A New Grace

I am surrounded by people who actually hate me. They do not understand me.

But, I have been given a new grace which I want you all to pray for and for which to be grateful if God gives it to you.

It is a grace which swallows up pain inflicted by others. Momentarily, I may be hurt, but then a love overwhelms me and I feel only forgiveness and peace. It is a type of objectivity, a type of consolation in chaos.

I can see evil and good, sin and grace as if it is all the same in the eyes of God.

This type of suffering is not the deep hurt of the Crucifixion, but more an intellectual and emotional acknowledgment that suffering not only can be endured, but surpassed by something bigger, something more sublime. That Something is God Himself.

I am grateful for this detachment. I must say that I do not understand it, but see all people as children of God; or at least, as His beloved creatures, even though most ignore Him. I want to stand up in this coffee shop and shout-Do you know how you are loved? Do you know what a great eternal future you have been offered?

I completely trust in Divine Providence and know that even though very bad things may happen to me, nothing matters but that I rest in God's plan, from all eternity.

No one can really hurt me.

He loves and Is Love.

Nothing else matters, but to try and share this with others.

Paying attention

The government take-over of education, starting with the disastrous No Child Left Behind Act is almost complete.

No longer do parents or local authorities have any say in curriculum, school medical records, or data-base info of students. Access for children's records over the age of twelve may be denied.

Parents who are Catholics and agree with this are either closest Marxist or just plain stupid.

Sorry.

Read the popes on education.

My Master Teacher's Cert from NAPCIS allowed me the joy of studying, many years ago, the teaching of the Church on education.

If you do not know all the encyclicals and letters from Pope Pius IX and forward, take time to find out what the Holy Spirit has told us parents about our roles in education.

Sad Results of Research

I have done a bit of sleuthing today and found out that the two prestigious Catholic high schools in this area are both accepting the Common Core.

I am both shocked and saddened. I am shocked that the dioceses would sell out to the government demands to allow all students to be in the life-long data-base (see the video on this blog for details). I am saddened that the Church members in this area cannot see the dangerous position of letting the government form children and teens rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to form them.

One cannot have it both ways. I have given talks on the formation of children for years. Some parents get it that it is their responsibility to form their children for eternal life.

It is no one else’s responsibility.

Sorry. The domestic church cannot undo six hours of brainwashing per day or change the curriculum. So, if you want to pull your child out of a class on lgtb sexuality and rights, that child’s personal data-base will make her for the rest of her life.

Home schooling or totally independent schools are the only option for Catholic parents.

Basically, if your diocese is one of the 138 to agree with this horrible take over of independence, you have no choice but to home school.

I have also discovered that the junior and community colleges in this area are already tied to the CC data-base through the ACT and Compass testing. Do you want your children in a data-base for the rest of their lives.

Do you?

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi

God bless this day.

Perfection Series II: Manning and Angela

The reading of Cardinal Manning is like a cool, sea breeze on a stifling hot day. His clarity of mind and intense spirituality leads one into meditations on the Holy Ghost and the attributes of God. One moves from meditation on the Scriptures to contemplation of the nature of God as much as possible through grace.

St. Angela, as I have noted, is called the “Teacher of the Theologians”, was given infused knowledge as to the attribute of God, as well as details of the Passion.

One can see that see moved from the Dark Night into the Illuminative and then the Unitive States. All the insights of Garrigou-Lagrange apply to this great mystic.

But, remember, all Catholics are called to these stages, one by one, not skipping anything, in order to have union with God as much as possible while on earth.

This union is not for the benefit, merely, of the person sharing this, but for the building up of the Church.

One of the great insights from St. Angela which is worthy of reflection is the great objectivity towards all men and all women, as seen from God’s point of view. This insight astounds one. God sees and loves all humans, past, present, and future, damned and saved in one great objective view. No sinner can “hurt” God. No hatred affects Him. Christ sufferings in eternity have passed away into glory. This will be our heritage, if we love God and His ways.

