Our Lady of Fatima & Saint John Paul II – assassination attempt
13 May 1981, when Mehmet Ali Ağca , Soviet puppet, pulled the trigger, our Lady of Fatima redirected the bullets. Saint John Paul II survived. Where were you at the time? I was a seminarian and at that moment I was just outside of Rome, looking back at the City. The panorama is burned into my mind.
This was just five years after I had the privilege to be one of the Cadets of our Lady of Fatima who were chosen to help carry her statue for the main candlelight procession during the vigil of the July apparition, the night of 12 July, 1976, amidst a crowd of 2.1 to 2.2 million souls, when I was sixteen years old. My sister had introduced me to the scapular and rosary and the Blue Army when I was only six: 1966. She’s the one who paid for the trip when I was sixteen, something like $350. That must have been subsidized. I thank her for the great Catholic formation I received on this pilgrimage with Father Robert J Fox. Anyway, on that same trip with many other cadets, we went to Coimbra and met Sister Lucia.
It seems that the more you know about Fatima the more you realize you know pretty much nothing about Fatima, for instance, about the third secret.
Here’s what we know: The powers that be are scared to death to publish that secret. That opens up a raft of more questions.
Let everyone know:
Filed under Fatima, John Paul II
The Fatima Century – by Craig Turner
Craig provides an amazing tour of world history relative to the Fatima Century. This was slightly revised and republished by Father Gordon MacRae, and is now on his newly revised site: Beyond These Stone Walls.
How Our Lady of Fatima Saved a World in Crisis
Let everyone know:
Filed under Fatima
Canonical Visitation to my parish: “We’ve done NOTHING!”
I’m not always in my parish, though it covers territory in three counties of Western North Carolina. I’m basically never in my office. Much better to be with the most hurting of Jesus’ Little Flock. See the picture above, which is about 300+ miles round trip when all is said and done. So, the “Canonical Visitation” of the parish had to be scheduled waaaay in advance. What is a canonical visitation, you ask? Let’s let AI provide the answer…
Dear AI, what is a “canonical visitation” to a catholic parish according to the Code of Canon Law?
According to the Code of Canon Law, a “canonical visitation” is an official visit made by a bishop or a representative of the Holy See to a Catholic parish or institution. The purpose of this visit is to assess the pastoral needs of the community, ensure that the celebration of the sacraments is being performed according to Church law, and to offer guidance and support to the parishioners and clergy. During a canonical visitation, the bishop or representative can also inquire about the financial status of the parish and its compliance with Church teachings. The results of a canonical visitation can lead to changes in leadership or administrative practices within the parish or institution. As a part of the overall governance structure of the Church, canonical visitations are considered important tools for ensuring the integrity and effectiveness of Catholic ministries around the world.
In this case, in this far-flung parish on the far side of the peripheries, it’s not the Bishop, but the Vicar Forane who does this visitation. There were some items in which, it was duly pointed out, improvement could be made. For instance, getting less battered editions of some liturgical books at Holy Redeemer and, over at Prince of Peace, possibly swapping out the pews with those in his church (a better fit for both churches). Also at Prince of Peace some improvements were suggested for the in-ceiling baldachin in the mission church both for lighting and change-out-able hanging cloths along the lengths of the baldachin (I didn’t catch the technical name for those). Holy Redeemer now has an altar rail. The same was suggested for Prince of Peace. We just have a kneeler there. I was not expecting such suggestions. Great.
After both campuses and the rectory were closely inspected, after records books were duly signed, there was more encouragement provided to me as far as I go as a Pastor, you know, after many by-the-way conversations about a wide range of topics:
- “You’re doing good here, Father George. You’re doing a lot of good.”
Of course, you know what happens when you’re doing a lot of good… So, I then brought up in the last minutes before my canonical visitator returned to the far side of the mountains a possible upcoming persecution of the Church. We agreed that many of our Church leaders just don’t get the easy answer provided by Saint Thomas More:
- “I am the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”
And that put’s all the success and praise into perspective.
