I don't know what to do. I can't stop thinking of the Planned Parenthood videos and the slaughter of innocents. I keep coming across new stories.

-source-

Planned Parenthood may be keeping some babies alive after the abortion procedure in order to better collect their organs for harvesting — such as their hearts. - Finish reading here.

Then, a new video ... aborted baby's heart was beating as the brains were harvested ... LifeSite news.


MAKE IT STOP!

O my God,

I am heartily sorry

for having offended

you my God!

I detest all of my sins,

because I dread the loss 

of heaven and the pains of hell.

But most of all -

most of all, because they 

offend you my God

who are all good

and deserving of all my love.

O my God.

I firmly resolve

with help of your grace,

to confess my sins,

to do penance,

and to amend my life.

Amen.

O my God,

I cry to you, O Lord.
I have said: "You are my refuge
all I have in the land of the living."
Listen, then, to my cry
for I am in the depths of distress.

Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep?
Arise, do not reject us for ever!
Why do you hide your face
and forget our oppression and misery?

Purging the Psalter of all those 'mean' psalms and verses.

Help, O Lord, for good men have vanished; 

truth has gone from the sons of men.

Falsehood they speak one to another, 

with lying lips, with a false heart. - Ps. 11

Otherwise known as the 'hostile' psalms.

Years ago when I was a novice the issue was discussed at Chapter.  Several of the monks wanted a deeper purge of all the negative, hostile, 'violent' verses and psalms from the monastic office.

I always thought that was wrong.

I've always thought that these psalms and those verses which called on God to destroy the enemies who oppress his people, were spiritually and psychologically healthy to pray.  I've often wondered if that is why we have become so soft on sin, and passive in the face of those sins which cry to heaven for vengeance?

I find these psalms especially helpful in times of temptation - especially temptation to discouragement.  The words can express our deepest frustration - with ourselves and our soul's enemies.  In a sense, they can be a sort of exorcism, a spiritual defense in the spiritual combat.  They also inform us, remind us of God's justice.

I find such psalms especially helpful when praying for Christians facing martyrdom, and the oppressors who persecute them.  Similarly, I have found consolation in praying these psalms in defense of the defenseless innocents killed by abortion and infanticide.

Rather than expunging these verses from the psalter, I think they need to be reinstated, in the Liturgy and  Offices.

"Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you." - Ps. 5


Once again, Rorate Caeli brings the changes to our attention in a very good post revealing the effects of the liturgical reform and the editing of the psalter - purging the more difficult psalms from the Ordinary Form and the Divine Office.  Though rather critical in tone, I want to include a couple excerpts here:

For 2,000 years, Christians Eastern and Western had been praying the psalter of David in its integrity, and now, Catholics were handed an expurgated or abridged version, with verses removed by “experts” who knew better than the Holy Spirit, knew better than the Israelites, knew better than the Church Fathers and Doctors, knew better than Tradition. But of course they knew better: this was the Age of Enlightenment breaking in at last upon a fortress-like Church, an age in which we should shake ourselves free from the shackles of unenlightened piety, with its gnarled, enigmatic, sharp-edged, implacable expressions, and its archaic, earthy, tribal atmosphere. Razing the bastions, making the world safe for democracy, and all that good stuff.

This observation dovetailed with another talk given at the Sacra Liturgia conference about the reform of the lectionary, in which the speaker looked at how the Novus Ordo lectionary for Mass also suppresses “difficult” verses from both Testaments—verses that had always been present in the traditional Roman lectionary but were excluded from the new lectionary, in spite of its boast of being so much bigger and better.

Catholics who attend the Ordinary Form are not merely getting “more” Scripture, they are also getting different Scripture—and the principles of selection are politically correct, ecumenical, sensitive, excluding much that is dark or difficult. In other words, the principles are rather unlike Scripture itself. The modern principles and the premodern text to which they are applied sit uneasily together. - Posted by Benedict Constable

Arise O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered.

Perhaps such revisionism is why the Catholic hierarchy can seem so banal at times, the liturgy so effeminate in the touchy-feely sense, and Catholics so complacent and compromised by moral relativism?

