Salve Regina

Tradition, Legends and the Holy Cross

2011-09-12T09:20:00.003-07:00

This story is so interesting that I shamelessly ripped it from the Aquinas & More Catholic Goods newsletter. Saint Helen is my patron saint, as well.

First, a quick quiz:

The true cross was carried through Jerusalem by ______.

A. Christ
B. Simon of Cyrene
C. The Holy Roman Emperor
D. All the Above

Every Christian and non-Christian alike knows that Our Lord carried the cross through Jerusalem, and if you've ever said the Stations of the Cross then you probably know that Simon of Cyrene was coerced into helping Him for part of the way. What you might not know is that the True Cross would one-day be carried through the streets again on the back of the Holy Roman Emperor.

There is a fascination with the True Cross that on some levels exceeds other mysterious artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail and the legend is better than anything Spielberg could concoct. Monsignor Ronald Knox says of the cross that it bears many symbolic similarities with things in the Old Testament. It reminds us of the Ark, the healing serpent of Moses, and the tree in Eden.

The first legend says that when Adam lay on his death bed, the Archangel Michael appeared to his son Seth and gave him a seed from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Seth placed this seed in the mouth of Adam when he was buried.

From Adam's mouth grew a tree which was chopped down centuries later. For an unknown reason, the wood couldn't be used for anything so it was thrown across a river to serve as a bridge. On her journey to see Solomon, the Queen of Sheba was approaching this bridge when she received a vision which prephesied that Our Saviour would one day hang upon this wood. The queen hurried to King Solomon to tell him the story, which he immediately understood as a warning message.

Solomon feared that the death of the Messiah would also mean the destruction of his kingdom so he ordered that the tree be removed from the river and hidden. But a thousand years later the wood was found and it was used to make the Cross.

After Our Lord's crucifixion, the Emperors saw Christianity as a threat and tried to eradicate the memory of the Passion from people's minds by building over the places of veneration. By the early second century Golgotha was no longer a desolate hill top used for executions. Instead there stood a statue of Jupiter and a temple to Venus where pagans offered their sacrifices.

It was in 313 after the Edict of Milan had been signed that Christianity became legal again in the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine received a vision of a cross high in the sky and saw the words, “By this sign you shall conquer.” Enthusiastic about the promise, Constantine sent his mother, Helen, to Jerusalem to find the Cross which had not been seen for three hundred years.

In Jerusalem there was only one man who knew where the cross was hidden: a Jew by the name of Judas. After heavy persuasion the Jewish man revealed that the cross was buried under the temple of Venus. Dedicated to her mission, St. Helen ordered the demolition of the temple and the excavation of the ground underneath.

They found the tomb of Christ and only a short distance away, instruments of the Passion and all three crosses used on Calvary that day. Legend says that the True Cross was exposed by touching the crosses to a boy who had just died. When the True Cross touched the boy, he was brought back to life.

This miraculous event was witnessed by many and caused many Jews, including Judas, to seek baptism. (Judas quickly changed his name to Kyriakus.) He would eventually be appointed bishop of Jerusalem and suffer a martyr's death under the tyrannical reign of Julian the Apostate in 363.

Upon the excavation site, Constantine ordered that a Christian church be built to house the venerable relics. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built and would be consecrated on September 13, 335.

For three hundred years the cross sat in peace until the Persian Emperor Khosrau II defeated the Roman army and sacked the holy city of Jerusalem and turned thousands of Christians into slaves. Among the plundered items were the instruments of the Passion and the Holy Cross. The relics remained in exile for fourteen years when in 627 Emperor Heraclius conquered the Persian army and recaptured the Cross. (Some sources indicate that he received the Cross as part of the negotiations after the war.)

In any case, the Emperor returned to Jerusalem to reinstate the Cross with great fanfare. The legend says that Heraclius was initially going to carry the Cross by horseback, but as he entered the city, the weight became too great. It was only after he attempted to bear the weight himself that it was light enough to carry.

Then, when he reached the gates Golgotha, he found his way blocked by an angel. The angel said that since Christ carried the Cross in all humility, he must follow in the same manner. When he had removed his golden crown, purple robes and shoes, the way was opened and he was able to carry the Cross into the church.

Little is known about the True Cross after this period. Splinters of it were dispersed and can be found wherever Christians are found. The largest pieces can be found in Notre Dame, Pisa Cathedral, Florence Cathedral, and Santa Croce in Rome.

Prayer for Purity

2011-08-25T13:26:00.001-07:00

Jesus, Lover of chastity, Mary, Mother most pure, and Saint Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin, to you I come at this hour, begging you to plead with God for me. I earnestly wish to be pure in thought, word and deed in imitation of your own holy purity.

Obtain for me, then, a deep sense of modesty which will be reflected in my external conduct. Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul, from anything that might dim the luster of a heart that must mirror only Christlike purity.

And when the “Bread of Angels becomes the Bread of me” in my heart at Holy Communion, seal it forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures.

Heart of Jesus, Fount of all purity, have mercy on us.

Rocking their way to Hell

2011-05-19T06:59:00.007-07:00

There is a punk rock band in Vancouver desecrating all things holy by putting out a very blasphemous album. If you click on this link, I guarantee the news story will repulse you. I only read a portion of it, then I immediately prayed the Golden Arrow Prayer, which was given to us by Jesus Himself to make reparation for blashpemies such as this. And guess what? They received funding from the government of Canada to produce this garbage.

THE "GOLDEN ARROW" PRAYER

MAY the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified, in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.

There is much more information on this devotion here.

The (not so) Dead Donor Rule Revisited

2011-05-16T19:31:00.001-07:00

Wow, I have been away for awhile!

I received an article on organ donation today, that was published in August, 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine. I am not an advocate of organ donation, and I have come under fire in previous posts from those who are. You can click on this link to read it, or just read what I copied below.

Organ Donation after Cardiac Death

In this issue of the Journal, Boucek et al. (pages 709–714) report on three cases of heart transplantation from infants who were pronounced dead on the basis of cardiac criteria. The three Perspective articles and a video roundtable discussion at www.nejm.org address key ethical aspects of organ donation after cardiac death. Bernat and Veatch comment on the cases described by Boucek et al.; Truog and Miller raise a fundamental question about the dead donor rule. In a related Perspective roundtable, moderator Atul Gawande, of Harvard Medical School, is joined by George Annas, of the Boston University School of Public Health; Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania; and Robert Truog. Watch the roundtable online at www.nejm.org.

Since its inception, organ transplantation has been guided by the overarching ethical requirement known as the dead donor rule, which simply states that patients must be declared dead before the removal of any vital organs for transplantation. Before the development of modern critical care, the diagnosis of death was relatively straightforward: patients were dead when they were cold, blue, and stiff. Unfortunately, organs from these traditional cadavers cannot be used for transplantation. Forty years ago, an ad hoc committee at Harvard Medical School, chaired by Henry Beecher, suggested revising the definition of death in a way that would make some patients with devastating neurologic injury suitable for organ transplantation under the dead donor rule.1

The concept of brain death has served us well and has been the ethical and legal justification for thousands of lifesaving donations and transplantations. Even so, there have been persistent questions about whether patients with massive brain injury, apnea, and loss of brain-stem reflexes are really dead. After all, when the injury is entirely intracranial, these patients look very much alive: they are warm and pink; they digest and metabolize food, excrete waste, undergo sexual maturation, and can even reproduce. To a casual observer, they look just like patients who are receiving long-term artificial ventilation and are asleep.

The arguments about why these patients should be considered dead have never been fully convincing. The definition of brain death requires the complete absence of all functions of the entire brain, yet many of these patients retain essential neurologic function, such as the regulated secretion of hypothalamic hormones.2 Some have argued that these patients are dead because they are permanently unconscious (which is true), but if this is the justification, then patients in a permanent vegetative state, who breathe spontaneously, should also be diagnosed as dead, a characterization that most regard as implausible. Others have claimed that “brain-dead” patients are dead because their brain damage has led to the “permanent cessation of functioning of the organism as a whole.”3 Yet evidence shows that if these patients are supported beyond the acute phase of their illness (which is rarely done), they can survive for many years.4 The uncomfortable conclusion to be drawn from this literature is that although it may be perfectly ethical to remove vital organs for transplantation from patients who satisfy the diagnostic criteria of brain death, the reason it is ethical cannot be that we are convinced they are really dead.

Over the past few years, our reliance on the dead donor rule has again been challenged, this time by the emergence of donation after cardiac death as a pathway for organ donation. Under protocols for this type of donation, patients who are not brain-dead but who are undergoing an orchestrated withdrawal of life support are monitored for the onset of cardiac arrest. In typical protocols, patients are pronounced dead 2 to 5 minutes after the onset of asystole (on the basis of cardiac criteria), and their organs are expeditiously removed for transplantation. Although everyone agrees that many patients could be resuscitated after an interval of 2 to 5 minutes, advocates of this approach to donation say that these patients can be regarded as dead because a decision has been made not to attempt resuscitation.

This understanding of death is problematic at several levels. The cardiac definition of death requires the irreversible cessation of cardiac function. Whereas the common understanding of “irreversible” is “impossible to reverse,” in this context irreversibility is interpreted as the result of a choice not to reverse. This interpretation creates the paradox that the hearts of patients who have been declared dead on the basis of the irreversible loss of cardiac function have in fact been transplanted and have successfully functioned in the chest of another. Again, although it may be ethical to remove vital organs from these patients, we believe that the reason it is ethical cannot convincingly be that the donors are dead.

At the dawn of organ transplantation, the dead donor rule was accepted as an ethical premise that did not require reflection or justification, presumably because it appeared to be necessary as a safeguard against the unethical removal of vital organs from vulnerable patients. In retrospect, however, it appears that reliance on the dead donor rule has greater potential to undermine trust in the transplantation enterprise than to preserve it. At worst, this ongoing reliance suggests that the medical profession has been gerrymandering the definition of death to carefully conform with conditions that are most favorable for transplantation. At best, the rule has provided misleading ethical cover that cannot withstand careful scrutiny. A better approach to procuring vital organs while protecting vulnerable patients against abuse would be to emphasize the importance of obtaining valid informed consent for organ donation from patients or surrogates before the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment in situations of devastating and irreversible neurologic injury.5

What has been the cost of our continued dependence on the dead donor rule? In addition to fostering conceptual confusion about the ethical requirements of organ donation, it has compromised the goals of transplantation for donors and recipients alike. By requiring organ donors to meet flawed definitions of death before organ procurement, we deny patients and their families the opportunity to donate organs if the patients have devastating, irreversible neurologic injuries that do not meet the technical requirements of brain death. In the case of donation after cardiac death, the ischemia time inherent in the donation process necessarily diminishes the value of the transplants by reducing both the quantity and the quality of the organs that can be procured.

Many will object that transplantation surgeons cannot legally or ethically remove vital organs from patients before death, since doing so will cause their death. However, if the critiques of the current methods of diagnosing death are correct, then such actions are already taking place on a routine basis. Moreover, in modern intensive care units, ethically justified decisions and actions of physicians are already the proximate cause of death for many patients — for instance, when mechanical ventilation is withdrawn. Whether death occurs as the result of ventilator withdrawal or organ procurement, the ethically relevant precondition is valid consent by the patient or surrogate. With such consent, there is no harm or wrong done in retrieving vital organs before death, provided that anesthesia is administered. With proper safeguards, no patient will die from vital organ donation who would not otherwise die as a result of the withdrawal of life support. Finally, surveys suggest that issues related to respect for valid consent and the degree of neurologic injury may be more important to the public than concerns about whether the patient is already dead at the time the organs are removed.

In sum, as an ethical requirement for organ donation, the dead donor rule has required unnecessary and unsupportable revisions of the definition of death. Characterizing the ethical requirements of organ donation in terms of valid informed consent under the limited conditions of devastating neurologic injury is ethically sound, optimally respects the desires of those who wish to donate organs, and has the potential to maximize the number and quality of organs available to those in need.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the National Institutes of Health, the Public Health Service, or the Department of Health and Human Services.

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Source Information
Dr. Truog is a professor of medical ethics and anesthesia (pediatrics) in the Departments of Anesthesia and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Division of Critical Care Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston — both in Boston. Dr. Miller is a faculty member in the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD

We are all Wretched

2011-03-27T08:27:00.007-07:00

According to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, we are no longer wretched sinners. Now we just need to be strengthened. Today, for the closing hymn, our choir sang Amazing Grace, at least what's left of it after it fell under the axe of the CCCB.

The opening lines that we are so familiar with are supposed to go like this:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

But now they read:

Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved and strengthened me.

Excuse me, I'm about to be sick. Good old Catholic Book of Modern Worship.

Blessed be God

2011-03-17T17:31:00.004-07:00

I just got a new prayer book called Blessed Be God. It's a reprint of a 1960 prayer book, complete with the Latin Tridentine Mass prayers. This little book walks you through the path to sanctity starting from when you wake up to when you go to bed at night. It is well worth the cover price. One of my favourite prayers is this one, by Saint Alphonsus, said before retiring for the night:

Lord Jesus Christ, my God, I adore Thee and thank Thee for all the blessings Thou hast conferred upon me this day. I offer Thee my rest and all the moments of this night, and I beseech Thee to protect me from all sin. Therefore I place myself within the most Sacred wound of Thy side, and under the protecting mantle of Mary, my Mother.

May Thy holy angels assist me and preserve me in peace. May Thy blessing be upon me forevermore.

Lenten Penance

2011-03-14T14:21:00.004-07:00

Wow, I just checked in to my blog to get a recipe for Friday night dinner, and I had to delete about two hundred spam comments! It is Lent now, and I just wanted to tell you all that this year I didn't give up food or drink like I usually do. I didn't even give up entertainment or the internet. I used to fast for all of Lent (except Sundays) and I thought I would do that forever, because it's such good penance. Plus I generally lose about six pounds!

