Keep your eyes open!...





 

October 30, 2024         

(Pro 29:2) When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

CRISIS MAGAZINE: The Only Man Standing in the Way of Our Country’s Destruction

COMPLICIT CLERGY: Archbishop Viganò: Open Letter to American Catholics

X: @BillAckman: "I think the single biggest threat to the United States today is some combination of World War Three".

X: The Stakes

Why 2024 matters, and why you might sound like a crazy person if you complain about what the left is actually doing.

Imagine your child told you that the school principal had grabbed a student by her pigtails and performed an Olympic hammer throw with the girl; grabbed another student and thrown him in a closet with nails sticking out of the walls; and made another eat cake until he lost consciousness. Would you believe them, or chalk it up to a fanciful imagination?

Having recently read Matilda with my young daughters, the case of “The Trunchbull” got me thinking. At times, when I try to explain the radical schemes and insane spending of the US government with President Biden and VP Harris in charge, friends on the left look at me in disbelief. “That can’t be right” is a common refrain. To them, I sound like a raving lunatic.

They’ve simply never heard about the fortune allocated to “charities” to settle millions of migrants in American swing-state communities in the middle of the night; or the millions doled out to people who were denied civil service jobs for being unable to perform basic arithmetic; or the immense sums given to NGOs (non-government organizations) to literally subvert the First Amendment and Bill of Rights by censoring Americans; or the total corruption of dozens of government programs by extremist race and gender priorities; or the use of taxpayer money to run massive ballot harvesting operations on behalf of one party.

Only a radical right-wing partisan would believe that they’re doing all this, even when they brag about it. Right?

That’s just a start. Listing everything the Biden-Harris Administration has funneled billions of dollars towards, all the people they’ve greenlit for persecution, all the times they lied about it… You’d sound crazy to someone who doesn’t follow it closely. You’d sound like the kids in the Trunchbull's school complaining about being put in the “chokey” — fanciful!

So, let's review some of the less-commonly-known things they’ve done, and why many of us hope to see Kamala Harris and her allies booted from Washington in January 2025. At the end, you can decide whether we’re the insane ones for noticing all this stuff, or if they’re the insane ones for actually doing it.

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At the center of nearly every crazy thing that Harris and Biden have funded are NGOs. For a government looking to evade accountability, NGOs are a perfect partner: they’re less transparent and less restrained by the Bill of Rights. They can provide lucrative jobs to activists and former politicians.

Harris and Biden, after allowing in over 10 million illegal migrants, have funneled billions to such “charitable” NGOs oriented specifically to coaching migrants how to pretend they need asylum, and helping illegal migrants stay in the US indefinitely and become citizens — skipping the line over people immigrating legally. Bribing and coaching migrants to claim asylum is one thing: a huge number of criminals and even men on the terrorist watchlist have been caught crossing illegally and then allowed into the country!

Border NGOs are just one category. Many NGOs are awarded hundreds of millions at a time. Total NGO awards exceed $100 billion annually. That’s enough money to cause serious chaos.

Another example: MENAACTION, a Middle East NGO, received $573,000 from the State Department to train Jordanian journalists to identify “fake news.” It turned out that the organization was itself promulgating fake news, pushing false claims accusing Israel of striking a Gaza hospital (a Palestinian missile had hit the hospital). There are thousands of others like this.

The NGO complex gets worse. If Congress can make no law abridging the freedom of speech, why not just outsource the censorship to people outside the government? The UK NGO “Center for Countering Digital Hate” has been plotting to “kill Musk’s Twitter” (their words) — and meeting with the Harris campaign. Matt Taibbi reported that activists connected to the CCDH have been advising the Harris campaign on election strategy at the same time the organization seeks to destroy a free speech platform in the US.

Many NGOs were funded as part of this administration’s work on censorship, domestically and globally. They claim they are fighting hate speech, but their actions are against the spirit of the US Constitution. Any power you give to the government, you should imagine your enemy using it against you: clearly, it’s not safe to let politicians or bureaucrats decide what is hate speech and what isn’t, which is why the 1st amendment bans the government from censoring it.

Where money cannot be directly appropriated for crooked NGOs, Harris and her allies often fund them via a scheme in which third parties get a cut of settlement money. Harris’ brother-in-law Tony West, of whom Vanity Fair quoted a campaign insider as saying, “There’s nothing that happens in the campaign that he’s not part of,” pioneered this model when he was assistant attorney general in the Obama years. These third party settlement payments have totaled into the tens of billions, including billions for teacher unions, environmental NGOs, and more, often run by close progressive allies.

The Trump administration stopped this practice of giving settlement money to NGOs; Biden resumed it. Do you think a President Harris would turn off the spigot for their friends in the “nonprofit” world - whether for trans, environmental, homeless, or censorship issues? I don’t. But hundreds of billions to unaccountable far-left activists isn’t enough for them. Unfortunately, the graft extends beyond NGOs and into the corporate world, where political bias has corrupted decisions that would otherwise be easy.