I appreciate the following verses - especially when I pray for those who slaughter the innocent:

O God, break the teeth in their mouths,
tear out the fangs of these wild beasts, O Lord!
Let them vanish like water that runs away;
let them wither like grass that is trodden under foot:
let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime;
like a woman's miscarriage that never sees the sun. - Ps. 57

Upon waking, my daily prayer always begins this way:

Let God arise, let his foes be scattered.
Let those who hate him flee before him.
As smoke is blown away so will they be blown away;
like wax that melts before the fire,
so the wicked shall perish at the presence of God. - Ps. 68

I keep thinking of St. Paul's admonition: Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.

So anyway ...

On the street ... The Sartorialist

Song for this post here.

What?

Cover Art.

Sugar Shack - by Ernie Barnes 

Used for Marvin Gaye’s album “I Want You”. (RIP)

Contemporary genre art.

(Favorite) song (ever) for this post here.

Encourage boys to play sports and do boys stuff ...

You know, just to make sure they do not turn out gay...

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Brewers minor leaguer David Denson has become the first openly gay player on a team affiliated with Major League Baseball. - Source

Something's in the beer.

Something from the Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault.

Dom Jean Pateau

The hearts of so many men who ignore Christ are yearning for us. - Dom Jean Pateau

I have a friend who entered a monastery a few years ago, whose prior told him in so many words, "We don't do pro-life here - were contemplative."  Not that my friend was a pro-life activist or anything like that, but the prior was probably just trying to explain 'the life' to my friend.  Nevertheless, the impression was made - the issue was pretty much a secular concern, and not a focus for monastic life.  Kinda-sorta.  At least that's how I perceived it when my friend told me.  I thought it an odd distinction to make, especially since the monastic community got a lot of press in business journals and newspapers - for being so hip, business savvy and everything the world admires.  That particular monastery is now closed.

I mention this because the killing of children in or out of a mother's womb is not just a political concern - or an activist's job - it is a humanitarian issue which needs to concern all of us.  Which is why I was very happy to discover the homily delivered by the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau, Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault for the Solemnity of the Assumption, posted by New Catholic at Rorate Caeli blog.  I know!  Rorate Caeli!  Seriously, there is nothing wrong with that blog - every blogger online has written things that offend or upset other bloggers.  Nothing is wrong with Rorate, or Fontgombault.  Nothing is wrong with being Catholic.

That said. I'll reprint a couple of very important statements from the Abbot's homily.

Love of God unto death inconveniences those who only know love of themselves. - Dom Jean Pateau

Fontgombault Sermon and Address for the Assumption

The third World War, that the Holy Father mentioned several times, has many battlefields… Those very visible in the East… those less visible in the West. Still, the reasons for the battle are everywhere the same: refusal of God our Maker, refusal of Christ and His love message. The opposing forces make up two sides: God’s side, and Satan’s side. Satan is the destroyer of creation, he is par excellence he who divides, he is the apologist of individualism, of a quest for pleasure that despises the weak and the little, he is the instigator of the most vile and barren instincts in the hearts of men and in laws. His aim is to defile creation, to incite men to squander their dignity of children and friends of God, so as to acquire another kind of “dignity”, far more elating, the dignity for mankind to define itself, to legitimate any kind of behaviour, especially if it is out of keeping with nature and its laws.

Satan has been at work for a long time. The light of God and the enlightenment of freethinking have often clashed together in the hearts of men. Yet, our times witness a paradox. How can a society that commits itself to promoting an ecology of nature, deliberately ignore the fight for an ecology of man? True enough, once reason had been set free it became destructive, and its first aim was to assault nature; more recently, it has turned on man.

Baby seals are protected, while human babies are jettisoned… We commit ourselves to preserving clean air, while we omit to fight images and media texts that promote violence and debase human bodies to the status of slaves. We rhapsodise about peace in the world, while we bring war into mothers’ wombs by abortion. We claim for brotherhood in various countries, while we deny children the imprescriptible right to know their biological parents and to live with them. What shall we answer when the little ones and the weak make themselves our accusers? How long shall we have to wait, how many corpses, before the world takes pains to promote a true ecology, understood as a quest for the good of all? - Fotgombault Sermon - Rorate Caeli

The real ecclesiastical periphery ...


