Post removed.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Breaking News: Fr. Gabriele Amorth and the Holy Father
Fr. Amorth recently revealed that he has kept the Holy Father abreast of the happenings in Medjugorje.
“He listened to what I had to say, very carefully, but he did not comment on anything. Nothing, not one word. He just listened." - Fr. AmorthGood to know.
Well that settles it then doesn't it poodles?
Friday, January 11, 2013
During the night I awakened with this prayer...
"help me to forget myself entirely..."
It is Bl. Elizabeth's prayer, taken from her prayer to the Holy Trinity...
It is Bl. Elizabeth's prayer, taken from her prayer to the Holy Trinity...
O my God, Trinity whom I adore; help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity.
Do you do things - like make a film - just for the awards?
The Academy Awards and the flood of award shows...
Seriously, is that why people make films (or any art) now? Just to get nominated for an award - with the hope - the intent - to win Best in Show?
Nominees for Academy Awards are celebrating their nominations while other celebrities are complaining they weren't nominated. Why do they care? Money for one thing - box office. Fame and critical acclaim means more work - more money. Not to overlook the fact social change and political propaganda sticks it's influential grasp in the mix as well.
Fashion, art, cinema, theater, music: "the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men."
Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper! Vote for Bradley Cooper!
If he only had a gun: The Servant of God, Oscar Romero...
The Blood of Christ and the blood of his Archbishop, intermingled.
Who thinks of guns at Mass? Actually, a priest from Wisconsin did - he actually carried a gun as he said Mass. I will be writing about him. In the meantime, let's consider a priest who lived in an anti-Catholic milieu, surrounded by revolutionaries and soldiers hostile to Catholic social teaching, as well as the Catholic priesthood, and the Catholic faithful - the poor.
Though he never carried a gun, Oscar Romero knew first hand what oppression of the Church entails... it had nothing to do with such minor details as the press ignoring the inclusion of non-Catholic nuns into the Roman Catholic Church.
In less than three years, more than fifty priests have been attacked, threatened, calumniated. Six are already martyrs -- they were murdered. Some have been tortured and others expelled [from the country]. Nuns have also been persecuted. The archdiocesan radio station and educational institutions that are Catholic or of a Christian inspiration have been attacked, threatened, intimidated, even bombed. Several parish communities have been raided. If all this has happened to persons who are the most evident representatives of the Church, you can guess what has happened to ordinary Christians, to the campesinos, catechists, lay ministers, and to the ecclesial base communities. There have been threats, arrests, tortures, murders, numbering in the hundreds and thousands. . . . But it is important to note why [the Church] has been persecuted. Not any and every priest has been persecuted, not any and every institution has been attacked. That part of the church has been attacked and persecuted that put itself on the side of the people and went to the people's defense. Here again we find the same key to understanding the persecution of the church: the poor.
— Óscar Romero, Speech at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, Feb. 2, 1980.[7]
Thursday, January 10, 2013
This is cool: Weird Michigan - The Michigan Triangle.
Who knew?
This blog knows many famous people from Michigan, bloggers, comedians, pianists, Alaskan explorers and hunters, entertainers, traveling salesmen, and religious. The author has visited Michigan as well. Once to try his vocation with the Little Brothers of Jesus in a little slum once known as Detroit, and one other time when he went to see John Paul II at the Pontiac Silver Dome. (Commemorative plagues marking my visits have been set up as well.) I've also flown over Lake Michigan numerous times, but had no idea it was so 'weird'.
The Michigan Triangle
There are numerous stories of the supposed appearance of strange creatures, unexplained vanishings, time standing still, slowing to a crawl, or speeding up, or other unusual happenings.More recently...
One well-known and often repeated case is that of Captain George R. Donner, who commanded the Great Lakes freighter O.S. McFarland. While on a journey back from Erie, Pennsylvania after picking up 9,800 tons of coal, the ship made course westward through the lakes. It was slow going due to late-spring ice floes, but the ship was making steady progress toward its destination, Port Washington, Wisconsin, when Donner disappeared. Right out of his locked cabin!
