The Moon over St. Jude's church and the Sunrise May 12, 2012

La Salette Journey: Saint Mary's High School in Kitchener: Jesus was a...

La Salette Journey: Saint Mary's High School in Kitchener: Jesus was a...: Students at Saint Mary's High School in Kitchener, Ontario just celebrated "anti-homophobia day."  According to an article in the Metro Ne...

Parents who send their children to Saint Mary's High School in Kitchener in the hope that they will obtain a solid Catholic education are being betrayed.  Instead, they are being propagandized with a counterfeit gospel and a counterfeit "Christ."  They are being educated not for Heaven but for Hell.

Frustrated with Church Scandals?

St. Francis de Sales "How to handle scandals"

Are You Still Harboring Anger Toward the
Clerics for Their Scandalous Behavior?

If so, then you will want to read the story of St. Francis de Sales.  Well worth reading and sharing.

by Father Roger J. Landry – THE ANCHOR: Today we turn our focus to Church scandals caused by priest: especially whose faith has been profoundly shaken by it. The saint who perhaps best illustrates the pathway forward for those in this circumstance is St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), the great apostle of the Chablais in eastern France after the Protestant Reformation.

When St. Francis was ordained a priest in 1593, the Diocese of Geneva was in shambles. Decades of scandals among the clergy had made it very easy for Calvinism to spread throughout the region. The people were so poorly catechized that they were not able to respond to Calvinist arguments. They were, moreover, so angry at the hypocrisy of their local churchmen that they were easily incited to turn on the Catholic faith, run their priests out of town and take up a form of Christianity that at least seemed to be moral. The Bishop of Geneva even had to flee the see city and take up residence in Annecy, France. Some reports stated that there were only about 20 Catholics left in the vast region.

Nine months after Francis’ ordination, the bishop asked his priests for volunteers to try to re-evangelize the region, knowing that it was minimally a tough assignment, but likely could prove to be a fatal one. Francis was the only one to step forward. The 27-year-old, traveling by foot, set out to try to win back the vast geographic area. The work was rough and dangerous. For his protection, he was ordered to sleep at night in a military garrison. On two occasions, assassins ambushed him along the way; both times, however, he survived, seemingly miraculously. On another occasion, he was attacked by wolves and had to spend a glacial night in a tree. But he labored on.

Because preaching was proving so dangerous, he began to write leaflets patiently setting forth Catholic teaching, charitably explaining the errors of Calvinism, and tackling head on controversial issues.

To those who still harbored anger toward the clerics for their scandalous behavior, he didn’t hesitate to say that what the clerics did was the equivalent of spiritual murder. But just as plainly, he called the residents of the region not to do something even worse, to commit spiritual suicide through focusing on the scandals so much that they cut themselves off from Christ in the sacraments and in the Church he founded. He wrote in a pamphlet to the people on Thonon that “those who forge scandals for themselves,” who “persuade themselves that they will die if they do not alienate the part that they have in the Church” are “much crueler than the man who gives scandal, because to commit suicide is a more unnatural crime than to kill another.”

He reminded the people of the Chablais that Jesus had said, “Scandals are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come” (Lk 17:1). There will always be scandals, Jesus implied, because there will always be people of influence who commit grave sins. It is appropriate, Jesus continued, for scandalizers “to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and thrown into the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6). St. Francis added, however, that, if we allow scandals to destroy our faith, we essentially tie a millstone around our own neck — and toss ourselves out of the barque of Peter, where Christ is at the helm, and into the depth of a sea of misery. The worst sin against charity we could ever commit against ourselves, he said, would be to commit spiritual suicide in this way.

St. Francis’ powerful candor and patient explanations of the teachings of the Church in these pamphlets began to have an impact. A steady stream of lapsed Catholics began to seek reconciliation, and he welcomed them with great mercy, meekness and joy. Within the span of five years, the holy “Apostle of the Chablais” had re-evangelized and reconciled almost the entire region.

St. Francis’ thoughts, words, courage, and holy example need to be reiterated and emulated by those in the Church today. There are multitudes who have downgraded their practice of the faith or given it up altogether as a result of the clergy scandals.

The challenges we face in evangelizing those who have distanced themselves from the Church in recent years likely will not involve sleeping in garrisons or being ambushed by assassins. But the Lord needs us today just as much as he needed Francis de Sales 416 years ago.

May St. Francis from heaven move us to respond as modern Good Samaritans, going out like he did after those who are tempted toward spiritual suicide, showing them by words and witness what the Church truly is, and patiently and heroically helping them to remove the millstones from their neck.

http://www.courageouspriest.com/frustrated

Sky View: The Monastery: A Lighthouse for Civilization and the Church

Sky View: The Monastery: A Lighthouse for Civilization and the Church
Time and time again the Catholic Church herself had benefited from monastics such as St. John the Baptist, St. Anthony the Great, St. Benedict, St. Patrick, Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pope St. Gregory VII, St. Boniface, St. Francis, St. Clare, Pope St. Pius V, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Theresa of Avila and St. Therese the Little Flower. From the mountain of spiritual solitude came forth rivers of life, renewal and innovation. The monastery, convent and friary were lighthouses of society and spiritual vigor for the Church. When Christians were spiritually lethargic, when the pastoral practices of bishops and priests needed reform, and when the Mystical Body of Christ was not showing forth the fullness of her splendor, saintly men and women from monastic backgrounds- those who knew the discipline of prayer –stepped up and pointed everyone in the right direction; that is, towards Christ and towards heaven.

MEDJUGORJE TESTIMONY OF JUDY & JOHN

John and Judy - Our Medjugorje Testimony - Done with love for Jesus and Mary

Our miraculous images on photo and we also have images on video, May 25, 1990...

