said: We will hear thee again concerning this matter.

33 So Paul went out from among them.

34 But certain men adhering to him, did believe; among whom was also Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

The Sleeping Lady of Malta

Thanks to Wiki for The Sleeping Lady of Malta, circa 1,500 BC



Of what does she dream, this heavy lady of Malta, resting on her hard bed,
hand under her head, like a goddess taking a break from listening to her votaries singing chants over the wine-dark sea?

Does she dream, or is her sleep dreamless, that of the dead, who no longer hold imagination or memory? Has she let go of the last images of the Middle Sea's ships bringing her necklaces of shells from Syracuse?
Is her dream one of the dancing star-skirted lady?

Did her dreams end abruptly, like one caught off-guard in the night, facing a soft journey into eternity?
Or, is she still dreaming, holding on to images which she creates for the people of Malta, who no longer know her name?

This lady wears the billowing skirts of many goddesses and reveals her breasts to the world, as if to say she is worthy of the worship from those who need fertility.
 Those yearnings of Maltese maidens lie in the dust of Ħal-Saflieni-few want offspring now.

This lady's hair was done by one of the ancestor's of the blow-dry experts of Valletta, and she does not worry about her bare feet, so broken, so lost in memory. Does she does dream of some one, some god beyond the walls of Athens or Kedash?

Does he dream of her, he, buried in a cave or sandstorm, with his arm under his head?  Or did he find a lissome lass of  Dalmanutha or the ancient springs of Achsah?  Maybe he preferred dark, like the tents of Kedar?

His left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me. Daughters of Jerusalem,
I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. And, so, perhaps, she sleeps into
this tumultuous century, dreaming of lost love....

copyright 2013

The Strength of Love in the Dark Night

from St. John of the Cross

But here we must note that although, at the beginning, when this spiritual night commences, this enkindling of love is not felt, because this fire of love has not begun to take a hold, God gives the soul, in place of it, an estimative love of Himself so great that, as we have said, the greatest sufferings and trials of which it is conscious in this night are the anguished thoughts that it195 has lost God and the fears that He has abandoned it. And thus we may always say that from the very beginning of this night the soul is touched with yearnings of love, which is now that of estimation,196and now again, that of enkindling. And it is evident that the greatest suffering which it feels in these trials is this misgiving; for, if it could be certified at that time that all is not lost and over, but that what is happening to it is for the best—as it is—and that God is not wroth, it would care naught for all these afflictions, but would rejoice to know that God is making use of them for His good pleasure. For the love of estimation which it has for God is so great, even though it may not realize this and may be in darkness, that it would be glad, not only to suffer in this way, but even to die many times over in order to give Him satisfaction. But when once the flame has enkindled the soul, it is wont to conceive, together with the estimation that it already has for God, such power and energy, and such yearning for Him, when He communicates to it the heat of love, that, with great boldness, it disregards everything and ceases to pay respect to anything, such are the power and the inebriation of love and desire. It regards not what it does, for it would do strange and unusual things in whatever way and manner may present themselves, if thereby its soul might find Him Whom it loves.

6. It was for this reason that Mary Magdalene, though as greatly concerned for her own appearance as she was aforetime, took no heed of the multitude of men who were at the feast, whether they were of little or of great importance; neither did she consider that it was not seemly, and that it looked ill, to go and weep and shed tears among the guests provided that, without delaying an hour or waiting for another time and season, she could reach Him for love of Whom her soul was already wounded and enkindled. And such is the inebriating power and the boldness of love, that, though she knew her Beloved to be enclosed in the sepulchre by the great sealed stone, and surrounded by soldiers who were guarding Him lest His disciples should steal Him away,197 she allowed none of these things to impede her, but went before daybreak with the ointments to anoint Him.