Nope, this year I am not depriving myself of any temporal pleasures, because I have something better to offer God. On the advice of a good priest, I am putting into practice a spiritual mortification. Remember I posted here about Psalm 140 (3&4) in a post called A Prayer for Loose Lips? The psalm goes like this, and my Lenten penance is to perfect the practice of this psalm.

Set a watch , O Lord, before my mouth, and a door around my lips. May my heart not incline to evil words, to make excuses for sins.

The first few days were indeed hard, but it is getting easier to remember not to be so quick to answer every question or statement, and to actually keep silent on many things that really don't need a response. It's not my nature to do this, and it is indeed hard!

How is your Lent going?

Vacation and a prayer request

2010-11-30T06:00:00.004-08:00

I am off to Winnipeg for a week, so probably won't be posting anything til I get back. I am bringing my camera, but not my laptop. I hope to have a computer-free week so I can finish reading Victories of the Martyrs by Saint Alphonsus Liguori.

May I ask everyone to pray for a special intention of mine?

High-Tech Scrabble

2010-11-27T13:35:00.003-08:00

If you have an IPhone, there is an app called "Words with Friends" you can download for free. It is a game of Scrabble, and you can play it with your friends or anonymous people. Here's my tip: Go to Lexical Word Finder, and put all the moves (yours and your opponents) on the Lexical screen as they are played. This website finds the highest scoring letter and word combinations possible. Now you are armed to always win, if that is your thing!

Hey, Tom, you wanna play?

Quote of the Day

2010-11-24T12:51:00.002-08:00

Here is the best quote I have ever found about hope, and it's from the Bible. (Romans 5:3,4)

Tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope.

Trials produce hope. Without trial there is no hope. Pretty simplistic, isn't it?

Have your say!

2010-11-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

Weigh in with your vote on Euthansia in this CBC poll.

How big is God?

2010-11-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

If you get EWTN

2010-11-20T07:49:00.005-08:00

...you won't want to miss this! I received this via email today, and copied the whole text with images, even including ordering information, to this post:

This week, join EWTN host Doug Keck and translator Susan Conroy in a discussion of the prophetic book that led St. Thérèse of Lisieux into the convent.

EWTN Bookmark

Sunday:
9:30 am & 11:30 pm
Eastern Time

Monday:
5 am

Wednesday:
5:30 pm

Over a decade ago, Susan Conroy, one of Mother Teresa's helpers in Calcutta, embarked on a remarkable seven-year quest to find a copy of the book that (in her autobiography) St. Thérèse of Lisieux called "one of the greatest graces of my life": The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life.

Thérèse first read this book by Fr. Charles Arminjon in May of 1887, when she was only fourteen years old. She said that it "immersed her in a happiness not of this world." It gave her a "presentiment of what God reserves eternally for those who love Him."

It inspired her to love our Lord Jesus even more ardently --- to love Him, she said, "with passion."

Very shortly after reading this book, with her heart aflame with the desire to give everything to God, Thérèse requested and obtained her father's permission to enter the cloistered Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux.

Yet, mysteriously, soon after Thérèse entered the convent, Fr. Arminjon's book fell into obscurity. One hundred years after Thérèse read it, it took Susan Conroy almost a decade to find even one single copy!

But time had not diminished its force. Reading that French edition enkindled in Susan a spiritual fire akin to that experienced by Thérèse, and Susan devoted the next eleven years to getting it translated into English and finally published.

The End of the Present World
and the Mysteries of the Future Life
by Fr. Charles Arminjon.
336 pgs ppbk $17.95

Contents:
End of the Present World

1.
The End of the World:
The Signs that Will Precede and the Circumstances That Will Accompany It

2.
The Persecution by the Antichrist and the Conversion of the Jews

3.
The Resurrection of the Dead and the General Judgment

4.
The Place of Immortal Life and the State of Glorified Bodies after the Resurrection

5.
Purgatory

6.
Eternal Punishment and the Unfortunate Destiny

7.
Eternal Beatitude and the Supernatural Vision of God

8.
Christian Sacrifice, the Means of Redemption

9.
The Mystery of Suffering in its Relationship with the Future Life

To order online now or call
1-800-888-9344
www.SophiaInstitute.com

On EWTN this weekend and next week, Susan tells of her long quest and of this remarkable book, particularly those parts that enflamed Thérèse with a love of God that led her into the convent, and that, over a century later, drove Susan herself to find the book and make it available to modern readers.

Don't miss Susan
--- and St. Thérèse! ---
this week on EWTN:

EWTN Bookmark

Sunday:
9:30 am & 11:30 pm
Eastern Time

Monday:
5 am

Wednesday:
5:30 pm

Don't miss it!

Snow!

2010-11-16T08:23:00.005-08:00

The first snowfall of the year came today. It's cold enough for it to stay. At least the dogs will be cleaner; no more running into the house with muddy paws!

And the hot tub (in the picture above) will be even more welcoming. I just need to brave the cold to get the courage to step outside into its warmth. It always amazes me how one does not feel cold in an outdoor hot tub, even in very cold weather.

Today is my day off, as I teach catechism on Tuesdays, but I have already heard the ambulance go screeching out several times. The first snowfall of the year tends to catch drivers off guard and they rush into intersections, forgetting they need more time and distance to come to a stop. It pays to be a defensive driver, and I hope everyone has their snow tires on by now.

Christmas is just around the corner, you know!

2010-11-12T13:30:00.002-08:00

Today is a house cleaning day for me, and that means listening to music. It just helps the chores to get done faster. I loaded my CD player with 5 Christmas CD's - St. Michael's Boy's Choir, The Canadian Tenors, and Mark Donelly's new CD (he is the choir director and tenor at my FSSP Church in Vancouver), and an old CD by Susan Aglukark. Which brings me to a question - have any of you started listening to Christmas carols yet?

It's almost time for Christmas shopping, as well. For the last few years, I have been in the habit of saving money all year long in a separate account that is earmarked for Christmas. I much prefer that to the scrambling to make ends meet that I have done in the past. I find I don't miss the money I am placing in this account, and by this time of year, I can start my Christmas shopping without any concern for credit card bills in January.

A few years ago at this time of year, the funniest thing happened. I bought my husband a gift I knew he wanted. It was a record player that also converted old records to CD's. I brought it home and showed it to our daughter to see what she thought. She burst out laughing! It took a full five minutes to find out why she thought it was so funny. Eventually she stopped laughing and told me that both her parents had each gone out and bought a gift for the other that they had already bought for themselves.

Just the week before I had purchased a beautiful nativity set that was on sale for half price. I couldn`t resist it, as I had always wanted one like it. It turned out my husband had also seen it, and knowing I would like it, he bought it for me. That`s what had my daughter in stitches! Knowing each others tastes so well, we had both bought the exact thing that each of us had just purchased for ourselves!

Thought for the Day

2010-11-09T08:17:00.003-08:00

What if every time we went to receive Holy Communion, instead of a half-hearted abstract love for Jesus, we actually felt an intense burning love for Him and a great desire to be united to Him, so much so that we actually felt our heart burning inside our chest? Can you imagine the graces and love we would receive in return?

This was my thought on Sunday immediately after I received Holy Communion; after I had gone up to receive with nothing more to offer than a tepid love.

"When you are to communicate, desire to have all the love which any soul has ever had for Me, and I will accept your love in proportion to the ardor with which you wish for it."- Jesus to Saint Mechtilde

Who am I?

2010-11-08T17:05:00.003-08:00

Time for another round of "Who am I?" In the picture below, there is a baby. You can click on the image to enlarge it for detail. Who is the baby?

It won't do to right click and hit save - I have deleted the info for the picture! Guess away!

Back Again!

2010-11-08T06:35:00.013-08:00

The incredibly beautiful Kootenay Lake.

Hello everyone! I haven't disappeared from the blogging world; I have just been taking time off with my family. I know that I very seldom post anything personal or family related on my blog, but the reason I have been absent is that my husband works away from home, spending a lot of time in Eastern Canada. He is always back and forth between Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, so I decided to make the best of our family life these past few weeks and take a break from blogging so we could do things together as a family. (Yes, blogging really does take up that much time!)

I will be posting again this week though, as he returns to his hectic away-from-home schedule. I want to show you a few pictures I took since I posted last - these are pictures of our stay at the lake, which was all too short, in my opinion!

Our two dogs enjoying a boat ride

Enjoying a few moments of peace in Kaslo, the north end of Kootenay Lake where we always vacation.

My turn

Serene and peaceful, isn't it?

Knock, knock, beware

2010-10-26T06:36:00.003-07:00

Can you imagine answering your door and being assaulted by a psychotic person who stabs your neck with a pen, beats your head in and then drinks your blood? That's exactly what happened to Bishop Monroe of Kamloops, as he answered the rectory door on Friday evening. I know Kamloops well; my dad and my brother live there, and we go to Mass at the Cathedral every time we are visiting Kamloops. It is inconceivable that this could happen - priests answer the door for every person in need, and turn no one away. The priest who came to the Bishop's aid separated his right shoulder in the ensuing scuffle, and was quoted on the news as saying that right now, they are praying for forgiveness as well as the Bishop's recovery.

This whole story is so bizarre; one would never expect it to happen in one of your own Catholic neighbourhoods. Let's all pray for Bishop Monroe's recovery, as well as for the psychotic man who assaulted him.

5 Days of Vacation

2010-10-20T10:08:00.002-07:00

I won't be online for the next five days, as we are heading to the lake for some fishing and R & R. Above is a picture of Kootenay Lake, where our little getaway is waiting for us. No internet, no noise, no alarm clocks, and no schedule - just five days of peace. I am bringing a few Catholic books, (are there any other kind?) a rosary and my camera. Life is good.

How to Open a Stubborn Jar Lid

2010-10-18T06:44:00.008-07:00

This post may not help you get to heaven, but it will help you to open a really stubborn jar lid. On the other hand, if you lose your temper trying to open a jar lid that won't budge, then maybe it will help you get to heaven!

Yesterday, I learned the simplest little trick for opening a jar lid. You know those rubber bands that hold broccoli stems together? Save them!

All you do is slip the rubber band around the lid and presto! You have all the traction you need to open the lid. It comes off with such ease, it will make you smile.

Please, hold your applause.

Who said this?

2010-10-16T08:46:00.004-07:00

As always, leave your answers in the combox. (No Googling!)

Cartoon from Catholic Cartoon Blog

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.

Friday's Menu

2010-10-15T12:04:00.006-07:00

In this post from last year, I wrote about why Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays. Here is a little excerpt:

The Church, in her wisdom, commands Catholics to abstain from meat in order to control the desires of the flesh, to raise our minds more freely to God, and to make satisfaction for sin. We are to deny ourselves, not because meat is evil, but for the glory of God and the good of our souls. It is a good practice to meditate on the Passion of Christ when we are fasting or abstaining, so that we can best induce in ourselves a proper contrition for our sins. The Baltimore Catechism teaches that fast and abstinence are pleasing to God only when we also refrain from sin and engage in good works.

I try to keep Friday meals fairly simple, in keeping with the above. Tonight I am making something called Jerked Tofu, which I am hoping will please my vegetarian daughter. The recipe sounds really appealing. I am serving it with a simple fried rice, which is a mixture of fried brown rice and stir-fried shredded carrots, a little onion and some thawed green peas. Oh, yes, and some soy sauce mixed in. Very simple to prepare.

What do you make on Fridays? I'd be interested in hearing. Cooking is one of my favourite hobbies.

The real victim

2010-10-13T15:34:00.005-07:00

This heartbreaking and revealing post, from These Stone Walls is a must read. There, but for the grace of God, go you or I.

Who said this?

2010-10-12T21:01:00.001-07:00

Leave your answers in the combox below.

"We think of the great powers of the present day, of the anonymous financial interests which turn men into slaves, which are no longer human things, but are an anonymous power which men serve, by which men are tormented and even slaughtered. They are a destructive power, a power that menaces the world."

"And then the power of the terrorist ideologies. Apparently in God's name, violence is done, but it is not God: they are false divinities, divinities that must be unmasked, that are not God."

"And then drug-trafficking, this power that, like a devouring beast, extends his hands towards every part of the earth and destroys: it is a divinity, but a false divinity, which must fall. Or also the way of life propagated by public opinion: today it is so, marriage is no longer important, chastity is no longer a virtue, and so forth. These ideologies that dominate, so much so that they impose themselves with force, are divinities. And in the suffering of the saints, in the suffering of believers, of the Mother Church of which we are a part, these divinities must fall, it must come to pass what the letters (of St. Paul) to the Colossians and to the Ephesians say: the dominations, the powers fall and become subject to the one Lord Jesus Christ."

Diversity

2010-10-11T20:01:00.005-07:00

As you may know, I no longer have the privilege of attending the Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday, or the privilege of listening to the faith and morals sermons that are a part of it.

This past Sunday, the homily I heard blessed diversity, and the priest told us we should be thankful for diversity. Maybe I just didn't quite get his meaning. After all, the images I conjured up in my mind of diversity screamed acceptance of false religions, acceptance of homosexuality and its lifestyle, and acceptance of false doctrines like the ordination of womenpriests. He even ended the Mass by jokingly calling himself Sister___.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not what the politically correct call a homophobe. I believe that homosexuals and single people are bound together by the Church's declaration that they should live a chaste life. No sex outside of marriage. That seems like a pretty straightforward expectation for both groups.

Womynpriests in their polyester pantsuits will never, no matter how much they want it, be able to consecrate a host. I can't even understand why these womyn haven't gone away yet. Why are people still listening to them? Is it in the name of Diversity?

