Remembrance Day - 2021

 

The importance of true conversion of the heart

The flurry of comments on Barona's recent post reminded me of what St. Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622) wrote about true devotion in his Introduction to the Devout Life. It is worth quoting in full, with emphasis.

You aim at a devout life, dear child, because as a Christian you know that such devotion is most acceptable to God’s Divine Majesty. But seeing that the small errors people are wont to commit in the beginning of any under taking are apt to wax greater as they advance, and to become irreparable at last, it is most important that you should thoroughly understand wherein lies the grace of true devotion; — and that because while there undoubtedly is such a true devotion, there are also many spurious and idle semblances thereof; and unless you know which is real, you may mistake, and waste your energy in pursuing an empty, profitless shadow. Arelius was wont to paint all his pictures with the features and expression of the women he loved, and even so we all colour devotion according to our own likings and dispositions. One man sets great value on fasting, and believes himself to be leading a very devout life, so long as he fasts rigorously, although the while his heart is full of bitterness; — and while he will not moisten his lips with wine, perhaps not even with water, in his great abstinence, he does not scruple to steep them in his neighbour’s blood, through slander and detraction. Another man reckons himself as devout because he repeats many prayers daily, although at the same time he does not refrain from all manner of angry, irritating, conceited or insulting speeches among his family and neighbours. This man freely opens his purse in almsgiving, but closes his heart to all gentle and forgiving feelings towards those who are opposed to him; while that one is ready enough to forgive his enemies, but will never pay his rightful debts save under pressure. Meanwhile all these people are conventionally called religious, but nevertheless they are in no true sense really devout. 

When Saul’s servants sought to take David, Michal induced them to suppose that the lifeless figure lying in his bed, and covered with his garments, was the man they sought; and in like manner many people dress up an exterior with the visible acts expressive of earnest devotion, and the world supposes them to be really devout and spiritual-minded, while all the time they are mere lay figures, mere phantasms of devotion.

But, in fact, all true and living devotion presupposes the love of God; — and indeed it is neither more nor less than a very real love of God, though not always of the same kind; for that Love one while shining on the soul we call grace, which makes us acceptable to His Divine Majesty; — when it strengthens us to do well, it is called Charity; — but when it attains its fullest perfection, in which it not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligently, and promptly, then it is called Devotion.

The ostrich never flies, the hen rises with difficulty, and achieves but a brief and rare flight, but the eagle, the dove, and the swallow, are continually on the wing, and soar high; — even so sinners do not rise towards God, for all their movements are earthly and earthbound. Well-meaning people, who have not as yet attained a true devotion, attempt a manner of flight by means of their good actions, but rarely, slowly and heavily; while really devout men rise up to God frequently, and with a swift and soaring wing. In short, devotion is simply a spiritual activity and liveliness by means of which Divine Love works in us, and causes us to work briskly and lovingly; and just as charity leads us to a general practice of all God’s Commandments, so devotion leads us to practise them readily and diligently. And therefore we cannot call him who neglects to observe all God’s Commandments either good or devout, because in order to be good, a man must be filled with love, and to be devout, he must further be very ready and apt to perform the deeds of love. 

And forasmuch as devotion consists in a high degree of real love, it not only makes us ready, active, and diligent in following all God’s Commands, but it also excites us to be ready and loving in performing as many good works as possible, even such as are not enjoined upon us, but are only matters of counsel or inspiration. Even as a man just recovering from illness, walks only so far as he is obliged to go, with a slow and weary step, so the converted sinner journeys along as far as God commands him but slowly and wearily, until he attains a true spirit of devotion, and then, like a sound man, he not only gets along, but he runs and leaps in the way of God’s Commands, and hastens gladly along the paths of heavenly counsels and inspirations. The difference between love and devotion is just that which exists between fire and flame; — love being a spiritual fire which becomes devotion when it is fanned into a flame; — and what devotion adds to the fire of love is that flame which makes it eager, energetic and diligent, not merely in obeying God’s Commandments, but in fulfilling His Divine Counsels and inspirations.

If the comments on Barona's post are any indication, the problems of practicing true devotion are just as prevalent in our time as it was during St. Francis de Sales' time. 

Conversion of the heart from sin is not a one-step process. This is where the Protestants terribly mixed things up. Rather, it is a journey, step-by-step, from the foot of the Cross to the kiss of Our Lord Jesus Christ's (Blessed be His Name forever!) mouth, to use St. Bernard of Clairvaux's phraseology. Rome was not built in a day - it is the same with conversion of one's heart from sin through repentance.

May God bless you all - and may we all meet on the other side of Heaven one day, praising and singing glory to God forever and ever.

Catholics under persecution: Will we restore in Christ or reset in Satan?