At the federal level, Harris and Biden’s FCC doled out $42 billion on “rural broadband,” contracts. Not a single person has been connected. After Elon spoke out against the administration, SpaceX lost the contract, despite Starlink’s ascendance and affordability (Starlink requires no additional infrastructure; the government could buy terminals easily, and setup takes five minutes). If there’s no goals or accountability, why not spend just $100 billion to connect nobody? $200 billion? Harris’ VP nominee Tim Walz bragged that with $52 million in Minnesota taxpayer dollars, he’d connect 7,500 homes and businesses to broadband internet. That’s a cost of nearly $7,000 per location. Starlink costs less than $1,000 to set up and run.

Why would he brag about spending more money than necessary? They seem to actually embrace the waste, and lack of results — as long as they can virtue signal about the alleged intention of the boondoggle. In a similar episode, VP Harris led the charge to electrify school buses in America — with $5 billion in federal money. After three years, only 7% of school districts that started the program have switched to electric buses. Others have withdrawn from the program. It was a failure.

Harris also wants to spend your money helping convicted murderers and rapists (as well as the illegals she welcomed) undergo “gender transition.” It sounds crazy, right? How could that be a real policy proposal… CNN reports: Harris “supported taxpayer funding of gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.” If lighting those hundreds of billions on fire wasn’t enough, VP Harris has a plan to vacuum up even more: including by taxing “unrealized capital gains” (income that does not exist) . The vast majority of economists and economy-watchers realize that this wealth confiscation plan would be a disaster. It’s so extreme that even Mark Cuban, one of her top entrepreneurial surrogates, denounced the idea. NBC News reported:

Quote: Cuban assured the audience that Harris wouldn’t tax unrealized gains. “I’m glad you asked that. So some people think that there’s going to be an unrealized gains tax on capital gains,” said Cuban, adding: “There is not, there is not.” In August, Harris endorsed tax increases proposed by President Joe Biden in his fiscal year 2025 budget. One of the proposals is a 25% minimum tax on total income exceeding $100 million, including so-called “unrealized gains,” or growth in assets that haven’t been sold.' And she's had people on CNBC defending it more recently.

Here, one is told to disbelieve our own eyes and ears. Joe: You’re the crazy one for hearing what she said, for reading her proposals, and for seeing what she’s done!

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In the past, I might have assumed that any and all of these attacks on the left would be from a radical on my side. Any one of these things is bizarre enough to make one wonder: is a source missing context, or lying? But no. Again and again and again. This is what happens when one side abandons competence in favor of virtue-signaling. Things go off the rails. It’s why so many smart people who are builders are embracing, for the first time, the right and, yes, Donald Trump — people who were “Clinton Democrats” (Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Bill Ackman, to name a few).

What did they see?

Maybe it was that Elon Musk and SpaceX had built the largest rocket and flying object in human history, and the Department of Justice sued him for not hiring enough migrants, or fined and delayed him for things like dumping potable (drinkable) water without a permit in a place that gets a lot of rain anyway. Maybe it was when they saw, up close, the nationwide network of bureaucrats and activists that have wrought chaos in the cities where they do business.

Maybe they clearly saw the push to destroy merit: in their medical schools (see UCLA), in the army, in the US Secret Service, everywhere. The urge to eliminate honors classes, and to punish achievement.

They saw people setting our money on fire. Trying to turn off the lights in America to reduce carbon emissions. To settle tens of millions of uneducated illegal migrants in American communities, flying under cover of night [literally!], and give them handouts, to alter the electoral map.

Perhaps so many of our friends, formerly on the moderate left, saw the actions of the people being bankrolled by this leftist patronage network: the people who are throwing cans of soup at works of art around the world, or the “pro-Palestine” protesters blocking bridges and intersections during rush hour, putting working people and other commuters in jeopardy.

The first Trump administration was far from perfect. But he reduced the regulatory burden, got onshoring going, grew real wages, achieved peace deals in the Middle East and prevented new wars. Many bureaucrats in the “deep state” and some generals who opposed him tried to defy him constantly, and he stood up to them; it’s no surprise they are attacking him now. But again, that is not to say he is perfect.

The question in an election is binary. We can go through a list of the personal flaws of both candidates and the people around them. But policy is what really matters this election: hundreds of billions of grift, the concept of merit, illegal immigration and safety, and weaponization of the bureaucracy are on the line. Judicial appointments are on the line. Will we have originalist judges who go back to the US Constitution, or activists? And so much more… US society can advance forward, or it can retreat into this pervasive cronyism that echoes the kludge and zero-sum nonsense that kept the West mired in poverty throughout the Middle Ages. We can advance up into the stars, or down into the bureaucratic morass of unassailable grift.