If I am to be thankful for diversity, I would think it means the blessing of having the Catholic faith spread to the four corners of the earth, so that the evangelization of all the nations, with people of every race and colour, will hear the Word of God and be saved. It means being thankful for so many peoples from around the world building up one nation under God. It means loving one another despite our differences, but it does not mean undermining our faith so as not to offend a false religion. After all, error has no rights - and this is according to none other than Saint Augustine.

I know. Colour me trad.

Offer your Communion for the Holy Souls

2010-10-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Purgatory is a scene of affliction and anguish, inasmuch as God's justice gains compensation for the portion of sacrifice and love we have refused Him here below.

Holy angels, guardians of those blazing chasms, help me to call to mind those souls, so holy and resigned, from the bowels of flames that torment them. Make us recognize among them our fathers, our mothers, our sisters and brothers. Let their cries, so tender and heart-rending, capable of splitting the mountains and mollifying cruelty itself, reach and penetrate our ears.

All the above text is by Father Charles Arminjon, from the book The End of the Present World. Father Arminjon goes on to say, "Saint Jerome and several Doctors are of the opinion that, when the Holy Sacrifice is being offered for the intention of a deceased person, he ceases to suffer the pains of Purgatory for the whole duration of the ceremony."

It is still October, not quite the month of the Holy Souls, but knowing what we do about the Holy Souls, imagine what your offering of Holy Communion can do for them. They can only participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice by our intercession. Our prayers and good works do much to alleviate their suffering, but it is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that earns them the most relief. Remember them at every Mass throughout the year.

Just for Fun

2010-10-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

Canadian Tenors

2010-10-08T11:42:00.005-07:00

Living right across from the high school certainly has its drawbacks. The street right outside our front yard is always littered with fast food garbage and cigarette packages. I would like to go outside at lunch hour one day when the derelicts are gathered in my driveway and hand them all garbage bags. (Then I suppose I would be just be known as the crazy lady who lives too close to the school!) Or worse, they would vandalize our vehicles. Oh, wait, that already happened. This morning, I noticed my passenger mirror was missing, so I checked my husband's truck, and sure enough, his driver side mirror was missing too. I found mine on the ground and re-installed it, but his was nowhere to be seen. It's probably in the bedroom of some teenage derelict who is using it to straighten her hair, apply her makeup or check her cleavage.

On another note, I hurt my back at work yesterday - not lifting a heavy patient, but cleaning the bathroom as per our regular duties for down time in between calls. I look like an old lady, walking with a hunch back, as I can't stand up straight yet. My teenage daughter actually laughed out loud when she saw my walking posture. Lots of ice, visits to my chiropractor, and some anti-inflammatories should have me upright in a few days.

The good thing about being home from work is I get to listen to my new Canadian Tenors CD, The Perfect Gift. For just $20, you can purchase yourself this amazing CD in time for Christmas. (Don`t I sound like an advertisement?) They do a beautiful rendition of Instrument of Peace, and their version of O Holy Night will knock your Santa socks right off your feet; there are many more. I highly recommend it to round out your Christmas music repertoire.

To listen to more from this album, here is the You Tube link. Now I really must go put ice on my back.

Stone Walls and the Falsely Accused

2010-10-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

“There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.” Bill Donohue, Catholic League President

Psalm 141:7 Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. [8] Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the just wait for me, until thou reward me.

Before I happened upon the blog, These Stone Walls, it never occurred to me that there were priests in prison who had been falsely accused of sexual abuse. Who knew? (That's a rhetorical question!)

It is utterly unthinkable that people would "cash in" on the Church's misery of the sex abuse scandal by laying claim to hundreds of thousands of dollars by lying about being sexually abused by a priest. But that's exactly what happened to Father Gordon MacRrae. His story has been well documented in the sixteen years Father has spent in prison. Had he confessed to guilt, he would have been out in less than three years. But Father MacRae maintains his innocence, doing penance in prison since 1994 for crimes he did not commit.

I urge you to read this post. I urge you to read These Stone Walls. It is authored by Father MacRae from his prison cell, though he has never seen his own blog. He types the posts on a typewriter from his prison cell, and sends them by mail to a friend who scans the posts to send on to Australia for publishing, complete with graphics. Father MacRae only gets to see the posts after his friends print them out and mail them to him.

Please pray for the falsely accused. Please pray for Father Gordon MacRae.

What I am Reading

2010-10-04T22:46:00.006-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend gave me the book, The End of the Present World, (and the Mysteries of the Future Life) by Father Charles Arminjon. It was written in the late 1800's, and was read by Saint Therese of Lisieux at the age of fourteen. St. Therese stated: Reading this book was one of the greatest graces of my life. I read it at the window of my study, and the impression I received from it is too intimate and too sweet for me to express...All the great truths of religion, the mysteries of the eternity, plunged my soul into a happiness not of this earth.

It is a book about the Antichrist. It is a book about the end of the world as we know it. It is about the devastation and treachery of the Antichrist, but it is also about the triumph of Jesus Christ. The book goes into great detail about the the signs that must appear before the end of the world; the signs of the Antichrist and how to recognize him; the four last things, and how not to be deceived.

I can`t put it down. I am going to pass it on to Shirley after I read it.

The Priests

2010-10-03T13:07:00.005-07:00

Have you heard of The Priests? They can sing! Have a listen to a wonderful harmonic version of Panis Angelicus, above, and below, Irish Blessing. You can order their CD's from Amazon. It certainly is unusual for priests to be touring concerts and recording CD's. They all have voices that glorify God. I like that they perform in their clerical clothing.

Psalm for Obama

2010-09-30T18:29:00.002-07:00

From the King James Bible, here is prayer for Obama -

Psalm 109:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

In Honour of the Archangels - from the archives

2010-09-29T00:01:00.005-07:00

(Originally created and published in Sept 2008)

On September 29 the Catholic Church honours the Archangels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael in the new calendar, and the traditional calendar honours St Michael (Michaelmas Day). Saint Michael, being the patron of paramedics, holds a special place in my prayer intentions.

Click on any picture to enlarge it for more detail.

Saint Michael is given by the Church the highest place among the angels, for she refers to him as the "Prince of the heavenly hosts." Here Saint Michael leads the angels in their heavenly battle against Lucifer and his legions of disobedient angels when Lucifer's pride caused him to rebel against God and seek His throne.

St. Michael answered the call of the rebel angels with his warrior's cry of fidelity to God, "Who is like unto God? I believe and I adore." The devil shudders with terror every time we call upon the name of this triumphant heavenly marshal.

Saint Michael never ceases to wage war against the devil. He has been honoured since the earliest times, and the Church recognizes the exalted power and dignity that God has bestowed on this heavenly warrior, the dragon-slayer; the defender of Christians; the helper of the dying; the champion of the Church.

Almighty and Everlasting God, Who by a prodigy of goodness and a merciful desire for the salvation of all men, hast appointed the most glorious Archangel Saint Michael as Prince of Thy Church, make us worthy, we beseech Thee, to be delivered by his powerful protection from all our enemies, that none of them may harass us at the hour of our death, but that we may be conducted by him into the august presence of Thy Divine Majesty. This we beg through the merits of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Saint Raphael is the angel of peace, health and joy, and is best known for his role as the heavenly guide that God sent Tobias on his long and perilous journey to recover the money his father, now old and blind, had lent to a friend.

Here, Raphael appears to Tobias, with the salutation, "Joy be to thee always." The name Raphael signifies "Medicine of God," and indeed St. Raphael appears to be at the head of the angelic medical staff!

When Tobias was attacked by a great fish, Saint Raphael not only saved Tobias, but extracted the heart, gall and liver of the fish and later used it as a medicinal remedy.

Raphael secured a happy marriage for Tobias; a marriage that was truly made in heaven.

The Archangel Raphael, after the marriage of Tobias, left the young man with his new bride, and went himself to recover the money they had come to seek.

Upon returning from their journey, God's physician presents the gall from the fish that Tobias will use to anoint his father's eyes and cure his blindness. Saint Raphael is the angel sent in God's Providence to guide and guard, heal and save.

Tobias and his father offer half of their new-found wealth to Saint Raphael, as a thank you to him. Raphael refuses and reveals his angelic identity, telling them both to instead give thanks to God in heaven. Tobias 12:6-15"Bless ye the God of heaven, give glory to him in the sight of all that live, because he hath shewn his mercy to you...When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord. [13] And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee. [14] And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara thy son's wife from the devil. [15] For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord.

O Saint Raphael, Medicine of God, Angel of happy meetings, of peace and of joy, we beseech thee, cure our infirmities of soul and body in virtue of the Divine Blood, source of all healing graces.

Gabriel, the "Strength of God," as his name means, is God's ambassador. His greatest mission was to announce the Incarnation and God's mighty work of the Redemption. Here, Saint Gabriel kneels and speaks those timeless words which will be echoed for all eternity, "Hail, full of grace."

Notice the humility that Mary displays at the presence of the Archangel Gabriel. Yet, notice too, how Gabriel is crouched before Mary in his own act of humility as he absorbs the sanctity and dignity of this most holy and humble Virgin whom God has chosen to be the Mother of Jesus.

Gabriel's announcement of the birth of Jesus echoes through the hills of Bethlehem as all of heaven resounds with the glorious hymn, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth among men of good will."

Gabriel, on another of his heavenly assignments, accompanies the Holy Family on their flight into Egypt.

Gabriel is the angel who comforted Our Lord in His agony in the garden. Jesus invited Peter, James and John into the garden to pray and watch with Him, but they slept, leaving Jesus to the comfort of an angel. Saint Gabriel strengthened Jesus, comforting Him with hope, peace, reverence and sympathy, giving him a heavenly chalice to drink from.

O Blessed Archangel Gabriel, we beseech thee, do thou intercede for us at the throne of divine Mercy in our present necessities, that as thou didst announce to Mary the mystery of the Incarnation, so through thy prayers and patronage in heaven we may obtain the benefits of the same, and sing the praise of God forever in the land of the living. Amen.

Christmas and the Souls in Purgatory - A Letter from a Reader

2010-09-28T08:01:00.002-07:00

+ J.M.J +

Dear Catholic Faithful,

The subject of this letter is – The Souls in Purgatory

I know we aren’t anywhere near the month of November but with our family the Holy Souls are a year round and daily focus. However, after last year's experience, we learned that what we are about to present needs to be put out there early, if it is to happen in time for Christmas.

We would like to present to you our “Souls in Purgatory Christmas Mass Campaign” which started by God letting a number of things fall into place. Then Mom had an inspiration to act upon these things and get the whole family involved. We have a great devotion to the Holy Souls and have a number of Masses a month said for them, in the traditional rite.

As is our custom, during our evening meal, as a family, we listen to a sermon, some times two, by Traditional priests in the USA, which we get off the internet. There are 3 wonderful sites with tons of great audio sermons. These sermons are such a blessing to our family and such an aid to help us grow in the Faith. The odd meal without them feels like something is missing… which it is, “And Jesus answered him: It is written, that Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God.” Lk4:4 These sermons teach us how to live the Faith.

However, after hearing one sermon, Mom was really touched. In this sermon he mentioned that although he had a large parish, he was disappointed that there was not one request for a Mass for the souls in purgatory, that he could celebrate on Christmas. Therefore, he was going to celebrate one of his three Christmas Masses, himself, for this intention. He reminded us that they are so little remembered on this day and that it is such an important day for them, as more souls are released on this day than any other feast day, according to private revelation.

Mom felt it would be a good thing to create a family Christmas Mass campaign for the Poor Souls and get as many traditional priests to offer one of their Christmas Masses for them. She spoke to all of us, in the immediate family (near and far) and it was decided since we are all getting older and have everything we really need, what better way to spend our Christmas money. Who really needs another useless and worldly knickknack? Therefore, last year, instead of giving gifts to one another, we put this money towards Masses for the Poor Souls and added some extra money for each of these priests, as the Mass stipends are what they have for their personal funds. Each diocese has it’s own customary Mass stipend, so you’ll need to find out what it is for your area. Once we had a grand total, we figured out how many Masses we could have said, as to know how many priests to contact.

Thus started a “writing campaign” in Sept to have Traditional priests from across Canada, for this intention. Our goal was, “From Coast to Coast, Canada will not be forgetful of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.”

With their busy schedule, we sure did not expect the priests we wrote to, to reply with a letter. We had placed it in God’s hands. Of the 11 priests we wrote to, we had 5 confirmed for Christmas Day (one of these being a Midnight Mass, which was a joy and even more than we’d hoped for) and 3 accepted but we weren’t told the date. One had already committed to a Novena of Masses, starting Christmas Day but would do it on Dec 23. One was booked but passed it on to another Traditional priest to offer it instead of himself. One had to return the Mass stipend, saying he was booked solid until Aug 2010. In the end, with the Traditional priests we knew from across Canada (there are many more Traditional priests across Canada that we do not know), we attained our goal of coast to coast, even if we were missing a truly coast to coast to coast coverage, because some provinces we didn’t know a priest to contact but I’m sure God was pleased with the effort and the Holy Souls will ask Him to pour out some mercy on Canada, as we sure need it…, as do all the other countries in the world

I know many have a great devotion to the Holy Souls, and with the success of our little effort, last year, Mom with great excitement, wants to make it be a world wide campaign. Therefore, we have the audacity to ask you to consider adding one more thing to for you to consider, for the sake of the Poor Souls. Through all of you, maybe Mom’s hope will be realized, in possibly making this a worldwide campaign. It is something we’d like to see started even if we will not know who will be participating or what the actual results will be (except for our own efforts in the matter) as it is all in God’s care and some things are not meant for us to know this side of Heaven.