Persecution Watch Kenya

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=19439

From the Race Site

Morning Update: Day Four Rolex Middle Sea Race

22 October 2013

Photo: Kristina Plattner proudly displays the Line Honours flag for the Rolex Middle Sea Race RMYC/Jonathan Borg

Morning Glory Takes the Gun Louay Habib   2013 Rolex Middle Sea Race Line Honours Winner - Morning Glory (GER) Kristina Plattner’s Z-86, Morning Glory has claimed line honours in the Rolex Middle Sea Race. The German Maxi crossed the finish line at the Royal Malta Yacht Club on Tuesday, 22 October at 04:02 19sec, in an elapsed time of 2days 16hrs 12mins 19secs. “I have only raced offshore with my father before, so this was a new experience for me and I was a bit anxious before the race about how it would turn out. However, so many of the crew are old friends and they really looked after me, so it was not too difficult and I really enjoyed the race.” commented Morning Glory skipper, Kristina Plattner. “It is a beautiful race course and watching the sunrise at Stromboli will be a lasting memory. It was so beautiful and calm but at the same time my four hour watch was just finishing, so the dawn meant we could get some rest. The long beat near the finish was very tiring but it was so nice to get a warm reception when we crossed the line.” Volvo Ocean Race skipper, Chris Nicholson was one of the after-guard on board Morning Glory. “The conditions were lighter than predicted but that doesn't surprise anyone. This is a very changeable racecourse, which definitely keeps your concentration. Weather forecast and routing software are not that useful, you have to see what is happening around you and react. We definitely lost a lot of ground in the latter part of the race. It was a dead beat to Lampedusa with a lot of tacks that really slowed our speed towards the end.” Andres Soriano's Mills 72, Alegre was the second yacht to finish the race just before dawn. Alegre beat her close rival Luca Simone's JV72, Robertissima III to the line by more than an hour.

http://www.rolexmiddlesearace.com/index.cfm

Purgatory or The Dark Night

St. John of the Cross calls the Dark Night a "purgatory".  And, as he, and later Garrigou-Lagrange tell us over and over, only the perfect see God.

Knowing that only those who have gone through the Dark Night of the Senses and who go into the Dark Night of the Spirit actually are pure enough to be free of the ego and work for God in the Church and not themselves. one wonders why more people do not cooperate with the graces of the Dark Night.

The list I made yesterday, distilling some of the characteristics of the Dark Night from John of the Cross' writings shows that one can endure this purgation here and now.

Why wait until purgatory? Why put off what can be done for the benefit of the Church as a whole and not merely for one's own benefit?

Many Church leaders are stuck in the lowest stages of spiritual growth. This is often too obvious, as actions from those cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns, lay people who are caught up in acting out of their egos rather than doing God's work are clear, if one is allowing God to deal with one in purification.

I do not need to name personages, but it is clear to me that too many cardinals and bishops are acting totally out of worldly standards of seeking fame, status, or achieving worldly goals. If we had more leaders who could give us good examples of humility and a purified will, the Church would be in a different place.

That so many of the laity think they can only achieve purgatory, instead of perfection, is a tragedy of our times. One is not a saint if one makes it to purgatory. Sorry, saints are those willing to go through purgatory on earth, another name for the Dark Nights of the Senses and Spirit.

To be continued....

Cat Day

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2013/oct/20/cats-kyrgyzstan-bishkek-in-pictures?CMP=twt_gu#/?picture=420469185&index=0

A little note from STM

Many posts today...keeping readers busy for a day or two. God bless. 

Interesting discussion

I and others have commented on the Times of Malta article on ssm. Do you want to jump in? We are living in increasingly godless times. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131020/opinion/No-to-same-sex-marriage-by-stealth.491096#.UmUmSnDVBD8

For any Catholic out there who still likes Obamacare...

The 2013 Deloitte Survey of U.S. Physicians, a survey of more than 600 physicians from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, found that “six in 10 physicians (62 percent) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years.”

Based on the survey results, Deloitte found that most U.S. physicians believe that, among other worries, under Obamacare: “The future of the medical profession may be in jeopardy as it loses clinical autonomy and compensation,” and “Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements may be problematic, prompting many physicians to limit or close their practices to these enrollees.”

Instead of the established doctor-patient relationship of old, “eight in 10 physicians agree that the wave of the future in medicine … involves interdisciplinary teams and care coordinators.”

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/10/15/death-panels-in-action-hospitals-suffer-massive-layoffs-thanks-to-obamacare/

Prism Slides from Greenwald

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/807036

and update

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/report-nsa-spied-on-millions-of-french-phone-records-over-30-day-period

The End of the Beginning of the Dark Night And The Beginning of the End of the Dark Night

For those in the Dark Night, the beginning of the second stage is the end of the purification of the senses.

