When I was a kid, this painting had pride of place in our home. Mom also had shrines, grottos for a statue of Mary. Mom used to bring me special to the crypt church of the Cathedral to pray at the Pietà and light some candles.
But that’s not why I see Mary in passages of Scripture where she “isn’t.” I see Mary in passages of Scripture because she’s right there, obviously, for all to see. How can you not see here right there?! She’s not mentioned, but…
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.
Filed under HOMILIES
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:
Filed under Free exercise of religion, HOMILIES, Intelligence Community
I hesitate to publish this:
Having said all that, I have to say that I don’t hear anyone else saying the things I say here about our Lady. However inept I am at stating what should be obvious, I’m guessing it would be best to put such things down in hard-copy.
Meanwhile, I’m sprinting more than ever. It seems I just had an oil change for Sassy the Subaru, and now she’s due again, already. That’s 6000 miles, just like that. Much of that is Communion Calls, Last Rites, Burials, Rehabs/Nursing Homes, and more recently Behavioral Unit availability. The staff at the latter say I’m the only one to bring some people out of their shell regardless of what religion they are. Thanks to my guardian angel is what I say.
Meanwhile, I’ve not been doing much blogging. Sorry about that. I’m about 100% shadow-banned. Some of you get through. I put up this homily for those who aren’t blocked. This homily is where I’m at in my life.
Meanwhile, if you dare:
(c) 2022 [International] Fr George David Byers
Filed under HOMILIES, Immaculate Conception
So, a Jewish mother with her seven sons were being forced to eat pork by the pagan demon worshipers. The demon worshipers had some pans fired up, and were frying up pigs for the occasion. Swine were thought to be possessed by demons. Eating pork was tantamount to asking demons to possess oneself. Remember the exorcism of the naked man possessed by demons who were then cast into the swine?
The Jewish mother and her seven sons wouldn’t go along with such worship of demon spirits by eating the pork. So the skin of their heads with their hair was ripped off, their feet and hands cut off, and now they themselves were fried in those large pans on top of the fire of the torturers.
Jesus would declare all foods clean as He was personally to pay the price in His own justice for the mercy of exorcising us from the demons. Jesus faced all of hell broken out on Calvary.
So, now we hunt, say, wild boar and have plenty of bacon to enjoy.
But the great witness of the mother and her seven sons remains incriminating all those who worship demons. We are never, ever to compromise even under severe coercion, even in the face of torture and death. We are not even to cave into the pressure of the brow-beating and bullying of enforced political correctness from “friends,” even if those friends are (Cardinal) (Arch)Bishops, including the Bishop of Rome:
Instead, we are always to witness to the Divine Messiah, our Savior, the very Son of the Living God. We are not to cast Jesus aside so as to worship demons.
I’m hoping those at this address in Rome below will always serve the Son of the Living God.
I apologize that while recalling the mother of these seven brothers as she witnessed them being tortured to death, I got terribly choked up. If all of a sudden the homily stops dead, repeatedly, while you’re listening, it’s not over yet. That’s just me about to leave the sanctuary to break down in tears. It was all I could do just to stand there feeling very self-conscious. I was thinking of Mary standing under the Cross of her dear Son whilst He was being tortured to death. I’m told that this is all weakness on my part. I’m to be ashamed of it. But it is what it is. That’s where I’m at. Another weak priest. Who would’ve thought?
Filed under Free exercise of religion, Pope Francis, Spiritual life
My homilies are always me just thinking out loud. That’s a sin of complacency and pride. I try to console myself that in preaching I’m trying to impart, not so much correct academics (that would be appropriate and I desire to do that), but more the greatness of the forgiveness of sin, of my sin and yours, and the humble thanksgiving, in joy, which goes along with that, whatever the Gospel happens to be, and having that lead us into the Most Holy Sacrifice.
I rejoice that, because of the mandate from Jesus to us priests to preach, we who are necessarily inept in so many ways, it is the Holy Spirit who is going to get across the message He wants for this soul and that. Unless the priest seriously gets in the way, this is also true of any brief word of encouragement that the priest has for a penitent in the confessional. That shouldn’t make the priest complacent, but it is a consolation.
You know what’s in someone’s heart and soul when they think out loud. There’s a specific grace that “accompanies” one who is mandated to preach, a grace to purify heart and soul and mind and lips, that same grace available to Isaiah when he was called by God Most High to preach. Don’t get me wrong. That grace also acts as an incrimination if it is not taken up.
I fail in that I don’t much study what I should, and if I ever did study, that’s likely decades ago and my memory is not what it once was. Forgive me. I don’t want to be complacent. My academics may be wrong on this point or that – and I know plenty of priests who get highly emotional about this topic of the identity of Mary of Magdala and who don’t hesitate to smack me down on one side or the other. Be that as it is, my response is said with utter simplicity, pointing to the one thing necessary:
We are all called to be “The Penitent.” We will all of us together look upon Him who we have all pierced through.
A priest is blessed if he does what he has to do, called by our Lord Jesus to preach about His preaching, to instruct about His instruction, to exhort about His exhortation, to provide His goodness, His kindness, His truth. Likewise, a priest is cursed if does his own thing.
Yet, it seems like a blasphemy to teach about the Lord’s Prayer since Jesus already taught us how to pray. There is no bettering, one-upping the Lord.
But this speaks to just how weak we all are and to why our Lord called men to be priests even though Jesus is the One, the only One, the One High Priest.
Meanwhile, all the time: through, with and in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit: “Abba, Father.”
Filed under HOMILIES, Prayer, Spiritual life
This was Thursday. I got carried away. Sorry. Can you tell which rite of Holy Mass this is?
Filed under HOMILIES
Our religious leaders have failed us. Finally God is taking us seriously. Let’s follow Him!
Filed under HOMILIES
So, that about destroys the modus operandi of Pope Francis and pretty much all the bishops of the world, those men of consensus shoving their nice values down the throats of the Lord’s Little Flock. Enough of the blah-blah-blah of nice values that they create apart from Living Truth, the Son of the Living God. We want to be in humble reverence before the wounds of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We want to rejoice in thanksgiving that our sins are forgiven and that we can be one with Jesus in His Truth, in His Love. Jesus absolutely divides His heaven away from our hell. Rejoice!
Filed under HOMILIES
Sacred Scripture - Sacred Tradition - The Magisterium - The Natural Law - Unity with the Bishop of Rome
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