Our Lady of Medjugorje

John and I were married in a civil ceremony in 1984. John was not Catholic, and I was a fallen away Catholic...how and why we ended up in Medjugorje was truly an invitation from the Blessed Mother....April 1989 was a very difficult time in my life, my mother died and the circumstances surrounding that were awfully painful...I couldn't seem to shake off the 'blues' and so John suggested going to church and I hadn't thought of that at all. The only church I knew was the Catholic church and John didn't really care, as long as I didn't ask him to become a Catholic. We started going to Sunday Mass occasionally in September 1989. I did not receive Holy Communion. I was obedient to the Catholic faith that I was taught. I was never a 'cafeteria Catholic.'

Around late November 1989, I heard about Medjugorje from my friend, Linda who had read an article in her local home town newspaper. It was just a matter of fact statement from my friend, but I was 'transported' back in time to 3rd grade where I had been placed in the middle of the school year in Catholic school from public school. The change in schools happened because my younger sister; Laurie, had been diagnosed with Leukemia.

Laurie

My mother made a marriage vow to raise her children Catholic and she wasn't doing it. I think she thought if she corrected that vow now that perhaps God would let my sister live, but she died. I was only a few weeks in 3rd grade Catholic school when the nun told us a story about Bernadette and Lourdes in 1858 and I was completely enthralled. This really seemed marvelous to me. I remember after the story was over that I wanted to go there desperately. I was so excited. I started thinking about how I could get there and I looked out the window and thought, well, I know my mother wouldn't take me there, much less believe the story (she was not Catholic) and I felt that the Blessed Mother wouldn't appear to me because she only chose one girl and I didn't think that I was as good as Bernadette, and then I said to myself, well, "if that ever happens in my day, I'm going"! That was the last time that I thought about that 'vow' and that schoolday until the moment when I heard that Our Lady was appearing in Medjugorje. I was so excited and felt 'alive' in an entirely new way. I was going! Somehow, someway, I just knew I was going to Medjugorje. My husband and I watched some videos that a priest, Fr. Joseph Milford (Oblates); gave me who was on my mail route and wow, it just confirmed my belief . I just knew right from the start that this was really happening. Then my husband and I read every book we could get our hands on but my husband was not open to going at all. He said he was not going to a communist country. So, I prayed the rosary on my fingers because I didn't even have a rosary. One Sunday after Mass, in January of 1990, John found a flier on a trip to Medjugorje with this church, St. Paul of the Cross.  Then he said we could go! Ah, the power of the rosary! We had four months to prepare and we just knew we had to prepare with prayer and all that Our Lady was asking for. 

My prayer was for God to give John 'more than me' while we were there so we could stay happily married because I was going to go back to the Eucharist and my Catholic faith no matter what (and since I never discussed my religion with John since I hadn't thought about it in many years, he knew nothing of what the Eucharist is). My initial immediate calling when I heard about Medjugorje was to go back to the Eucharist because, you see, that belief never left me. I had just forgotten about all of it....and I had to have Jesus now. I was ready to give up everything to do that. I went to confession after 20 plus years to a new priest of one year in 1989, a Fr. Thomas Euteneur. I started going to daily Mass with John and I received Holy Communion. John and I lived as 'brother and sister' from that time until our wedding day in the Catholic church out of obedience to the Catholic faith and for love of God.

finally found the holy water fountain in a photo,

 today, Sept. 2011! (far right of photo.)

We arrived in Medjugorje on the bus after midnight on May 25, 1990 and ended up parked on the street in front of St. James Church. Our group had spent a few days in Austria and I was so very sick with the flu and fever. While we were waiting to figure out where we were staying, our new friend, Jim suggested that the 3 of us walk over to the church. We did and as we were walking, I said to them with a little humor and a sense of hope, "well, if I drink this holy water and get well, then Our Lady is really appearing here". I already believed She was appearing here, I just didn't know that 'miracles' were up for the asking! It was dark, the church was closed and yet there was a fountain somewhere around the statue of Our Lady outside and I drank from the holy water. And I got well immediately. I also was not tired at all the next morning with only a few hours of sleep and that has never happened in my life. To this day, I have never seen that fountain of holy water in any pictures. 

That first morning in Medjugorje; May 25, 1990, we went to the 10 am English Mass and afterwards, the priest, Fr. Pavich, blessed all the articles and John decided to hold up his camcorder and looked at me to see what I thought...I thought right away, why not, it was like a little kid asking... I never thought about blessing a camcorder but what did I know...so it was blessed....so I raised up my new camera and had it blessed also.

Our first full day there was May 25, 1990. We climbed Apparition Hill after Mass and as I got to the top and looked to my right, (where Our Lady appeared) I felt this 'breeze' engulf me and I just knew it was something special. I felt incredibly loved in a way I had never felt before. Later on, I realized it had to be the Holy Spirit 'wind'.  Our Lady said: "The wind is my sign. I will come in the wind. When the wind blows, know that I am with you. You have learned that the cross represents Christ; it is a sign of Him. It is the same for the crucifix you have in your home. For me, it is not the same. When it is cold, you come to church; you want to offer everything to God. I am, then, with you. I am with you in the wind. Do not be afraid." February 15, 1984

At 3 pm that afternoon, Fr. Jozo was giving a talk in the church and we went. The church was packed. And then this happened...John saw Jesus just like we see one another, full face complete, on the altar that afternoon as Fr. Jozo was giving his afternoon talk at 3 pm. Fr. Jozo said "And Jesus stands before you" and then John saw Jesus through his video camcorder ONLY. When John looked with his eyes, there was nothing, John only saw Jesus through the blessed camcorder.....I was not next to him in the church but he passed the camcorder down to me with this message but I knew then, that this was God answering my prayer, to 'give him more than me' which actually was much more for me! The video camcorder went right back to him as I said 'this is just for him', but we were left with an image in the video and on a photo. Our friend, Jim, from the group was taking pictures right behind John so it was perfect when we all shared our pics later....anyway, Fr. Jozo then says and "Mary stands before you" and that is when the Blessed Mother must have 'popped' in the picture but we didn't see Her till we got home when we shared our photos and video with the rest of our pilgrimage group. All of us saw Jesus and Mary's IMAGE while John saw Jesus as a real live person that day and still - TO THIS DAY - sees Jesus and Mary completely full faced clearly the same as he did that day in Medjugorje when he looks at this picture or our video.....we were blessed with the images and people see them today ....it makes a dynamic picture blown up with the rosary in Fr. Jozo's hand and Jesus and Mary's images...ALSO, LOOK AT THE 'FIRE LIGHT' (Holy Spirit) COMING FROM THE LEFT OF THE PHOTO WHICH STREAMS RIGHT TO FR. JOZO AND THE ROSARY AND TO THE TABERNACLE!...