I think we can no longer dismiss traditional Catholics who hold fast to Catholic teaching and who are unafraid to proclaim it.  I want share something Bishop Athanasius Schneider had to say regarding the faithful who adhere to the Traditional Liturgy:

I would like to say to these priests, seminarians, young people and families: “It is an honor and a privilege to be faithful to the Divine truth and to the spiritual and liturgical traditions of our forefathers and of the saints and being therefore marginalized by those who currently occupy administrative power in the Church. This your fidelity and courage constitute the real power in the Church. You are the real ecclesiastical periphery, which with God’s power renews the Church. Living the true tradition of dogma, liturgy and holiness is a manifestation of the democracy of the Saints, because tradition is the democracy of the Saints. With Saint Athanasius I would like to tell you these words: Those in the Church who oppose, humiliate and marginalize you, have occupied the churches, while during this time you are outside; it is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray (cf. Letter to his flock)”. - Interview: Mons. Athanasius Schneider

St. Roch

O blessed Saint Roch, patron of the sick, 

have pity on those who lie upon a bed of suffering. 

Your power was so great when you were in this world, 

that by the sign of the cross, 

many were healed of their diseases. 

Now that you are in heaven, 

your power is not less. 

Offer, then to God our sighs and tears 

and obtain for us that health 

we seek through Christ our Lord. - Source

St. Roch was a layman, a pilgrim.  His feast day is August 16, the day after the Assumption.  Popular legend indicates he contracted the plague and was nursed to health, in part, by a dog who licked his wounds and brought him food.  Roch also nursed other plague victims.  Unrecognized when he returned to his home town, the authorities imprisoned him as a spy.  Thus he is the patron saint of the falsely accused and imprisoned, of dogs, pilgrims, the homeless, as well as plague victims or those suffering skin diseases.  He is often depicted with St. Sebastian as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Interestingly enough, he is also the patron saint of 'bachelors' ...  Yup.

To read more, go here.

Just a thought: I think this is the chastisement.

Instead of sitting around wondering ...

I saw another article about the warning and chastisement here.  Though the specifics are linked to unapproved apparition(s) - the basic premise makes sense.

The thing is - we've been going towards it little by little, alternated with great strides, and now we are here.

A friend sent me an article from the NYTimes: ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape.  I can't read it - it is too horrible, too evil - obscene.  It is the evil fruit of pornography.  We - in this country prosecute decades old crimes of sexual abuse.  Just punishment, of course.  It just seems so ironic to me.

Adults who have survived the experience for decades - now suing right and left - while the world sits idly by as Muslim criminals rape and pillage and maim and behead fellow countrymen, Christians, men and women and children, as if it is Medieval times.

Grown men in the United States cry on TV because some priest touched his genitals or kissed him, and in some cases raped him.  These cry babies want to sue to get compensation to assuage their pain, their shame.  C'mon!  You have the guts to wail and moan for yourself on television, while men, women and children are raped and murdered on a daily basis by ISIS perverts.  What is wrong with us today?

Muslim criminals are devils incarnate - their assault signifies a sort of hell unleashed - on earth.  What more do we need to know we are in the chastisement, the days of Antichrist?

The latest indication of this demonic theology of rape comes from the family of Kayla Mueller:

The leader of the Islamic State personally kept a 26-year-old American woman as a hostage and raped her repeatedly, according to U.S. officials and her family.

The disclosure that Mueller was raped by Baghdadi adds to the grim evidence that the exploitation and abuse of women has been sanctioned at the highest levels of the Islamic State. The sexual enslavement of even teenage girls is seen as religiously endorsed by the group and regarded as a recruiting tool. - WP

First of all, this needs our concern, our tears, our prayers.  We need to sacrifice our selfish self interests and devote ourselves to stopping rape and murder in all of it's forms - beginning with abortion and infanticide.  The constant, daily violation, rape, and slaughter of infants, reddens our soil with the blood of these innocents.  We have tolerated it for decades, and now we are reaping the results.