 

Blessed art thou, Lord God of our fathers, renowned and glorious is thy name for ever! In all thy dealings with us, thou hast right on thy side; so true to thy promises, so unswerving in thy course, so just in thy awards! No punishment thou hast inflicted upon us, or upon Jerusalem, holy city of our fathers, but was deserved; for sins of ours, faithfulness and justice that stroke laid on. Sinners we were, that had wronged and forsaken thee, all was amiss with us; unheard thy commandments, or else unheeded, thy will neglected, and with it, our own well-being! Nothing we had not deserved, pillage of thy contriving, plague of thy sending, and at last the foul domination of godless foes, of a tyrant that has no equal on earth! Tongue-tied we stand, that have brought disgrace on the livery of thy true worship. 

In these days we are without prince or leader or prophet, we have no burnt-sacrifice, no victim, no offering; for us no incense burns, no first-fruits can be brought into thy presence and win thy favour. But oh, accept us still, hearts that are crushed, spirits bowed down by adversity; look kindly on the sacrifice we offer thee this day, as it had been burnt-sacrifice of rams and bullocks, thousands of fattened lambs; who ever trusted in thee and was disappointed? With all our hearts, now, we choose thy will, we reverence thee, we long after thy presence; for that clemency, that abundant mercy of thine must we hope in vain? By some wondrous deliverance vindicate thy own renown; theirs be the vain hope, that would do thy servants an injury. Fools, that would match themselves with omnipotence! Crush down their might; teach them that in all the world Lord there is none, God there is none, glorified as thou. (Daniel 3: 26-32; 38-41)

When we are being scourged it means that God still loves us, and asks for our repentance. We can either imitate the saintly Three Young Men or we can follow Barabbas. Does that mean we rejoice that we are in Babylon? No. But it does mean we meditate why we are in exile. Surely there are some terrible sins to make reparation and repent of. Let us just think of the millions killed in abortion, or the sins against morality and family, the innumerable outrageous and mocking violations of The Commandments by Catholics, millions, nay hundreds of millions of Catholics. Or, let us just consider the silence of millions of others as these crimes went on. Just as Israel of old was punished for her infidelity, so too, Israel of today is being punished for her infidelity. God will not be mocked. Yes, he is a loving Father, but he is also a just Father.

For those Catholics who have and wish to remain faithful to the Father, He also desires us to use the intelligence and reason He gave us. Just read the Bible. Read Daniel (was he not a consultant for the pagan King, without compromising the Faith?), Esther (did she not marry the pagan King, without compromising the Faith?), Maccabees (did they not use their wits and intelligence without compromising the Faith?), Habbakuk, Lamentations, and Job (did not the Prophets teach us humility and repentance?). 

Let us go and do likewise.  

 Sts. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, pray for us. 

 

Traditional Catholics: It is past time we had a good, long look in the mirror: Are WE doing the Devil's work?

Is Jesus Christ the centre of my life?

What doth it profit a man to denounce the Pope and lose his soul? Or refuse the request of his traditional priest to mask up, thereby gifting the local modernist bishop what he desires: the "beheading" of the local Mass on a silver platter? 

There are innumerable examples of such sinful insanity that is infecting more and more "traditional" Catholics. From whence does it come? Pride. Pride is a killer. As Archbishop Lenga recently noted, we hear about people declaring for sedevacantism, for the SSPX, for the Jesuits, for this or that: but declaring for Our Lord Jesus Christ he asks? They are silent.

 Recently a comment was sent to this blog in which, it was claimed the Pope was "a demon". Another comment referred to the Pope as "public enemy number one". Vox Cantoris was told the other day that he was "demonic". How does this build up the Mystical Body of Christ? How does this edify our families and friends in the Faith? How does this lead a searcher for the truth who is visiting the blog to consider converting when all he reads is hate and rage, despicable name calling? Who in their right mind would in the Catholic Church when they read these mad ravings?

And how does this spewing out if sin strengthen our prayer life? What comes of attacking, slandering, defaming brothers and sisters in Christ? Where is our charity? "And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold".  (Matthew 24:12). There is laughter in Hell when Satan has convinced "traditional" Catholics that they are serving God when in fact they are doing the devil's work. 

We need a return to pure religion. The Catholic Faith is NOT a political party. In fact, the most political "College of Cardinals" in Our Lord's Day, the Sanhedrin, organized His murder and even declared the pagan "god", Caesar their "god". For those sad men the end was not a good one when they had to stand before Christ at Judgment. They had lost the faith for they had already grown "cold" and had no "charity". Compare them to the repentant good thief or the devoted humility of the saintly daughters of Jerusalem.