St. Angela is one of the earliest saints to write and have experiences of the Eucharist in Adoration. I would call her the Patron Saint of Adorers, if I could. She could see all eternity in the Eucharist and all creation. Her gifts in Adoration span the centuries.

I cannot recommend her writings enough, and have not gone into her lengthy sections of Illumination and Union in ecstasy. I am resolved not to dwell on these stages until God lets me experience these myself. It is dangerous to read beyond where one is in the spiritual life. And, as a beginner in the Dark Night, I know my limitations.

I would like to mention that her encounter with the Crucified One, as she calls Christ, is perhaps the most intense and moving part of her writings. She notes that Christ suffered in each part of His Body for her sins using that part of her body.

To be confronted with vainglory, with pride of eye, with wastefulness and seeing each of these sins, among many connected with a specific pain of Christ provide a terrible witness of my sins. 

Imagine Christ stating that the nails in His Hands were from the sins of the hands of one person. Or the pain of His being stripped of all, even clothes, was owing to one's sins of wealth, the saving or the spending?

I encourage all my readers to read The Book of Divine Consolation of The Blessed Angela of Foligno.

And again, thanks to my friend Angela for the book, which I have now passed on to a priest.

Choosing Celibacy?

An apocryphal story of St. Francis tells of a talk he had with some of his disciples. In this talk, he said, apparently, that if all people became celibate and dedicated their lives to the building of the Kingdom, Christ would come sooner than later.

This visionary saint, the one the Church calls the “most like Christ”, believed that the Church and the world would be a better place if people became priests, religious, nuns.

I am beginning to think likewise. One of the greatest lies from the pulpit since Vatican II, which has nothing to do with Vatican II, is that the lay life is on the same plane as that of the religious life. This is simply not true. The dedicated life of prayer and penance provides a short-cut to holiness.

If I were a young person in these days, I would seriously be considering the religious life for several reasons.

I sincerely hope parents encourage their children and pay attention to the vocations of their children. As I have noted many times on this blog, parents are given graces to know and guide the vocations of their children. Parents must die to their own wishes and be open to God’s Will.

Be open…

Loss of Friends

For me, as a single person, after the loss of the presence of my son so far away, the loss of friends forms one of the greatest sufferings in my life. I can imagine, a bit, how St. Paul must have felt moving from place to place, making new friends in Christ, but having to leave old ones.

Leaving old friends is like leaving a part off one's self. Every time I leave close friends, I die a little.

Maybe that is the reason God puts me in the position to have to leave friends instead of sticking around. Death of self...relying totally on Him, the Bridegroom, not being allowed particular friendship for any length of time.

My friends are all truly special. Most are Latin Mass, orthodox Catholics, who make me a better person just by osmosis. Some are as close to me as my own self. Some are very old close friends and some are newer ones with whom I have become close in a short time, like three and a half years.

But, I am denied permanency at this time.

Even INTJs have feelings.

So, I have not seen C or B, or J and E and their children for a long time. I have not seen D or R or Z since before Thanksgiving.

Soon, I shall have to leave D and S, K and E.

There is nothing one can do except pray, "Thy Will be done".

Thy Will be done, and please, God, bless all my dear friends.

People want scandal and gossip

Whenever I wax eloquent on the perfection series or highlight saints' writings, my number of readers goes down.

People seem to want politics, Vatican gossip, or complaints.

Sorry, but, imo, this is the time to get holy before the hard times start. I cannot think of a better theme for now.

Even if my numbers are down....

The Best Argument Against Common Core

This may be one of the most important posts I have ever written. If you are reading this and have school-age children, please, for the sake of their souls and yours, pay attention. 

Instruction is NOT education. I wish I had found Cardinal Manning 9-14 years ago, when I was giving talks on education, from 2000-2005, concerning formation as the real reason for education. For years, I spoke of the great evil of the Bismarck take-over of education and the establishment of the “gymnasium” over the “academia”.