Though 'priest and prophet forage in lands they know not' - we know.  We now know - if we just look around.  Despite cover-ups and news black outs, and petty arguing, everything is being revealed - consciences are being illuminated - sins are now revealed, which means we no longer have an excuse.

Nothing will be left - except the prayers of the Rosary and the sign of the Eucharist.

Sounds extremist, huh?  The crimes, the atrocities committed by ISIS are more extreme.  The crimes, atrocities committed by Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry are even more extreme.


Oooooooh, a storm is threat'ning ...


I've known this stuff since I returned to the Church in 1972.  I doubted, went into denial, distracted myself, sought my own comfort and consolation in this and that - ignored the signs, ignored the crimes.  It won't 'get better' - it doesn't 'get better'.  Listen to your conscience - do not sadden the Holy Spirit.  Pray and sacrifice yourself.

Song for this post here.

Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, 

fair as the moon, bright as the sun, 

terrible as an army set in battle array? - Little Office BVM

Why I think everything has been revealed.

"After sometime, Jacinta stood up and called to me: “Can’t you see all those highways and roads and fields full of people, who are crying with hunger and have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father in a church praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary? And so many people praying with him?” Some days later, she asked me: “Can I say that I saw the Holy Father and all those people?” “No! Don’t you see that that’s part of the secret? If you do they’ll find out straight away.” “All right! Then I’ll say nothing at all.”" - Memoirs of Sr. Lucia

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, 

fair as the moon, bright as the sun, 

terrible as an army set in battle array? - Little Office BVM

O Lord, "you would not allow her to see the corruption of the tomb since from her own body she marvelously brought forth your incarnate Son, the Author of all life." - Preface

Want to try and understand that better?  Read this.

Ever wonder why there are so many LGBTQ people?

Doesn't it seem like there are more gay people than ever?

Even 'normal' guys (especially millennials) all seem pretty 'sensitive'.  It's hard to tell these days - it's like there is some kind of gaydar jamming or something happening.  It often seems to me everybody is kind of gay - or sexually fluid and trans-able.  (Even Cardinal Burke said something about effeminate men and girlie-girl altar servers.)  

Of course, I live in Minneapolis, which is gay central.  But still.

This just in.

Now, however, there may be evidence that pesticides are the cause.  (I kinda suspected that anyway.)
Hormone Disruptors Linked to Sexual Preference.

Scientists are continuing to sound the alarm about some common chemicals, including the herbicide atrazine, and link them to changes in reproductive health and development. Endocrine disrupting toxic chemicals have been found to feminize male frogs and cause homosexual behavior. Ashley Ahearn reports on how these substances may be affecting human development and behavior.

[...] 

Homosexual behavior has been recorded in over 450 different species of animals – from bison to beetles. But Hayes’ research showed that atrazine exposure made these frogs 7 times more prone to homosexual behavior and10 percent of the exposed frogs actually became feminized.  - Source

Atrazine ...

Whistleblower Chemist Tells How Chemicals Are Making People Homosexual.  Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley says a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. - Watch video here.

I knew there had to be another reason.

The Norwich Ghost

Medieval Ghost Bishop of Norwich.

I've been taken by ghost stories about as often as I've been taken by visionaries, locutionists and doomsayers ...

What?

As the visions continued through the night ...

What?

I had trouble sleeping last night - 'restless leg syndrome' - haha!  Is that still a condition?  I remember ads for medication for that problem.  Pharmaceutical companies seem to make up conditions to promote their new drugs.

Anyway, in the past, when I'd wake during the night I used to pray, sadly, these days I go online.  I'm ashamed.

During the night I checked out two guys who receive messages from heaven.  Charlie Johnston and Mark Mallett.  I finally took the time to read some of what they have to say and 'check credentials' as it were.  They seem solid.  No claims of secrets or anything like that.  Typical prophetic utterances may get repeated, but generally they seem very solid and practical.  From my understanding, both are deeply respectful of the magisterium, pope and bishops in union with them.

