A Great Sermon for this Time of Crisis in the Church August 3, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Holy suffering, Interior Life, persecution, priests, sanctity, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
Is your faith suffering under Francis? Feeling cold, more disconnected from grace and the Spirit? I must admit, I have felt this a great deal over the past 12-18 months. Francis is a sopping wet asbestos blanket for the fire of faith. He’s a nightmare of worldliness, selfishness, error and people-pleasing.
But this sermon is a good antidote to Francis’ destructive effects. I really enjoyed listening to Padre Pelegrino (who has been featured on this blog before), and I hope you will, too:
It is good to remember, that just keeping the Faith is a form of triumph. It’s certainly a personal one, and one we should hope we can share with our family and friends, as well. But I still think, with regard to the previous post, that in this time of intense crisis we need to think beyond just ourselves, our family, and even our parish, and for the millions upon millions of souls who will fall out of the Faith and very likely into an eternity in hell due to the errors being promoted by Francis and his cohort of revolutionaries.
In addition to work and just life generally, another thing that kept me from blogging for the past month or so was the process of selling my truck of almost 16 years and buying a new one. It took much longer than I hoped but I finally did sell my faithful – until the last 6-8 months – former truck and get a new one. And I switched teams in the process:
After 31 years of driving nothing but Chevy’s I got a Ford. I just can’t stand what the General has done with his trucks the last two generations (and now 3 with the 2019s coming out).
Strong Sermon Denouncing Contraception from Tyler Bishop Strickland June 27, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, episcopate, fightback, General Catholic, Glory, Immigration, Restoration, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, the struggle for the Church, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
I’ve been seeing more and more good catechesis from His Excellency Bishop Strickland. He’s no hardcore Trad, but his catechesis on many doctrinal subjects, especially those related to the marital act and continence, is about as solid as one will see in the Novus Ordo environment and far better than virtually any active bishop I can think of. He does endorse NFP without a concomitant warning that it should only be used in grave situations, but other than that this is generally quite solid. He states that couples who contracept are committing a serious sin and should not receive the Blessed Sacrament. As Bishop Gracida noted, virtually no other US bishop is willing to call souls to account on the matter of contraception, with Bishop Gracida claiming this the most stirring defense of Catholic Doctrine on the marital act given by any bishop in living memory. I’m not sure if that is true, but it is certain that virtually no bishop, or priest outside traditional parishes, is willing to touch this subject even slightly.
In addition, Bishop Strickland directed all of his priests to have this sermon read in their parishes on the Feast of St. John the Baptist, just as he preached it in the cathedral.
The sermon in its closing 2 minutes does sadly go off the rails with Bishop Strickland endorsing the conventional USCCB viewpoint regarding unrestrained illegal immigration, lamenting ostensible separation of children from their criminal parents, as if that hasn’t been the case throughout human history. Of course, in the vast majority of these cases, the very act of immigrating itself constitutes a separation from one parent. The solution to the immigration problem is not to encourage further law-breaking and suffering at the hands of unscrupulous smugglers who rape fully 80% of the women and female children who try to cross the US border illegally. The solution is to reform the broken Church and governments of the countries from which these people desire to emigrate. Unfortunately, in the Church of today, bishops are more or less expected and required to at least throw a bone to the “other side” whenever they take a strong stand upholding the Doctrine of the Faith. They can’t be seen to be too overtly political, not with all that wonderful tax money on the line. It’s a shame, but pretty much par for the course for the bureaucratized post-conciliar Church.
Still, overall, it’s a very good and welcome effort.
I would also add that while couples practicing NFP due to dire circumstances may indeed experience a sense of sacrifice in not being able to bring more children into the world, a word could perhaps also be spared for those couples who, in spite of financial hardship and general material poverty, go ahead and embrace God’s gift of more children in spite of the material, spiritual, and other costs. I feel this should always be promoted as the default position, so to speak, for all married Catholic couples.
I did like Bishop Strickland’s brief exhortation for older people whose children are grown, or who never had children, to assist younger couples with many children as much as possible. This is something my wife has expressed many times, how in bygone years such used to be quite common, but is today rather rare. There are some older people, especially ladies, who do make such offers from time to time, and God bless them for it.
