Devout assistance at Holy Mass can satisfy our temporal debt for sin April 4, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Four Last Things, fun, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, reading, Spiritual Warfare, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
Some really hopeful quotes from Fr. Martin von Cochem’s Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, on how devout assistance at Mass is so very pleasing to God and efficacious of Grace it can wipe out most or even all of our temporal debt due to sin. Of course, offering Masses is also by far the best way to free the holy souls in Purgatory:
St. Augustine says, “Although the fire of Purgatory is not eternal, it is marvellously intense, and inflicts worse pain than any ever suffered in this world. No physical suffering can equal it, not even the fearful tortures the martyrs endured.” No if, after hearing this, we read in the lives of the Saints of the cruel tortures they underwent, we may form some faint conception of the awful nature of the pains of Purgatory.
According to St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, it would be preferable to suffer all imaginable anguish to the end of time than to pass one day in Purgatory. My God, how intolerable those pains must be if an unhappy soul suffers more in one day than a man could suffer from now until the day of judgment! St.Thomas Aquinas declares that a single spark from the flames of Purgatory is worse than all the most dreadful tortures of this life. Terrible words, almost surpassing our powers of belief! Alas, what is to become of us wretched sinners, if, after our death we are plunged into those scorching flames? What intense suffering, my God, is in store for us then! And yet not the slightest doubt can be entertained that, unless we endure these torments, we cannot enter Heaven; for we are not holy and perfect; far from it, we are full of evil desires, and are soiled with the stains of sin.
[Most fearful, is it not? But what can we do? See below]
Blessed Nancker, Bishop of Breslau in the thirteenth century, was a prelate distinguished by his great love for Holy Mass, which induced him to be present, if possible, at all the Masses said every day in his cathedral. Just at the time when he lay dying a pious matron of the city heard the voices of angels singing in such sweet and melodious strains that she thought herself transported to Paradise. While she was wondering within herself what was the cause of this rejoicing, a voice said to her: “The soul of Bishop Nancker has left the body and is being carried by the angels to Heaven.” The good woman then asked in what way the bishop had merited this great honor and privilege. And the same voice replied: “Through the great affection and veneration he had for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”
An example such as this ought to encourage is in going to Mass. The pious bishop was taken up to Heaven without passing through Purgatory; nay, more, he was carried up by the angels in triumph with glad and jubilant songs. And why? Chiefly because of his great devotion to Holy Mass; he had thereby paid all he owed to Divine Justice and merited a glorious entry into the courts of Heaven. If thou wouldst escape the purgatorial fire and obtain…..Heaven, imitate his example and be zealous in hearing Mass!
———–End Quote———–
I should briefly add that the book also contains quotes from St. Bonaventure, great Doctor of the Church, stating much the same thing, that devout assistance at Mass is of such enormous Grace it is most efficacious of satisfying the temporal debt due to sin for ourselves or others.
So go to Mass!
Flightline Friday re-post: The “almost” F-15 April 4, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, silliness, Society.comments closed
Most people have at least some small familiarity with the mighty McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15
Eagle. First entering service in 1974, the Eagle has been the mainstay US air superiority aircraft for 40 years (uhhh….which isn’t exactly good that it’s been that long – can you imagine Wright Flyers fighting WWII?). It’s a beautiful ship. It has an unparalleled air to air combat record – over 100 kills and zero losses (although, the quality of the opposition does sort of diminish that record). But what everyone knows as the F-15 could have been a radically different, and in some ways even more capable, aircraft, had things gone a bit differently.
The military, in particular, almost never produces a weapon system without a competition within private industry to try to find the very best product available. The competition that produced the F-15 was started in the late 60’s and was known as Fighter-Experimental (F-X). The F-X competition had developed in fits and starts over the last half of the 60s, with the USAF originally wanting a Mach 2.7-3 superinterceptor+ ground attack aircraft – sort of an ultimate F-4. But the disastrous performance of US aircraft in air combat in Vietnam made the USAF reconsider and reposition the F-X competition for an all out air supremacy aircraft. There were 3 main contenders in the latter stages of F-X – Fairchild Republic, McDonnell Douglas, and North American Aviation, Inc. We all know the McDonnell plane already, and the Republic plane didn’t really have a chance, but the North American plane almost won the competition, and some say should have.
Throughout the 1950s, North American had frequently been the #1 defense contractor. But in the 60s, the company had a number of huge projects cancelled and even with their huge role in the Apollo program had fallen on somewhat hard times. They needed to win this competition for the USAFs next generation mainstay fighter. They pulled out the stops.
There is no question the NA-335 as it was known was aerodynamically far advanced on the F-15, possessing features that would not be seen on other aircraft for another 5-8 years (which, back then, was a very long time in aviation years). It had wings blended into the fuselage, static instability, and the wings had a graceful, curving design that provided sufficient lift for hard maneuver but were shaped so as not to cause huge supersonic drag. Horizontal stability may have been a bit of an issue without twin vertical tails, but the rest of the aircraft looked a winner. The avionics package was very advanced for its time – even more advanced than McDonnell’s (and it is avionics – aviation electronics – that have provided the true edge for US aircraft since Vietnam and precipitated their dominance). But it was expensive.