If there’s any chance whatsoever of turning off the nonsense and corruption, it’s by voting out the left — and joining Elon Musk and other bold leaders from the competent parts of our society who’ve stepped forward to save the day. Our civilization is on the verge of a golden age, but only if it can escape the swamp. This is why we and so many are helping Trump win, and planning to help in government if and when he does.

The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

32. Poemen said, 'We ought always to be absorbing humility and the fear of God, as our nostrils breathe air in and out.'


October 29, 2024         

(Jer 31:15) Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

CRISIS MAGAZINE: Politics and Truth: America Is at War With Babies

GUEST EDITORIAL: Grief is the Signature of Loss by Anne Lastman

CHARLOTTE LOZIER INSTITUTE: Fact Sheet: Abortion and Mental Health

MORE: Wounded Women: The Consequences of “Choice”

HLI: Healing Is Possible: Get Help After Abortion

If you have aborted your baby and you regret it, please know that you are loved. You are worthy. Our God is merciful. He knows your pain. And He is waiting for you with arms stretched wide, hoping you will return to Him. He forgives you, and He wants you to forgive yourself.

It can be a long and lonely road to travel alone. That’s why there are many resources to help you heal and find peace after abortion.
Rachel’s Vineyard offers weekend healing retreats and post-abortion counseling to heal both mothers and fathers. According to its website: “Participants, who have been trapped in anger toward themselves or others, experience forgiveness. Peace is found. Lives are restored. A sense of hope and meaning for the future is finally re-discovered.”
 

The Sisters of Life offer healing for women. They “vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of every human life” by praying, fasting, and serving others. Their goal is to uphold the dignity of each person and to help post-abortive women heal. They do this by meeting the women in person and on the phone, and then later on retreats or during monthly gatherings and days of prayer.


PATH—or Post Abortion Treatment and Healing—is a community of people who offer healing to both men and women after abortion.


Entering Canaan Ministry ministers to women, men, and even siblings as they work to heal from the pain of abortion.


The Silent No More Awareness Campaign offers healing by allowing people to share their abortion stories and receive and offer support to others.


Individual dioceses also offer healing services, so check your local parishes for in-person or online groups to join.

The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

28. Mathois said, 'The nearer a man comes to God, the more he sees himself to be a sinner. Isaiah the prophet saw the Lord and knew himself to be wretched and unclean (Is. 6:5).'


October 25, 2024         

(Gal 4:22-26) For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

GUEST EDITORIAL: Israel and Palestine: A Family Vendetta by Anne Lastman

CNA: Jerusalem cardinal: Two-state solution to end Israel-Hamas war is now ‘unrealistic’

Regarding the negotiations that must take place to achieve peace, the cardinal commented: “I don’t think the Church should enter these things. The Church is better to remain outside … because if you enter, you are not free. The strength of the Church is to be a voice, the voice of the poor.”

After indicating that “everyone has to do his job. I mean, politicians have to find a political perspective and religious leaders have to help people to find hope.” The patriarch of Jerusalem also made clear that “peace is an attitude. It’s not just an agreement.”

However, Pizzaballa continued, given the current situation “it’s not realistic to talk about peace. Now, what we have to first of all talk about is a cease-fire, to stop any kind of violence … to find also new leadership with vision, political vision, also religious leaders. And then you can think about a new perspective for the Middle East, not before.”

On the subject of hunger as a weapon of war, the cardinal regretted what is happening in Gaza and highlighted that the aid sent by international organizations is not enough to care for 2 million people.

When asked what Christians can do outside the Holy Land, Pizzaballa responded: “Pray and support. Support the Christian community as much as they can.”

After emphasizing that violence is not a solution, the patriarch of Jerusalem insisted that “Palestinians and Israelis are called by God to live one close to another, not against the other. And they have to rediscover their call.”

He further underscored that “the answer to the violence and to the evil is the cross.” He said “it is not impossible” to see God in the midst of all this because “the Gospel is not an idea or a narrative, it is life” and pointed to the need for everyone to “trust more in the power of grace of God.”

VATICAN NEWS: Patriarchate of Jerusalem supporting Christians affected by war 

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY: Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III — The Greek Orthodox Church and the Future of Jerusalem

Q. How much of a role does the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate play in speaking about Palestinian rights, especially with its close proximity to areas like Silwan? Does the church feel a responsibility to take a political stance on the issue?

A. We try not to interfere or turn ourselves into politicians, but at the same time this does not mean that we do not have compassion for the suffering and the affliction through which the people are passing here. And this is why the churches here have established a kind of council to discuss issues of common concern. We are addressing issues like the recent shooting in Silwan and others. Our purpose is to try, from our position, to contribute to mutual respect and understanding and to peaceful coexistence and symbiosis. This is the duty of the church. This is why we as churches have officially and repeatedly made statements and expressed our position over the status of Jerusalem.