Cardinal Manning, referring to the Syllabus of Errors, in his chapter on the gift of understanding, writes this:

“The persecution of the Church which we see at this moment in Germany is nothing more than a revenge of the mortified pride of the men of culture and of the philosophers who are deposed from their seat of error by the Vatican Council. They were one by one put down. They were suspended by their bishops, and finally, because they would not obey, were put out; and being put out, they gathered themselves together to head against the Church of God. But their end is sure. They will be scattered from before its face, as all heretics have ever been.  The Holy see has always laid down this great and vital principle—namely, that secular and religious instruction shall never be parted in education. It has laid down the principle not only for the schools of the poor, but for the universities of the rich. It has ever wavered; it has never receded, and it ever will; and that because education is not the mere teaching of intellectual opinions. Education is the formation of the whole man—intellect, heart, will, character, mind and soul. Whether it be the poor child in the parish school, or the son of the rich man in the university, it is all the same. The Catholic Church will accept as education nothing less than the formation of the whole man. Therefore, when doctors and politicians talk of this separation of the religious and the secular element, the Church will have none of it, and that for this plain reason—instruction is not education.”

This one section reveals the great evil of the American Common Core Curriculum. In my opinion, any diocese which accepts the CC is in disobedience not only to the long tradition of the Church regarding education as formation, but the more recent guidelines regarding the heresies of Modernism.

Imagine explaining to a diocesan school system, which has caved in to secularism, these words of Manning. If I were invited (lol) to a meeting in the chancery office concerning Catholic education accepting CC, I would read this.

“Secular teaching, without the light of faith and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, not only cannot form the man, but they deform the man. The form the man upon a false model; they unshape him from that original reflection of the image of God which is in him. First, they deprive him of light; and where light departs, darkness comes. The human mind, once deprived of the light of revelation, is filled with the clouds of unbelief or of credulity. It can give no account of God; it has no knowledge of His character or of its own nature.”

Manning continues…”Is this education? Though a man were a professor or seven sciences, without the knowledge of God and of himself what is he?  In the sight of God he is like the men of the old world which knew not God. He may be as wise as Empedocles or Aristotle, but he is not a Christian. He is not formed upon the type of Christianity: he is not after the example of Jesus Christ.; he is not after the example of Jesus Christ.”

What should be the purpose of education? Formation, not instruction….

“Lastly, where the mind is deprived of light it is perverted. The whole intellectual and moral nature loses its normal shape. It is perpetually conceiving and giving out erroneous judgments, erroneous principles, erroneous maxims, which issue in erroneous and dangerous actions. The separation of religious from secular education wrecks altogether the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost in the souls fo those who have been baptised. Is it a wonder, then, that the Catholic Church will never consent that its children shall be reared without the knowledge of their faith, or that education shall be so parted asunder that secular knowledge shall be made the subject of daily and earnest inculcation, and that religion should be left out as an accident, to be picked up when and as it may?”

Anyone who sends their child to a school incorporating CC or one which is Catholic in name only will have to answer before God as to the loss of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in their baptized children.

I knew years ago that most Catholic and all secular education deformed the child, which is why I began home schooling in 1991. Formation of the virtues is the number one goal of any teacher-parent.

That the Cardinal speaks of the loss of the gifts is so serious that all parents must examine what is happening daily to their children.

Manning notes that we all have the gift of understanding if we are in sanctifying grace. Please read both 2 Corinthians 2:4-6 and Ephesian 3:14-19 today and ponder the great gift of understanding given to each of us, not to be squandered or lost to the darkness.

To be continued…

Synchronicity

How delightful it is when two books one is reading, (I read multiple books at once), overlap in themes and discussions.

I have been continuing my review of Manning and St. Angela on this blog in the past many days.

St. Angela’s amazing experience of the Illuminative and Unitive States allowed her to know God in His Attributes, something I can only do through study and reflection.