To quote some priest-friends about us priests who are still alive in this world, without exception…
- “We’ve done NOTHING! We’ve not yet laid down our lives for Jesus. We’ve done NOTHING! NOTHING!“
There are priests and sisters and so very many laity right around the world who laying down their lives in witness to the Lord. How could we even for a second think that we are doing well in anything until the Lord Himself welcomes us on the far side of witness to Him in heaven, joining the countless others who have their lives in witness to the Lord.
Until we join their ranks, their glorious ranks, we’ve done NOTHING! NOTHING!
Let everyone know:
Filed under Priesthood, Vocations
Preventing suicide 45 years later
I came across someone the other day with whom I attended a certain highfalutin but compromised in so many ways Catholic Prep School many decades ago.
Back in the day, if I remember correctly, he was thrown into a tizzy by an IQ test we had to take. He had a most rare super-intelligence. He hated that for the reason that he knew enough to know that he had no idea about the most basic questions of human existence, about God, about our fallen human nature, about those who ought to know better being so freakishly corrupt. He wasn’t one to escape this realization like everyone else. His inability to escape and the overeagerness of others to escape both quite destroyed him. He was at a low point. He was scared. He had some suicidal ideation, which he found repulsive.
Mind you, he wasn’t exactly a loner. He was very, how to say, plugged in, situationally aware of people’s motivations. He didn’t know how to interact much because every situation would bring up innumerable questions. He was ruthlessly direct, so you couldn’t mistake any meaning, although entirely polite. But so many of the students, faculty, admin were so shallow, so self-referential. He himself was anything but self-absorbed. He was just terribly hungry for the truth. Who was going to provide answers for him?
I remember the scene. Of all inept people in the universe, he had targeted me, waiting for me near my locker in the corridor outside “The Seniors Room”, at the window, before the tunnel (circled in red above). There was no escape for me. He locked me into a conversation eyeball to eyeball where I had to count on my guardian angel for guidance. This was all about the spiritual life, theology, the meaning of life, every “why?”. He opened up about his struggles. He was superb at spilling his guts in mere minutes, with precise logic, with impossible conundrums, with interruptions from me. All between classes.
I’m quite sure he didn’t approach me because I was anything special or had anything figured out. It’s just that I wasn’t suicidal, and that, I think, amazed him. That’s what he wanted to know about.
Fuller picture: Some rumors about me that had spread throughout the school at the speed of light. I only know about those because of very many students asking me how I was doing, and that they were praying for me. They were all trying to be super tactful, all with great concern, some adding that they had heard about “it”, but that they really weren’t supposed to talk about “it.” I don’t know how “it” got out, whatever “it” was. I had been shot at almost uncountable times, bullets whizzing by my head, but I was never hit… so, whatever. Could that be “it”? Whatever… But that attitude of “Whatever…” was what this smart student wanted to know about. Instead of sympathizing with me about something for which I wasn’t seeking sympathy, he wanted to benefit from whatever was going on with me that provided a strength he wanted.
Now that I think about it, I’ve had discussions with uncountable suiciders over the decades, who didn’t go through with it, thanks be to God, or, years later, a couple of them did so. So sad.
This guy, I’m happy to report, is a world-class good-guy, as I think he always was. For years he’s been helping in his own way to reach into the darkest of the dark side and do lots of what ends up being suicide prevention because of preventing so very much evil from being perpetrated in the first place.
I’m not going to claim that I was able to help this guy back in the day, even as a mere sounding board. Dunno. But, whatever my ‘arguments’ were at the time, surely that’s not what he sought from me. I think he was just looking for someone who was willing to go on in life because of faith in the midst of adversity: someone is doing that… so why not me too? Something like that. Hope might seem elusive, the ol’ hoping against hope, or a thread of hope, but the thing about hope is that it’s actually a harness that’s really difficult to escape.
I think that kind of witnessing is something all of us can do, and I bet we do that much more than we might think. Guardian angels are good friends, helping to set up just such encounters in the first place. We don’t have to be smart. And however weak we might otherwise be, we just have to be faithful.
Let everyone know:
Filed under Spiritual life, Suicide
Diseased backwardists! I’ll punch’em in the face! Grr!
Pfft. Here’s the deal. Jesus is the One, the Only One, yesterday, today – right now, and tomorrow, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who was, who is, and who is to come, the Almighty.
Being one with Jesus doesn’t take us away from the present and throw us into the past, although Jesus also connects us in the present to those in the past.