Our position on Jerusalem is that we want it to be an open city, to be accessible to everybody, and that Jerusalem has enough space to accommodate all religious communities. We say it is enough for us to be allowed to visit and venerate the places that are commonly holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians. Even if we do not have claims over the site itself, we have claims to the holiness and sanctity of the place. The Temple Mount is an example. Another example is King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion. When we have our holy day of Pentecost, which we celebrate in our monastery and at the school on Mount Zion, after the service we go in our liturgical vestments in a procession to King David’s Tomb, which is a synagogue. There we go for worship, to say our prayers and leave. This is what we want. This is our understanding of the holy places. This is why I have said Jerusalem has enough space to accommodate everybody.

Politically speaking, everybody has claims over Jerusalem and everybody wants Jerusalem to be his or her own capital. But from the religious point of view, Jerusalem is the capital of God. And my personal position is that Jerusalem breathes with three lungs: a Christian lung, a Jewish lung and an Islamic lung. And those lungs, they breathe harmoniously. This is how we see the future of Jerusalem.

The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

23. John of the Thebaid said, 'Above all a monk should be humble. For this is the Saviour's first commandment, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3).'


October 22, 2024         

(1Th 5:19-21) Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

MARK MALLETT: This is the Trial

THE PILLAR: How the synodality synod comes to a close

YOUTUBE:  Important Synod before the Warning??

EXAUDI CATHOLIC NEWS: The current situation of Garabandal and the position of the Catholic Church

TRAILER: Queen of Peace Media- The Great Warning

* "This is a very impactful film... This film also makes the case, very convincingly, that there is a communal or 'collective illumination of conscience'... 'We know not the day nor the hour.' This film will help you be prepared.

Bishop David Ricken Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin

* "I wish to express my endorsement of the film, 'The Great Warning'... I invite you to watch this film, which helps us to reflect on the consequences of our actions for the good or evil of humanity."

Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera López Head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Mexico

RELATED: The Warning: Testimonies and Prophecies of the Illumination of Conscience

The prophecies of the Warning, as outlined and illustrated in this book, have come to us through saints and mystics, including Blessed Pope Pius IX, St. Faustina Kowalska, Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, Servant of God, Maria Esperanza, and the stigmatist Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, whose bishop has initiated her cause for canonization. In this revised and expanded edition of the book, six more prophets of the Warning were added, such as Friar Augustín del Divino Corazón, the founder of the Legión de San José and co-founder of Los Siervos Reparadores de los Sagrados Corazones.

Not only does THE WARNING substantiate an event of monumental importance, which appears to be on the horizon of time, but also carries the reader through compelling testimonies of those who have already experienced it personally and against their will. The book culminates in the spell-binding story of Marino Restrepo, hailed as a St. Paul for our century. Formerly a well-to-do Hollywood music producer who sank into serious sin and the New Age movement, he endured a torturous kidnapping by Colombian guerilla rebels for over half a year, during which he experienced an illumination of conscience. In addition, he received a unique gift of infused knowledge of divine matters, which he has been sharing with the world since 1999 in his world-wide, bishop-approved apostolate. And his is only one of the stories. . .

The prophecies and testimonies of the Illumination of Conscience promise to astound, entertain, challenge, and prepare those who read this book and who believe.

The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

22. He also said, 'Humility and the fear of God surpass all the other virtues.' 'The gateway is humility: our predecessors suffered much and therefore entered heaven joyfully.'


October 16, 2024         

(Psa 122:6) For the peace of Jerusalem pray: "May those who love you prosper!

NEWS REPORT: Israeli strike hits municipal building in south Lebanon, mayor and five others killed

ACN: ACN aims to raise over 1 million dollars to help Church face crisis in Lebanon

DETROIT CATHOLIC: As Israel's Lebanon campaign escalates, displaced Christians wait for 'miracle to end this misery'

As Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon across a United Nations-drawn boundary between the two countries, more than a million people have fled their homes.

Some of them have nowhere to go in a country already devastated by economic crisis, a political impasse and the largest number of refugees per capita and per square mile in the world.

"Lebanon has experienced every crisis imaginable over the past two decades and this is another one of those that we have to get through. We are nothing if not resilient," Fadi Bejan told OSV News.

Bejan, the country representative for Pro Terra Sancta, a Catholic organization that supports local communities and helps in humanitarian emergencies, spoke as the U.N.'s Security Council expressed "strong concern" Oct. 14 after Israel fired on and wounded U.N. peacekeepers in the south of the country.

"Whereas before the war our focus was on providing food and medication to those within a 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) radius of Beirut, we have had to cast our net wider. The priority for PTS is now on those who have fled their home whether they be from Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold (district of Beirut), or a border town in south Lebanon," Bejan said.

Even before the recent crisis, it was estimated that more than half of the Lebanese population is living below the poverty line, "while a shocking 9 out of 10 Syrian refugees require humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs," said the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR.