That God is Good seemed to be the attribute which encompassed the entire spectrum of St. Angela’s experience of God’s relationship to the world. Angela’s words remind me, as I have noted before, those of Julian of Norwich. The mystical experience of the Goodness of God, of God as holding the entire creation in His Hands is described by both women.

Both Manning and Angela write of the gift of wisdom. Manning is describing it from theology and Angela from experience, yet their descriptions overlap.

In this post, I only want to highlight one aspect of wisdom which is this--that we must not seek knowledge which is not to be known. Here is St. Angela on this point: “There I beheld the ineffable fullness of God; but I can relate nothing of it, save that I have seen the plenitude of divine wisdom, wherein is all goodness.”

She continues, “In this plenitude I saw that it is not lawful to seek or desire to know that which  the divine wisdom is going to do, for this is a forestalling and dishonouring of it. When I persons, therefore, who seek to know such things, I am persuaded that they do err.”

Me, too. I have warned and warned people about over-concentrating on private revelations instead of praying day by day and reading the Scriptures, going to Mass and Adoration, praying at the abortion mills, working for Project Rachel.  St. Angela tells us all to be involved in prayer, fasting, penance. She states, “By Thy Passion deliver me, oh Lord.”

Angela says she was “in love” at this stage. She never doubted that God was with her after her Illuminative and Unitive experiences. She said, however, that she was in some darkness even after those experiences.  

One of the results of encountering wisdom according to St. Angela is the enlargement of the mind.  This enlargement of the mind is connected to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gifts of understanding and wisdom. St. Angela writes that this is the way of perfection.

I shall continue this posting on St. Angela and Cardinal Manning in another post.

The Brothers of Malta-Three

Rumors of the fleet began months before the ships were sighted. Fishermen who travelled beyond Sicily and trading vessels disappeared, without any trace of ruin or survivors. Widows cried and lit candles to St. Publius and St. Paul all over the island. Spanish, French and Roman ambassadors came and discussed plans for a great sea battle with the commander of all the Knights, Jean Parisot de Valette. They came in stealth, and with little pomp due to their status. Plans made in secret need to be kept secret in a small place, on a small island.

Frederico was given orders to get more volunteers to fight and defend the coastlines of the west and south. All knew that the small peninsula would see the great part of the fighting. The harbor, so deep and easily accessible invited invasion.

Valette had been elected as Grand Master in 1557, because a battle would happen. The inhabitants looked towards him as a messiah, as a savior. As a monk as well as a soldier, Vallette gained admiration from Frederico, who honored the Grand Master's efforts to be an example of chastity, prudence, and obedience to God. Unlike so many of the Knights, Valette was stamped with an inner as well as exterior greatness. He inspired his men because he invoked God, and was, unusually, a humble man.

Frederico was called into a meeting in late July, on the Feast of St. Anne, to discuss plans for the inevitable. Tomas, also, had an invitation. When Frederico met the two in a small, quiet back street in Mdina, near the Cathedral, he was surprised, but pleased, with a third attendant. Immanuel walked into the cool room, resplendent in his newly acquired Italian clothes. But, on his face was joy and relief. Immanuel desired nothing more than to help with the battles to come. His youth and energy flushed his fair face. His mother had been beautiful.

"Immanuel, sit next to me, and look at these diagrams. I need your advice." Frederico smiled, but Tomas beamed. His decision to call back his son had proved to be right. He silently thanked his own judgement, with a nod to Claire's memory. He would have a Mass of thanksgiving said, as soon as possible.

"I need five large estates on which to grow necessary food stuffs in case of a siege. In my mind, at night, in the darkness of this small room, I see our dear people unable to get help from other Christian nations, for weeks, for months."

I want you to start what I shall call "state farms". Here, near Rabat, here on Gozo, on your father's estates, here in new city I want to build, and here in or near the Grotto of St. Mary. I want these estates to be so large that all the people will eat well, even if they must eat like rabbits, for as long as the battles take place. Can you do this? And continue to make wine, as well? I shall provide workers."