By presenting this to our favorite bloggers, with an international following, we truly believe a ripple effect will be created, just as that sermon started a ripple effect. We wrote this priest last Christmas and told him of this and our success and that we would try to make it be an international idea, for 2010. We let him know his message does get through to people and good is resulting from his words. Sometimes it must seem like an uphill battle for priests and to send words of encouragement and tell them how they are making a difference, can bring them consolation and renew their courage and hope to persevere in the battle of saving souls.

This year we are especially moved by 2 paragraphs from the book “Padre Pio The Wonder Worker” which state,

“In his various letters that he wrote concerning the souls in Purgatory Padre Pio consistently made three points: 1)The importance of the Sacrifice of the Mass for the release of the souls in Purgatory; 2) the deceased still live spiritually among us and have not left us at all; 3) the importance of resignation to God’s will on the death of a loved one, because this is extremely efficacious for the release of their soul from Purgatory.

The souls often forgotten by many of us had a very special place in Padre Pio’s life; in fact they were consistently remembered in his daily prayers and Masses. On one occasion, while in conversation with some friars who were questioning him on the importance of his prayers in their favor, Padre Pio said: “More souls of the dead from Purgatory than of the living climb this mountain to attend my Masses and seek my prayers.”

What an amazing statement! During the fifty-two years he spent at San Giovanni Rottondo he was visited by multitudes of people; yet he made this statement, pointing out that his contact with the souls of the dead exceeded those of the living. Something to consider the next time you attend a funeral where the deceased is “canonized” before he is buried!”

We all have deceased we should be praying for and also for those forgotten souls who have no one to pray for them. The Souls in Purgatory can never be ungrateful and anything we do for them, they will repay us in ways that will be priceless. “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead” “After they have reached Heaven, they will become our protector and save us from perils.” (2Mac.12:46; St Catherine of Genoa) We also know that if we remember them, while we are living, God will make sure we are remembered, should we have the misfortune of not going straight to heaven and must pay our debt there.

We are not asking you to do what we did and are doing again this year (letters are already sent out) in make it a coast to coast thing in your own respective countries, but if you each could consider having (1) ONE Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered for the Holy Souls, to be said on Christmas Day, or within the Octave of Christmas, in your own parish, or by a priest you know elsewhere, the Poor Souls will be most grateful. From one pole of the Earth to the other, may this Christmas see the Holy Souls not forgotten but given these priceless Christmas gifts.

A special plea is being sent out to those of you in Canada, who know Traditional priests, to seriously consider this, so that maybe this year all the provinces will be represented, for a truly Coast to Coast remembrance of them.

Those of you who decide to participate need to act on this NOW. If you wait and only do it later than mid-October, your chances are much smaller, that your request for a Christmas Mass, will be able to be considered. this is because many Traditional priests are booked for months ahead with Mass requests.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Masses all around the world being offered for the Holy Souls. What joy there will be in Heaven to see all these souls delivered from their torments. May our hearts be gladdened when we consider that they will be rejoicing in their first Christmas in Heaven because the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for their release.

It would be great to see the ripple effect of this sermon, which started this, spread across the whole world. By this being posted here, you all in turn can each reach so much further than our family can. From here, it may go to a blog, then to another blog, to another blog… Once it is on the net, God can work it to go where He would like to see it go and reach the people who will be moved to do something for the Poor Souls. Besides also placing this cause under the care of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, we also ask these Poor Souls themselves to place the very fire of Heaven upon this effort we are trying to accomplish for them, so that it has a very blessed outcome.
I think Mom’s idea is a good one.

I am adding, to the bottom of this, a basic letter requesting the Mass. We were able to give a more detailed explanation for making the request and our goals, which can’t be translated to a basic letter. But we know half the battle of letter writing is getting started or not knowing what to write. Feel free to use it if you want and to make alterations, as you see fit.

May God bless you all and Mary, refuge of sinners, intercede on all your behalves.

- A Canadian Family, Devoted to the Souls in Purgatory

+ + + + + + + + +

Dear Rev. Fr. ,

This may seem early but before you know it Christmas will soon be upon us. I know you may be booked for months ahead for Mass requests, so I wanted to get this out early. I also realize I cannot ask for a specific date when requesting a Mass.

However, for the sake of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, who are most in need of gifts this Christmas and who are so forgotten and overlooked during these times of joyful festivities, I make bold to ask you, would you offer one of your Christmas Masses for them?

If it is not possible for it to be offered on Christmas, could it be offered during the Octave of Christmas? If you are not able to do it, is there a priest you could past the request on to?

How grateful these Holy Souls will be. What joy will fill all of Heaven to have these saints arrive to spend their first Christmas in Heaven.

Please find enclosed $ for the Mass stipend.

My heart is full of gratitude for such a priceless gift. Thank You.

May God bless you always,

In the Unity of the Two Hearts,

Souls in Purgatory Mass Campaign

2010-09-27T12:01:00.001-07:00

One of my readers has come up with a brilliant idea to have as many Masses said worldwide on Christmas Day for the benefit of the Holy Souls. As you may know, there is a long standing tradition within the Catholic Church that more souls are released from Purgatory on Christmas Day than at any other time.

Now, I challenge you, all my readers and other bloggers: Get thee to your priest right away and ask him to schedule a Mass on Christmas Day for the Holy Souls. Pay him the stipend; whatever it is in your Diocese. I did just that after Sunday's Mass. I was blessed to be in Vancouver, where I got to attend the Low Mass. After Mass I approached the visiting FSSP priest and asked him to say a Mass for the Holy Souls on Christmas. He agreed to do so and asked me if I would like the Midnight Mass. He scheduled it into his IPhone right then and there, and told me it may very well be a private Mass; one of his three Masses he can say daily.

Tomorrow, I will post the letter from the reader who got this whole idea rolling.

Please post this challenge on your own blogs, and think about the Holy Souls languishing in Purgatory, and how much benefit we can give to these poor souls by uniting our efforts to release them from their imprisonment to all their glory in heaven.

Patience

2010-09-24T22:03:00.006-07:00

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity [23] Mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.

Last week, I was using a vacuum cleaner where the cannister kept falling out - over and over. I am used to the convenience of central vac, so I found this rather annoying. After about the fifth time of replacing the cannister, I began to get quite impatient with my task.

Now, I have known for a long time that I was never endowed with the gift of patience. Even as a child I realized that I came up short when patience was required for a given task or a situation. I simply didn't have the ability to ignore frustations that someone with patience would have been able to.

I didn't realize then that patience is a supernatural gift of the Holy Ghost; one that manifests His presence when exercised. I cringe at the thought of all the graces I have wasted over the years by not doing happily what I found to be troublesome, annoying and frustrating. No one around me would say that they were witnessing God's presence by the way I handled life's little (and not so little) annoyances.

Rewind to last week, when I had to keep replacing the cannister on the vaccuum. Just as I wanted to get angry with it, I suddenly said out loud, "Oh, Lord, please accept this frustration and inconvenience in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins and the salvation of my soul."

It was amazing! I immediately found peace and was able to finish the task at hand, even though the cannister kept popping out. Each time it fell on the floor, I just repeated my prayer, "Oh, Lord, please accept this frustration and inconvenience in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins and the salvation of my soul."

It's only been a week, but I have used that prayer several times since; I am trying to make it a habit to remember to say it every time I am faced with an adversity that I would normally find annoying.

The Grace of the Priesthood

2010-09-21T06:03:00.001-07:00

Pray for vocations, that you may get priests who live and teach the Faith. Do you have twenty-eight minutes to spare? Here are three videos, about nine minutes each, put out by the FSSP, called "To God Who Giveth Joy To My Youth."

If you have never attended a Traditional Latin Mass, be prepared to see God glorified in all His Majesty, as these videos will show.

A few Quotes from the Saints

2010-09-20T12:48:00.005-07:00

"If you are asked why you communicate so frequently, say that two sorts of persons ought to communicate frequently; the perfect and the imperfect - the perfect to preserve perfection, and the imperfect to acquire it." - Saint Francis de Sales

"When you are to communicate, desire to have all the love which any soul has ever had for Me, and I will accept your love in proportion to the ardor with which you wish for it."
- Jesus to Saint Mechtilde

"Though you feel tepid, approach the altar, trusting in the mercy of God. The more a person feels sick, the more he stands in need of a physician." - Saint Bonaventure

"The crosses that happen to us are called evils, because we call them so, and because we make them evils; if we accepted them as we ought, with resignation, from the hands of God, they should prove to us, not evils, but blessings." - Saint Alphonsus Liguori

"A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar." - Saint Jerome

"The devil deludes men in two ways; by despair and by hope. Before the sinner offends God, the devil encourages him to sin by placing before him the hope of Divine Mercy. After he sins, the devil places before his eyes the terror of Divine Justice, thus tempting him to despair. Instead, after sin, hope for mercy; before sin fear justice. - Saint Augustine

"If you have contracted any evil habit, endeavor to abandon it now, while God still calls you. Rejoice and be glad as long as conscience reproves you; for it is a sign that God has not yet abandoned you; but amend, and instantly shake off the bad habit. If you do not, the wound will become gangrenous, and you will be lost." - Saint Alphonsus Liguori

To him who begins a good (holy) life, a reward is promised, but is only given to him who perseveres." - Saint Bernard

Quote of the Day

2010-09-17T21:22:00.005-07:00

A single "Blessed be God" in a time of adversity is better than six thousand acts of thanksgiving in times of prosperity.

- Blessed John of Avila

Who said this?

2010-09-16T18:51:00.005-07:00

It's time for another round of my favourite guessing game. Put your thinking caps on! Leave your answers in the combox.

"Where there is anti-Catholicism I will go forward with great courage and joy."

Hate, disguised as a game

2010-09-16T07:42:00.006-07:00

From Lifesite News, here is a link from a gay website where you can click on a photo of a traditional married couple and bomb them, sending them and their traditional values into oblivion. They must have garnered the images from around the web. The game is called DESTROY.TRADITIONAL.MARRIAGE. Why is it that gays can spew forward their hate and vitriol without any reprimand; even receiving accolades and applause in return, but if heterosexuals were to post a game on the web that claimed to destroy gay "marriages", sending them into oblivion, the outcry would be horrendous.

They posted a link at the bottom of the game, that says "Special note to the readers of Lifesite News", and when you click on it, they bomb the link, seemingly blowing up Lifesite News.

These guys are nothing more than gay terrorists. Terrorism is alive and well on this website.

Gay Mariage Course at Seton

2010-09-14T16:24:00.003-07:00

I received this in an email today: Seton University, the oldest Catholic university in America, is holding a course on the politics of gay marriage, offered by a pro homosexual professor.

From the TFP Student Action Website:
The textbook for the course is written by pro-homosexual state senators Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) titled: “What’s Love Got To Do With It? The Case for Same-Sex Marriage.” Both of the authors sponsored a bill in New Jersey to legalize same-sex “marriage.”

The website is asking people to sign an online protest to have this anti-Catholic course cancelled. I just wish our Catholic institutions would get back to teaching Catholicism.

The Weight of Criticism

2010-09-14T03:49:00.001-07:00

I find it very distressing when people, especially the Catholic faithful, slam priests. I just had a phone conversation with a lady from my parish who is in charge of the Catechism program - I was signing up to teach grades three and four- and partway through our discussion this woman started to tell me things I didn't want to hear about a priest I consider a friend. I told her to stop and pray a Hail Mary, but she just continued on, informing me of things I didn't need to know, and quite frankly, don't believe. I do know that this priest encountered difficulties as a pastor of this very liberal parish when he purchased kneelers for the pews and tried to have them installed. He was moved shortly afterwards, and I believe the kneelers are collecting dust in a closet somewhere. Several times I told this woman to pray for the priest she had difficulties with, but she kept on with her tirade - that is, until I said, "Stop right there! Let's get back to discussing Catechism. I don't need to know any of things you are telling me."

There is a prayer for priests in my Pieta book. I may slip her a copy when I meet her at my first Catechism class. Prayers are what priests need most, not criticism.

Keep them, I pray Thee, dearest Lord,
Keep them, for they are Thine -
Thy priests whose lives burn out before
Thy consecrated shrine.
Keep them, for they are in the world,
Though from the world apart;
When earthly pleasures tempt, allure, -
Shelter them in Thy heart.
Keep them, and comfort them in hours
Of loneliness and pain,
When all their life of sacrifice
For souls seems but in vain.
Keep them, and O remember, Lord,
They have no one but Thee,
Yet they have only human hearts,
With human frailty.
Keep them as spotless as the Host.
That daily they caress;
Their every thought and word and deed,
Deign, dearest Lord, to bless.

Remembering Zora Anderson - A Happy Heart

2010-09-13T03:06:00.003-07:00

Today, September thirteenth, would have been my mother's eightieth birthday. Mom used to tell me that none of her siblings had lived to be eighty - she was the youngest - the only one still alive since her older sisters had died. Mom wanted to reach the age of eighty, but it was not to be. She died last November 12, after suffering a heart attack earlier in the day.
Above, 1999, my Mom (in the middle) with two of her sisters, the last of the Anderson clan.

My mother's last forty years were years of hard penance. She was a devout Catholic, and she wanted to do her penance on earth. She lived on very little, suffered many hardships, and never asked for anything. For ten years she went without most of the comforts we take for granted, like running water, electricity, food, and adequate heat. She was steadfast about living on the property she was raised on; a fifty six and a half acre piece of land that bordered the Slocan River. The old cabin her family shared was barely standing, and for a while Mom just camped out there. The property was beautiful - tranquil and isolated - the perfect place for contemplative prayer. But there was no home to live in, so she just made do until one day we, her children, showed up with a trailer that became her home.