Currently, 1.2 million internally displaced people add to the 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in the country and some 11,238 refugees of other nationalities.

"At times of hardship we come together regardless of our faith. Amidst all the chaos that's what I cling onto -- the goodness of people in unimaginable circumstances," Bejan told OSV News in his office in Beirut.

CONTRASTING COMMENTARIES

America’s Unconditional Support for Israel: A Flawed Policy

Israel is building a new Middle East — one that counters Iranian threat

The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

19. Theophilus of holy memory, the bishop of Alexandria, once went to the mount of Nitria, and a hermit of Nitria came to see him. The bishop said, 'What have you discovered in your life, abba?'  The hermit answered, 'To blame myself unceasingly.' The bishop said,That is the only way to follow.'


October 14, 2024         

(Rev 12:10-12) And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony: and they loved not their lives unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.

CANTUS SUBSTACK: A Terrifying Vision and the Origin of a Prayer

1000 REASONS TO BELIEVE: The day the sun danced at Fatima

CHURCHPOP: The 5 Prayers Revealed at Fatima that Every Catholic Should Know

Here are the 5 prayers given to the children at Fatima:

1) The Fatima Prayer/Decade Prayer “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen.” Mary told the children that people should add this prayer to the end of each decade of the Rosary.

2) The Pardon Prayer “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I beg pardon for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee.” This prayer was given to the children by the angel that visited them in 1916, the year before Mary appeared to them.

3) The Angel’s Prayer “O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg the conversion of poor sinners.” This is another prayer given to them by the angel. There was a Eucharistic host and chalice suspended in the air, and the angel led them in kneeling before it and praying this prayer.

4) The Eucharistic Prayer “Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, my God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament.” When Mary appeared to the children for the first time on May 13, 1917, she said, “You will have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” According to Lucia, one of the children, a bright light shone all around them, and without thinking about it, they all started reciting this prayer.

5) The Sacrifice Prayer “O Jesus, it is for the love of Thee, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners [that I do this].” Mary gave the children this prayer, as well as the Fatima Prayer/Decade Prayer, on June 13th, 1917. The prayer is meant to be recited when you are offering up suffering to God.

X: The Miracle of Fatima

As a great sign of the whole message truly coming from God, a marvelous miracle was worked in the sky above Fatima before 70,000 witnesses on October 13, 1917 at the time, date and place that Lucy and the other two children had prophesied in the name of Our Lady of Fatima. The children were told by Our Lady that God would perform a miracle so that people would believe in the apparitions. The date the children was October 13, 1917, in Fatima.

On that date, 70,000 people came to see the phenomenon. The miracle occurred with the sun. All could stare perfectly at the sun without blinking, or even hurting heir eyes. While all were watching the sun, it rotated, got large and small, got close to the people, and got far away from them. The sun " danced ". Every single person who was there testified to seeing the sun dance, even non- believers who immediately dropped onto their knees and begged for forgiveness.

ALETEIA: Fatima’s “Miracle of the Sun” as visualized by A.I. (Photos)

The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

18. Poemen said, 'Moses asked the monk Zacharias, who was dying, 'What can you see?" He said, "Nothing better than being silent, abba." Moses said, "Indeed, my son, keep silent.  At the moment of his death Isidore looked up to heaven, and said, "Rejoice, my son Zacharias, for the gates of the kingdom of heaven are opened to you."


October 11, 2024         

(Eph 6:11-13) Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore, take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day and to stand in all things perfect.

YOUTUBE: Today’s message…the devil's key lie - Fr. Mark Goring, CC

X: A message of hope from an exorcist

CRISIS MAGAZINE EDITORIAL: God’s Wake-up Call

CATHOLIC GENTLEMAN BLOG: St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Advice

Whenever you feel guilty, even if it is because you have consciously committed a sin, a serious sin, something you have kept doing many, many times, never let the devil deceive you by allowing him to discourage you. Whenever you feel guilty, offer all your guilt to the Immaculate, without analyzing it or examining it, as something that belongs to her…

My beloved, may every fall, even if it is serious and habitual sin, always become for us a small step toward a higher degree of perfection.

In fact, the only reason why the Immaculate permits us to fall is to cure us from our self-conceit, from our pride, to make us humble and thus make us docile to the divine graces.

The devil, instead, tries to inject in us discouragement and internal depression in those circumstances, which is, in fact, nothing else than our pride surfacing again.

If we knew the depth of our poverty, we would not be at all surprised by our falls, but rather astonished, and we would thank God, after sinning, for not allowing us to fall even deeper and still more frequently.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE: The devil’s wiles must be unmasked and overcome by obedience to Christ’s commands.

Our Lord solemnly warns us: You are the salt of the earth, and bids us in our love of good to be not only simple but prudent as well. Accordingly, dearest brethren, what else ought we to do but be on our guard and watch vigilantly, in order to know the snares of our crafty foe and to avoid them?