OK....look at the bouquet of flowers on the altar....look at the tall Lily and the stick of thorn to the left of the lily, and you will see in between those two , image of Jesus crucified face...now look to the right of the lily and you will see the Blessed Mother's face slightly leaning towards Her Son and on the video you can see HER gold crown and you can see it in the photo too...now that evening, our priest said we should meet and share our day with one another....well, I was so overwhelmed and just in awe about this since we could see the image of Jesus in the camcorder that I stayed in my room while John, very excited; the only non-Catholic went down and testified to what he saw and the image that was left and stated to the group that HE NOW KNOWS THAT JESUS IS TRULY PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST, ....now, he did not know that at all before....so John's testimony was a real blessing for the group and especially for our priest, Fr. Venezia.

Many other things happened to us in Medjugorje that were enlightening and miraculous....I took care of my father in 1980, when he was sick with cancer. He told me that he was so grateful to have me taking care of him that if he could get well, he would take me on a 'trip around the world' and I thought how sweet that was but also unusual, we were poor and a trip around the world is not something I ever thought possible...well, one day in Medjugorje, I realized that my father was with me because I WAS on a 'trip around the world', people from all over the world were here! And they were also here from the supernatural world!....

One day during the apparition that was taking place in the church we saw the sun spin, pulsate at us like a beating heart, throw colors out and at one point there were 3 small clouds with three crosses going through them one at a time - and then at the end, Our Lady, from head to 'toe cloud', appeared in the sky, plain as could be!- so incredible! We were outside praying the rosary because the Mass at that time of day is in Croatian and for the people of the village.

During the Thursday night rosary prayer meeting that Ivan group has on Apparition Hill, Our Lady came that evening and it was so quiet.  A whole group of us were going up the back side of the mountain which leads to the blue cross (where Our Lady first appeared to the children).  This is where Ivan has his apparition on his rosary prayer nights on the hill. It was so dark we could barley see anything but we knew there were huge rocks everywhere.  I stumbled along and found a spot to sit and was leaning up against a rock wall.  John and others were kneeling in front of me and to the side.  I thought about kneeling but the rocks had jagged edges and there didn't seem to be any room.  The next thing I heard was that Out Lady was here and it was quiet before but now it was complete silence.  Then 'someone' punched me directly in the middle of my back and I hit the ground kneeling.  I knew immediately that this was impossible since my back was up against the rock wall.  I thought I had probably cut my legs because the force of the punch was dramatic but I didn't dare move an inch because I  knew it was the 'hand of God'. When the apparition was over we all got up and we walked back down the hill.  My legs were not injured or bleeding at all and I had no pain.  Later on, back home, I found this message from Our Lady - On June 25, 1988, Ivanka, one of the six Medjugorje visionaries, during her apparition, said to those present at the apparition, many of whom were standing up or sitting:  “Our Lady wishes for all present to kneel down.”

We also could look over at Cross Mountain and see the Cross as plain as day. It was all lit up with supernatural light because there were no lights on either hills in 1990...and there is no way you should be able to see this Cross, too far away and black as night outside. I didn't realize this at first but as I was walking down the mountain, I looked over and of course, saw nothing but night time blackness and this is when it finally registered what happened. There was no electricity on the mountains. Things like this happened to us the entire time we were there and to millions of others! It was as though you were not on the earth but experiencing something supernatural. Even climbing the hill was like being 'lifted' up there. We helped very old people and injured people up the hill and it was almost effortless for them and us.

We came back home and John went to RCIA to learn about Catholicism. He became a Catholic :) and we got married in the Catholic Church one year later on miraculous day, May 25, in 1991. We love daily Mass and Rosary and try to live Our Lady's 5 stones which is daily Mass, daily rosary, monthly confession, fasting, and bible reading.  John became a lecture and we started making the Mother Theresa rosary because I had read the story in the Catholic Digest in 1991. It has become John's exclusive ministry now, making these Mother Theresa rosaries, (over 13,600 as of Oct. 9, 2019) and to give them away to whomever Blessed Mother puts in our path. Many miraculous stories have come back to us through the years because of this rosary. That's another story....so many miraculous healings physically and spiritually and emotionally but 'believing is the key to the miraculous.'  It is a 'thin veil' from the natural to the supernatural when you pray to God from the heart.

*****Monthly Message, May 25, 1990 "Dear children! I invite you to decide with seriousness to live this novena. (Holy Spirit Novena) Consecrate the time to prayer and to sacrifice. I am with you and I desire to help you to grow in renunciation and mortification, that you may be able to understand the beauty of the life of people who go on giving themselves to me in special way. Dear children, God blesses you day after day and desires a change of your life. Therefore, pray that you may have the strength to change your life. Thank you for having responded to my call. " *****

Our Catholic wedding, May 25, 1991

our testimony is at several sites on line, google the title

and also on blog called    And Amazing Grace

Faith is a gift from God.  “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11: 29).   Faith is a priceless gift which can be lost through our own personal negligence.  Faith must be nourished with a well developed spiritual life and with the continual study of our Catholic Faith.  Spiritual laziness, culpable ignorance and indifference can weaken our faith and even cause the loss of faith.

     Parents have a solemn duty to pass on the gift of faith to their children. 