Immanuel remained quiet. Then, he cleared his throat and said gently, quietly, "With the Madonna's help, I shall do this. And, for Christendom, not merely for Malta."

Tomas could hardly conceal his pride. Here, his blond, blue-eyed son of the north and south, answered with a graciousness and humility Tomas could hardly believe.

Frederico thought, "And, Our Lady will help this good, young man."

Vallette took out several bags of gold coins from an old chest on the floor behind him. "I give you money from France and from Spain, good gold, for you to start now. Purchase what you need and pay your laborers well. We shall all be grateful, all the Maltese."

The Grand Master stood up, and the three began to leave. "Immanuel. I cannot accept you as a Knight, but if you succeed in feeding our people, I shall see if I can change the Order's rules. You understand."

Immanuel blushed and glanced at his father, who started forward. Frederico stopped Tomas, with his arm. "Be quiet, Tomas. You created this obstacle, not Immanuel."

Tomas stepped back and bowed. No one noticed his blush, perhaps the first blush in his long life.

As the three entered the dark night, Tomas slapped his son on the back. "I am so proud of you, my son."

"Father, I have never wanted to be a Knight. My example has not encouraged me to see the beauty of the order. Now, let me go do what I must."

Tomas dropped his arm, and the youth walked away quickly into the dark. The two brothers stood side by side. Frederico spoke, softly, "It is not too late to make your son proud of you brother. Think on this."

"I shall, but not tonight. Good night, Frederico. We all have work to do, you in the courtyards with swords and shields and me on the ramparts."

to be continued....

The Brothers of Malta Two

Tomas wandered over to the gate of his vineyards. The day had become stifling hot. He walked to the top of  a small hill, crunching rock and sand under his boots. He wanted to look north, to the deep blue sea. For some reason, Frederico's words bothered him, like giant gnats flying into his face when he fought so long ago in Cadiz. These gnat-words would not leave his memory. Tomas did not respect Frederico, except as a solider respects another soldier who is more proficient and skilled in swordsmanship. Frederico had enough medals, which he kept in a drawer, to decorate half of the large wall of his small apartment. But, the ribbons and accolades lay in dark and in silence.

Tomas could not understand his brother. He could never understand his brother. Perhaps the priests got to the youth too early and perverted Frederico's imagination with views of heaven and the love to come.

Tomas liked to be loved now, and he distrusted dreams. He rarely remembered his dreams, as he slept so soundly, and so quickly, like an experience soldier in the field. But, today, looking over his vineyards to the deep sea, Tomas remembered a dream. It happened the day Immanuel was born, in July, on one of the hottest days of the year. Immanuel's mother had sent word to Tomas that her time for birth was happening, and the Knight rushed to the capital, to a small apartment near the village of Floriana, to watch his son being born. Mother and father had agreed that if the child was a girl, the mother would keep the infant, being supported by Tomas, but if the child were a boy, Tomas would come and take the child when he was weaned.

This child was a boy, handsome from birth and strong. As he was born on the feast day of St. John the Baptist, all thought Tomas would name him John. But, for some strange reason, Tomas chose an usual, albeit Catholic name for the infant, Immanuel.

Some thought the name seemed presumptuous. But, Frederico heartily agreed with the choice and prophesied, like the father of John of old, that Immanuel would help to save his people in the future.

Tomas liked the boy so much, that he took him everywhere. On his sea voyages, Tomas wrapped Immanuel in the best clothing, as if he were a little prince. In fact, the boy's nickname was "Prince." No one seemed to mind.

The night of the boy's birth, Tomas dreamt of Claire. She had drowned five years before, and the last view of this young beauty had been her terrified eyes and uplifted hands, as the currents pulled her down, down into the deep sea. Many tried to save her, but she was never found. Those Knights who jumped into the cold waters to save her could not believe how fast she sunk, so far beneath their abilities to breath. She was so small, so thin, and yet, she sunk as if being pulled by unseen hands.