We traditional Catholics need to seriously examine ourselves before God. Are we devoting one, two, three and more hours a day on the internet searching for the latest papal scandal and gossip? Are we busily posting in comboxes protestant-inspired declarations that the Pope of Rome is not the Pope? Are we disobeying our priest who requests us to mask up at Mass so the modernist bishop is not given exactly what he wants? A pretext to suppress the Mass? In short: are WE DOING THE DEVIL'S WORK?

I have a few suggestions for those who spend hours on social media denouncing, raging, fuming: why not devote half your energy to picketing the local abortion mill? Praying the Rosary outside the local bishop's Office for his conversion? Volunteering time visiting the shut-ins? Doing grocery shopping for the elderly?

We might be able to fool a few people by turning up at Mass every Sunday; even daily recitation (notice, I do NOT say praying) of the Rosary, novenas, following Ember Days etc. Did not the Pharisees do the same? But we cannot fool God. We might be able to mask our sinful life with exterior manifestations of "piety" but interiorly we are "sounding brass..." (c.f. 1 Cor 13:1).

...or is Satan?

Dear Catholic friends, in this time of ever increasing confusion we need to draw closer to Christ and His Mother and NOT turn our backs on them. For the hierarchy, if we believe them confused, wayward, cowardly, even some evil (as I do on all those descriptors) we must take very careful care that our response does not place us on the road that they might be travelling. Let us, whatever happens, NEVER, leave the VISIBLE Church of Christ for some synagogue of Satan. Heresy and schism are a sad response to - you guessed it: heresy and schism.

Advent will soon be upon us:let us repent of our sins, and engage in good works. For as St. James wrote "faith without good works is dead". Let us look in the spiritual mirror and see what we find looking back at us. Is it faith and good works, always striving, always improving. Or, is it a satanic caricature of faith with no good works?

Archbishop Lenga speaks about true and false obedience to the Pope and Bishops

 

Archbishop Lenga, Defender of the Faith

 

Archbishop Jan Pawel Lenga (Archbishop emeritus of Karaganda, Khazakstan) has been one of the very few voices in the hierarchy who has consistently proclaimed the Gospel in season and out of season. He was one of ONLY five bishops who signed the "40 Fundamentals of Truth". The document has been scrubbed from the internet (also removed from the "conservative" National Catholic Register, no doubt as a result of EWTN's episcopal masters ordering it removed. See here), However we have obtained a copy and will be publishing it in due order. Stay tuned!

Archbishop Lenga accurately predicted the disgraceful response of the world's hierarchy regarding the "NIH-Wuhan" conspiracy to engage in gain-of-function experimentation leading to the SAR-CoV2 coronavirus. With dry humour the saintly Prelate even noting that the bishops in terror of the virus would be in hiding in their mansions, gaining even more weight as they were being fed on bended knee by lay underlings. He tore into these slaves of Caesar for handing over the sacred rites of the Mass to Caesar, allowing the Most Holy Eucharist to be profaned. 

In contrast, he suggested bishops (and priests) were being offered a quick way to heaven by taking the Sacraments to dying faithful and themselves falling fatally ill. Alas, we know the road they decided to take.  Indeed, the new road of unmitigated evil seems to be leading to a two tiered system: I predict that here in the Archdiocese of Toronto we will soon have trotted out a diabolical scheme of "Leper Masses" and "mRNA Masses".  

Cardinal Collins and the Bishops have surrendered to the State and abandoned the children

 

Triumph of Judah Maccabees by Ruebens

As plans move forward the bishops of Canada continue to prostrate themselves before "King Antiochus" and, with their promotion of vaccinating healthy children, allow the spread of "evil in the land" (c.f. Maccabees 1). 

 As has been noted, children have been spared the dangers of COVID. Further, they do NOT spread it. Indeed, the entire LIE to vaccinate them is premised that children are indeed silent super-spreaders, moving about with ease contaminating the 50% plus of the chronically ill (who supposedly already have been vaccinated).  

In this macabre horror show, the bishops of Canada are not only silent, but they are proactive henchmen of "King Antiochus". But it is far worse than just playing with healthy children's health, monstrous as this is. This horror goes to the heart of the bishops of Canada playing the whore, and engaging in an illicit embrace with the State. 

Let him who has ears hear, who has eyes see. These men have even betrayed the little ones into the hands of Moloch.

The Surrender to the godless State was years ago

Wilt thou not be the first to come forward and do the king’s bidding, with the whole world, and the men of Juda everywhere, and what is left of Jerusalem? To be the king’s friend, thou and thy sons with thee, gold and silver and much else for thy reward!  Loud rang the answer of Mattathias: What though king Antiochus have the whole world for his vassals? Obey the edict who will, forsaking the custom his fathers lived by,  both I and son of mine, both I and clansman of mine, will obey the law handed down to us.  Mercy of God! What needs it we should leave his will undone, his claims unhonoured? To deaf ears king Antiochus proclaims the sacrifice; we swerve not from the law’s path, right or left. (1 Maccabees 2: 18-22)

The Health Crisis is FAR more DANGEROUS than COVID. Change YOUR lifestyle and STOP taking it out on healthy children!