May 25, 2014
“Dear children! Pray and be aware that without God you are dust. Therefore, turn your thoughts and heart to God and to prayer. Trust in His love. In God’s spirit, little children, you are all called to be witnesses. You are precious and I call you, little children, to holiness, to eternal life. Therefore, be aware that this life is passing. I love you and call you to a new life of conversion. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

La Salette Journey: America: Will we be inspired by Sparta or Calvary?...

La Salette Journey: America: Will we be inspired by Sparta or Calvary?...: It can no longer be denied that America has become a " seething cesspool of filth and corruption ."  America has become a haunt of demons a...

As I lay dying a voice said: ‘Let’s go’ | CatholicHerald.co.uk

As I lay dying a voice said: ‘Let’s go’ | CatholicHerald.co.uk

As I lay dying a voice said: ‘Let’s go’

Howard Storm and his wife, Marcia

Howard Storm was an atheist until he had an extraordinary near-death experience. After that, everything changed. Indeed, he is now a Christian minister. His book,My Descent into Death, shot to prominence globally after the novelist Anne Rice called it “a book you devour from cover to cover, and pass on to others”.

She added that “Storm was meant to write it and we were meant to read it.”

Storm recently spoke to me from his home in Kentucky. He recounted going out to San Francisco in 1967, aged 19, in pursuit of the hippy dream.

“We earnestly were going to create a culture of peace and love,” he says, but “because it was so hedonistic and anarchistic it was doomed to failure. We soon began to see our contemporaries being destroyed by the excesses of drugs and sexuality.”

Disillusioned by hippiedom, religion and mainstream American society, he became increasingly nihilistic. He says he turned to “total narcissism: I’m no longer interested in changing the world … I’m going to live for myself.”

Storm rose through academia and took a job as a professor of art in Kentucky where he says that the overwhelming majority of the faculty were atheists and hedonists.

“Being cynical gives you a false and inflated sense of superiority,” he says. “You can look down on all the ignorant fools who go to church and believe in religion.

“The sad part of it is we conveyed those attitudes to our students. Many students came from homes where faith was valued. After a few short years in university they had nothing but contempt for faith. I think it was a horrible thing that we did.”

Storm’s life changed during a field trip to Europe in 1985. One morning, aged 38, he collapsed in his hotel room with a perforated duodenum. No surgeon could be found, and after hours in agony he “knew that it was over” as he fell unconscious.

“I fully expected that to be it: lights out, end of story,” he says. “Then, I found myself standing next to my bed, feeling wonderful. My senses were very heightened. The pain was gone. I tried to communicate with my wife. I thought she was ignoring me. I also noticed an occupant in my bed who bore a remarkable resemblance to me. I knew that person was dead.

“Then I heard people calling me from outside the room, saying: ‘It’s time for you to go. Hurry up. Let’s go.’ They said: ‘We know all about you. We’ve been waiting for you.’ I thought they were from the hospital.”

But when he stepped out into this “hallway” it was “very dim, grey and fuzzy, like a really bad black-and-white television picture”.

He says: “I went in to this hallway and had a very clear sense that the ‘portal’ back into the room was somehow closed. I could never go back. The people led me away, and the hallway subtly became darker and darker and darker over a long period of time. Eventually, I realised that I was in complete darkness, encircled by a crowd of people and overcome with fear. I said to them: ‘I want to go back.’ And they started pushing and pulling at me. The more I fought, the better they liked it. They were biting and scratching and tearing at me, all the while yelling and screaming.

“Later on, I realised that they were people like me, who had rejected God and had lived for their own selfish gratification. Their wish had come true: this is what they had. In the place they inhabit there’s no light, no birds, no joy, no hope, no love… a bunch of rats in a cage.”

They screamed and tortured him for an age, he says. “Eventually, I was too ripped up and defeated to do anything. I was solid pain. The real pain is the emotional pain. They did things that I don’t talk about… degrading things.

“I was lying there, when I heard a voice say: ‘Pray to God.’ I said: ‘I don’t pray. I don’t believe in God.’ Then, it came a second time; and a third: ‘Pray to God.’

“So, tried to think of a prayer. I started to mumble some things. A mention of God came into a few of these phrases. With each mention the people around me became very, very angry, and started screaming at me: ‘There is no God’ and ‘Nobody can hear you.’ It angered them so much that they were retreating from me. The mention of God was unbearable to them.” Encouraged, he mumbled other jumbled half-remembered phrases: “Glory, glory hallelujah, God Bless America, Our Father who art in heaven…”

Eventually, he found himself alone in this dark place. Thinking over his life he found it gravely wanting. He felt he deserved to be where he was.

“I felt that there was some kind of justice in the universe and that if you lead a miserable life you go down the sewer pipe of the universe into the septic tank. And that’s where I was. Yet I knew I hadn’t been flushed down into the deeper part, just yet.

“In that state of hopelessness I had a memory of myself as a child in Sunday school, singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’. I also had a vivid feeling of being a child and feeling that there was a wonderful God-man named Jesus who was my friend and who loved me. With real sincerity, I called out: ‘Jesus, please save me.’ With that, a tiny light appeared in the darkness and it came down over me. Out of this light came two hands. They reached down and touched me, and all the gore and filth that was me just fell away.

“In two or three seconds I was healed and filled with an indescribable love. In this world there is no equivalent to that kind of love. These arms picked me up and brought me into this brilliant light. I was held against the body of this man. I knew that he was Jesus. I cried.

“We were moving straight up, faster and faster towards the world of light. It dawned on me then that everything I had believed in was wrong, and I was going to where God lived. I thought: ‘They’ve made a terrible mistake. I don’t deserve this. I’m garbage.’”

At that thought, “we stopped, and he spoke to me for the first time, and said: ‘We don’t make mistakes. You do belong here.’ He had responded to my thought. He laughed and said: ‘I know what you’re thinking. I know everything you’ve ever thought.’ Then he called out in musical tones and a group of beings of light – angels – who had recorded my life came. They began to show me my life, starting with my birth.”

Storm says they showed him scenes he had no memory of, like being a baby and his sisters playing with him. But as his life unfolded into adolescence and adulthood “things started going downhill”.