Above, the remnants of the old log cabin my Mom's family lived in. My Mom is on the left.

Mom relished her solitude and worked hard at establishing gardens and planting flowers to pretty the place up. She offered everything to the Lord; this I know because I have kept her many letters that she wrote over the years. Her faith never ceases to amaze me. It pleased her to give away whatever she could, even though she had very little to give. I always think of Mom when the priest reads the passage of the Widow's Mite from the Gospel of Mark. Like the poor widow, Mom's gifts were humble and quiet; she wanted no earthly rewards, and was not concerned with pleasing man.

After my mother died, I had Gregorian Masses said for her at Clear Creek Monastary. Please say a prayer for her soul today. She was always pleased to know that others were praying for her. This last picture of my mother was when she was seventeen, holding one of her nephews.

A Happy Heart (written by Zora Anderson a week before she died)

"I love having a happy heart.
When I have a miserable day,
I can still pray for a happy heart.
When I am having a good day,
I enjoy it with a happy heart.
Whether my day is good,
or whether it is miserable,
I can still have a happy heart."

St Wenceslaus' Deeds of faith

2010-09-12T17:30:00.002-07:00

The following story is an interesting addition to the post below "Name this Saint". It is from the 1849 book called Deeds of Faith, written by John Mason Neale, who also wrote the poem and Christmas Carol, Good King Wenceslaus.

Deeds of Faith was originally published in 1849 and was dedicated to Neale's daughter Agnes, for whom these stories were written. The purpose of the book, according to the Preface, was "to lead children to take an interest in Ecclesiastical History..." It consisted of 16 stories of saints and martyrs. The "Legend of S. Wenceslaus," the 11th story, is Neale's recounting of the legend of Saint Wenceslaus, about whom Neale also wrote a Saint Stephen's Day poem and carol, "Good King Wenceslaus." Source

THE LEGEND OF S. WENCESLAUS.

The holy Christmas-tide was drawing nigh. The Church was already far advanced in Advent; and was now bidding her children to look forward to the coming King. Winter had set in over Germany with unusual severity; hedges, fields, and ways, were blotted out in the deep soft snow; the creaking of the rude waggons was silent; the labourer was idle; the plough was in the shed; the spade and mattock in the tool-house.

King Wenceslaus of Bohemia sat in his palace. He had been watching, from the narrow window of the turret-chamber where he was, the sunset, as its glory hung for a moment on the western clouds, and then died away over the Erzgebirge, and the blue hills of Rabenstein. Calm and cold was its brightness; the colours that but now were of ruby and jasper, faded into purple, and were lost in grey; a freezing haze came over the face of the earth; the short winter day was swallowed up of night. But the crescent moon brightened towards the south-west; and the leafless trees in the castle gardens, and the quaint turrets and spires of the castle itself, threw clear dark shadows on the unspotted snow.

Still the King gazed forth on the scene, for he had learnt to draw lessons of wisdom from all these daily changes that we so little regard; and he knew that God speaks to us by this beautiful world; he was able, in a very true sense, thus to make the nights and days, the summer and winter, to bless the Lord, and to praise Him and magnify Him for ever. And so, in that sunset, he saw an emblem of our resurrection; he felt that the night would come, the night in which no man could work; but he knew also that the morning would follow, that morning which shall have no evening.

The ground sloped down from the castle towards the forest. Here and there on the side of the hill, a few bushes, gray with moss, broke the unvaried sheet of white. And as the King turned his eyes in that direction, a poor man—and the moonshine was bright enough to show his misery and his rags— came up to these bushes, and seemed to pull somewhat from them.

"Without there !" cried King Wenceslaus. "Who is in waiting !" and one of the servants of the palace entered, and answered to the call.

"This way, good Otto," said the King. " You see that poor man on the hill-side. Step down to him and learn who he is, and where he dwells, and what he is doing; and bring me word again."

Otto went forth on his errand, and the King watched him down the hill. Meantime the frost grew more and more intense; the east wind breathed from the bleak mountains of Gallicia; the snow became more crisp, and the air more clear. Ten minutes sufficed to bring back the messenger.

"Well, and who is it?" inquired King Wenceslaus.

"My liege," said Otto, "it is Rudolph the swineherd, he that lives down by the Brunweiss. Fire he has none, nor food neither: and he was gathering a few sticks where he might find them, lest, as he says, all his family perish with cold. It is a most bitter night, Sire."

"This should have been better looked to," said the King; "and a grievous fault is it that it has not been. But it shall be amended now. Go to the ewery, Otto, and fetch some provisions, of the best; and then come forth, and meet me at the wood-stacks by S. Mary's Chapel."

"Is your Majesty going forth?" asked Otto.

"To the Brunweiss," said the King; "and you shall go with me; wherefore be speedy."

"I pray you, Sire, do not go yourself. Let some of the men-at-arms go forth. It is a freezing wind; and a league it is at least to the place."

"Nevertheless," said Wenceslaus, " I go. Go with me, if you will; if not, stay; I can carry the food myself."

" God forbid, Sire, that I should let you go alone. But I pray you to be persuaded."

" Not in this," said Wenceslaus. " Meet me, then, where I said; and not a word to anyone besides."

The noblemen of the court were in the hall, where a mighty fire went roaring up the chimney, and the shadows played and danced on the steep sides of the dark roof. Gaily they laughed, and lightly they talked, and they bade fresh logs be thrown into the chimney-place; and one said to another, that so bitter a winter had never been known in Bohemia.

But in the midst of that freezing night, the King of Bohemia went forth. He had put on nothing to shelter himself from the nipping air; for he desired to feel with the poor, that he might feel for them. On his shoulder he bore a heap of logs for the swineherd's fire; and stepped briskly on, while Otto followed with the provisions. He, too, had imitated his master, and went in his common garments; and over the crisp snow, across fields, by lanes where the hedgetrees were heavy with their white load, past the frozen pool, through the little copse, where the wind made sweet melody in summer with the leaves, and rivers of gold streamed in upon the ground, but now silent and ghastly — over the stile where the rime clustered thick, by the road with its ruts of mire, and so out upon the moor, where the snow lay yet more unbroken, and the wind seemed to nip the very heart.

Still the King went on first: still the servant followed. The Saint thought it but little to go forth into the frost and the darkness, remembering Him Who came into the cold night of this world of ours; he disdained not, a King, to go to the beggar, for the King of Kings had visited slaves; he grudged not to carry the logs on his shoulder, for the LORD of all things had carried the Cross for his sake. But the servant, though he long held out with a good heart, at each step lost courage and zeal. Then very shame came to his aid; he would not do less than his master; he could not return to the court, while the King held on his way alone. But when they came forth on the white, bleak moor, his courage failed.

"My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."

"Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this ?"

Otto answered not.

"Follow me on still," said S. Wenceslaus. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."

The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.

And so great was the virtue of this Saint of the Most High, such was the fire of love that was kindled in him, that, as he trod in those steps, Otto gained life and heat. He felt not the wind; he heeded not the frost; the footprints glowed as with a holy fire, and zealously he followed the King on his errand of mercy.

Name this Saint

2010-09-12T01:58:00.002-07:00

Let's see who knows this saint - leave your answers in the combox.

When visiting the Most Holy Sacrament, this saint, who was also a king, was so inflamed by the love and presence of Jesus, that it showed even externally, and to such a degree that the servant who accompanied him, when obliged to walk in the snow, trod in the footsteps of the saint, so as not to feel the cold of the snow.

Who is he?

Labour, if you can call it that

2010-09-09T17:59:00.005-07:00

All of my adult life I wanted to be a paramedic. When I was twenty three, my best friend's mom was a paramedic chief, and I used to be fascinated by her stories, and the way she would make a sudden departure every time she was summoned from home to go attend to someone in distress. I was hooked, and desperately wanted to become a paramedic. It was not to be though. I had to wait many years for the opportunity I considered to be my dream job. I had children to raise; I could not be running off to who knows where every time the pager called. I became a fitness trainer instead, bought a gym, and even got into bodybuilding. (Yes, I know now, it's all vain-glory). That career lasted for ten years; I stopped the bodybuilding much sooner.

One day, on a summer afternoon in 2001, a frantic woman knocked on my door. When I answered it, she told me to call 911, as her friend was drowning in the river close by. I made the call and went down to the river to see if I could help. I searched the riverbanks with my good friend Coleen, calling the man`s name, hoping for a response, but we saw nothing and were unable to save this man's life.

A short time later Search & Rescue pulled up and began to organize their rescue and recovery efforts. I was fascinated when they put the boat in the water with the search dog on board. They paddled a few feet to where the man had been sucked down by an undercurrent. I watched, amazed, as the search dog barked frantically at the whirlpool, leaning over the boat as if to convey the presence of the unfortunate man. When the boat travelled elsewhere, the dog was calm, and sat down in the centre of the boat.

I got the nerve up to ask if I could become a member of their team. To my delight and surprise, they told me to start coming to their weekly training sessions. I took six months of training, and then became one of their initial response members. That was when I started working (as a volunteer) side by side with the Ambulance Service. I had almost forgotten about the career I had put on hold so many years ago, but I still remembered the ten years I spent desperately wanting to be a paramedic. As a SAR volunteer, I would harness up and go over the bank to bring the patient up to the waiting paramedics; I would assist in cutting cars apart with the Jaws of Life so that the ambulance could rush the patient to the hospital. I flew in helicopters, searching for missing people, and tracked the lost in the mountains. I loved it!

After two years of this, I applied to the ambulance service and was hired! I knew I could not stretch myself thin, and chose the Ambulance Service over the SAR team. It was, after all, what I had always wanted to do. When I first donned my uniform, I couldn't belive I was getting paid to do something I would gladly do for free for the rest of my life. It has been eight years now, and I still love my job as much as I did then. I love helping the patients and putting them at ease. The diagnostic process is so interesting, with each patient exhibiting different symptoms, that no two calls are alike. I feel blessed to be in a career I feel so passionately about. And apparently it shows. One of my co-workers told me yesterday that she absolutely loves working with me because of the passion I have for my job. This wonderful lady told me that she feels energized when she is my partner; that my love of the job has given her a new purpose to learn as much as possible, and be as good at her job as she can possibly be. I must confess, I blushed when she gushed about my apparent on-the job enthusiasm.

The thing that came immediately to my mind, though, was the prayer to Saint Joseph that I have posted on my sidebar. I try to pray it every day, at least every day that I open my blog. I believe that even those who are trapped in a job they hate, will learn to labour with love if they only would pray like this every day before leaving for work. Here is the prayer that I consider to be one of the best aids for the working man or woman:

Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my inclinations; to work with gratitude and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop, by means of labor, the gifts received from God; to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever recoiling before weariness or difficulties; to work, above all, with purity of intention, and with detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account which I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all for Mary, all after your example, O Patriarch Joseph. Such shall be my watchword in life and in death. Amen.

Eternal Maxims

2010-09-08T20:53:00.008-07:00

Before I moved, a friend lent me a few books. One of them is called Victories of the Martyrs, and it is by my favourite Catholic author, St. Alphonsus de Liguori. It tells the stories of the most celebrated martyrs of the Church. It was published in 1954, and I am not sure if it is still in circulation. One of the little gems this book contains is a collection of hymns that were written by the Holy Doctor. I have never seen these in print before. This one is called Eternal Maxims, a subject on which St Alphonsus wrote much. Here is the hymn:

Why serve the world, the enemy,
And from thy thankless heart dethrone
That God whose love created thee-
To love and serve Himself alone.

Slave of a tyrant thou dost live;
He promises and breaks his word,
And for thy service nought can give
But bitter thorns as thy reward.

Remember death will come one day;
His touch thy fragile life destroys;
Then, then, alas! will fade away
Earth`s cheating hopes and empty joys.

All worldly pleasures then will be
To thee but weariness and woe;
The scene of life must close for thee,
Thy part is played and thou must go.

That body thou hast oft caressed
Such noisome stench shall send around,
That all will fly the loathsome pest,
And hide the carrion in the ground.

Forth flies the spirit from this clay,
Alone before its God to stand;
The soul scarce yet has passed away,
The judge already is at hand.

Sinner! Sinner! What will thou do,
Standing before the awful throne?
In vain for mercy wouldst thou sue-
Stern Justice triumphs there alone.

Ah, miserable, thoughtless one!
Say, what excuse thou darest bring?
Before that gaze of brightest sun,
The face of they offended King.

What horror then the soul shall pierce,
When, spurned away by heavenly ire,
'Tis hurled into the torment fierce
Of never-never ending fire!

The shall be closed upon thy pain
The gates of hope and liberty;
Thou seekest death - in vain, in vain;
It flies and mocks thy misery.

That moment when this life shall fail,
Or heaven or hell thy lot must be;
Eternal joys or endless wail
O moment, O eternity!

Think then, ere yet this life is over,
On that whereon thy all depends;
That evermore or nevermore,
Eternity which never ends!

Praying like the saints

2010-09-03T06:56:00.004-07:00

Prayer, according to St. Alphonsus de Liguori, is the means to salvation. Here is what the holy Doctor recommends, from his book Preparation for Death:

It is necessary, after rising in the morning, to make the Christian acts of thanksgiving, love, oblation, and a purpose of avoiding sin, along with a prayer
to Jesus and Mary to preserve you from sin during the day. Afterward make your meditation and hear Mass.

During the day you ought to make a spiritual reading, visit the Blessed Sacrament and an image of the Divine Mother.

In the evening, say your Rosary, and make an examination of conscience. Go to Communion several times in the week, according as your director may advise: you should ordinarily go to confession with the same confessor.

It would also be very profitable to make the spiritual exercises in some religious house. It is likewise necessary to honour the most holy Mary by some special devotion, such as by fasting on Saturdays. She is called the Mother of Perseverance, and she promises to obtain it for all who serve her. Ecclus 24:30 They that work by me shall not sin.