Another disappearance took place on June 23, 1950, and involved a Northwest Airlines DC-4 aircraft carrying fifty-five passengers and three crew members. This flight 2501 had departed from New York City and was due to land at Minneapolis. The last radio contact recorded with the plane was that it was 3,500 ft (1,100 m) over Battle Creek, Michigan and was going to change its course to a northwesterly path over Lake Michigan, due to bad weather near Chicago. After this, the plane disappeared and could not be raised by radio. Considerable light debris, upholstery, and human body fragments were found floating on the surface, but divers were unable to locate the plane's wreckage.[1]
On July 3, 1998, at 1845 eastern daylight time (edt), an Aero Vodochody L-39C, N7868M, operated by a commercial pilot, was reported missing over Lake Michigan, in the vicinity west- northwest of Traverse City, Michigan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The flight was being conducted under 14 CFR Part 91. There was no flight plan on file. The pilot and pilot-rated passenger on board have not been found. The local flight departed from the Cherry Capital Airport, Traverse City, Michigan, at 1831 edt.
What could cause this phenomena? Experts believe it may be some kind of Vortex... (Sound the Twilight Zone music, Michael.)
One of the strangest stories to date involves a traveling salesman/ventriloquist/pianist, Lorenzo Dingieger. The successful businessman decided to expand his sales territory to the Milwaukee area. An inventive fellow, he devised an electric flying car which reputedly could traverse water. Seeking to avoid the congestion of driving through Chicago, Mr. Dingieger decided to take a short cut across Lake Michigan, alternately flying and navigating over the lake. Blown off course, the car was never found and to this day his wife and kids believe the story of why he came home so late that night. Yes - he is one of the very few to have survived the disappearance. Amazingly, Dingieger showed up at home in perfect shape, his clothes as neatly pressed as the day before. Curiously amnesiac, he doesn't remember anything about the trip after he was airborne, nor does he have any recollection of what happened to the car. Adding to the mystery, divers were unable to locate the flying/floating car's wreckage.
Documentation taken from Wikipedia.
Here's a good one for Bella Dodd* conspiracy theorists.
Four priests... what do they have in common?
All are Bishops: 2 are Cardinals, 1 is an Archbishop, and 1 is a Bishop. All went to the same seminary! All live in California! All Novus Ordo! I know! A couple have been accused of being, let's just say, not so great... A couple are retiring together, and moving in together! (Can 2 men do that?) Oh! My! Gosh!
Story here:
(RNS) Whether by accident, serendipity or divine design, four future heavyweights of American Catholicism found themselves in the Class of 1962 at St. John’s Seminary.
Momentous societal changes were surfacing all around the young men, but seminary life for George Niederauer, Roger Mahony, William Levada and Tod Brown continued much the same as it had for centuries. The four friends — a pair of cardinals-to-be, a future archbishop and bishop — were assigned alphabetically to desks and dorms. They arose at 5:30 a.m. and, within a half hour headed to the chapel for prayers and Mass. Silence was required during meals and after 7:30 p.m. Moral theology and philosophy classes were taught in Latin.
Released from their Catholic cocoon in 1962, the young priests faced a church on the brink of volcanic reform with the opening of the Second Vatican Council, pushing the ancient institution into a new age. No more Latin Mass. Priests now faced the people, not the altar. Other Christians were embraced, and social work became gospel.
After being schooled in a Vatican I church, the foursome would step down, five decades later, as quintessential Vatican II men. “There was no instruction manual with a chapter (to cover) every conceivable crisis for the next 50 years,” says Mahony, now the retired archbishop of Los Angeles. - Read the rest here.
*Disclaimer: My reference to Bella Dodd is based on the conspiracy theories Dr. Alice von Hildebrand frequently references: "It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. [...] The two books I mentioned were published in 1998 and 2000 by an Italian priest, Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia, who at the request of Padre Pio has devoted many years of his life to the investigation of the possible infiltration of both Freemasons and Communists into the Church. My husband and I met Don Villa in the sixties." - Source
Please note: I don't believe in conspiracy theories. I am not even suggesting these four bishops were involved in any such conspiracies - but over the years, not a few Catholics have claimed otherwise, and implied worse. Hence the satircal inclusion to my editorial comments.
Because it's Los Angeles and environs, I wrote this in my TMZ voice.
Waddya mean Mother Angelica
is unavailable for comment?
How those who attain union with God can fall from grace....
From St. Teresa of Avila.