In today’s eras of trillion dollar deficits and military tactical aircraft with unit flyaway costs on the order to $100 million it’s amazing that a competition like the F-X would be decided on an expected cost differential of $200 million, but that was really the issue. North American’s proposal involved the construction of a new manufacturing plant, and the cost of that, plus the more complex avionics suite, caused the North American proposal to have expected lifetime program costs $200 million more than McDonnell’s. There was also a comfort factor – McDonnell’s design had derived from NASA studies that had been extensively wind tunnel tested, and the Air Force may have had more confidence in the aerodynamic qualities of the McDonnell design. Sadly, at that time, the USAF did not conduct fly-off competitions between aircraft and judged the merits on the paper designs – some aviation historians feel that if a flyoff had been held, the North American design would have emerged the clear winner.
Today, almost no one remembers this aviation also ran. There are almost no pics of it on the web, although I have a book at home with some very nice artwork and 3-views. I’ve posted the only photos I can find:
North American was bought by Rockwell International during the F-X competition. Although North American Rockwell went on to produce the B-1 bomber and some test aircraft, the company gradually drifted more and more behind the times. For the USAF’s next heavyweight fighter competition, the Advanced Tactical Fighter, their design finished last. It was aerodynamically quite up with the times, but completely behind the times in terms of stealth technology. North American Rockwell was absorbed by Boeing in the 90s and no longer exists.
UPDATED: Well shuck my corn, I just found 2 gorgeous prints of the North American model NA 335, the F-15 competitor:
It was said that the designer of the Sukhoi Su-27, the F-15’s Russian competition, was glad that USAF chose the McDonnell design over the North American one, because he felt he could design a superior aircraft relative to the McDonnell design, but not the North American one. He did, at least aerodynamically. In fact, the Su-27 appears to borrow a fair amount from the NA-335.
And, I retract what I said about horizontal stability, until I found that print on the bottom, I’d never seen those ventral stabilizers. Beautiful ship.
For this 2014 update, I found one more pic of the NA-335. BTW, it would have also been called the Eagle had it gone into service:
Below, by the way, is what the Republic version of the F-X would have looked like. Rather F-14 in a way, but with two widely spaced engine nacelles which might have made control a problem if one had flamed out:
A nun went down to Charlotte…. April 4, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in asshatery, Basics, Christendom, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, persecution, religious, sadness, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, the enemy.comments closed
……she was looking for some souls to save, she was in a bind, cuz she was way behind, she had’ta speak Truth hard and brave.
When she come across these young kids going to school in ol’ Char-lot
They call them Catholic but it seems……they’re not
She said: “You may not believe, but I’m Catholic, true,”
“And if you dare, you’ll see it’s fair, the devil has his hand on you.”
The kids said “we are so Katholyc, and it may be a sin”
“But we don’t care for Truth, we’re such smart youth, we’re jumpin’ on this gay wagon”
Sister get down and pray, the hate is comin’ hard
Cuz hell’s broke loose in Charlotte and the devil’s now in charge
And if you stay true you’ll get a halo made of gold,
but for these kids, the devil’s got their soul……
Alright, enough of that. So they had the outrage session at Charlotte, ahem, Catholic High School Tuesday night, in response to the horrific atrocity of exposing what appear to be horribly formed youth and parents to some very basic Truth. Mind, this was a presentation on Theology of the Body, so it wasn’t like they were hearing the really severe condemnations of sin that are very prevalent in the Tradition.
But it seems the nun who have the talk had the temerity to not only suggest, but demonstrate via sociological data, that those lost in the sins of sodom and sapphos are not “born that way,” but through various traumas or predilections to sin fall into that lifestyle.
And that was simply too much, much, much too much, for the precious dears – and possibly, even more so, their parents – to hear. There is pretty extensive coverage of the talk given here, and while I don’t feel a particular need to give yet more space to the politically ginned-up outrage expressed last night (it seems some activists may have been brought in, last minute like, to insure the meeting went only one direction), I do want to pull out a couple of quotes from the aggrieved for examination.
For instance, one parent said her child came home from school the day of the presentation feeling ashamed and embarrassed.[Perhaps because the nun convicted the child of their sin? Perhaps because the Word of God written even on the natural man’s heart was struck by what was said?]The parent proceed to chide Father Matthew Kauth, the school’s chaplain, for arranging the event.
“I have lost confidence. I do not trust your judgment and I do not respect (Father Kauth),” the parent said. [I’ve been told by a reader who knows the Charlotte area that this Fr. Kauth is known to be pretty orthodox, at least by Novus Ordo standards. He was also, I understand, pretty popular. But hey, he crossed the “third rail” of cultural discourse, a rail that only suddenly sprung into being in the past half-decade or so: thou shalt never criticize even slightly the sodomite lifestyle under any circumstances whatsoever]
Her comments were vigorously applauded.