Above all, it is necessary to ask of God holy perseverance, and especially in the time of temptation, invoking then more frequently the names of Jesus and Mary as long as the temptation continues. If you act in this manner, you will certainly be saved; if not you will be certainly be lost.
Food for thought, isn't it?

The Power of the Rosary

2010-09-01T18:26:00.003-07:00

Technically, it would have been the intercession of the Blessed Virgin who saved this man's life, not the Rosary beads as the secular news article states. I wish they would get it right. It makes Catholics look so supertitious when miracles are reported in that manner. I can just see the Protestant eyes rolling over this one!

Summer Vacation

2010-08-22T21:19:00.002-07:00

Just a heads up that I am going to be away for a week, relaxing at beautiful Kootenay Lake, fishing, swimming, and trying out our new boat. I hope to post pics, but I haven't found my camera yet in all the boxes I have yet to unpack after our recent move. Then it's off to the family reunion for the last weekend of August. I am really looking forward to this coming week!
Enjoy the rest of your summer everyone!

(Oh, and yes, the priest did say the Apostle's Creed today at Sunday Mass. Last week must have been a slip up. Or maybe I dozed?)!

Getting Organized

2010-08-19T21:32:00.003-07:00

Every year, I order a calendar and daily planner from Tan Publishers. It's a great tool, and I use it to record all my activities. It really keeps me organized! Here is the link for anyone who wants to order one - it has both the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine liturgical year over a 16 month period. I highly recommend it.

Each year, I order two and give one away. This year, instead of running a contest for the giveaway item, I am going to give it to my sister, Shirley, of the blog Seeking Jesus. She just got hired as parish secretary at her church, and I think she will need it!

I do hope to hold some contests soon, and I am also going to start up the Who Said It and the Who am I games again. It's good to be back!

Catching up

2010-08-17T06:34:00.004-07:00

As you all know, I have moved away from Vancouver where I was blessed to be able to attend the Latin Mass at an FSSP parish for the last three years. On Sunday, I attended my first Novus Ordo Mass in my new town. It was pretty much as I remembered it, except for two things. There was no Apostle's Creed. I have to give the priest the benefit of the doubt - maybe he just forgot. I wanted to ask him after Mass what happened to the Creed, but I didn't get the opportunity. The other thing was that the Mass was over in 45 minutes, even with a choir. I thought most NO Masses lasted for an hour, at least that is what I recall.

On the positive side, the church is an old one, and still maintains its former beauty. As soon as I unpack my camera and find the charger, I will be taking photos.

On a completely different note, here is a warning I came across for all parents who have teen aged children. We have all heard about the spike in teen suicides, and here is one of the reasons why. It's hard to know what our kids are doing every moment of the day, and what pressure they are under from their friends. Parents, take heed, and have your teenagers watch this news clip so they will be forewarned.

Moving Days

2010-08-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hope to be back online early next week.

Calling all Canadians

2010-08-09T18:06:00.005-07:00

A while ago, I received an email asking for a united prayer front for all Americans to restore their country to its Christian roots. I published a post about it here. The idea is for everyone to pray for their country at the same time, spending one minute at a specific time, asking God to restore their country to its Christian roots, to pray for our troops, to ask God to guide the decisions of our politicians, and to bring Christianity into our schools once again.

Isn't it a great idea? I immediately set the alarm on my cell phone to ring at 6 PM to pray for this intention, and now I am asking all Canadians to do the same. Here is what you do:

Every evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time(8:00 PM Central) (7:00 PM Mountain) (6:00 PM Pacific), stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of Canada, our troops, our citizens, and for a return to a Godly nation.

Stop what you are doing right now and set your alarm. One minute multiplied by the number of people who partake in this prayer could add up to a whole lot of prayers! Let God's will be done.

Third Book of Kings 9:3 And the Lord said to him: I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, which thou hast made before me: I have sanctified this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever, and my eyes and my heart shall be there always.

EDIT: From my sister's blog, Seeking Jesus, here is the prayer Shirley wrote for Canada:

O Jesus, I place our nation under the protection of your Sacred Heart. Help us to do your Will so that we may be strengthened against the evil that threatens our country and our world.
St. Michael the Archangel, protect our troops; keep them safe in their tour of duty.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, I place all our people beneath the shelter of your mantle. Virgin Most Powerful, lead us in becoming a Godly nation. Amen.

Three Years of Grace

2010-08-08T14:41:00.004-07:00

Today I went to what would be my last Latin Mass for some time. We are moving back to the interior on Friday, after three years of living on the Coast, and I will soon be attending Mass at a very liberal parish. (I am sure I will soon have plenty to write about!) I am going to miss the great sermons I have gotten used to; sermons that are meant to deliver your soul to heaven; I will miss the availability of the confessional, where the lineups are long, and you don't have to search for a priest to come and hear your confession. I will miss the great spiritual advice of our priests, advice that is calculated to help you do the will of God out of love for God, by setting your own will aside.

I will certainly miss the beautiful and holy prayers of the Latin Mass. The prayers of the Novus Ordo pale in comparison. There is so much meaning incorporated into every movement, prayer and gesture of the Latin Mass; it will be difficult to watch a constant parade of lay people prancing about the sanctuary, fulfilling their role of active participation in the Mass.

Oh well. God must have a plan for me, otherwise this sudden move wouldn't have happened the way it did. We will be living in this new city for three years. I hope it will be another three years of grace.

Remembering Joe

2010-08-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today is August 6th, my brother Joe`s birthday. He died three years ago, on June 14, of cancer. He had two weeks from his diagnosis to prepare for his death, because he died exactly two weeks after receiving the news. I can still picture him sitting on his hospital bed, his head in his hands, telling me he was never going to leave the hospital. His words are forever etched in my memory. He looked up at me and said, "So I am going to die." I remember telling Joe that it was a great grace from God to be given notice that one was about to die, so that moral preparations could be made. I reminded him that God could have taken his life at any time, but chose to give him this most wondrous grace of preparing for a holy death.

And that is just what my brother did. His rosary never left his hands, and I got him a pass from the hospital so that he could go to his Latin Mass. His perseverance amazed me there, as he knelt on the hard floor throught the entire Mass. I can't imagine what it must have cost him, as he was weak and in pain, but he never let on he was suffering. When he went up to receive Holy Communion, he came back with tears in his eyes. They were tears of joy at being given so great a gift as to receive Jesus one more time.

Two days before Joe died, he made an act of consecration to the Blessed Virgin. He didn't use a formal prayer; rather the words he chose came from his heart. I wish I could remember what he said, but it was how he said it that I will never forget. Joe's words to the Blessed Virgin were spoken with undeniable love - Shirley and I sat there and listened with tears in our eyes. It was the most beautiful prayer I have ever heard anyone say. The next day, he became weaker and slept most of the time. The following day, he died with two of my sisters praying at his bedside, and yes, he had his rosary in his hands.

Home again

2010-08-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

after six days on the road.

Pie Jesu

2010-07-28T21:47:00.001-07:00

One of the most beautiful voices, that of Charlotte Church - turn up your volume!

The Deception behind Twilight

2010-07-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

These well-spoken words are not mine; they are taken from Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International. His logic is right on when it comes to the widly popular Twilight series:

Vampire Logic

With the issuing of the third movie in the Twilight series I have to speak out about our culture's twisted fascination with vampires. I don't hesitate to tell people that I am totally disgusted with the new fad sweeping over our youth culture these days. It is not just kids that are taken up with the wiles of the dark world either: many moms of teens are swooning for them too. I think that these seductive creatures are simply the spawn of the Harry Potter culture that has for over a decade now been indoctrinating kids to think that the occult world is normal and that all this evil messaging is harmless when dressed up as entertainment. That's vampire logic - and just what the devil wants us to think.

Gone are the days of Bella Lugosi's Dracula (1931) where good was good and evil was evil. A crucifix would drive Dracula away and then he had to go into his infernal coffin when the first streaks of dawn appeared. He was in every way presented as a creature of evil, dark of heart and dread to encounter. He drank human blood too, a feature that was supposed to strike terror in every person who valued his life's essence. The image of a blood-sucking creature who lives in slime and darkness and will pounce on you to drain out your very essence should terrorize every decent person. This is because vampires used to be images of demons. That's what demons are all about: the vanquishing of all human decency and life. They represent the spiritual vortexes of the demon world that drag down to the depths of hell all who fall prey to their wiles.

But, my, how vampires have come up in the world these days.

Nowadays vampires are divided into good and bad - no longer intrinsically evil. The good ones rescue vulnerable women instead of biting them and, allegedly, drink only animal blood (well, we haven't seen the last Twilight movie yet...). And crucifixes? Don't think you'll see any of those driving away bad guys in these movies. The heroes are the "good" vampires, not the Church or religious faith in Christ.

These super-star vampires also walk around in sunlight and, as a matter of fact, their skin just happens to glisten like diamonds when exposed to direct sunlight. Isn't that wonderful? The glam vamps are gentlemen, chaste and well-intentioned, yet they are always hovering around the edge of "falling" and in seductive situations which cause young people to think that they are capable, like their hero vampire, Edward Cullen, of going just so far and pulling back, out of self-control. That's teaching them to play with fire, not a real chastity message for kids.

The worst part of this fascination with vampires from a faith point of view, however, is its blasphemy of the Eucharist. "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you," said our Blessed Lord in Chapter 6 of John's Gospel. He is the One who offers His flesh and blood for the life of the world. The vampires eat (bite) the flesh and drink the blood of victims rather than give their own to redeem others. Their bites corrupt and transform their victims into vampires like themselves. They have no life in them. They are the "living dead" by their own estimate.

How sad that this generation has been so taken in by those who represent the very antithesis of the core reality of our Faith - the Eucharist. Vampire logic is anti-Eucharistic logic, and it's very dangerous for our kids. In their obsessive fascination with such darkness, kids (and adults) turn their backs on the One who actually died for them.

To those who say, "Oh, Father, it's only harmless entertainment," I say simply: You've been warned.

Prayer for loose lips

2010-07-26T05:09:00.000-07:00

There is a little prayer in my Latin Missal, said by the priest at the incensing of the altar, just before the washing of the hands. It is one of the most beautiful prayers, as it shows how holy the preparation of the altar and of the priest himself must be for the coming sacrifice.

Let my prayer, O, Lord, be directed as incense in Thy sight; the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice. Set a watch , O Lord, before my mouth, and a door around my lips. May my heart not incline to evil words, to make excuses for sins.

Every time I read this prayer, I think the last two phrases, from Psalm 140, would make a good prayer to guard against the temptation to talk about others. I must commit them to memory and make it a habit to pray them at those times when I am tempted to say something I shouldn't about someone I find irritating!

Dialogue of the Carmelites

2010-07-25T16:01:00.006-07:00

A friend just lent me the book, Song at the Scaffold, which tells the story of the sixteen Carmelite nuns from Compiègne, who were martyred for their faith at the guillotine in the French Revolution, July 17, 1794. These humble nuns faced their death bravely, singing hyms of praise to God as they went, one by one, to their eternal glory. Their prioress, Teresa of Augustine, had prepared them well for martyrdom. The novice was the first to be executed, and the prioress, the last. In this You Tube of the finale for Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, you can hear the blades of the guillotine as each nun, one by one, marches, singing, to her death. They were beatified by St. Pius X on May 13, 1906.

Americans at Prayer

2010-07-23T13:57:00.004-07:00

Recievied this via email today - it's for all my American friends!

Someone has said if Christians really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Did you know that during WWII there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every day at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England , its people and peace?

There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America . If you would like to participate: Every evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time(8:00 PM Central) (7:00 PM Mountain) (6:00 PM Pacific), stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens, and for a return to a Godly nation.

If you know anyone else who would like to participate, please pass this along. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have. Please forward this to your praying friends.

Faith is not believing that God can -- it is knowing that God will.
In God We Trust!

Anything goes

2010-07-21T15:53:00.003-07:00

At least that's the way it seems in BC. My home province now wants to legalize a three parent family. Can you say unnatural?

Womyn, criminalized

2010-07-15T18:18:00.003-07:00

Not a bad article by a secular newspaper. The Vatican has made it a crime against the Sacraments for women to attempt to be ordained as priests. I say "attempt" because ordination of a woman to the priesthood is an impossible feat. That doesn't seem to stop them though.

Is the Sky Really Falling?

2010-07-11T21:17:00.004-07:00

There have been so many earthquakes this past year. Is it more than normal, or are we seeing an increase? I can't help but think of the warnings in the Bible:

Mark 13:8
For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and famines. These things are the beginning of sorrows.

Horizontal Worship Explained

2010-07-09T21:57:00.003-07:00

While this video is actually about the Latin Mass, it does a good job of explaining why so many Bishops still prefer the horizontal worship of the Novus Ordo.

With a club for the Catholic Caveman. This video is well worth watching!

Making a Killing

2010-07-09T11:02:00.002-07:00

The business of assisted suicide is thriving in Switzerland, according to this article. I encourage you to read the article in the link I posted. If Dignitas' clients only knew the value of suffering, they wouldn't be tossing away their gem of salvation. Those who pay others to help them die might want to meditate for a while on this verse from the Bible:

Ecclesiasticus 15:18 Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him.

Blue Wing

2010-07-08T22:41:00.002-07:00

Does anyone remember this old song? It is one of my father's faves, but I don't remember hearing it growing up. The words are so sad.

If you have always wanted to learn Latin

2010-07-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

here's your chance.

