Believe
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Monthly Archives: November 2008
It Has Begun
All you conspiracy officianados may have a go at captioning this one:
Can’t Wait
In the next 20 years, this sort of Catholic will become extinct. As America descends further into decadence and decline, the lines will be drawn between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. People will have to choose whether to serve God and His Church or the dark side. Catholics will have to choose to be fully committed or not. If they choose to be Catholic, let them be informed and involved and integrated. If they choose to leave the Church, then they should be honest and stop referring to themselves as Catholic.
I hope so. I often think this is true, though sometimes I doubt it. Evil has the curious ability of adapting itself to any set of circumstances, and we are currently suffering from the boiled frog effect. People will float aimlessly in the rising heat until they die or are pulled out of the water.
Seems to me that the only solution will be the restoration of discipline within the Church. Our hope is in the new clerglymen, like Father Newman, who will stand for none of the nonsense. When the bishops and priests are a united front against the onslaught, then things will really change.
Ckick of the heels to Charlie.
Smashing Dragons
Since I am in an apocalyptic mood I thought it would be nice to have some more war, but let’s brighten things up a bit at the same time. Don’t worry, I won’t ignore the multi-headed devourer that threatens our existence, I just think that the Woman Clothed with the Sun might shed some light on what we should do in our predicament. Forgive me for not being quite as lugubrious as usual.
Just read something interesting on Our Lady of Guadalupe:
The Image of Christ in the accidents of bread, and the image of Mary in the accidents of flowers, but with this lovable difference, that in Christ’s sacrament the accidents of bread appear, and not the image, and in Mary’s sacrament the image appears and the accidents of flowers disappear.
Father Juan de San Miguel, SJ preached these words in 1671 during the consecration of a side chapel of the Mexico City Cathedral dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. I can only assume that the context of the remarks would indicate that he is speaking metaphorically. He certainly is not saying that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a “sacrament” in the proper sense of the term. Nevertheless, a comparison with the Eucharist is valid.
The whole point of the continuous miracle of the tilma, which is comparable to the perduring miracle of the Real Presence of the Eucharist, is to reassure the members of the Church Militant that the Woman Clothed with the Sun is really with us and is ready to manifest that presence in power and victory. John Paul the II made the central thought of his Marian encyclical “the role of Mary in the mystery of Christ and on her active and exemplary presence in the life of the Church.” That active and exemplary presence is going to bring the red dragon to the mat. Just you wait.
Father Juan notes the ostensible difference between sacramental transubstantiation and the miracle of the tilma. Jesus hides himself under the accidents of bread and wine in order to exercise our faith and to assume a form by which we partake of Him as our food. Mary sheds the accidents of the flowers in order to manifest herself as the Woman Clothed with the Sun. In the Eucharist we humble ourselves through faith and reverence. Through the lesser charismatic grace of the tilma we are given an extraordinary sign of Our Lady’s presence and reason for confidence in the midst of conflict.
This was precisely the case historically when Our Lady appeared in Mexico. The power of hell had been unleashed in Mexico through a diabolical religion and through the vices of the Conquistadors. God had his way through the Woman Clothed with the Sun.
Soon the novena in preparation for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception will begin and within its octave we will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. These are times in which we need unwavering confidence. Make or renew an act of consecration to Our Lady.
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe also saw the connection between the Eucharist and the power of the Immaculate Conception:
We want Her to think, to speak and to act through us. We desire to belong to the Immaculate to the extent that nothing will remain in us that is not Her, so that we may be annihilated in Her, transubstantiated into Her, changed into Her, that She alone remains, so that we may be as much Hers as She is God’s. She belongs to God, having become His Mother. And we want to become the mother who would give the life of the Immaculate to every heart that exists and to those that will still come into existence. That is the M.I.–to bring Her into every heart, to give Her life to every heart. Thus entering these hearts and taking full possession of them, She may give birth to sweet Jesus, who is God, that He might grow in them in age and perfection.
If Father Juan looks to an extraordinary sign to find the presence of the Woman Clothed with the Sun. St. Maximilian looks to our own transformation which is a matter of constant effort at purification through prayer and penance (annihilation) and the power of God through Our Lady (transubstantiation).
It’s the consecration, stupid. Our Lady at Fatima told us this when the whole contemporary mess got started. When are we going to figure this thing out?
Fashionable Fascism
What with our profoundly enlightened electorate and the free discourse encouraged by the missionaries of secularist ideology, not to mention Lord Obama’s personal security force, looks like the fun has begun.
Boot click to Michelle Malkin.
How the War Was Lost
This is not only indicates a failure of the media to inform, it indicates that our culture in general has failed to be the least bit enlightening.
We have lost the propaganda war. One reason for this is that we have allowed education to become nothing more than propaganda.
I am really starting to detest the whole idea of American Idol. I think that our pop-culture is the real paradigm for the American electoral process and for the education of our average countryman.
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet…..
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Update:
God Forbid We State the Obvious
“I knew that this might turn into a very ugly brawl designed to make me look like a raving lunatic seeking to coerce voters through spiritual blackmail rather than a shepherd warning his flock about the spiritual danger of supporting abortion, whether directly or indirectly,” he wrote. “And my suspicion proved well-founded.”
Knight Errant points out that probably half of the bishops voted for Obama, so no wonder this priest gets hammered. Now they will wring their hands concerning what to do about the Catholic hospitals and then when its too late make some meaningless compromise. Just wait.