Now, they claim that children are putting them at "risk"!

 It is not the soul alone that should be healthy; if the mind is healthy in a healthy body, all will be healthy and much better prepared to give God greater service. St. Ignatius

Over the past few decades there has been an unprecedented explosion in the health care crisis. Sky rocketing high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases etc. In sum, well over 50% of the population is chronically ill. 

Now "they" have set their sights on children. The pretext is children are transmitters of COVID (the NIH gain-of-function experiment held in Wuhan). 

And indeed "they" are correct, but IF and ONLY IF children transmit. Indeed children would be the MOST DEADLY super-spreader, since they also show the least amount of symptoms. If you believe children spread then logically you MUST be a proponent of mandatory child vaccination. 

But, DO they spread? The scientific evidence shows otherwise. Children are virtually immune (very young children have yet to develop substantial numbers of ACE-2 receptors) and we KNOW they do NOT transmit the virus (c.f peer-reviewed Swedish study of 2,000,000 schoolchildren). In fact, from an immunological and epidemiological perspective, children (who on average catch 4 cornaviruses per annum) should be encouraged to continue to mix with all ages, including their elderly grandparents (the healthy elderly especially need their natural immunity boosted by being exposed to the normal daily pathogens that we all carry; which we are ALL exposed to on a daily basis).

 

   

We can either take proactive action or continue to deny reality, mask-up (masks don't work by the way), hide under our beds, stop exercising (or refuse to exercise), and continue to devour the poisonous and immune system destroying "foods" that are pushed on us during (so they tell us) a dangerous pandemic. So dangerous, that the economy had to be destroyed and life saving medical procedures and care suspended for nearly two weeks (sorry, two YEARS).

One would have thought that a "pandemic" "loose in the community" (to quote Cardinal Collins), was a perfect opportunity to undertake a SERIOUS effort to correct the decades long health care crisis. Alas, nothing has been said, nothing done. In fact, people have been encouraged to continue in their sedentary lifestyle, hiding under their beds, masking, and continuing to believe that the virus is about to leap out from behind a bush. The fact is, reasonable people ended the pandemic last year reaching herd immunity (just checkout Sweden's numbers this year. Virtually no deaths, no lock downs, no masking of children in schools, etc. no madness...). 

 

There has been NO effort on the part of (bought out?) governments to promote a healthy lifestyle. Indeed, the so-called "healthy" food recommendations (e.g. Health Canada Guide) are replete with half-truths, and down right error. What we have is an unhealthy population with multiple comorbidities, being kept alive with drugs. All this does is incentivise Big Pharma and Big Processed Foods to keep things going as they are: why upset a very profitable business? This is not a post about vaccine passports or mandatory masking, but just consider the irrationality of imposing them, but still permitting the sale and use of tobacco. It is about control over a weakened, effete, materialistic, sybaritic, infantile, unhealthy, and sedentary population. 

 

Friends are you not aware that your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit? To knowingly abuse your body with dangerous "foods" (many slow killing poisons) is sinful; indeed it can become gravely sinful when one is aware and one's body has moved from optimum health to a state of clinically diagnosed chronic illness. Here I speak ONLY of self-induced illness. This is NOT about the genetically predisposed; those who have become ill through no fault of their own. Here I speak only about people who have devoted years to self-abuse.  

Take control of YOUR life. They want you weak, sick, and controlled. Certainly they do NOT want you healthy or they would have banned by now all the dangerous, addictive "foods" that populate the market, and are advertised every day on social media (during an immuno-linked pandemic no less! I guess we need to consult our "very virtuous" public health officials on that contradiction).

But there is still time while you breath. Get up, and get healthy. When the virus struck last March we had an opportunity to redouble our efforts to maintain our health, or get healthy. We know the VAST majority of those struck down by COVID are unhealthy. This makes complete sense as with any transmissible disease. So we must ask ourselves: what have we been doing for nearly TWO YEARS (and counting)? Ah,a synthetic drug will "save" us. No personal responsibility, no effort to get healthy; just take more artificial, synthetic products to keep the delusion going.

If you do not exercise, START today. If you eat junk food (and that's the majority) STOP. The saints disciplined their body, so can you. 

Get a grip friends: death is a reality. COVID is a reality; it is here to stay, like all other coronaviruses. We should be exceedingly joyful that at least it is a disease that does not attack children. The effort should now be twofold: as mentioned encouraging a healthy, active population, and secondly initiating prosecution of the criminals in Washington and Wuhan who developed this dangerous experiment and unloosed it on humanity. Sadly, neither will be done.