Being one with Jesus doesn’t take us away from the present and throw us into the future, although Jesus also connects us in the present to those in the future.
We are one Body in the Body of Christ, Christ the Head, we the members. I find Jesus to be enthralling. He is my Life. He is the Truth, my only Way. I know that not because I’m a good guy, but because I’m from hell but have received His forgiveness.
To insult Jesus as nothing more than a source of nostalgic disease when He is associated with the Traditional Latin Mass, for instance, that insult is… well… wait for it… an insult to Jesus. I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.
“Out with the old! In with me!” is the Promethean self-absorbed shriek of today into the future. Well, I’ll just stay with Jesus.
Making breakfast this morning I listened to EWTN evening news from I think it was 9 May 2023 on YouTube. There was some sister as a guest saying how effervescently excited she was, just bubbly altogether, that everything is new, and so today, what with women voting on faith and morals in the Synod on Synodality.
And everyone’s fine with all that, not seeing the forest for the trees. The problem is not that women are voting, but that there is voting at all. Instead of listening to Jesus, we listen to fallen human nature. This is how the Jesuits have perverted the discernment of spirits of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Follow your fallen human nature and the result is your own personal doctrine and morality and spiritual life and liturgy! All yours! All about you! Forget Jesus! Don’t be backwardists! Always forward! until… until…
Let everyone know:
Filed under Pope Francis, The Blah Blah Synod™
Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (O Canada, edition)
Canada, the tree-huggers to the north, in always greater efforts to be communist and woke, have changed out the crown topping off their coat of arms so as to remove crosses and fleur-de-lys and replace them with maple leaves and a [tender] snowflake.
Fail. This is as much of a fail as to replace BC (Before Christ) with BCE (Before the Common Era). The Common Era is only Common, or Catholic (Universal), because of Jesus. :-)
In the case of this crown, the maple leaves can represent patriotism, which is a Christian virtue to be sure, while the snowflake looks to be for any reconstruction, intents and purposes to be a fleur-de-lys, a lily, seen from the top. Moreover, this particular one, with a jewel in the middle, a seventh point of perfection and fulfillment of the six pointed Star of David, refers specifically to Christ Jesus our Lord, Son of David, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception. :-)
Let everyone know:
Filed under Flores, Free exercise of religion
Homilies: Oops! Did I just say that?
I’ve been hesitating to put up my homilies because it seems there is always something in them – I just can’t help it – which will incriminate me in the eyes of certain ecclesiastics as to how bad and evil I am at least in their eyes. Thus, I might mention a certain Pope or Cardinal or Bishop somewhere in the world by name and (arch)diocese, perhaps not in a good light, you know, so as to offer a reprimand to their so publicly misleading souls, and then, because of that, I think better of putting the homily up lest I be cancelled altogether. I gotta be available for Confession and for Last Rites for people, right? Perhaps that’s wrong of me. There’s being as clever as serpents, but there’s also something about burying talents and going to hell for that.
And it’s all incrementally getting worse. I might, analogously, mag-dump, or rant, in my homilies. Whenever I do this I’m guessing I’m nevertheless a good shot, such as with the 16 shots (one in the chamber) into the dime-sized target above (six years ago already). Some are a little bit astray. And while I might think that that’s good enough, the best of the best of the best told me that, no, I would never have been a candidate to be a Tier 1 operator with that kind of rubbish going on. He said that those who are merely good shots are dismissed forthwith; you have to be a gifted shooter just to start out. The gifted guy would be turning somersaults while pulling the trigger as fast as he could and there would only be one bullet hole in the center of that little green target, all bullets going through the same hole, but in reality only needing one shot, one that would instantly end the threat. All of them are gifted shooters. I’m not that. Not with my Glock, not with my preaching.
But does that stop me? No sir-eee! Off and running. That’s me. Sorry.
This homily might be rather a bit more hard-hitting than usual. I’m a lost soul. My parishioners only encourage this kind of misbehavior. What to do? No prisoners taken. This was May 8 2023, a couple of days ago.
Perhaps someone will charitably tell me where I’ve missed the mark either in truth or in charity.