A priest in the pulpit always risks being too nuanced or too general when it comes to correcting error. If you say its a mortal sin to vote for Obama, then people will accuse you of holding everyone who voted for him in bad faith. If you say that in my opinion it is so, or that my conscience would not allow me to vote for him, then listeners will conclude that there is no objective evil in voting for Obama.
It may be that this or that person is in good faith and concludes that under the circumstances his choice is justified and thus that person may not be guilty of formal sin, but this can be resolved between penitent and priest in the confessional. It is still the responsibility of the priest to speak clearly about the objective nature of the act and not mince words.
The mealy-mouthed response from the diocese only reflects the support of Obama by those who should be protecting the lives of those whom their new messiah will destroy. Implicit apostasy.
Update:
Here is an excerpt from the statement of Monsignor Martin T. Laughlin Administrator of the Diocese of Charleston, responding to Father Newman’s clear moral teaching on voting pro-abortion:
Christ gives us freedom to explore our own conscience and to make our own decisions while adhering to the law of God and the teachings of the faith. Therefore, if a person has formed his or her conscience well, he or she should not be denied Communion, nor be told to go to confession before receiving Communion.
The pulpit is reserved for the Word of God. Sometimes God’s truth, as is the Church’s teaching on abortion, is unpopular. All Catholics must be aware of and follow the teachings of the Church.
We should all come together to support the President-elect and all elected officials with a view to influencing policy in favor of the protection of the unborn child. Let us pray for them and ask God to guide them as they take the mantle of leadership on January 20, 2009.
According to this “if a person has formed his or her conscience well,” no matter what conclusion he or she has come to, then the Church bestows her blessing upon that person’s choice. “Yes, one must accept the Church’s teaching on abortion, but that does not mean you can’t support a pro-abortion candidate if you think its alright.” This kind of thinking is precisely why we find ourselves in this mess.
Just as I said: wait for the crowd of church leaders to use this logic to sell what’s left of our public institutions, especially our hospitals, to Satan himself. It will be no surprise.
Doug Kmiec and his crowd have used this logic to argue that Obama is really pro-life. It is like a cancer on the body politic. This is exactly why this good priest chose not to dilly-dally with the spiritual welfare of his flock. God bless him.
Politcians and Paternalism
It’s a bit ironic that the liberal party of self-governance and civil liberty has served us up a celebrity for a president whose cult of personality has permitted him to exercise an unprecedented kind of political paternalism. He has looked upon his candidacy as a “teachable moment,” and upon his victory in the Democratic primary as an event which restored “his faith in America,” as though the electorate owed him some kind of proof of its loyalty. Now he is putting forward this preposterous mandatory civilian security service, banking on the power of his creepy personality cult.
It’s not that Obama is altogether a phenomenon unto himself. This has been coming on for a long time. Why have we ever cared what celebrities think? Our thought processes have been formed by American Idol, and now we bow down before the empty suites that we have neatly arranged for our own destruction.
I am not one to complain about patriarchy, but the icon of a father is not a red, white and blue Obama, looking down from his perch of wisdom upon his needy children. No the real icon of a father is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.
One of the earliest images of Our Lord used in the history of the Church is that of the Good Shepherd. In the catacombs of Rome, Our Lord was portrayed as a beardless young man who carried a lamb on his shoulders, calling to mind the parable of the lost sheep. It is a beautiful image, but it is only half the story. In the Gospels the Good Shepherd according to Our Lord is the one who lays down his life for his sheep. The Roman fresco of the Good Shepherd illustrates the paternal solicitude of Christ for the weak and the needy, His personal attention to the individual who is hurting, but Our Lord Himself applies the title of Good Shepherd to the one who stands up to the wolves to protect His sheep from death and himself is torn to shreds in the process.
I once saw a child’s crayon drawing of the Good Shepherd of Jesus wielding a spiked club, standing between the wolves and his sheep, and bleeding from the hands where He has been bitten by the wolves. That’s Our Lord on the Cross.
Why don’t we have leaders like this? Because we don’t want them. Heaven forbid that we admit that we are weak and needy. Far be it from us to allow ourselves to be led by someone who has our best interests at heart, based on a commitment to the truth of Christ. Instead we throw our babies to the wolves and thank the lupine divinity for being delivered from the responsibility to care for them.
Boo Hoo to Burning Bridges
Some bishops are on the right track. We should blow up all the Catholic hospitals before we let Lord Obama and his minions control them. Of course, the Catholic “elite” thinks differently:
But Dr. Patrick Whelan, a pediatrician and president of Catholic Democrats, said angry statements from church leaders were counterproductive and would only alienate Catholics.
“We’re calling on the bishops to move away from the more vicious language,” Whelan said. He said the church needs to act “in a more creative, constructive way,” to end abortion.
Catholics United was among the groups that argued in direct mail and TV ads during the campaign that taking the “pro-life” position means more than opposing abortion rights.
Chris Korzen, the group’s executive director, said, “we honestly want to move past the deadlock” on abortion. He said church leaders were making that task harder.
“What are the bishops going to do now?” Korzen said. “`They have burned a lot of bridges with the Democrats and the new administration.”
Teach the faith and burn those bridges. We don’t need them. We are headed away from hell and hopefully won’t be going back.
A bow of the head to Patty.
Back to Fundamentals
When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: “Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is.” Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother’s knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.
By Liberalism Chesterton means the doctrine of self-governance.
Armageddon, indeed.