And while marriage is sometimes difficult and constitutes a cross to bear, it is also a wonderful experience and blessing and the way God calls most all of us to live. Far too often in our sick culture, marriage is presented as a drag, as nothing more than a convention or tax break, as a source of frustration and little more than a killjoy. Often single or divorced life, with attendant incontinence and wantonness, is promoted as the chic, fun, rewarding way to be. They never show those people in their 70s, alone and forgotten, living with their 17 cats and zero children or grandchildren. It is in marriage that, as God ordains, true happiness, fulfillment, contentment, and solace can be found.
Nevertheless, great applause for Bishop Strickland for giving this sermon and being willing to touch the supposed third rail of the Church, contraception. May his example inspire far more bishops and priests to emulate him.
Joseph Sciambra’s Inspiring, Heartbreaking Tale of Leaving the “Gay” Lifestyle May 15, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, sanctity, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
Folks, I won’t be able to blog much anymore. Even the little I have done has been too much for the powers that be. I have to be careful what I say, as it is being watched by the people I work for. So posting will be light and infrequent for the foreseeable future.
However, I saw these video interviews of Joseph Sciambra and felt compelled to share them. For those who do not know, Joseph Sciambra was deeply involved in the perverse lifestyle of men using other men for sexual gratification for a number of years. He went so far as to become involved in extreme acts I won’t go into, as well as prostitution and, I believe, appearing in some pornographic films. But, through a miracle of Grace, he was able to escape his sins and develop a life of virtue and continence. He has a website here.
The interviewer is a priest, Fr. Peregrino, who features in a number of sermons on Sensus Fidelium, who also posted this excellent interview.
Mr. Sciambra raises a number of excellent points. One of the key themes is for fathers to love their sons in an appropriate, demonstrative, supportive way. Hugging your son, letting him know that he always has your love and support, and demonstrating through frequent involvement in numerous activities, not only “manly” ones but even simple things like playing with him or reading to him, are hugely important for helping insure your son does not become one of the few who may fall into this most destructive, most difficult to escape lifestyle. He rightly notes that not all boys who grow up with absent/distant or any other kind of “problematic” father will fall into this lifestyle, but some will, and that at root the problem of male homosexuality is one rooted in failed father-son relationships (the causes of the female variety are more varied). Interestingly, however, Mr. Sciambra does not believe anyone is “born gay.” He also rightly states that the true number of male “homosexuals” is 1-2% of the male population, and that many of these men, including himself, are at varying times and under different circumstances attracted to, and have relationships with, women. But this we already knew.
Another point I found illuminating was the role the traditional practice of the Faith played in Mr. Sciambra’s conversion. The Traditional Mass was very important in this, with its structure and its clear communication of numerous aspects of our belief, but the entire traditional practice of the Faith was instrumental in his conversion. First of all – and I mentioned this interview was both inspiring and heartbreaking – it is in the TLM environment that Mr. Sciambra most found those priests who were willing to call the sins he had spent decades ensconced in just that – sins. He relates that on many occasions he had gone to Confession at Novus Ordo parishes and was told by priests that his inclination towards and commission of sodomy and other gravely immoral acts constituted no sin at all. He was just “being himself.” They might gently nudge him towards finding “one partner” to settle down with – apparently ignoring the fact that even “monogamous, committed” relationships between men almost invariably feature constant sex acts with others – but that was the most he would hear. One must wonder how many of these priests were justifying their own sins and inclinations in this refusal to call sodomy, one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, what it is.
It is also in the TLM and in the traditional practice of the Faith that Mr. Sciambra found a philosophy, a moral code, and a set of practices that were rigorous enough to satisfy his craving for masculine affirmation, a sort of set of rubrics for conducting oneself as a moral man. This need is, when not totally ignored, almost always disparaged as “toxic masculinity” and other epithets in this sick and twisted age, but it is a real and important factor. This huge craving for a firm moral order and the assertion of responsibility and duties over rights and unfulfilling, hedonistic “pleasure” is a major reason for the phenomenal success of Dr. Jordan Peterson, but he, sadly, only gives part of the truth almost all of us, but especially young men, need to hear these days (and it is also a truth mixed in with a certain measure of error, error that has the potential to derail Peterson’s followers off the road of upright living and back into the endless cul de sac of humanistic self-seeking.