Renouncing Your Faith

2010-07-04T21:36:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I had the good fortune to work with another Catholic paramedic. I had never met him before, and I didn't know he was Catholic until we passed by a rural Catholic Church on sprawling treed grounds in a very beautiful setting. I commented on how appealing it was, and he told me there was a monastery tucked away in the back. I immediately told him I was Catholic, and he said he was too, and told me he had spent a year in the seminary prior to becoming a paramedic.

We had an amazing day, talking about our faith in between calls. He showed me the rosary he always carries in his pocket, tucked safely inside a bright red cloth. He asked me if I understood the significance of the red cloth. I said yes, it is a reminder of the Precious Blood; how Jesus suffered and died for our salvation. He said yes, but each time he looks at it, it is also a reminder to him of how he would shed his own blood for Jesus; that he would gladly die for the faith.

There was a time in our history when people were executed for being Christian, but that happens less frequently now. It is much less common to be a martyr for the faith today than it was centuries ago. Which brings me to the title of this post. Could you really renounce your faith if it came right down to choosing evil or salvation at the hands of an executioner? We may never get that opportunity, and being a martyr like the saints of old may never happen for us, because today our faith is being renounced in a different way. It is being eroded one TV commercial at a time; one movie at a time; one magazine, one book at time. Our faith is challenged every season by the fashion industry; it is challenged on the beaches and even in our Churches when we are exposed to liturgical abuses and quasi Catholicism.

We may never get to shed our blood for our faith. We are instead tasked with something that may prove to be more difficult and impossible to accomplish - we must uphold our Catholic faith in the midst of a secular world that tries at every turn to erode and erase the faith of our fathers.

The desert fathers understood how difficult it would be to uphold the faith in our later times. Once, a desert father was asked by a young monk about the devil. The monk inquired if people in later times would be able to persevere in the fasting and all night prayer vigils that the desert monks subjected themselves to. The desert father said, "No. People in later times will be weak and they will barely be able to fast a day without feeling faint. They will not be able to stay awake and pray all night, for they will be too weak."

When the young monk asked why they would be so weak, the desert father replied,"It is easy for us to do these things. We are fighting Satan chained. In later times, people will fight him unchained."

July is the Month of the Precious Blood

2010-06-30T23:30:00.004-07:00

(Scroll down for the Litany to be prayed daily in July)

From Pope Pius XII's encyclical Haurietis Aqua
May 15, 1956

Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man's Blood - just as unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us, first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in his agony in the garden, in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out of that great wide wound in his side which symbolizes the divine Blood cascading down into all the Church's sacraments. Such surpassing love suggests, nay demands, that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love.

The Blood of the new and eternal covenant especially deserves this worship of latria when it is elevated during the sacrifice of the Mass. But such worship achieves its normal fulfillment in sacramental communion with the same Blood, indissolubly united with Christ's Eucharistic Body. In intimate association with the celebrant, the faithful can then truly make his sentiments at communion their own: "I will take the chalice of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. . .
The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul for everlasting life. Amen." Thus as often as they come worthily to this holy table they will receive more abundant fruits of the redemption and resurrection and eternal life won for all men by the Blood Christ shed "through the Holy Spirit." Nourished by his Body and Blood, sharing the divine strength that has sustained countless martyrs, they will stand up to the slings and arrows of each day's fortunes - even if need be to martyrdom itself for the sake of Christian virtue and the kingdom of God.

Theirs will be the experience of that burning love which made St. John Chrysostom cry out, "Let us, then, come back from that table like lions breathing out fire, thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head and of the love he has shown for us. . . This Blood, when worthily received, drives away demons and puts them at a distance from us, and even summons to us angels and the Lord of angels. . . This Blood, poured out in abundance, has washed the whole world clean. . . This is the price of the world; by it Christ purchased the Church… This thought will check in us unruly passions. How long, in truth, shall we be attached to present things? How long shall we remain asleep? How long shall we not take thought for our own salvation? Let us remember what privileges God has bestowed on us, let us give thanks, let us glorify him, not only by faith, but also by our very works."

You know well enough that your ransom was not paid in earthly currency, silver or gold; it was paid in the Precious Blood of Christ; no lamb was ever so pure, so spotless a victim. If only they would lend a more eager ear to the apostle of the Gentiles: "A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence."

Their upright lives would then be the shining example they ought to be; Christ's Church would far more effectively fulfill its mission to men. God wants all men to be saved, for he has willed that they should all be ransomed by the Blood of his only-begotten Son; he calls them all to be members of the one Mystical Body whose head is Christ. If only men would be more responsive to these promptings of his grace, how much the bonds of brotherly love among individuals and peoples and nations would be strengthened.

Here is a litany that can be prayed during the month of July, and for those of you who like to pray in Latin, there is a Latin version right below the English version of the prayer.

Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ

This Litany in honor of Jesus in His Most Precious Blood was drawn up by the Sacred Congregation of Rites and promulgated by Pope John XXIII on February 24, 1960. The devotion to Jesus in His most Precious Blood was first popularized by St. Gaspar del Bufalo (1786-1837, feast December 28), who founded the Missioners of the Most Precious Blood. A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who recite this litany.

Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Christ, hear us. Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Blood of Christ, only-begotten Son of the eternal Father, save us.
Blood of Christ, Incarnate Word of God, save us.
Blood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Testament, save us.

Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in Agony, save us.
Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging, save us.
Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns, save us.

Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross, save us.
Blood of Christ, price of our salvation, save us.
Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness, save us.

Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls, save us.
Blood of Christ, stream of mercy, save us.
Blood of Christ, victor over demons, save us.

Blood of Christ, courage of Martyrs, save us.
Blood of Christ, strength of Confessors, save us.
Blood of Christ, bringing forth Virgins, save us.

Blood of Christ, help of those in peril, save us.
Blood of Christ, relief of the burdened, save us.
Blood of Christ, solace in sorrow, save us.

Blood of Christ, hope of the penitent, save us.
Blood of Christ, consolation of the dying, save us.
Blood of Christ, peace and tenderness of hearts, save us.

Blood of Christ, pledge of eternal life, save us.
Blood of Christ, freeing souls from Purgatory, save us.
Blood of Christ, most worthy of all glory and honour, save us.

Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, O Lord.

V. Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Blood.
R. And made us, for our God, a kingdom.

Let us pray;

Almighty and eternal God, Thou hast appointed Thine only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world and willed to be appeased by his blood. Grant, we beg of Thee, that we may worthily adore this price of our salvation and through its power be safeguarded from the evils of the present life so that we may rejoice in its fruits forever in heaven.
Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, eleison. Christe, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison.

Christe, audi nos. Christe, audi nos.
Christe, exaudi nos. Christe, exaudi nos.

Pater de caelis, Deus, miserere nobis.
Fili, Redemptor mundi, Deus, miserere nobis.
Spiritus Sancte, Deus, miserere nobis.
Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus, miserere nobis.

Sanguis Christi, Unigeniti Patris aeterni, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, Verbi Dei incarnati, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, Novi et Aeterni Testamenti, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, in agonia decurrens in terram, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, in flagellatione profluens, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, in coronatione spinarum emanans, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, in Cruce effusus, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, pretium nostrae salutis, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, sine quo non fit remissio, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, in Eucharistia potus et lavacrum animarum, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, flumen misericordiae, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, victor daemonum, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, fortitudo martyrum, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, virtus confessorum, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, germinans virgines, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, robur periclitantium, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, levamen laborantium, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, in fletu solatium, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, spes poenitentium, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, solamen morientium, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, pax et dulcedo cordium, salva nos.

Sanguis Christi, pignus vitae aeternae, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, animas liberans de lacu Purgatorii, salva nos.
Sanguis Christi, omni gloria et honore dignissimus, salva nos.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, parce nobis, Domine.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, exaudi nos, Domine.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, Domine.

V. redimisti nos, Domine, in sanguine tuo.
R. Et fecisti nos Deo nostro regnum.

Oremus;

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui unigenitum Filium tuum mundi Redemptorem
constituisti, ac eius sanguine placari voluisti: concede, quaesumus, salutis nostrae
pretium ita venerari, atque a praesentis vitae malis eius virtute defendi in terris, ut
fructu perpetuo laetemur in caelis. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

'Lamentations of the Father'

2010-06-29T00:48:00.001-07:00

This is for all the parents with small children!

'Lamentations of the Father'
by Ian Frazier

Laws of Forbidden Places
Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room. Of quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen after-meal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room.

Of the juices and other beverages, yea, even of those in sippy-cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein. Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage there you may not eat, neither may you drink. But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.

Laws When at Table
And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as it were. Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination unto me. Yea, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke.

Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you shall be sent away.

When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck: for you shall be sent away.

When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister hath done the same to you.

Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is.

And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why. And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that,that is why.

Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.

Laws Pertaining to Dessert
For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert.

But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert.

But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof.

And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.

On Screaming
Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time. If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault.

Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming. Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose. For even I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat it myself, yet shall not surely die.

Concerning Face and Hands
Cast your countenance upward to the light, and lift your eyes to the hills, that I may more easily wash you off. For the stains are upon you; even to the very back of your head, there is rice thereon.

And in the breast pocket of your garment, and upon the tie of your shoe, rice and other fragments are distributed in a manner wonderful to see.

Only hold yourself still; hold still, I say. Give each finger in its turn for my examination thereof, and also each thumb. Lo, how iniquitous they appear. What I do is as it must be; and you shall not go hence until I have done.

Various Other Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances
Bite not, lest you be also bitten again. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of the bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, not against any building; nor eat sand.

Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not the humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you shall drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape

Not just another Bambi

2010-06-28T08:39:00.003-07:00

Uh, this is the town we are moving to - and I was worried about gang violence! Apparently the dog survived and is recovering. That is one curious cat!

They don't make them like they used to!

2010-06-27T16:14:00.007-07:00

Drop-front secretaire MOLITOR, Bernard, 1789, veneered oak

cabinet, MEKEREN, Jan van 1690-1710. Oak, veneered with various woods

chest of drawers, unknown cabinet maker, French, 1770

Cast Bronze Baptismal Font,from 1107-18, REINER DE HU

Layetter Cupboard, unknown Dutch Cabinet Maker, circa 1650

French Table, circa 1700, unknown

Consider this

2010-06-26T11:35:00.009-07:00

Have you ever wondered why God doesn't always answer your prayers? According to St. Augustine, that which God refuses to you in His mercy, he grants to others through wrath. So maybe it is a good thing you didn't win the lottery last night! When we ask God for temporal blessings, we should always add ,"If it be for the greater glory of God and the good of my soul." It is a good practice to ask for temporal blessings on the condition they will profit your soul.
James 4:3 You ask, and receive not; because you ask amiss: that you may consume it on your concupiscences.

Spiritual graces should always be asked for, and asked in confidence of receiving them. Final perseverance, (the preservation of the state of grace till the end of life), is, according to St. Alphonsus Liguori, a grace which is only obtained through continual prayer. On our own, we cannot merit the grace of final perseverance, says St. Augustine, who adds this grace is only obtained through supplication. The Council of Trent confirms this: "The gift of perseverance can come only from Him who has the power to confirm the standing and to raise the fallen".

St Bernard teaches to ask for this grace through Mary, for what Mary asks, she obtains, and her prayers are never fruitless. Make it a daily habit to ask the Blessed Mother to obtain for you the grace of final peseverance; that when you die, God will infuse you with His grace that you may withstand the temptations of the devil, who will surely be trying to snatch your soul.
Luke 21:36 Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man.

Gaga gag!

2010-06-24T21:53:00.004-07:00

I doubt that when these poor souls donated their bodies to science, they ever dreamed their dead bodies would be on display at the feet of Lady Gaga as she romps around the stage in her underwear. That woman disgusts me just about as much as "Madonna" does. 'Nuff said.

Thought for the Day

2010-06-24T11:51:00.005-07:00

Ecclesiasticus 26 7:40 In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin.

When will it end?

2010-06-23T20:41:00.004-07:00

With thanks to Paul from Catholic Cartoon Blog

The Life of St John the Baptist in Art

2010-06-21T18:45:00.023-07:00

Thursday, June 24 is the feast of St. John the Baptist. Our Lord tells us that "amongst those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist." (Luke 7:28) God ordained that this great saint be born under extraordinary circumstances, having been cleansed of Original Sin, while still in the womb. For this reason, the Church celebrates not only the day of his birth into eternal life, but the day of his birth into this world as well.

Zachary's wife Elizabeth was beyong childbearing age, and John's birth was foretold by the angel Gabriel to the priest Zachary, John's father, who was temporarily struck dumb for his disbelief, receiving the power of speech again only at John's circumcision.

When Mary visited and greeted Elizabeth, who was in her sixth month, Our Lord, in Mary's womb, implemented Sanctifying grace to John, whose mission in God's plan was to be the forerunner of Christ. And he whose joy it was to prepare the way for the Lamb of God and who rejoiced "because of the Bridegroom's voice" (John 3:29)did recognize the presence of Jesus and Mary before he was even born, and this moved him to leap for joy in his mother's womb.

St John the Baptist lived in the desert for some thirty years before he began his public ministry.

He went into the country around Jordan preaching to "do penance for the kingdom of heaven was at hand," (Matthew 3:2)

His clothes were made of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins, and he came neither eating or drinking. (Matthew 11:18)

John baptized his listeners in the Jordan, challenging their pride by calling them all a "brood of vipers," (Luke 3:7-9) and earning himself his name, "The Baptist."

After some time of John's preaching, Jesus came to be baptized by him, and John gave testimony that Jesus was the Son of God, but at first John refused to baptize Jesus, saying "I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?" (Matthew 3:14).

When Herod fell in love with his niece Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Philip, and brought her to Galilee, John publicly rebuked Herod, and at Herodias' bidding, was bound and thrown in prison. "She laid snares for him: and was desirous to put him to death" (Mark 6:19).