Let everyone know:
Filed under HOMILIES
HOMILIES: The *Recording*: Mary is the greatest work of Jesus
So, a minute before one of our Masses this past weekend as Confessions were going on in our wonderful old style confessionals in the back of the church [with windows in the doors], I couldn’t help but be distracted by an unusually totally squared away guy, alone, utterly on-edge, of all things looking much like J Edgar Hoover, pictured above, just a bit older. The usual crowd slowly meander to their usual seats. He basically ran to the usual seat for such guests as himself. We don’t even need to put a RESERVED FOR SPECIAL PEOPLE sign on that seat, a few pews up from the back on the right side. Pretty much that’s where such guests go 100% of the time. I think people leave it empty as a courtesy for these guys, so frequent are they our guests. Not that this guy was, you know, special.
After he sat down he never once lifted his head again, never once made eye contact, frozen in place, hypervigilant, messing with something attached to his belt at the back of his strong-hand-hip, messing with his shirt just there. Checking if his shirt was covering not his hip-carried phone but what was IWB just there under the phone? Dunno. But always a red-flag. It’s important to notice this kind of behavior. I noticed he then recorded the homily without ever looking up once while I was preaching, not to the tabernacle, not when I would point over to our Lady of Guadalupe on the far side of the sanctuary, everyone rustling about to get a good view, but not him. He was frozen, eyes wide open, fixed. Waaay tooo careful. Surely just recorded for his family, right?
As I do in such cases, I directed our altar boy (a doctor in this seventies), to process out to the back of the church after Mass instead of just heading for the sacristy. I wanted to talk to this guy, you know, to welcome him, make him feel more at home.
“HEY, WHERE ARE YOU FROM?!” said I loudly as he pointedly raced by me after Mass, again no eye contact until I had said this. He instantly stopped and turned around and said just as loudly, a bit gruffly: “FLORIDA!” – you know, in such a way that there’s no way I can ask from where in Florida.
Sorry, but I can’t resist. These kind of interactions are often rather… unique… I asked if he had a cabin up in these parts and he said No, but that he was with a group that had cars. So I mentioned how various motoring groups come up to drive the curvy mountain passes, Bugatti, Porsche, Corvette, Mini, etc. He said, No, they were just driving their cars unto paddleboats, which he repeated three times as I looked dumbfounded at such a statement. I didn’t say that we have no such thing in the entire region. In telling me such a whopper (as far as I know, maybe it was for some movie shot) I’m guessing that he was telling me that he also has an ulterior motive for being there.
I’m not saying the guy was special in these days of ludicrous accusations about all Catholics, accusations insisting on Type 5 Assessments coming from federal bureaus, but it’s one of those Zero Dark Thirty things: “A 100% [it’s him]. OK, fine, 95% because I know certainty freaks you guys out, but it’s a 100.”
Bad language…
So, having said all that, here’s the homily that’s obviously evidence of terrorist activity that this guy was so careful to record. After all, we’re RTCs, Radical Traditional Catholics. Oooo! Radical (we actually believe) Traditional (looking to the Holy Spirit) Catholics (God is All in all).
And, oh! Mary! So dangerous. She’s a good mother. Ah, yes, praise of motherhood. That will surely get us into trouble.
By the way, I apologize in advance. My homilies are totally off the cuff. Rambling. Repetitive. I never know what I’m going to say. This is me, spilling my guts about what I think was going on with Jesus about His mission and His Mother:
Let everyone know:
Filed under Free exercise of religion, HOMILIES, Intelligence Community
Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (looking to Mary, edition)
This is the Morris (RIP) Rose, provided by a dear loved one of Morris, specifically for “Flowers for the Immaculate Conception”.
I’ve rarely put up a Flower for the Immaculate Conception, of late. That’s not right. Apologies to our Lady. I am weak.
It takes much spiritual strength to give flowers to the Immaculate Conception. How can any of us dare to give her a gift when, by our sin, we have crucified her dear Son? Instead of returning to Calvary as did John, I just run away like the rest.
I need to take my own advice and just admit that I am too weak. That, of course, opens me up to turning to a strength provided in Jesus, her Divine Son.
Perhaps if all goes well today’s homily will be published in these pages. John 14:1-12. Can you guess wherein this will be a homily on the Immaculate Conception?
Let everyone know:
Filed under Flores
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 