Of course, scores of preceding generations of Catholics completely understood that the traditional, defined, orthodox practice of the Faith was absolutely necessary and vital for the right conduct of life and for the good of society generally, and that even slight deviations therefrom could, and almost certainly would, rapidly and quickly lead to disaster. I would add my personal opinion that the deviations seen in the Faith at, and since, Vatican II are far, far more substantial than many that were rightly and violently decried as heretical in previous generations of the Church.
The interviews do deal with subject matter that is not fit for children or those with particularly delicate consciences. While Fr. Peregrino does an able job steering a fine line between too much detail and descent into prurient matter, and making the interview so bland and anodyne as to diminish its effect, it still deals at root with a subject matter that may be inappropriate for some adults and certainly younger children.
Joseph Sciambra is an excellent witness to our glorious Faith and gives great testimony to the destructiveness of the barbaric hedonism running rampant in our culture today. May he continue to cooperate with Grace and do greater work to help souls lost in this intoxicating lifestyle (not least of which stems from the adulation the mass media and many cultural elements bestow on those within it) return to the practice of virtue and unity with the will of our Lord as revealed through Holy Mother Church.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Archbishop Sample’s Sermon Praising TLM, Criticizing Novus Ordo May 7, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, episcopate, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Latin Mass, Liturgy, Restoration, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
Everyone else has done a post on this, I guess I may as well, too.
Actually, given the superlatives I’ve seen lauded on this sermon, I was a trifle disappointed. It was very good, especially from a prelate in this age of the Church, and something that is very much appreciated, but I guess my expectations had been built up to the point that I thought I was going to get a Wolfe-ian or Rodriguezesque full throated takedown of the Novus Ordo, but that’s not quite what this was. Still, it was very good. We’ve known Archbishop Sample has been a strong supporter of the TLM for years, but he makes clear here that he sees the liturgical revolution – or the revolution against the authentic Liturgy – as a serious mistake and something from which the Church must pull back and, in essence, recover. He also vociferously argues that the TLM is not the domain of an aging, nostalgic remnant but is strongly, one might even say overwhelmingly, the province of the young. Which, good to note, the revolutionaries love their pat responses and easy misrepresentations, so the truth has to be repeated over and over to counter those.
Nevertheless, I still get a bit nervous when I hear talk of “mutual enrichment” – to me, the only enriching is the slow replacement of the Novus Ordo by the Mass of the Ages (which term I was very glad to see Archbishop Sample use). +Sample did not indicate much at all how he felt the Novus Ordo might enrich the TLM, but I still feel the concept itself is flawed. The liturgical reform to me was a mistake, a mistake in conception and, at best, horribly botched in execution (though I would also argue that the preponderance of the evidence makes clear that the revolutionaries got just about exactly what they wanted in the Novus Ordo, and that what they wanted was to protestantize the Mass as a first, giant step towards humanizing the Church – that is to say, turning the Church into a humanist construct, a religion more of man, than of God). Yes there was some pushback and modification at the 11th hour, but later developments removed even much of that, at least in the form of some truly deplorable products such as Bugnini’s “children’s Mass.”
I also see basically no ways in which the Novus Ordo might enrich the TLM – I know this might be a harsh or extreme view, but having read a fair amount about how the propers have been butchered and even corrupted and the 3 year cycle of readings almost totally divorced from the ancient (and one might say, inspired) flow of the liturgical year, I don’t think it an unsupportable assertion. That’s not to say that the Novus Ordo is always a disaster or a danger to one’s faith – there are Greenville’s and Hanceville’s and other locales where the Novus Ordo is offered in ways vastly superior to the standard offering in 99% of parishes, but those are all cases where the Novus Ordo was “enriched” by the traditional Mass, rather confirming the fact that “mutual enrichment” is a dead letter, a red herring, and quite likely a grave danger to be avoided. The enrichment must run in one direction only.