The next stage, the purification of the spirit, is the first stage for those who are called the proficients.

The early stages of the proficients only come after the completion of the purification of the senses. Here are the elements which would indicate that one is in the start of the purification of the spirit.

Why does the spirit need purifying. by the way?  Because all the evils of one's characters lie in the spirit. But, it is only after the purification of the senses that this purification can begin.

One cannot skip stages, and those who teach that this is possible are ignoring the wisdom of centuries of holy men and women who have shared their experiences with the Church.

One learns fortitude in the Dark Night of the Senses, which is absolutely necessary for the enduring of the Dark Night of the Spirit.

Here are some elements of this second part of the Dark Night taken from St. John of the Cross.

1) The time of darkness means that the intellect, memory, understanding and will are all in a shadow. One does not see the way and must rely on Divine Providence entirely.

2) One begins to finally do great works for God Alone and not for one's ego. In this darkness, one can and should work for God, with a new power which comes from the lack of reliance on the senses.

3) One is inspired by Divine Wisdom and not by one's own studies or knowledge. God places ideas in the intellect, as inspirations.

4) A person's will is inspired by God as well.  This means that God is directing the will, which has been entirely turned over to God.

5) Few people persist in this state, as it is painful. Although all men and woman are called to this state, few persist in the darkness which is demanded of pure trust in God.

8) A new purification of the spirit happens, which is not understood by those who experience this. God is allowing one to experience His Love in a new manner, which leads to infused contemplation.

9) If persons do not experience this state or the one previous to this, one must endure purgatory. And, part of the pain of purgatory is understanding that one could have followed this path on earth for the good of one's soul and the good of the Church, but refused to do so.

10) Therefore, a generosity of spirit must accompany this state. The intellect, memory, understanding, will are all directed by God directly and not by the person.

11) This is still not the Unitive State, but is the last stage before the Illuminative State. The Illuminative State only occurs after the spirit has been purified.

Common Core

I have been following the evil of the Common Core Curriculum,  which half the dioceses in the States have adopted. Michael Voris is doing such a good job revealing the horribleness of this curriculum, I do not need to follow this.

As you know, I was a curriculum adviser for five years in classical education and have always been convinced that the federal government should stay out of education. Also, I do not believe that Catholic schools in any country should accept money from any governments. Catholic education should be funded by Catholics who are orthodox, period.

If you want to learn more about the evils of the core curriculum, watch Voris.

Readers Remember, Please

No Anonymous Comments are posted....see side of blog.

Prayers like "swift javelins"

from today's readings The Liturgy of the Hours

A letter to Proba by St Augustine

Let us turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours

Let us always desire the happy life from the Lord God and always pray for it. But for this very reason we turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours, since that desire grows lukewarm, so to speak, from our involvement in other concerns and occupations. We remind ourselves through the words of prayer to focus our attention on the object of our desire; otherwise, the desire that began to grow lukewarm may grow chill altogether and may be totally extinguished unless it is repeatedly stirred into flame.

  Therefore, when the Apostle says: Let your petitions become known before God, this should not be taken in the sense that they are in fact becoming known to God who certainly knew them even before they were made, but that they are becoming known to us before God through submission and not before men through boasting.

  Since this is the case, it is not wrong or useless to pray even for a long time when there is the opportunity. I mean when it does not keep us from performing the other good and necessary actions we are obliged to do. But even in these actions, as I have said, we must always pray with that desire. To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose. Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another. For it is even written in reference to the Lord himself that he spent the night in prayer and that he prayed at great length. Was he not giving us an example by this? In time, he prays when it is appropriate, and in eternity, he hears our prayers with the Father.

  The monks in Egypt are said to offer frequent prayers, but these are very short and hurled like swift javelins. Otherwise their watchful attention, a very necessary quality for anyone at prayer, could be dulled and could disappear through protracted delays. They also clearly demonstrate through this practice that a person must not quickly divert such attention if it lasts, just as one must not allow it to be blunted if it cannot last.

  Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer so long as a fervent attitude continues to accompany his prayer. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with an excess of words. To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervour at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him, for he has established all things through his Word and does not seek human words.