A friend sent an email about a talk given by Charlie Johnston, several priests were in attendance - including one or two well known priests.  That is why I decided to take another look.  The impression I got was that just being in the audience listening was some sort of imprimatur.  (Not that my friend thought it was, but because people can get that impression.)  Likewise, having spiritual directors is not always a guarantee that prophecy or private revelation is accurate.  I often write about that, especially when it comes to locutionists and their messages to the world on the economy and politics in the Middle East.

Signs of the times and traditional teaching.

These guys aren't like that.  Their message is really very practical - they are very similar.  Very ordinary.  They seem to be very humble - having been tried in and through spiritual purification.  What I read so far strikes me as true and solid.  Faith-filled advice.  Neither seem interested in developing a cult following or self-promotion.  That often happens with mystics.  The saints had their followers, Catherine of Siena comes to mind, nothing is wrong with that.

As the terror grows around us, the horrors of slaughter become more public, and lawlessness seems to prevail; while moral and doctrinal confusion shakes the faith of many, prophets and mystics seem to multiply.  Online chatter is all about the chastisement, the apostasy, the coming 'Storm', the Antichrist and the Apocalypse.  It seems to me we are experiencing 'stuff like that'.  It seems to me we have been warned.

Is God going to punish us?

No need to write a new book ...

It's in Scripture.  The Letters of Peter, Jude, and James, as well as Paul.  It's all there.

It's in the writing of the saints - especially St. John of the Cross.

We can know chastisements and corrections are coming on our own, as John of the Cross makes clear:

"And likewise supernatural events and happenings may be known, in
their causes, in matters concerning Divine Providence, which deals most
justly and surely as is required by their good or evil causes as
regards the sons of men. For one may know by natural means that such or
such a person, or such or such a city, or some other place, is in such
or such necessity, or has reached such or such a point, so that God,
according to His providence and justice, must deal with such a person
or thing in the way required by its cause, and in the way that is
fitting for it, whether by means of punishment or of reward, as the
cause merits. And then one can say: At such a time God will give you
this, or will do this, or that will come to pass, of a surety.'" - Ascent of Mt. Carmel

“….be at peace and write what they command you, not, however, what is given to you to understand of its significance.” 

Remember, persons claiming locutions can be deluded, even unconsciously articulating details they have read about or heard in the course of their lifetime. John of the Cross also points out that things foretold do not always happen as we expect.  In this respect, one might understand why Our Lady instructed Sr. Lucia of Fatima to withhold her private interpretation of the secrets shown to her, leaving the interpretation up to the Church, while faithfully recording what she was shown along with the specific requests of Our Lady.

Recently controversy has re-emerged over a new book on Sr. Lucia, suggesting continued cover-up regarding the secret - when in fact it appears to be a problem of translation of a simple phrase.  It is an ongoing distortion of the original message of Fatima.  The reasons for which, as one author summarized not too many years ago:

Do we really need a special revelation from our Lady to tell us that there is an internal crisis of faith and discipline in the Church? And to warn about terrible persecutions, already gathering momentum in many countries? Aren’t we capable of reading the signs of the times ourselves? It seems that the Fatimists’ sleuthing is really a desperate attempt to find in the secrets an authoritative reason to reject Vatican II and all the Popes since Pius XII. - Fatima and the secret ...

One dark night ...

I think the experiences of the soul in the dark night of the soul is similar to the state of the Church undergoing the purification of persecution and apostasy.  I may be wrong.  Yet it seems to me the purpose of private revelations and apparitions - prophecy - is to offer direction and counsel on how to conduct ourselves in time of trial.  I go back to former posts I've written and repeat sections from Carmelite spirituality and direction to help us understand that despite everything happening to us in times of terror and anxiety, we need to have hope - to keep our souls in peace and trust in the divine mercy.  

I'll repeat the following "On the Conduct of the Soul" in the dark night. Perhaps it will make sense.