It’s still a nice sermon in a lovely setting with a properly vested prelate, which is still far too rare a sight. I am very glad Archbishop Sample offered this Mass and I pray he will continue drawing nearer and nearer to the traditional practice of the Faith and its authentic presentation in the Liturgy:
Coulombe Critiques the Novus Ordo and a Few Pics from Fatima Conference May 3, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, different religion, Father Rodriguez, General Catholic, Liturgy, Restoration, Revolution, Spiritual Warfare, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
A great excerpt from the weekly Tumblar House series of video Q&As with Charles Coulombe wherein Mr. Coulombe discusses the Novus Ordo and the problems with it. He gives a fair and accurate assessment, though not as harsh and thoroughly critical as perhaps I might be. He does note, quite rightly, that some “presentations” of the Novus Ordo are much better than others. Indeed, the Novus Ordo in Latin, Ad Orientem, offered with great reverence with the Asperges and a solid priest giving good catechesis in the sermon with all the bells and smells, is what the Novus Ordo perhaps should have been, though I would argue that no change to the Mass was necessary and that humans are always on perilous ground in playing around with divine creations, which I would say the Mass largely is. My family and I derived great fruit from just such a Mass for several years in the mid-2000s, and that experience paved the way for our eventual “transition” to the TLM. Having said that, I strongly believe the TLM is the once and future Mass for the entire Church, but getting back there will likely take a very long time.
But what is generally offered in most parishes is a far, far cry from that relatively benign Novus Ordo experience. In fact, what is offered in most parishes is a positive danger to the faith of many souls, especially those badly formed in the Faith (or formed well but in some false simulacrum of Catholicism).
What I really like in the analysis below, however, one thing Mr. Coulombe says: the Council did not address the problem truly affecting the Church, that the Mass did not need a radical makeover but that the penetration of Leftism into the minds and heart so most priests did, but this was ignored, as was the original driving force behind the Council, at least in the minds of the large majority of bishops polled before it took place – formally condemning communism as a philosophy and condemning those who embraced it.
I also very much appreciate the fact that many of the liturgical innovations that came as a result of the Council, though very few were called for in Sacraosanctum Concilium, already stood condemned before the Council took place! These were condemned by Pius XII in his encyclicals Humanii Generis and Mediator Dei (which reminds me, I really need to re-read those). Anyway, it’s a really good video and I hope you find watching it edifying:
Are those five Eucharistic miracles, or miracles associated with the Eucharist, he mentions above approved or clearly demonstrated? I’m only familiar with one or two.
The pics below came from the March conference of Our Lady’s Army of Advocates at the DFW airport. It was a wonderful experience, not only for the talks, but for meeting so many good friends and readers of this blog. The wonderful Rodriguez family of El Paso was there, and I got to take some pictures with members of their family, along with others. The pics are a bit on the blurry side, but you takes what you gets. Thank you to the kind Beatrice Rodriguez for sending these to me, and sorry it took so long to get them posted!
David Rodriguez, myself, Beatrice Rodriguez, and Father Michael Rodriguez
Michael Matt, Beatrice Rodriguez, me
Islam is the State Religion of Britain, While the Secular Pagan Religion Increasingly Falls Apart April 23, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Christendom, disaster, Ecumenism, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, Immigration, persecution, Revolution, scandals, secularism, sickness, Society, unbelievable BS.comments closed
A couple of brief videos for you, one from a fairly unlikely source, a professor of physics at UC-San Diego who presents an argument that modern science’s attempt to explain all creation through natural processes absent God is becoming increasingly frayed and desperate. While it is not stated in the video, the key fact that is driving belief in the multi-verse is detailed study that has shown that for macro-evolution to work, and to have resulted in the diversity and advanced forms of life presently on earth, far, far more time would have to have elapsed than actually has, even by the enormous ages of “scientific time” (going back over 10 billion years) to have resulted through Darwinian “natural selection.” That is because the “evolution” that can be actually observed directly takes place so agonizingly slow (for the scienticians), and major variations like severe mutations are almost always evolutionary dead ends, not major breakthroughs.
So major public scientists like Steven Weinberg and Steven Hawking have opined that, since evolution must be true (it is the cardinal belief the God-denying scientists, basically taking the place of God in this mode of thinking), but not nearly enough time has passed for all the multivariate forms of life now found on earth, there must be an infinity of universes out there (existing so that every possibility that can occur in a given situation does occur in one universe or another – like Star Trek’s Mirror, Mirror episode), each one somehow invisibly interconnected with the other, so that there is now plenty of time – indeed, an infinity of time – for evolution to take place. Voila! Problem solved. But as the professor notes below, there is no way to prove these other universes exist, and thus, belief in the multiverse is just another article of faith for the God-denying sexular pagans (which, I would argue, evolution is, as well, since the “evidence” there is largely contrived, or fully explainable by other means):
In the next video, a young woman in Britain who has received numerous death threats for having the temerity to criticize islam (the invasion and subsequent conversion of Christendom by islam is far more advanced in Europe than here) is told by the state – in the form of the police – that it is acceptable to criticize Christianity but not islam. Mind, she has not been told this by one police official, but by several. Coupled with the state’s continued cover-up of muslim pedophile rape gangs that pray exclusively on non-muslim girls, general prohibition by cultural elites of any public criticism of islam as “hate speech,” and a growing kow-towing to islam in virtually every major sphere of life, it appears the successful devolution of Britain from “Our Lady’s Dowry” to muslim despotism is moving apace. Note that gutting of Christianity both in concept/meaning and unity through the protestant revolution was a central part of this process, since protestantism led to a self-serving conception of God/Christ and our relation to them, which led to collapse of belief, which led to rationalism/endarkenment values, which led to where we are today. Painting with a broad brush but I’ve written about this before.