4. I can assure you, my daughters, 5 that I have known people far advanced in the spiritual life who had reached this state of prayer yet whom the devil reclaimed by his subtlety and wiles: as I have often said, all hell leagues together against such souls because the loss of one of them entails the perdition of many more, as Satan is well aware. If we considered how many men God draws to Himself by means of one, we should praise Him fervently. Think of the multitudes converted by the martyrs or by one young maiden like St. Ursula! Again, of how many victims the evil one was deprived by St. Dominic, St. Francis, and other founders of religious orders. How many more he loses, even now, through Father Ignatius [Loyola], who founded the Company [of Jesus]! As we read their lives, we learn that they received such graces from God. How was this great good done except by their efforts not to forfeit, through any fault of theirs, these divine espousals? Oh, my daughters, how willing our Lord is to grant us the same graces! In fact, there is even more urgent need now for persons to prepare for such favours, since there are fewer who care for His honour. We love ourselves too much and are too prudent to give up any of our rights. What a deception! May God in His mercy give us light, lest we sink into such darkness.
5. You may question or be in doubt on two points. Firstly: if the soul is entirely united with the will of God, as I have stated, how can it be deceived, since it ever seeks to follow His pleasure? Secondly, how can the devil enter and work such havoc as to destroy your soul while you are so utterly withdrawn from the world and constantly frequent the Sacraments? 6 At the same time you enjoy the society of angels (as we might call them) and by the mercy of God you desire nothing but to serve and please Him in all things? 7 It is not surprising that people in the world should run such risks. I admit you have the right to say this, for God has shown us signal mercy; but, as I said above, knowing as I do that Judas was amongst the Apostles and that he held constant intercourse with God Himself, to Whose words he listened, I learn that the state of religion does not make us safe.
6. To your first question I reply that doubtless if such a soul is always faithful to the will of God, it cannot be lost; the evil one, however, comes with his keen subtlety and, under the pretext of good, leads it astray in some trivial matter and causes it to commit small defects which he makes it believe are harmless. Thus, little by little, the reason is obscured and the will is weakened while the devil fosters his victim's self-love, until, by degrees, he succeeds in withdrawing it from union with the will of God and makes it follow its own will.
7. The answer to your first inquiry will serve for the second. No enclosure can be too strict for Satan to enter nor any desert too remote for him to visit. Besides, God may permit him to tempt the soul to prove its virtue; for as He intends it to enlighten others, it is better for it to fail in the beginning than when it might do them great harm.
8. We must beg God constantly in our prayers to uphold us by His hand; we should keep ever in our minds the truth that if He leaves us, most certainly we shall fall at once into the abyss, for we must never be so foolish as to trust in ourselves. After this I think the greatest safeguard is to be very careful and to watch how we advance in virtue; we must notice whether we are making progress or falling back in it, especially as regards the love of our neighbour, the desire to be thought the least of all and how we perform our ordinary, everyday duties. If we attend to this and beg Our Lord to enlighten us, we shall at once perceive our gain or loss. - Interior Castle
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
I knew about it... but I guess there had been a media blackout?
Breaking News: Media Blackout of New Nuns? Really?
Bill Donohue released the following comments:
Aside from Deacon Greg Kandra, the Catholic News Agency, and EWTN, both the religious and secular media—including the Catholic media—have failed to report an important story that deserves wide attention: on New Year’s Day, 11 Anglican nuns from the Community of St. Mary the Virgin in England entered the Catholic Church. Moreover, a sister from another order of Anglican nuns joined with them to form a new Catholic order, the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
So why isn’t this “historic event” being publicized? Imagine the media reaction if on New Year’s Day 12 renegade Anglican nuns had held a press conference in their street clothes announcing their intent to join a dissident Catholic order so they can press for gay marriage and women priests! It would have been front-page news. And had they rented an oversized luxury bus to haul them around town, that would have been world news. But because these are humble orthodox nuns, who eschew media gimmicks, there is a news blackout. - Catholic LeagueStop the presses!
I won't be
bound and gagged again!
The news blackout continues!
CNA has the story here.
Too late!
I'm more Catholic than CNA!
The Devil's Final Battle
"Shifting scapegoats to suit market demand." - S. Miesel
If I was a dad and my son told me he was reading that book I would say, "Oh honey, don't get nuts! Burn that book! And get rid of the guns in your room while you're at it!"
Seriously. I read it 2, 3, even 4 times and finally got rid of it. I gave it to a fanatical friend who left the traditionalist-sedevacantist cult and returned to Wicca - thinking somehow she might snap back to the Catholic Church by realizing what sent her over the edge in the first place was screwed up. It still didn't work.
The Devil's Final Battle is a bad book - it is faith destroying and divisive and the devil is in between the lines. Stay away from Fr. Paul Kramer, unless you just like fiction and love conspiracy theories. Same with the guy who wrote Windswept House... Malachi Martin. It is fiction. Catholics must watch out for that type of fiction - which mixes fact with fantasy - it can come back to haunt you and some of you could even mistake it for locutions some day. You might even get paranoid enough to want to get a conceal and carry permit. Priests can be deluded too. I will post about one soon. In the meantime - be on your guard, this kind of crap continues to circulate online.