John the baptist was the undaunted champion of truth and virtue, and Herodias was furious with him, swaying Herod to put John to death. The daughter of Herodias, named Salome, danced before Herod, and pleased him such that he said he would grant her anything she wished for.

Under the influence of her mother, Salome was swayed. "Who when she had gone out, said to her mother, What shall I ask? But her mother said: The head of John the Baptist. 25 And when she had come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith you give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist. 26 And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her: 27 But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish." (Mark 6:24-28)

The Church celebrates the feast day of the beheading of John the Baptist on August 29.

Holy, holy, holy

2010-06-20T07:14:00.003-07:00

Pope Benedict XVI, ordination Mass at St Peter's Basilica, June 20, 2010

Good news!

2010-06-19T17:16:00.006-07:00

This morning my doorbell rang, and when I answered it, I saw a well dressed man holding a pamphlet. Right away, I knew he was a JW. They seldom come to my door, but I am always pleased when they do. I welcome the opportunity to defend the Catholic faith to someone who is trapped in a false religion.

Paramedicgirl: Hello. What do you have there?

Mr. JW: It's a pamphlet inviting you to a convention in Abbotsford.

Paramedicgirl: Oh, it must be a Jehovah's Witness convention?

Mr JW: Yes. Would you like to come and hear the good news?

Paramedicgirl: I am a Catholic, and I happen to know quite a bit about your religion. I would love to have a discussion with you on hell, the Holy Ghost, and who Jesus really is. Why is it that you believe Jesus is really St. Michael the Archangel, and how did you come to believe that Jesus died on a torture stake instead of a cross?

Mr JW: I used to be a Catholic you know. Did you know there are 6,000 converts to the Jehovah's Witness faith every week?

Paramedicgirl: That's a lot of prayers I will have to say for their conversion then. Did you know that the JW's prey on Catholics who are weak in their faith? You must have had a weak Catholic upbringing to fall for this false religion.

Mr JW: (angry) I came here to tell you the good news of Jehovah's Kingdom.

Paramedicgirl: Mr JW, you are trapped in a false religion, and I will pray for your conversion, that you will not go to the hell you don't believe in. I will pray for your eternal salvation and for your soul. Oh, I know you don't believe you have a soul, and that you will merely fall asleep when you die, but at the moment of your death, Jesus will judge your soul. Yes, Jesus will judge you, not St. Michael the Archangel.

Mr JW: (clearly angry now, almost shouting, and taking back the pamphlet he offered me) I have good news for you! What good news do you have for me?

Paramedicgirl: My good news is that the Catholic faith is the one true faith and in order to be saved, you must leave the beliefs of your false religion. Would you like to come to Mass with me on Sunday?

And there the conversation ended. It was a good morning!

Water and the Holy Ghost

2010-06-17T21:05:00.006-07:00

On Pentecost Sunday, as our priest was delivering his sermon, he gave the most interesting analogy of the Holy Spirit. It's one I have never heard before, but will certainly remember for when I teach catechism again. It would also come in handy for helping others to understand how there are three Persons in one God. Here it is:

Water comes in different forms. There is ice, vapour, and liquid water. They are all the same thing - water - even though they take different forms.

Interesting, isn't it? It just might help someone to grasp that difficult concept.

Lock 'em up and throw away the key!

2010-06-16T18:15:00.003-07:00

There is no honour in killing a child to save the family name. How evil! These stories keep popping up in the news, and there is even one or two from the city in which I live. It is impossible to figure out the mindset of those who believe they are keeping the family honour intact by mercilessly killing their female daughters and sisters.

How can they not expect their children to be influenced by Western society when they come to our country and their children attend our public schools? Perhaps one of the screening questions for immigrants should be, "Do you believe honour killings are a good way to keep your family honour when you feel as thought your daughters have disgraced you?"

A lifetime in jail is too short for these murderers . Lock 'em up and throw away the key!

.

Mass Intentions for Vocations

2010-06-16T08:53:00.002-07:00

If you know someone who is considering a vocation to the priesthood, send me their name and I will have a traditional Latin Mass said for them. You can find my email address on my profile.

Prayer of St Francis de Sales to St. Joseph

2010-06-15T22:35:00.003-07:00

I want to share with you a beautiful prayer to St. Joseph that I just came across. I have never seen it before.

Glorious St Joseph, spouse of Mary, grant us thy paternal protection, we beseech thee by the heart of Jesus Christ. O thou, whose power extends to all our necessities and can render possible for us the most impossible things, open thy fatherly eyes to the needs of thy children.

In the trouble and distress which afflicts us, we confidently have recourse to thee. Deign to take under your charitable charge this important and difficult matter, cause of our worries. Make its happy outcome be for God's glory and for the good of His devoted servants. Amen.

Hello again!

2010-06-07T20:36:00.005-07:00

I have had numerous requests to start posting to this blog again. Life has been busy this last year, and if I can learn how not to spend too much time blogging, I just may give it a try again. My sister has not one but two blogs - I don't know how she does it!

Things should be settling down soon though. We are moving back out to the country this summer; well to a smaller city, anyway. The bad part of that is there is no Latin Mass there. Just a single priest with a very liberal social justice agenda. I think they hold hands during the Our Father and clap after every Mass for everyone who "participated" in some way. "Let's all clap for the altar servers, now. And can we please clap for the choir, too. Let's give another round of applause for everyone who took the time out of their day to come to Mass! Yes, you! We are clapping for ourselves now - come on everyone, a big round of applause!"

Okay, I know I am exaggerating a bit, but it's going to be really hard to actually like going to Mass there after having the privilege of attending the TLM with two very holy priests for three whole years. There is nothing like the traditional Mass. Going back to a liberal NO Mass will take some getting used to. I sure hope Father doesn't mind when I kneel for Communion and recieve on the tongue. And I sure hope the ladies there will get used to my head coverings. The countdown begins...

Ember Days

2009-09-20T21:07:00.007-07:00

Have you ever wonder what Ember Days are? Before I started going to the Traditional Mass, I had never heard of Ember Days. Here, copied from my Church bulletin, and posted for your education and edification, is a little explanation of what Ember Days are and how they are traditionally celebrated:

Ember Days

The autumn Ember Days fall on Wednesday, September 23; Friday, September 25; and Saturday, September 26.

Four times a year, the Church sets aside three days to focus on God through His wonderful creation. These "Ember Days" (from Quatuor Tempora in Latin) take place around the beginnings of the four natural seasons, and are each kept on a successive Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. These days are spent fasting and partially abstaining (voluntary since the 1983 Code of Canon Law) in penance, in thankfulness for the gifts God gives us in nature, and beseeching Him for the discipline to use them in moderation. In the Old Testament, the Jews fasted weekly on Tuesday and Thursday, but Christians changed the fast days to Wednesday (the day on which Christ was betrayed) and Friday (the day on which He was crucified) and added Saturday (the day He was entombed). Ember Days are days favoured for priestly ordinations, prayers for priests, First Communions, almsgiving and other penitential and charitable acts, and prayers for the souls in Purgatory. Because of the days' focus on nature, they are also traditional times for women to pray for children and for safe deliveries.

Did I mention

2009-09-16T17:27:00.004-07:00

...that I am taking a 12 week course in pharmacology for medical credits? Every year, in order to maintain my paramedic license, I have to get 20 continuing medical education credits; courses which are usually supplied by my employer. But due to our strike, which is in its sixth month and still unresolved, it is up to each individual employee to seek out courses and upgrade their credits. So, you see, my absence from this blog is justified! I have been hitting the books, and I know you probably don't want to hear about drugs and their interactions, receptor sites and pharmacodynamics, so I won't bore you with the details.

Just wanted to let you know I have been busy!

How things change!

2009-09-16T08:45:00.004-07:00

It's been almost three years since I started this blog, and in the two and a half years since I posted a web counter, we have had more than 126,000 visitors to this site from over 165 countries.

The early focus of this blog was on my desire to attend the Latin Mass, and the frustrations of all the liturgical abuses and modernism of the Novus Ordo Mass. Many of my earlier posts reflect this. Most I have left up, but some I have taken down. Now that I have been going to the Latin Mass for two years, I find my focus has changed more towards the traditions of the Church, like showcasing the sacred religious art of centuries past, much of which you can find here. Likewise, the Blessed Virgin spotlights many of my blog entries, as the case should be with the name of Salve Regina.

I find when I visit other blogs where the author is decrying the liturgical abuses they are exposed to, that it seems like a distant memory to me of all I have left behind. After two years of High Masses and great sermons, unlimited availability to the confessional, and the best spiritual advice of my life, I have to sometimes remind myself that there are still places where tradition is stifled. The Latin Mass is a sacred shelter from all that; a refuge that provides much spiritual comfort while dispensing the grace to grow in awareness and understanding of the Catholic faith. It is a blessing to have access to such a sacred, reverent and holy Mass.

Glorification of the Cross

2009-09-13T20:51:00.004-07:00

Monday is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in both the new and old calendar. Try to make it to Mass.

Chaplet of Divine Mercy in Song

2009-09-08T15:35:00.002-07:00

Because, according to Saint Augustine, when you sing, you pray twice.

Name this Saint

2009-09-05T09:34:00.004-07:00

Here's a challenge for you - can you name this saint who was a Bishop? His feast day was historically on Sept 8, but no longer appears on either the new or old calendar. He was a great Apostle of Bavaria, and a native of Chartres in France. He lived alone in a cell close to a chapel for fourteen years. He was sought after for spiritual counsel, with many miracles making his holiness well known.

A tradition relates that on his way to Rome, a bear killed his pack horse, and this saint's servant placed the Bishop's pack on the back of the bear, and the bear proceeded to carry the pack all the way to the Eternal City.

Who is he?

Imagine

2009-09-03T21:39:00.002-07:00

...if he had been a victim of what he supports.

This prolife ad is taken from CatholicVote.org

Two things

2009-09-02T06:06:00.003-07:00

Here's two quick tidbits of information meant to help you grow spiritually:

This, according to St. Alphonsus, when you feel remorse for a sin that has already been confessed, it is a sure sign it has been forgiven. Let it go.

This, according to my priest, (a great confessor!) Always confess one mortal sin from your past each time you go to confession. Even though it has already been confessed and forgiven, doing so helps you to become humble.

The new header

2009-08-31T20:53:00.003-07:00

Did you notice the new header? It will stay up for the month of September, since it is a scene of the birth of the Virgin Mary. This fresco was painted in 1486 by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Notice the angels dancing in the upper windows, delighting in the birth of Mary. Below them, the Latin inscription reads: Thy birth, O Virgin and Mother of God, brings joy to all the world.

Indeed.

Lamentation of the Traddies

2009-08-29T20:44:00.004-07:00

For all you traddies out there! (I just had to post this after attending a very liberal Novus Ordo Mass this weekend)

From the archives of The Cassock and Cotta:

In illo tempore, the Three Roman Traddies came unto a parish church, and began to offer worship to the Most High. And behold, several instrumentalists brought in drums, electric guitars and stereo speakers of wood, two cubits in length, and a cubit in breadth, and a cubit and half in height.

And one of the Three, who was called Norman, spoke to the two, saying: "Speak to the instrumentalists of the parish, that every man that offereth of his own accord, they shall take with them no extra microphone, for it is an abomination unto Us Traddies."

And another Traddie, who was called Michael, spoke thus: "Of the drums that are unacceptable in Our sight, they may play, but not when We offer sacrifice. Of the jazz guitars that are unacceptable in Our sight, they may play, but not when We offer sacrifice. Of the praise-and-worship activities that are unacceptable in Our sight, they may play, but absolutely not when We offer sacrifice.

"Of the microphones attached to stereo speakers, yea even those that are as large as Our oxen, they may use, but not when We offer sacrifice, neither may they carry them into the sanctuary therein. And behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass."

Thus spake the third Traddie, who was called Kenny: "For We judge what is proper and what is improper to the liturgy, saying first that chant is most suitable, then they shall have their silly songs. But of the silly songs, the laws are these: that they may not play them ad nauseam, neither may they rehearse before the liturgy and distract everyone from prayer. And if they deceive by playing the instruments softly, they shall not have their silly songs."

"Hold not your hands in the air, for it is as if you are suffering rheumatism. Only hold thyself still, still I say. For no person doubts that you are able to lift your hands in the air. Lo, how iniqitous this sight is in Our sight."

"Strike ye yourselves at the breast during the Confiteor, for there is no law against this. Kneel ye at the Creed. Verily, I say to thee, kneel ye at the Creed."

And behold, the instrumentalists began speaking among themselves, saying: "These men must be of a different liturgy."

And the Three knew what they were saying among themselves, whereupon the Three said unto them, "Amen, Amen We tell you most solemnly, there was no guitar in the liturgy before 1962. Leave the sacred liturgy alone, for what has the Church done to thee, that thou must afflict it thus with thy drums and guitars, raping Our ears?"

And behold, those who tried to introduce drums and guitars were thrown to the desert, where there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy

2009-08-28T16:30:00.001-07:00

I know I said I was gone for the weekend, but this is a must read:

Spirit & Life^®
"The words I spoke to you are spirit and life." (Jn 6:63) Human Life International e-Newsletter Volume 04, Number 27 \| Friday, August 28, 2009
..................................................................................	www.hli.org
Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today. Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one's sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were. It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power. It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a "great guy behind the scenes" as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy's career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one's political affiliation, if one is only "Catholic" to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud. As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear. Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans. Sincerely, Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President, Human Life International

Four days of sunshine (I hope)

2009-08-28T16:24:00.001-07:00

And speaking of cooling off, I am off to the lake for four days. Back on Tuesday. Have a good weekend, everyone!