“It became painful, because I saw that when I did bad things, I knew that it caused Jesus and the angels actual pain. It hurt them. “So, here I am hanging in space, between the worlds of light and dark, watching my life. I am being held by Jesus, but I can see that I caused him actual unhappiness. It was just so shameful.”

He says that “the only thing they showed me was how I interacted with people”. They showed no interest in his awards, promotions or other worldly achievements.

“It became evident that the primary thing was how I had loved other people. I had done very poorly. I had failed God’s expectations of what I was supposed to be doing, which was caring for other people.”

As to how long this process took, Storm says that “there was no perception of time”, but “when I try to frame it in our time, I say, it took longer than graduate school, which for me was three and a half years”.

Eventually, he was told he wasn’t ready for heaven and would have to go back to earth. “I was very upset,” he says.

Reluctantly, after some resistance, he accepted his fate. Then, instantaneously, he was back in his body in that Paris hospital, being prepared for surgery.

Afterwards his life changed utterly. He could no longer go back to his old ways. His friends met his story with “rejection, ridicule and scorn”. But he found new friends at Bible study groups. Gradually he became more and more involved in his church, eventually becoming a minister in the United Church of Christ. In this capacity he works closely with Catholic Church in Latin America. He argues that “God sees the Church as one Church” and that “all the divisions are manmade”.

This one Church, he says, “should be out there risking their pretty vestments”, pursuing those lost souls, gripped by the nihilism and atheism, now running rampant across the western world.

For more information about Howard Storm, visit Howardstorm.com.

Fr. Rutler homily, Jesus light shines!

FROM THE PASTOR-March 11, 2012
by Fr. George W. Rutler

As the Plymouth Bay Colony was starting up, a scholar back in England published the philosophical reflection, Anatomy of Melancholy, analyzing his own tendency to depression, which he attributed to “black bile.” It is not clear whether he hanged himself, but he certainly made it fashionable for philosophers to be gloomy. Yet even he had his moments: He liked listening to the barge-men in Oxford swearing, “. . . at which he would set his hands to his sides and laugh most profusely.” In the next century, an old friend of Dr. Johnson said that he had tried to be a philosopher “but cheerfulness kept breaking through.”

   Something more than cheerfulness keeps breaking through the dark patches of life: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary evidence the divine clarity lighting up the shadows: Christ's Baptism, The Wedding at Cana, The Proclamation of the Gospel, The Transfiguration, and The Institution of the Eucharist. The Transfiguration is a singular instance of the joy of heaven bursting blatantly into this world. So, some of the Church Fathers have said that the Transfiguration was not a miracle at all, because it revealed the glory of God that miracles only hint at.

   Christ showed this radiance to Peter, James and John to sustain them as they were about to enter the dark whirlpool of the Passion. Whenever times seem dark, Christ keeps breaking through. The darkness makes the light ever more vivid. It is a principle in painting, called chiaroscuro, that colors are brightest when they are contrasted with darker shades.

   One of countless examples of how this is lived out was that of a young priest, Alois Andritzki, born in 1914 to a family of the minority Sorb people in eastern Germany. He was ordained in the diocese of Dresden-Meissen and ended up in the Dachau concentration camp on trumped-up charges. His real offense was to have preached against the eugenics policies of the Nazis. In a nearby “sanatorium,” doctors and nurses killed 16,000 handicapped and mentally ill people, including children, who were declared “unworthy of life.” On February 3, 1943, Father Andritzki was ill, and his handsome and athletic body had become emaciated. He asked for Holy Communion and instead was given a lethal injection. Last year, he was beatified as a martyr.

   Father Andritzki’s dark cell was transfigured by the same light that keeps breaking through in the dark days of our own culture as morbid voices sound increasingly like the eugenicists of the past. Only the willfully blind can deny how dark it is getting. And only the melancholy can ignore the brightness that is enlightening many people who in less challenging days may have taken the Faith for granted. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43).   Church of Our Saviour, NYC

In God's Company 2: A Good Sign

In God's Company 2: A Good Sign:  Photo by Bernard Gallagher  A good sign! Post by bluecross » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:36 am Today, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted w...

Sky View: Letter of ’71

Sky View: Letter of ’71

The Letter of ’71: Abridged and revised (For new Sky View readers)

According to Archbishop Charles Chaput in Render Unto Caesar, in 1970 Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, asserted that the fallout of the Sexual Revolution was nothing that we have seen before. And in response to the precipitous decline in priestly and religious vocations he said that “the city of man is beginning to strike terror in our heart…the Church is becoming extinguished in men’s souls and Christian communities are crumbling.”

Approximately a year later, in 1971, Sister Lucia, one of three seers of the Marian apparitions at Fatima, wrote a letter to her nephew, Valinho, who was a Catholic priest. It could be argued that this letter was one of the most important letters written in the twentieth century. Contained in this letter was her diagnosis as to why “the Church is becoming extinguished in men’s souls.”

To begin with, Father Valinho was equally distressed over the turmoil and the disorientation of the late sixties and early seventies. His concern was validated by Sister Lucia when she wrote, “It is indeed sad that so many are allowing themselves to be dominated by the diabolical wave that is enveloping the world, and they are so blind that they cannot see their error.” To be sure, this “diabolical wave” had been boiling underneath the surface for several decades.

Leading up to the early 1960’s, the Catholic Church had every reason to be optimistic about her future. Indeed, during the forties and fifties vocations and church attendance were on the rise. In addition, Church membership in America had nearly doubled in size. However, what Catholics did not see coming- including many of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council when it opened in 1962 -was that the Culture of Death would overflow from the concentration camps of the Third Reich and the gulags of the Soviet Union to the youth, entertainment industry and universities in the West. The spirit of anti-Catholicism was far from dead.