To reveal God as Love to souls is the central and essential point of the mission of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. This message has as its foundation the most important and deep grace of her life, namely, a very profound experimental knowledge of God inasmuch as He is Love.

Divine Love does not want to limit His action to a few privileged souls, He longs to give Himself everywhere - to conquer the entire world.

Confidence is theological hope wholly impregnated with love; abandonment is confidence which no longer expresses itself solely through distinct acts but has created an attitude of soul: 'We can never have too much confidence in the Good God, He is so mighty, so merciful. As we hope in Him so shall we receive.'

One must (accept to) be poor, miserable, and must lay open one's poverty (littleness, helplessness) to the enlarging power of Divine Love, in order to attract and satisfy Him. Such is his Law.

The secret of St. Therese is no different from that of St. John of the Cross. The Theresian love of littleness and of poverty united to blind trust in divine mercy, is that not the same as the Joannine hope that is detached from everything and that God immediately fills?

For St. Therese, trust and poverty are not simply virtues, like so many others, that one must practice at certain times; they are basic virtues, deep-seated dispositions, governing all the movements and attitudes of the soul. They of themselves create and become a complete spirituality; they constitute, as the Saint proclaims, a way to go to the good God.

Because the way of spiritual childhood offers us a felicitous example, in concrete and living form, for the practice of the virtue of hope, its teaching is particularly precious for the period that we are now studying."- P. Marie-Eugene, O.C.D. - I Am A Daughter of the Church, Chapter IV The Conduct of the Soul

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord.

From what I've read, Charlie Johnston and Mark Mallett are pretty much on track with traditional teaching, theology and spirituality, which is why I think their spiritual insights are valuable.  They may discuss eschatological stuff - or things like the three days darkness - but one may take all that with a grain of sand.  I don't think their emphasis is on all that or that they want to do a chronology of events.  Though they speak of a global economic collapse, I don't think their concern is hording money or material gain.  Charlie Johnston seems especially humble about what God is doing.  I picked this statement to highlight that:

[God] intends that each of us fully see how pitiful our competence is, that our confidence in ourselves be crushed so that we may turn our hearts decisively to Him. - CJ

We need to be faithful to the Church and have confidence and great love.  We need to remain in the world as faithful witnesses - even though we are weak and sinful, vain and mean-spirited.  We need to repent and repent and repent and pray and be faithful to the duties of our state in life.  Getting up after every fall, trusting in the divine mercy.  St. Therese preferred to live by faith, saying she 'preferred not to see'.  That is the 'little way'.

The kingdom doesn't come by care-filled (anxious) watching and speculation.  The kingdom is within us ...

Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name ...
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven,
give us this day
our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Abortion is a men's issue. Really?

You don't say.

Simcha Fisher has a nice post with a similar title ...

Abortion is a Men's Issue.

In great men, two things go together: strength and control. Power, and the knowledge of how to use that power, and when, and why. 

There's no merit in producing testosterone; but there is great merit, for the whole world, when men learn how to use it, and when they learn how to be in control of it, rather than letting it control them. Great men know when to hold their strength in check, and how to use it for the right things. Great men use their strength to protect.

Women make the choice about abortion, but men make the world that women and children live in. Abortion is a men's issue. - SF

She's so close.

Of course abortion is a men's issue.  Women would never have been granted the 'right' to choose if men had not granted it to them.  Powerful men indeed.  Men like judges and senators and legislators and presidents and physicians and, and, and, boyfriends and husbands.  Women would not have any rights at all if powerful men had not allowed them these rights in the first place.

Don't women know that?

David Foster Wallace

There's a new film about him.

Did you know he tried to become a Catholic twice but both times 'failed the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults?'

Some people aren't good at that type of thing.  How can you flunk out of RCIA?  Why do they do that to people?

See.  I don't like that.  I wonder who the formators were?

Jesus never did stuff like that.

Caring for little sheep and kitties and rabbits and bow-wow dogs ...