Recent prophecies...
Father Kramer: 'Well, here we go beyond the firm evidence of approved apparitions and into the realm of speculation. Based on the reported prophecies of a German priest, a mystic, whose veracity is attested to by another German priest I regard as utterly trustworthy, we can surmise that the year 2008 will see the outbreak of war and 2011 the Consecration of Russia and the beginning of the period of peace spoken of by Our Lady of Fatima. The period of chastisement may continue past 2011, but by 2013 the chastisement will have ended and this may be the actual year of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart' - Fr. Kramer 2006
"Fr. Kramer believes it is most likely that before January 6, 2013 is past, the whole world will see and experience the outbreak of World War III, which will be worse than WWI and WWII combined." - Fr. Gruner, 2012
Holy crap!
Didn't Fr. Gobbi
say something just like that?
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
I watched Downtown Abbey
I know it's Downton - but saying Downtown is more fun.
Who is old enough to remember Downtown Julie Brown?
Who am I kidding.
No one.
To be honest Poodles, I was disappointed in the first episode of Season 3. Too much crammed into two hours. And I came away with a heavy feeling of foreboding as well... the feeling confirmed for me as I read a few spoilers late last night... and I couldn't sleep thinking about them. Yes. I know who is going to die in Season 3 - I'm not happy about it. I know what will happen to poor Thomas as well - BTW - it could have been written better. A kiss is just a kiss you know... and men don't sneak into rooms just to have a kiss. And who decided to cast Shirley MacLain? Awful choice.
Though disappointed, I will watch the first episode once again to try and pull myself together and be surprised next Sunday when the new episode airs.
I was the same way with Harry Potter BTW - by the fourth book I was bored. I'm not at all normal.
(I wrote this in my Mrs. Patmore's voice.)
If only he had a gun... the mysterious death of Fr. Kunz
In the Diocese of Madison.
I remember when this happened. It is still very scary...
The Village of Dane, a quiet hamlet some 10 miles north of Madison, Wisconsin, welcomed March 1998 with eager anticipation. Winters in southern Wisconsin could be harsh and the hope of an early spring among area residents was almost universal. Yet, March 3rd, 1998 with its blustery winds and occasional snowflakes gave no hint of winter’s demise.
For Father Alfred Kunz, pastor of St. Michael’s Parish in the Village, the weather was of little concern as he went about his priestly duties, retiring to his room by early evening to prepare for the taping of “Our Catholic Family,” a religious talk show program based in Monroe, some 70 miles South of Dane. Leaving the rectory at 7:30P.M in the company of Lodi Priest Fr. Charles Fiore, the taping was completed by 9:00 P.M, and the two priests left Monroe shortly thereafter, arriving at St. Michaels a little before 10:00 PM.
Neither man had had time for dinner that night, and as Fr. Kunz walked away from the car, Fiore reminded him to “Get a piece of cheese or something, Al.” Kunz smiled and nodded his head, then turned away. What happened between that moment and 7:00 A.M. the next morning has remained a mystery for over eleven years.
[...]
With the appointment of Bishop William Bullock on April 13, 1993, disagreements between the new Bishop over the interpretation of Church law became commonplace, and within the year, Kunz had resigned as Judicial Vicar and was no longer a member of the Marriage Tribunal. Yet, despite his considerable differences with the head of the Madison Diocese, Kunz remained at St. Michaels Catholic Church, due, in large part to his status as a beloved priest within the Dane community.
Kunz had reportedly taken on the task of investigating several local priests and planned to report his findings to the Hierarchy on March 7, 1998. Sadly, that day would never arrive.
At 7:00 A.M. on the morning of March 4, 1998, a teacher arriving at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Dane found the body of Fr. Alfred Kunz laying in the hallway of the school near the door to his living quarter. Fr. Kunz had been stabbed and his throat had been cut with an edged weapon, which had severed the carotid artery, and he had died of blood loss. All of the doors to the school were locked, and there were no signs of forced entry. No weapon was found. - Source
Monday, January 07, 2013
The fall...
"Other people don't share the worldview that they are simply bit players in your universe-- and so their attitude is to dismiss you. You don't count.
Hence the popular narcissist mantra: when I make it big, when I get discovered, then all these people will acknowledge me." - Source
H/T Enbrethiliel
Be careful not to scare people away from the Church...