It would seem that this came as no surprise to Sister Lucia. With regard to the abrupt surge of secularism in the world she said, “…the principal error is that they have abandoned prayer.” But it is not only the world that had abandoned prayer. She indicated that the trend was also in the Church. “I am convinced,” Lucia said, “that the principal cause of evil in the world and the falling away of so many consecrated souls is the lack of union with God in prayer. The devil our weak points we will fall, our times are very bad and we are weak.” Quite often we forget that the Church is the Mother of humanity; and what a mother does, children also do. With this, the devil exploited the spiritual neglect of Catholics to great effect.

Sister Lucia reminds Fr. Valinho that when people turn away from God in prayer “everything is lacking to them.” Christ reminds us that we can do nothing without him. This is why, according to the Fatima seer, we must draw close to the Tabernacle and pray fervently.

She said there are two practical advantages of prayer: First, we receive “more light, more strength, more grace and virtue than you could ever achieve by reading many books, or by great studies.” And second, Sr. Lucia told her nephew that “you will accomplish a lot in a short period of time.” The lesson she learned from Our Lady of Fatima was that we should “let time be lacking for everything else but never for prayer!” Psalm 127 says it best: "Unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build."

Sr. Lucia said that especially for those in spiritual authority they need “to keep close to God and to tell Him about all their affairs and all their problems before they discuss them with human beings.” That’s right! Treat God as a best friend- the most important person in your life –by consulting with Him before seeking the counsel of anyone else.

Perhaps in colleges and seminaries too much emphasis was placed on scholarly books rather than holiness as a source of knowledge; or in parishes, perhaps too much was made of meetings and planning and not enough on spiritual exercises; or among the clergy, maybe their administrative function was given more importance than preaching the Gospel and forming souls. This could be why Sr. Lucia cautioned Fr. Valinho that a Christian without prayer is like a “hollow and split reed.” Indeed, in the absence of robust spiritual activity ministry is just another process and mission gets bogged down with planning.

With that said the letter does conclude with a positive and affirming note: “See that you take everything with calmness and with great confidence in God. He will do for us what we cannot do ourselves. He will supply for our insufficiencies.”

What can be said for the individual can also be said for the Church. Whatever insufficiencies we have as a collective body of believers, God can make up the difference. But he can only do what we cannot do for ourselves if we regularly turn to him in prayer. As such, in a short time, the Lord is sure to compensate for what has been lost in the last fifty years.

Sky View: To Question a President’s Christian Identity

Sky View: To Question a President’s Christian Identity

"To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice."

Pope Leo XIII, On the Constitution of States

The public, some politicians and some members of the media have questioned if President Barak Obama is really a Christian. Recently, the media- both Left and to an extent, the Right –sees to it that anyone who is bold enough to question Mr. Obama’s Christian identity is publicly disgraced. Thus far, Senator Rick Santorum has come close to making the charge that Obama is not a Christian by questioning his “phony theology.” However, because of the heat of media pressure, he has politely given the president the benefit of the doubt.

It should be noted, however, that at no time in history has the confusion of what a Christian really means been as prevalent as it is today. Not only do people not know what a follower of Christ is supposed to believe and how he is supposed to be behave, but it is deemed socially and politically inappropriate to give a fixed definition of what a Christian really is. And according to conventional wisdom, it is even more inappropriate to question a person’s Christian identity. Indeed, proponents of secular-liberalism have exploited the weakness of today’s Christianity by mounting public pressure on anyone who questions their religious fidelity or patriotism. And Christians, by and large, have acquiesced to this pressure. They have been silenced; not by edict but through the daily threat of ridicule.

But what exactly is the weakness of today’s Christianity? Well, for starters, Protestant Christianity has been splintering and multiplying into thousands of different denominations since the founding of this country. After the persecution and intolerance of certain churches in 18th century America, it became, over the years, a taboo to criticize others on matters of creed. In the name of tolerance there came a reluctance for any church to proclaim, “We’re right and you’re wrong.” With this arose a growing trend that favored religious relativism (and eventually moral relativism). Indeed, all churches and even Christians came to be deemed more or less good.

Secondly, the Catholic Church did a stellar job of avoiding this kind of relativism for about two hundred years in America. She did not shy away from declaring her God-given superiority as the Church that Christ had founded. But that posture changed in the late 1960’s.

Then it became popular among pastors of the Church to give obstinate, unrepentant sinners equal status to that of faithful and repentant Catholics. As such, there was little distinction between the wolves and the sheep. When I speak of the wolves, I here refer to those who refuse to repent from their advocacy of abortion rights and same-sex marriage, from the practice of contraception and cohabitation, and from many other serious sins which daily cause scandal in the Body of Christ.

The result of all of this is that no one seems to know what a Christian is. And with this kind of ambivalence, moral and spiritual relativism reigns supreme. This is why it is deemed socially and politically inappropriate to say whether or not a person like President Obama is a true Christian.

But we know where President Obama stands on moral and policy issues. He is on record for supporting the following:

• Abortion rights

• Infanticide

• Sex education at the age of 5 years

• Same-sex marriage

• The reinstatement of United States Department of Veterans Affairs manual, the version of which is highly suggestive of favoring euthanasia

• Healthcare rationing of the elderly: His comment about having grandma take a pill instead of opting for a costly surgery is indicative of where the president's priorities lie. And Cass Sunstein, Obama’s Regulatory Czar, said the following: “I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.”

What is equally disturbing about President Obama’s moral and spiritual philosophy is this: As most know, he was mentored for 20 years under Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United in Chicago. The reverend publically supported Black Liberation Theology and one of its prominent pioneers, James Cone. Few know that James Cone and Black Liberation Theology in general favors a heavy dose of Marxism. As the president himself maintains, his salvation depends on the collective salvation of the people. Without going into a lot of details, the belief that groups of people should be saved over that of individuals is based on socialistic or Marxist premise. Such a premise is contrary to the Gospel and it is spiritually, morally and politically dangerous to society. The dignity of the individual person has been and will continue to be seriously undermined under such an ideology. We can already see that President Obama and is entourage of Czars and Cabinet members do not hold preborn babies, infants and the elderly in high esteem. Neither do Catholics fare well under their governance.