Otherwise, after putting on Christ who is the Wisdom of God the Father, we may be found to have failed in wisdom for the care of our souls. It is not persecution alone that we ought to fear, nor those forces that in open warfare range abroad to overthrow and defeat the servants of God.

It is easy enough to be on one’s guard when the danger is obvious; one can stir up one’s courage for the fight when the Enemy shows himself in his true colours. There is more need to fear and beware of the Enemy when he creeps up secretly, when he beguiles us by a show of peace and steals forward by those hidden approaches which have earned him the name of the ‘Serpent.’ Such is ever his craft: lurking in the dark, he ensnares men by trickery.

That was how at the very beginning of the world he deceived and by lying words of flattery beguiled the unguarded credulity of a simple soul; that was how he tried to tempt Our Lord Himself, approaching Him in disguise, as though he could once more creep upon his victim and deceive Him. But he was recognized and beaten back, and he was defeated precisely through being detected and unmasked.

POPE FRANCIS: "The greatest proof of the existence of the devil is not to be found in the evidence of evil in our world, but in the lives and witness of the saints.  By their efforts to growth in virtue and holiness, the saints testify to the sinister reality of the spirit of evil and the need to struggle against temptations to sin.

The victory of the risen Lord over the power of evil and sin gives us sure hope that, by trusting in his word and strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome every temptation, experience purification in our hearts and grow in union with Christ".
The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

17. Moses said to brother Zacharias, 'Tell me what to do.'  At these words Zacharias threw himself at his feet, saying, 'Why ask me, abba?'  The hermit said, 'I tell you, my son Zacharias, I saw the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and so I cannot avoid asking you.'  Then Zacharias took his cowl from his head, and put it beneath his feet and stamped on it, and said, 'Unless a man stamps upon self like that, he cannot be a monk.'


October 8, 2024         

(Joh 14:6) Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.

CATECHISM: . THE CHURCH IS ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC

811 "This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic."256 These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other,257 indicate essential features of the Church and her mission. the Church does not possess them of herself; it is Christ who, through the Holy Spirit, makes his Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, and it is he who calls her to realize each of these qualities.

BLOG: The Complete Fullness of Truth in the Catholic Church

JOY IN TRUTH: The Catholic Life of Reason, Truth, Faith and Morals: It’s Desperately Needed Today

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER, O.R.C.: Profession of Faith in Jesus Christ and His Church as the Only Path to God and to Eternal Salvation

We unshakably believe and profess what the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church has continuously and infallibly taught since the time of the Apostles, namely, That faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God and only Savior of mankind, is the only religion willed by God.

After the institution of the new and everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, no one may be saved by adherence to the teachings and practices of non-Christian religions. Because “the prayer, which is directed to God, must be linked with Christ, the Lord of all people, the one Mediator (1 Tm 2:5; Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24) through whom alone we have access to God (Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18; 3:12).” (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, n. 6)

We firmly believe that “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), except the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead (cf. Acts 4:10).

We believe that it is “contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus Iesus, 21).

We furthermore hold that Divine Revelation, faithfully transmitted by the Church’s perennial Magisterium, forbids affirming

That all religions are paths to God, That the diversity of religious identities is a gift of God, and That the diversity of religions is an expression of the wise will of God the Creator.

We hold, therefore, that Christians are not simply “travelling companions” along with adherents of false religions — which God forbids.

We fervently implore the help of Divine grace for all those churchmen today who, by their words and deeds, contradict the Divinely revealed truth about Jesus Christ and His Church as the only path by which men can reach God and eternal salvation. With the help of divine grace, may these churchmen be enabled to offer a public retraction, required for the good of their own soul and the souls of others. For “not accepting Christ is the greatest danger for the world!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers, In Matth. 18).

By the prayers, tears and sacrifices of all the true sons and daughters of the Church, and especially of the “little ones” in the Church, may the Shepherds of the Church, and first and foremost Pope Francis, receive the grace to emulate the Apostles, countless Martyrs, numerous Holy Roman Pontiffs and a multitude of Saints, especially St. Francis of Assisi, who “was a Catholic and an entirely apostolic man, who set about personally and commanded his disciples to occupy themselves before everything else with the conversion of the heathen to the Faith and Law of Christ.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Rite Expiatis, 37)

We believe and, with God’s grace, are ready to give our lives for this Divine truth pronounced by Jesus Christ: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M. CAP:  Christians hold that Jesus alone is the path to God. To suggest, imply, or allow others to infer otherwise is a failure to love because genuine love always wills the good of the other, and the good of all people is to know and love Jesus Christ, and through him the Father who created us.

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

16. Serapion said, 'I have afflicted my body far more than my son Zacharias, but I cannot equal his humility or his silence.'


October 4, 2024         

(Joh 16:33) These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress. But have confidence. I have overcome the world.