We would remind people that it is the law of nature that all things must be of gradual growth. - Blessed John XXIII
Over the years, I've had a few friends who 'dropped out' of the Church. Some left because of bad example, others left because they felt unable to live up to the perfection fellow Catholics seemed to expect of them. As if they were expected to become saints overnight. Indeed, some even thought they had become saints, only to crash and burn when the bubble burst. Uber-Catholics, fiery apologists, traditional, orthodox - no longer...
Anyway, I came across the following from Dr. Alice von Hildebrand which really surprised me, coming from her, that is.
"The most we can do is to pray to be God’s instruments. To be an instrument we must strive to live the Gospel every day and in every circumstance. Only God’s grace can give us the desire and ability to do that.
It is one of the fears I have about traditional Catholics. Some flirt with fanaticism. A fanatic is one who considers truth to be his personal possession instead of God’s gift. We are servants of the truth, and it is as servants that we seek to share it.
I am very concerned that there are “fanatical” Catholics who use the Faith and the truth it proclaims as an intellectual toy. An authentic appropriation of the truth always leads to a striving for holiness. The Faith, in this present crisis, is not an intellectual chess game. For anyone not striving for holiness, that’s all it will ever be. Such people do more harm to the Faith, particularly if they are proponents of the traditional Mass. - Dr. Alice von Hildebrand
I also came across this...
"Salvation and justice consist not in the uprooting of an outdated system, but in a well designed policy of development. Hotheadedness was never constructive; it has always destroyed everything. It has inflamed passions, but never assuaged them. It sows no seeds but those of hatred and destruction. Far from bringing about the reconciliation of contending parties, it reduces men and political parties to the necessity of laboriously redoing the work of the past, building on the ruins that disharmony has left in its wake." - Pius XII's address to Italian workers, Rome, Pentecost, June 13, 1943
If he only had a gun
Looks as if Christmas is finished.
There's nothing in canon law
to prohibit it.
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Have yourself a merry little Russian Christmas!
Today is Christmas Eve according to the Julian Calendar. Break out the vodka Puti!
The Holy Father's Homily for Epiphany 2013
The disciples "rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the name of Jesus." (Acts 5:40ff.)
"If we defend his (the Lord's) cause, we will constantly gain others to the way of the Gospel. But, inevitably, we will also be beaten by those who live lives opposed to the Gospel, and then we can be grateful for having been judged worthy to share in the passion of Christ." - Source
I wonder if he said anything about self-defense for bishops and priests? Or conceal and carry?
The Epiphany: What's it mean to me?
That three kings - or really three important, well educated people, somehow knew the Messiah was to be born at such and such a time, in such and such a location, and that the leaders of Israel did not. That is so awesome. They followed a star to find the exact location - a light in the sky! And then they finally showed up at the doorstep of the most despicable little hole on the planet, and with great awe, recognized their Saviour, Salvator Mundi.
Happy Christmas my friends! Stay especially long after Communion today - to thank Our Lord for this manifestation - which is not limited in time .. he sees us amongst their retinue. The poorer we are, the better.
If only they had a gun...
The Trappist Martyrs of Atlas
From the journals of Father Christian and Luc:
“We welcomed that Child who was born for us, absolutely helpless, and already so threatened. Afterwards we found salvation in undertaking our daily tasks: the kitchen, garden, the prayers, the bells. Day after day. We had to resist the violence. And day after day, I think each of us discovered that to which Jesus Christ beckons us. It’s to be born. Our identities as men go from one birth to another. And from birth to birth, we’ll each end up bringing to the world the child of God that we are. The Incarnation, for us, is to allow the filial reality of Jesus to embody itself in our humanity. The mystery of Incarnation remains what we are going to live.” - Fr. Christian
“I was recently reading this “pensée” of Pascal’s: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it for religious conviction.” Here there is confusion and violence. We are in a “risky” situation but we persist in our faith and our confidence in God. It is through poverty, failure and death that we advance towards him. Heavy and devastating downpours have not curbed the violence that is infiltrating itself everywhere. Two opponents are present, one wants to hold on to power, the other seize it. They are fighting with their backs against the wall. I don’t know when or how it will all end. In the meantime, I perform my duty… Caring for the poor and the sick, awaiting for the day or the time to close my eyes. My dear friend, pray for me, may my exit from this world be done in the peace and joy of Jesus.” - Fr. Jean-Luc
Quotes source.
Trappist Martyrs of Atlas
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