In his dream, Tomas saw Claire in a field of wildflowers unknown to him. The flowers resembled those in paintings from England, where, Tomas was told, someone had written a book about gardening. None of the flowers in Tomas' dream would be found in Città Umilissima.

Claire walked among the flowers, picking a few to make a small posy. Her dress was white lined in red, and on her shoulder was a star embroidered in gold. As she walked, she sang. Then, suddenly, she stopped and turned to face Tomas, who was watching this charming scene. Claire reached out and gave the posy to Tomas, and then, she disappeared, like a small cloud fading on the horizon. But, when Tomas looked at the posy in his hand, it had changed into a large basket heavy and overflowing with fruit and vegetables, some he did not recognize.

Tomas thought of this dream in the context of Frederico's words about Immanuel. On the day of the youth's birth, did Claire come and give a sign to Tomas as to the boy's future? Why did the flowers, so small, so strange, turn into an abundance of food? Why flowers to fruit? Why on the day of Immanuel's birth?

Tomas had a painter paint the vision dream shortly after Immanuel's day of weaning, when the boy was four and came to live in the villa.

The artist had strict orders from Tomas to paint the flowers exactly as he saw them. Tomas made the painter create the largest, most abundant basket of fruits and vegetables one could imagine.

And, Claire? She looked like an angel.

Many years later, Caravaggio would see the painting in Valletta, and use the idea for one of his paintings of a boy with a basket of fruit. But even Caravaggio's painting could not match the splendor and excess of the unnamed painter from Sicily who worked this piece for Tomas.

The painter refused to put his name on the painting for one reason. He said it was not his creation, but a creation of God's, a vision, a dream.

Tomas thought about all of this today, on the hill overlooking his vineyards in Gozo. He resolved for the first time in his life to heed Frederico's words. When he returned to his house, Tomas wrote and sent a letter to Immanuel in Milan. The youth was to return immediately and help his father with the three estates.

But, Tomas rationalized that he was not listening to Frederico, but to Claire. Perhaps, although Tomas did not yet understand this, both Frederico and Claire had listened to a Higher Voice, the Voice of the Holy Ghost.

to be continued....

Several Doctors of the Church

Instead of reprinting the series, I am encouraging new readers to put the tag on the doctors of the Church series in search, or use the labels on the side.

Excellent saints for this week... although dear Catherine of Siena's feast day is in April, I also suggest reading the copious posts on her.

The Witness of Love-St. Therese

Some Catholics want to stand on soap boxes and cry out, "All religions are the same. The Church is accommodating. Do not worry about salvation."

Some want to shout from the rooftops, "Woe are you, as most of the world's population will go to hell."

I want to share with everyone the love of God. I remind my readers what I wrote almost two-and-a-half years ago, the love of God is much of the time "unfelt love".

St. Therese of Lisieux coined that phrase. Unfelt love is complete trust in God and His Providence.

How can we not trust Him Who has loved us into existence? The Father thought of us from all time, and the Son could hardly wait to free us from sin and death. The Holy Spirit comes to us in the sacraments.

Much for which to be grateful and much to share...

Unfelt love-our way to perfection and union with God forever.

Note from the neighboring diocese

http://www.archbishopsheencause.org/recent-news/archbishop-sheen-prayer-league/359

Several Prayer Requests

Please pray for K, J, E, J, D, S, R, and C. I get many prayer requests sent to me privately.

Also, pray for me and my immediate needs.

We had severe winds here, hundreds of miles away

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tornadoes-devastate-section-nebraska-level-town-pilger-reports-article-1.1831974

Hmmm

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_ONLINE_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-17-12-39-15

Answer me this question, please..

Why is Japan, and now the States, working so hard on sophisticated robots, while exterminating the human race via abortion, contraception, or just plain abstinence for selfish reasons?

A Plea

I have to move from this area in ten days. I have two possibilities for housing, but no money to get to these places, which are not close. I would have to fly and pay extra for luggage. Please considering helping.

STM