To be sure, there are certain things we cannot judge. We cannot judge intentions, motives or whether or not a person will be saved in the end. But we can judge whether or not a person is believing and behaving as a follower of Christ should. As our Lord said, "You will know them by their fruits." (Matthew 7:16) In fact, it is the duty of Catholic bishops, pastors, teachers and the laity to make a clear distinction between real Christians and nominal Christians. In the early 20th century, for instance, Pope St. Pius X wrote the following to his priests: "Catholic 'Liberals' are wolves in lambs clothing; hence any priest worthy of the name must unmask for the faithful confided to his care their insidious plotting, their unholy design. You shall be called papists, clericals, retrogressives, intransigents. Be proud of it!" This pastoral wisdom of the saintly pope also applies to Christians in general.

If we cannot say that a “Christian” is not one who would aggressively advances abortion rights, the right to practice infanticide at hospitals and abortion clinics, same-sex rights and healthcare rationing- if we cannot say that this is not what a disciple of Christ does –we are in trouble. We have unnecessarily handicapped ourselves. As such, confusion about what a Christian really is will continue to fog the minds of Americans. The end result is that we will be powerless to resist counterfiet Christianity and those political ideologies which parade themselves in sheeps clothing.

The standard has already been set by Christ, the Apostles, the Church Fathers, the Saints and the Church herself. The legacy of drawing attention to Christians in "name-only" and separating from the flock is legion. There are too many examples to count here. But suffice it to say, this pastoral practice of our Church's watchmen of old secured the moral distinctions between good and evil and the religious distinction between authentic Christians and those who pretended to be Christian for political purposes. We should return to this ancient (and yet not so ancient) practice. The welfare of our country depends on it.

ENTITLEMENTS AND FREEDOMS

WHEN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE RIGHTS COLLIDE
BY DANIEL GREENFIELD OF RIGHT SIDE NEWS
The birth control battle is another reminder that entitlements and freedoms do not coexist well, even if we set aside the economic issues, because entitlements end up intruding into the spaces of freedoms. As the United States undergoes the process that replaces the negative right to be left alone with the positive right to be taken care of in every way possible, these conflicts will only worsen.

Americans are getting a taste of life in Europe where social benefits trump individual freedoms, where artificial rights to various government administered benefits and subsidies, along with the protection of national values and social harmony, serve to eliminate most of what Americans have traditionally considered freedom.
While negative rights create safe spaces from outside intervention, positive rights offer a privilege that is overseen by the government. Positive rights are inevitably concerned with social welfare and harmony. They offer universal benefits at the cost of individual liberties.
Every negative right has a mirror image positive right. Freedom of speech meets its evil twin in the right not to be offended by bigotry. Freedom of religion has its evil twin in the imposition of a state religion. Property rights have their evil twin in wealth redistribution and this right is the wellspring of most of the social problems of the state.
The decay of the educational system has created a state of affairs where many can no longer distinguish between the statements, "Everyone has the right to speak their mind" and "Everyone has the right to a home." The inability to make that distinction marks the death of a free society as the former expresses a freedom relative to the state, the latter expresses an obligation on each person to the state.
When people can no longer tell the difference between the right to be left alone and the right to pay for someone else's home, the firewall between freedom and tyranny has successfully broken down. And the most effective way to devalue freedom is by presenting something more seductive in its place, a system that will take care of your needs, that will balance some remaining freedoms with a necessary amount of intrusion that will maximize the collective benefits and harmony of all.
This balance of negative and positive rights is unsustainable, because each new positive rights diminishes the existing negative rights until there are hardly any negative rights left. Each new gift from the government carries with it an invisible price tag in dollars and cents, and in freedoms lost. This loss is often intangible. Like casinos and whorehouses, the progressive way of government is built on befuddling the people so that they don't notice what they are losing.
Positive rights are presented as social obligations, and social obligations are the source of most of the oppressive legislation that exists anywhere. The society is a vague unit which is not represented by a plebiscite, but by the values attributed to it by an elite. It blurs the line between government and the individual by transforming the individual into a collective entity with collective needs and obligations.
Social obligations are often expressed in terms of values. Values are generally code for an emotional appeal to a position that cannot be rationally defended. The values discussed are never individual values, but the collective values of an intangible society as expressed by its cultural and political leaders.
Authentic social obligations and values are not expressed through the state, but through organizations, including religious groups, that reflect those values. A country can and will have groups whose values are in conflict, which is why the universalization and collectivization of values amounts to the creation of a state religion.
Amish values differ from Catholic values which differ from Mormon values which differ from Methodist values which differ from the values of Orthodox Jews, Baptists, Unitarians, Atheists and the whole host of different religious and irreligious value systems that fill the nation. While many of these groups can and do agree on some major points, they don't agree on others, and even when they do, they often differ on the details.
The Catholic Church is strongly in favor of health care for all, it does not however agree on the nature of what health care is with value systems to the left of it. The current controversy is a clash of value systems. Such a clash is easily resolved in a system built around negative rights that leaves all the parties free not to enter into agreements or obligations that they don't want to enter into. However in a system based on positive rights, a clash of values ends with the government compelling one side to abandon its values.
Such clashes are inevitable and so are their conclusions under a system of positive rights. The more positive rights there are, the more clashes develop. And the more they happen, the government begins functioning as a state church enforcing its own values on everyone.
This phenomenon is familiar enough to Europeans where "The Values of the Republic" often replaced the state church and took on an equally sacred meaning. In Israel, Democratic values is often used to mean the same thing, which is particularly confusing as the values involved are never those which have the support of a plurality of the country. In the United States, the progressive Trojan horse way has been to use "American Values" to mean the same thing.
American Values, as used by the progressives to endorse everything from gay marriage to illegal immigration, exists entirely apart from actual Americans who are lectured on the need to do one thing or another in the name of those values. And when there is a conflict between the Constitution and the construct of American Values, then the Values win out over the law. The progressives have done their best to cloak their transformation of the country as a clash between reactionary positions and American Values. Each of their victories is a triumph for the America that they wish to create.
When the state becomes the source of national values, rather than those values residing in religious or other ethical organizations that seek to act out their beliefs in the public space, then the country has taken a significant step toward fascism. The collectivization of values also represents the militarization of a people's beliefs. Such militarization can be found in Muslim theocracies or in any system where allegiance to the nation requires adopting and acting out the values of the state.
The birth control mandate is an example of the collectivization of national values, and the value that every person should have access to subsidized birth control trumps the religious values of major religions. Similar conflicts occur in every arena where progressives create a positive right that conflicts with religious values. The positive right not to be discriminated against conflicts with the negative right of freedom of religion when it comes to gay ceremonies taking place on the property of a church or synagogue.
As the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association found out when it denied the use of their property to two women looking to get married, was sued and lost the case. As the verdict put it, "As to "free exercise," the LAD is a neutral law of general application designed to uncover and eradicate discrimination: it is not focused on or hostile to religion." But that is the genius of positive rights, they do not have to focus on a thing to be hostile to it, so long as the imposition of its guiding virtue is incompatible with the beliefs and values of anyone else.
The decision went on to say: "I do not believe that the facts pose a true question of religious freedom, but were they go, the matter would not be governed by the high bar of "strict scrutiny", but by a much lower standard that tolerates some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals." And that is the progressive tyranny of positive rights in a nutshell which tolerates some intrusion into freedoms for the sake of tolerance and other societal goals.
Similarly for the sake of societal goals, we must tolerate some intrusion into our income, into what we may and may not say, into what we must buy, where we must live and how we must arrange our lives until no safe spaces for freedom actually exist. Only a massive iron wall of positive rights that locks us inside our societal obligations to phantom values that are determined for us by progressive activist groups and the functionaries of the state.
Where does it end? It never does. Values are absolute, they represent ideals and ideals can never be met. To enforce values is to conduct an endless war against all that stands in your way. The wars on bigotry, poverty, greed, bad habits and all the other grave societal ills can never be won. Those wars lead into ancillary conflicts against people who want to hold on to their beliefs and their money, against boys who play with toy guns, the overeaters, smokers and jokers, the cranks who tilt at windmills, economic sharks who take advantage of any situation, and the whole endless list of enemies of the state who stand in the way of its societal goals. 
The unwavering pursuit of ideals ends up destroying the very ideal being pursued. Trying to give everyone a home may have damaged home ownership, particularly among the poor and minority groups, for a generation to come. Fighting bigotry has created bigotry and in some cases even turned it into a matter of state policy, as is the case with affirmative action. But that is why the pursuit of ideals by the state are dangerous. A government has too much power and too little flexibility to pursue goals which involve the touchstones of human nature.
When positive and negative rights collide, freedom is the first casualty, and the second casualty is the positive right which over time cannot survive the pressures of the self-destruction of the system that imposes it. Negative rights which require state inaction can be sustained so long as the state does not become too powerful. Positive rights can only be sustained so long as the money and power holds up. Their fate is thoroughly tied to the fate of the system. When the state that enforces them weakens, so do they.
Negative rights put their trust in people. Positive rights put their trust in the state. All states fall sooner or later. Only the people survive.
From NY to Jerusalem, Daniel Greenfield Covers the Stories Behind the News