Death of St. Clare

Whenever I pray for creatures, especially when I pray for those that suffer cruelty and face extinction, or just when a helpless little animal suffers homelessness or ill health or anything else which causes them pain, I in turn think of the most vulnerable among us, the unborn child, the infants and toddlers and little children who suffer so much cruelty and violence. How closely they resemble the innocent suffering Christ. I'm also reminded how often Jesus pointed to the littlest ones as those dearest to his heart ...

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just being sentimental - likening the sufferings of creatures to those of children... going further, likening the sufferings of each to the meekness and humility of Christ in his sacred passion.  Yet if I am moved to devotion and prayer - that is no longer mere sentiment.  When I feel a sense of compassion for creatures it seems to me to be a signal to pray for children.  So I'm not ashamed to pray in that way. 

I'm likewise encouraged, considering St. Francis' superb compassion and love for the weakest and poorest on earth.

Here is a story for the feast of St. Clare.

St. Francis overflowed with the spirit of charity, pitying not only men who were suffering need, but even the dumb brutes, reptiles, birds, and other creatures with and without sensation. But among all kinds of animals he loved little lambs with a special love, and a readier affection, because the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ is, in Holy Scripture, most frequently and aptly illustrated by the simile of a lamb. So too especially he would embrace more fondly and behold more gladly all those things wherein might be found some allegorical similitude of the Son of God. Thus when he was once journeying through the March of Ancona, and after preaching God's word in that city had set out towards Osimo with Messer Paul whom he had appointed Minister of all the brethren in that province, he found in the fields a shepherd feeding a herd of she-goats and he-goats. Among the multitude of goats there was one little sheep, going along in humble fashion and quietly grazing. When Francis saw her he stopped, and, moved in his heart with grief said to the brother who accompanied him, groaning aloud, "Do you not see this sheep, which is walking so meekly among these she-goats and he-goats? I tell you that even so our Lord Jesus Christ walked, meek and lowly among the Pharisees and chief priests. Wherefore I ask you, my son, for love of Him, to take pity with me on this little sheep, and let us pay the price and get her out from among these goats." And brother Paul, wondering at his grief, began to grieve with him. But they had nothing but the poor tunics they wore, and as they were anxiously considering how the price might be paid, a merchant who was on a journey came up, and offered the price they desired. They took the sheep, giving thanks to God and came to Osimo, and went in to the bishop of that city, who received them with great reverence. The lord bishop, however, wondered both at the sheep, which the man of God was leading and at the affection wherewith he was moved toward her. But after Christ's servant had unfolded to him at some length the parable of the sheep, the bishop, pricked at the heart, gave thanks to God for the purity of the man of God. Next day, on leaving the city, Francis considered what he should do with the sheep, and by his companion's advice he handed it over to a monastery of the handmaids of Christ at St. Severino to be taken care of. The venerable handmaids of Christ received the sheep with joy as a great gift bestowed on them by God, and they kept it carefully for a long time, and wove of the wool a tunic which they sent to the blessed father Francis at the church of St. Maria de Portiuncula on the occasion of a Chapter [of the Order]. The Saint of God received it with great reverence and exultation of mind, and embraced and kissed it again and again, inviting all the bystanders to share his joy.

Another time when he was passing through that same March and the same brother was gladly accompanying him, he met a man carrying two lambs, bound and hanging over his shoulders, which he was taking to market to sell. When blessed Francis heard them bleating he was moved with compassion, and came near and touched them, showing pity for them like a mother towards her crying child. And he said to the man, "Why do you thus torment my brother lambs by carrying them bound and hanging thus?" The man answered, "I am taking them to market to sell, for I must get a price for them." "What will become of them afterwards?" said the holy man. "The buyers will kill and eat them." "God forbid," answered the Saint. "This must not be; but take the cloak I am wearing for their price, and give the lambs to me." The man gave him the lambs and took the cloak gladly, for it was of much greater value. (S. Francis had borrowed it that day from a faithful man, to keep off the cold.) When he had received the lambs he carefully considered what he should do with them, and after consulting with his companion gave them back to the man, charging him never to sell them or do them hurt, but to keep them, feed them, and take good care of them. - The First Life of St. Francis I'm grateful to the Holy Father, who has announced a World Day of prayer for the Care of Creation, to be observed annually on September 1. The announcement here. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed.