FRANCISCAN MEDIA:  A Look at the Peace Prayer of St. Francis

ALETEIA: Pope joins cardinal’s call for October 7 fast, invites to Rosary

CATHOLIC VOTE: Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem calls for October day of prayer and fasting for peace

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is inviting his diocese to pray, fast, and do penance on October 7, which, he wrote, in addition to being the feast of Mary, Queen of the Rosary, is “a date that has become symbolic of the drama we are experiencing.” Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa wrote in a September 26 letter addressed to his diocese that for the past year the Holy Land “has been plunged into a vortex of violence and hatred never seen or experienced before.” “The intensity and impact of the tragedies we have witnessed in the past twelve months have deeply lacerated our conscience and our sense of humanity,” he continued.

He noted that amid the Latin Patriarchate’s reiterated calls for the end to violence and the conflict at hand, “We can only call once again on those in authority and those who bear the grave responsibility of making decisions in this context, to a commitment to justice and respect for every person’s right to freedom, dignity and peace.” The Cardinal emphasized that the faithful should support those affected by the war, and that the faithful have an obligation to remain rooted in peace, especially through rejecting hatred and embracing charity toward all. “Yet, we also need to pray, to bring our pain and our desire for peace to God,” he wrote. “We need to convert, to do penance, and to implore forgiveness.” He extended the invitation for October 7 to be a day of prayer, penance, and fasting, noting that October is a month dedicated to Mary.

STATEMENT: A heartfelt appeal for peace in the Holy Land and all the Middle East

“On behalf of the Bishops of COMECE, I wish to express our deepest concern about the vortex of violence that has engulfed the Holy Land, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East in recent months. Each day brings the risk of further escalation, intensification and expansion of the conflict across the region, threatening the dignity, lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people.

As we approach the tragic anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks on the Israeli people, we cannot fail to reiterate our great sorrow over the devastating waves of violence that the Holy Land and the Middle East region have witnessed in these past twelve months. This has not only resulted in an exceptionally grave humanitarian crisis and inconceivable human suffering in all communities, but also generated dangerous regional political dynamics involving an increasing number of actors.

This situation is source of grave concern to us also for its repercussions in Europe and in the world. The resurgence of anti-Semitism, radicalisation and xenophobia not only threatens social cohesion, but also leads to deplorable acts of violent extremism and terrorism.

Echoing the repeated peace appeals of Pope Francis, we urge all conflict parties, as well as all persons and groups inciting violence, to refrain from any actions that could lead to further escalation and polarisation.

We call for an immediate ceasefire on all fronts and for respect of international and humanitarian law. We appeal for the necessary protection of civilians, hospitals, schools and places of worship, as well as the release of all hostages and safe, unhindered humanitarian access.

Prayer for peace

Lord our God,
Father of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and Father of all mankind,
Who in the cross of Your Son
and through the gift of His own life, at great cost
You wished to destroy
the wall of enmity and hostility
that separates peoples and makes us enemies:
Send into our hearts the gift of the Holy Spirit,
that He may purify us from every feeling
of violence, hatred and revenge,
enlighten us to understand
the irrepressible dignity
of every human person, and inflame us to the point of consumption
for a peaceful and reconciled world
in truth and justice,
in love and freedom.
Almighty and eternal God,
in Your hands are the hopes of men
and the rights of every people:
Assist with Your wisdom those who govern us,
so that, with Your help,
they will become sensitive to the sufferings of the poor
and of those who suffer the consequences
of violence and war;
may they promote the common good and lasting peace
in our region
and throughout the earth.
Virgin Mary, Mother of Hope,
obtain the gift of peace
for the Holy Land that gave birth to you
and for the whole world.
Amen.

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility 

15. Evagrius said, 'To go against self is the beginning of salvation.'


October 1, 2024         

(Rom 13:8-10) Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. For he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law. For: Thou shalt not commit adultery: Thou shalt not kill: Thou shalt not steal: Thou shalt not bear false witness: Thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The love of our neighbour worketh no evil. Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law.

CHURCHPOP: Saint Therese of Lisieux's Words of Wisdom: 11 Timeless Quotes from the Little Flower of Jesus

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON: Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Friends, today is the Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The best introduction to Thérèse’s spirituality is a text that she wrote at the behest of Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart, a sort of memoir of the retreat that she made in September 1896, just a year before her death.

What she offers is a “science of love,” a way of knowing and acting that is utterly conditioned by the love that Jesus has placed in her heart: “Jesus deigned to show me the road that leads to this Divine Furnace, and this road is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its Father’s arms.”

God, Thérèse concluded, is pleased to work with those who have become utterly docile to his direction, who have acknowledged their total dependence upon him, their readiness to receive gifts. Any sense that God’s love must be earned or that a relationship with him is a product of economic calculation is repugnant to a healthy spirituality: “Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude.”