FR. GEORGE RUTLER - PASTOR OF 'CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOR', NEW YORK CITY

Most Recent Column from Fr. Rutler--Fr. George Rutler is pastor of The Church of Our Saviour in New York City and is a convert to Catholicism from the Anglican Communion.  February 19, 2012

In the vault of modern political oratory is a speech of one senator in the 1960's quoting George Bernard Shaw: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’ ”  There are noble dreams, such as those of our nation's Founding Fathers, right up to the last century's civil rights movement.  Jacob saw a ladder to heaven in a dream. But dreams can also be the sugar-coated nihilism of John Lennon's song Imagine, which is still dear to the hearts of the mindless.

The Risen Christ ate food to show the Apostles that He was not just a dream, and so the Lenten preparation for the Feast begins with hard reality: “You are dust.” This is an alarm clock that awakens us from moral slumber, and we have been slumbering a lot in our culture. The surest way to guarantee that evil can happen here is to say that evil cannot happen here. God constantly posits a choice between life and death, precisely because both are real, even for those who dream of existence with neither heaven nor hell and “only sky.”

Recent attempts of the Health and Human Services Department to promote a culture of death by violating the Constitutional right to free exercise of religion are in part the work of public officials who have boasted of their admiration for a bad dreamer: Saul Alinsky. That strategist for “community organizers” insisted that there is no objective truth. Pope Benedict XVI would call this the “dictatorship of relativism.” Alinsky, as the common man's Machiavelli, used this relativism to approve of corruption in public officials as a matter of policy, the justification of unethical means to achieve ends and the destruction of any opposition. Alinsky's guide book, Rules for Radicals,  is prefaced with a tribute to “the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.”

While some journalists would give the impression that the government mandates are all about contraception, they also cover sterilization and abortifacients. Many Christians themselves do not understand the moral implications of artificial birth prevention as explained in Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae. In 1968 his prophetic warnings were widely ridiculed as nonsense: moral breakdown, increased infidelity and illegitimacy, pornographic exploitation of women by men. Then he asked: “Who will prevent public authorities from favoring what they believe to be the most effective contraceptive methods and from mandating that everyone must use them, whenever they consider it necessary?”

Who will prevent them?  Only those wise enough to distinguish between noble dreams and nightmares. They will know what many utopian dreamers do not know:  The voice in Shaw's play Back to Methuselah that spoke of dreams that never were and asked “Why not?” was the Serpent in the Garden.

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"In many parts of the world, the family is under siege. It is opposed by an anti-life mentality as is seen in contraception, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. It is scorned and banalized by pornography, desecrated by fornication and adultery, mocked by homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions and cut in two by divorce. ---Cardinal Arinze