The valley of Achor as a door of hope ...

“I will go after my lovers, 

who give me my bread and my water, 

my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” 

 Therefore, I will hedge in her way with thorns 

and erect a wall against her, 

so that she cannot find her paths. 

If she runs after her lovers, she will not overtake them; 

if she seeks them she will not find them. 

Then she will say, 

“I will go back to my first husband,

for I was better off then than now.” - Hosea, 2

This chapter from Hosea came to mind at prayer this morning.

Sometimes our lives pass before our eyes - reminding us of our infidelities - exposing our hidden sins which were obscured by our more serious sins - our falling into which, was the doorway to understanding our deepest need for mercy.  Though we harbored 'apostasy in our hearts' ...

Yes ... our sins are forgiven and there is mercy.  Yet there remains the pain, the ache, the regret.  It seems to me it is our valley of Achor, and to be sure - it is a door of hope.  It is moments like these that all sentimentality is purified, as dross removed from the silver, our love is fired in the furnace of merciful love - a love moved at the sight of our misery, our extreme humiliation.  It is a grace when we are at last led into that wilderness, without anything of our own to boast of, devoid of any merit to rely on - our only consolation being our confidence in that burning furnace of merciful love. 

I will put an end to all her joy,

her festivals, her new moons, 

her sabbaths—all her seasonal feasts. - Hosea 2

Song for this post here.

He thought he could be a comedian if they killed him quick.

Happy feast day Larry.

Put some clothes on.

What?

Song for this post here.

70 years ago ... in a blinding flash of white light.

The mysteries of light.

Nagasaki, 1945

An arch was one of the few remaining landmarks after the attack.

70 years ago.

"An emotional memorial service has been held in the Japanese city of Nagasaki where US forces dropped an atomic bomb during World War Two, 70 years ago." - Story here.

An arch was the first shrine built at Fatima in 1917

"If people do not cease offending God, 

a worse war will break out ... 

during the pontificate of Pius XI." - OL Fatima

70 years ago.

“Seventy years ago, on the 6th and the 9th of August 1945, the terrible atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place. Even after so many years, this tragic event still arouses horror and revulsion." - Pope Francis

Kids screaming during Mass.

Suffer the children.

Crying.

Talking really, really loud.

Screaming and yelling, perhaps just to listen to their own echo in the towering space.

At Mass, the gentleman behind me commented to his wife that kids like that should be removed from church.  He was rather irritated.

All I could think about was the children raped and murdered by ISIS and perverts.  Children abused by cold hearted men.  My imagination was flooded with images of dissected infant body parts.  I wondered how a baby must scream with pain as it's tiny, beating heart is removed.  I couldn't stop thinking of how countless little children suffer from the horror of terrorism, abortion, infanticide, sexual abuse and murder.  I was happy the babies and toddlers were at Mass - I was grateful for them - for making me aware of their presence.  I pray for them.  I was consoled knowing their parents love them so much and keep them so close and safe, throughout Mass.

Never despise the little ones.

Never wish them away.

They are unsettled at Mass to remind us of the Lamb sacrificed ... to remind us of the little ones who are silenced and slaughtered - no one wants to hear their cries either.

They have no one to mourn for them, no one to cry out for them, no one to defend them.

Start hearing, start listening.  Let their cries pierce your heart.

Start seeing the little ones.

Do not despise them.

Suffer them.

Protect them.

Defend them.

Save them.

Addressing parents whose children had been baptized in the last year, Pope Francis said “…children cry, they are noisy, they don’t stop moving. But it really irritates me when I see a child crying in church and someone says they must go out. God’s voice is in a child’s tears: they must never be kicked out of church.” - CNA

Oddly enough ...

-source-

This is cool.

Why do you say that Terry?

Because there is a crowned nun portrait in the background.

It's also a cool fashion shot, demonstrating colorization and 1950's style.

Now that will take your mind off things, huh?

(The model on the end in the green dress looks like Jessica Walter - Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development.  I wonder?)

What?