On the other hand, whenever a parent tried to defend the school and the presentation, they were loudly booed by the crowd. [I think that tells us everything we needed to know about what went down last night. These parents and kids weren’t looking for Truth, or even natural “right,” but they wanted heads on a platter. How dare you ever make them feel bad for holding sinful, heretical ideas! There is something very strangely powerful about this whole matter revolving around same-sex attraction, those who go over to that side, supporting the trumpeting of this lifestyle as oh-so-good and “holy,” really seem to have a diabolical hatred of those who say “No, wait, this is really bad. It’s always been a grave sin.” They just can’t stand it. I can only guess at why emotions become so overpowering when corrected, or even contradicted, on this matter, but all the guesses point in a really dark direction]
As I said, the architects of leftist agitprop were in effect that night. You’ll see that below, plus, a quote that really defines the crisis in the Church and in Catholic education in particular:
This was not enough to satisfy parents, one of whom claimed to be representing lesbian, gay and bisexual students at the school and who said the presentation created an unsafe environment for these students. [Oh for God’s sake. This is “PFLAG,” a radical pro-sodomy agitprop group. They were in the house, suddenly. I take it there hasn’t been much sodomite presence on this campus. I’m sure there will be, now.]
[Here’s the money quote….] Another told the school chaplain: “You don’t know what’s best for our children. What are you planning on doing for the healing? [This is codespeak for “when are you going to issue a blanket condemnation of the nun, everything she said, and grovel before us until we feel vindicated?”] We want our children to remain Catholic, but we are being pushed away by the climate of what is going on here.”
Wait. Full stop. What did they just say? Let me rephrase that to say what it really means: “We want our children to retain various trappings of cultural Katholycism, and maybe go to Mass for a few years when their kids are young and then very late in life, kick in a $5 bill on random Sundays, etc……but you are pushing us away by saying we have to believe what the Catholic Church really believes! How dare you make any demands on us!”
That’s it in a nutshell, all the manifold problems that stem from the entire political-cultural-economic system that exists in self-described “liberal democracies” in their late, decaying state. These people have been taught since near infancy that religion is a matter of choice, one of many accouterments with which to adorn one’s life, if one so chooses. So their mental model of Catholicism is one that never offends, never challenges (except in certain, very limited ways, such as occasional exhortations to “be better,” “help the poor,” etc.), and certainly would never put them in opposition to the dominant culture and thus pose even the slightest threat to their comfortable lifestyle.
And that’s the main point: so many folks who claim to be Catholic today are so completely materialist and worldly, they literally cannot imagine suffering for the Faith, leading a counter-cultural lifestyle, or, egad!, standing athwart one of these perverse shibboleths of this hyper-sexualized culture.
So the message to Catholic schools, and parishes, and dioceses, is that you can only present the Faith in tightly circumscribed ways, ways that are guaranteed to never offend and also never challenge. Compared to the traditional practice of the Faith, this Catholicism-Lite is a pathetic imitation of the real thing, and not only that, will not be efficacious of salvation. So a whole ton of souls are persist in a state of grave danger of being lost.
Now, there is a huge culpability here, going back decades, to those within the Church who first allowed this worldly materialism to creep in, and then have done nothing to check it. You can see the massive problems orthodox, or at least conservative, leaders in the Church face today in trying to instill a little bit of the True Faith into souls wholly inoculated against it. But not trying is still a massive dereliction of duty, and we see how quickly one fairly orthodox nun (or order) is thrown under the bus, rather than being defended. You can also be sure any school that is not overtly traditional will now be extremely reluctant to have a nun from this order ever give such a presentation, or any presentation, again.
In reality, a massive part of the Church, by far the dominant part, is no longer, in any meaningful way, Catholic. To be Catholic means to accept, with supernatural faith, ALL that the Church presents as Truth. And there probably aren’t 15% of Catholics worldwide who do so today. That is not to say they “struggle” with some truth, that means, they deliberately, outwardly reject it. Heresy is always a grave sin, and mortal if you know you are deliberately rejecting Church Doctrine.
So, the Vatican II modernist chickens have come home to roost. The situation in the Church is so dire that sad, dried up, agitprop pseudo-religious can hop on a bus and be applauded from coast to coast for their heresy, while a sweet, habited nun who gives what I’m sure was a pretty mild talk on some core truths of the Faith gets pilloried and run out of town on a rail. This is essentially the state of affairs the modernists who drove the agenda after the Council wanted. They wanted a weak, worldly, inoffensive, unchallenging Church.
Mission accomplished!
If you want to read more of the gory details, you can go here and here.
And as I’ve also said elsewhere this week, in the coming persecution, our worst tormentors (God willing we remain faithful) will be fellow so-called Catholics.
OH – there are still competing petitions out there either supporting or opposing Sister Dominic’s talk. The opposition one has been in the lead ever since this sad imbroglio happened, but maybe you would go sign the supportive one and change that? It’s a small thing, but I think it sends a very dangerous message to have even one internet petition indicate that more Catholics oppose this kind of talk than support it.
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