When this attitude is in place, anything and everything is possible. Following Thérèse, we can be pleasing to God and valuable to the Church in the humblest places and through the simplest acts. All we need to do is surrender, like a little child asleep in its Father’s arms.

BLOG: A Never-Before-Published Work by Benedict XVI

THE CHRISTIAN IMAGE OF MAN by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

The atmosphere that spread widely throughout Catholic Christianity after Vatican II was at first unilaterally conceived of as a demolition of walls, as a “tearing down of bastions,” such that in some circles the very end of Catholicism was feared, or awaited with joy.

The firm determination of Paul VI and the equally clear but joyfully open determination of John Paul II were able to secure for the Church – humanly speaking – its own space in subsequent history. When John Paul II, who came from a country dominated by Marxism, was elected pope, there were certainly circles that believed that a pope who came from a socialist country must necessarily be a socialist pope, and that he would therefore bring reconciliation to the world as a “reductio ad unum” of Christianity and Marxism. Yet in short order all the folly of this position became evident, as soon as it was seen that precisely a pope who came from a socialist world knew perfectly well its injustice, and was thus able to contribute to the surprising pivot that occurred in 1989 with the end of Marxist rule in Russia.

Nonetheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that the downfall of the Marxist regimes is far from having signified the spiritual victory of Christianity. Radical worldliness is instead revealed ever more to be the authentic dominant vision that increasingly reduces Christianity’s room to maneuver.

Right from the start, modernity begins with the appeal to human freedom: from Luther’s emphasis on Christian freedom and from the humanism of Erasmus of Rotterdam. But only in the historical moment put in disarray by two world wars, with Marxism and liberalism becoming dramatically more extreme, were two new movements set in motion that brought the idea of freedom to a radicalism previously unimaginable.

In fact, it is now denied that man, as a free being, is in some way bound to a nature that determines the space of his freedom. Man now no longer has a nature, but “makes” himself. No more does there exist a nature of man: it is he himself who decides what he is, male or female. It is man himself who produces man, and so determines the destiny of a being that no longer comes from the hands of a creator God, but from the laboratory of human inventions. The abolition of the Creator as an abolition of man thus becomes the authentic threat to faith. This is the great task facing theology today, which will be able to see it through only if the example of the lives of Christians is stronger than the power of the denials that surround us and that promise a false freedom.

The awareness of the impossibility of resolving, on the purely theoretical level, a problem of this order of magnitude certainly does not exempt us from seeking to propose a solution for it also on the level of thought.

Nature and freedom seem at first to be irreconcilably opposed: and yet the nature of man is ideated, that is, it is a creation, and as such it is not simply a reality devoid of spirit, but itself bears the “Logos” within it. The Fathers – in particular Athanasius of Alexandria – conceived of creation as the coexistence of uncreated “sapientia” and created “sapientia.” Here we touch the mystery of Jesus Christ, who unites in himself created and uncreated wisdom and, as wisdom incarnate, calls us to be together with him.

But in this way his nature – which is given to man – becomes one with man’s history of freedom and bears within itself two fundamental aspects.

On the one hand, we are told that the human being, the man Adam, began his history badly from the start, so that on the human being, on the humanity of each person, his history now bestows a flawed original attribute. “Original sin” means that every single action is put in advance on a wrong track.

But added to this is the figure of Jesus Christ, the new Adam, who paid in advance the ransom for us all, thus setting a new beginning in history. This means that the “nature” of man is on the one hand sick, in need of correction (“spoliata et vulnerata”). This puts it in conflict with the spirit, with freedom, as we continually experience. But in general terms it is also already redeemed. And this in a twofold sense: because in general enough has already been done for all sins, and because at the same time this correction can always be given anew to everyone in the sacrament of forgiveness. On the one hand, the history of man is a history of ever new sins; on the other, healing is at the ready ever anew. Man is a being in need of healing, of forgiveness. It is part of the core of the Christian image of man that this forgiveness exists as a reality and not just as a beautiful dream. Here the doctrine of the sacraments finds its proper place. What becomes clear is the need for Baptism and Penance, for the Eucharist and the Priesthood, as well as for the sacrament of Matrimony.

Starting from here, the question of the Christian image of man can be addressed concretely. Important first of all is the observation expressed by Saint Francis de Sales: there is not just one Christian image of man, but many possibilities and paths in which the image of man is presented: from Peter to Paul, from Francis to Thomas Aquinas, from Brother Conrad to Cardinal Newman, and so on. Where there is undeniably present a certain accent that speaks in favor of a predilection for the “little ones.”

Of course, in this context consideration should also be given to the interaction between the “Torah” and the Sermon on the Mount, about which I have said something in my book on Jesus.

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility

6. They said of Arsenius that while he was in the Emperor's palace he was the best-dressed person there and while he was leading the life of a monk, no one was clothed in worse rags.'
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Jubilee 2000: Bringing the World to Jesus

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