Britain is simply ahead of the US by about 30 years, but the exact same process is at work, here. Why do the powers that be allow hundreds of thousands of muslims to emigrate to this country a year (mostly legally), while legal immigration from the same countries for Christians, or from Christian-majority nations, is extremely arduous? It’s all about replacing the native population, and, more importantly, the native culture, with a multi-culti dystopia. Given the paltry progress on the wall so far, this nation is going to be a disaster for our children and grandchildren to inhabit (sorry for the bare shoulders, it ends pretty quick):
This ascendance of fealty, perhaps obeisance is a better word, towards islam, is a classic case of seeing cultural suzerainty in action. Even though islam has grown at an explosive rate in Britain, it still constitutes a small minority. Muslims constitute barely 5% of the British population, but their political and especially cultural influence far outweighs their numbers. Why is this? It’s because few in the “Christian” majority have any kind of certainty in their beliefs, while the muslims are very convicted. Thus a small minority is dictating much of the cultural/societal norm to the vast majority, which, thus far, has gone rather sheepishly along with this, and has managed to completely co-opt the political class and cultural elites. In terms of actual numbers, there may be far more devout muslims in Britain today than there are devout Christians. Certainly, there are many muslims quite willing to impose their culture and their moral norms on Britain, and very few British willing to defend their rapidly deteriorating legacy culture.
Will the same happen in the United States? I think an argument can be built that it already is. Secularization and collapse of Christian belief and practice has not gone so far in the US as it has in Britain, Canada, and the rest of the West, but it is still occurring, and rapidly. Each generation becomes successively less Christian and, what is more, convicted in their beliefs. I fear the process in the US could be especially ugly, since there may be enough Christian conviction, defusely spread, in the country, to lead to much more open conflict with the implacable demands of islam, which asserts its cultural dominance wherever it gains enough numbers (and, as we see, those numbers are very far from requiring a majority). And Trump’s rise and election was due at least in part to resentment over the seeming flood of muslims into this country along with the unconstrained Hispanic immigration. But that, I fear, will just be the beginning. The elites seem determined to play this most massive social experiment in history out, even though all of history and ethnography shouts that diversity plus proximity virtually always equals conflict, and very bloody conflict.
Perhaps that’s the end goal after all. You can’t get to a “perfect” world population of 2 billion without breaking a few eggs, or heads.
By the way, on evolution, has anyone read Repairing the Breach? I got a copy for Christmas but it will be some time before I can devote the effort to reading it. It’s a massive book, really like a textbook, and some reviews claim it to be THE most thorough attack on evolution that has yet been written. I’m already pretty tied down in reading at the moment, trying to finish Solzhenitsyn, and that is no trivial task, in itself. I think I’ve brought this up before, but if anyone has read Repairing the Breach and would like to provide a review, I’d very much appreciate it.
Some Helpful Prayers to St. Joseph April 23, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Christendom, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Glory, Good St. Joseph, Grace, Interior Life, Saints, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
I try to read at least one book on Good St. Joseph every year, and this year I found a very good one at the Our Lady’s Army Conference in DFW last month. It’s The Divine Favors Granted to St. Joseph by Pere Binet. It’s a very nice little book, containing more than just the usual
history of devotion to St. Joseph or his small role in Scripture, but it is an extended examination of the divine favors he received as revealed through the revelations to various other Saints and the thoughts of many Church Fathers on the subject.
The book closes with a series of prayers to St. Joseph, some of which were new to me, at least, and I felt several of them deserved to be shared with a wider audience. I will repeat again, as I always do when mentioning St. Joseph, my full concurrence with the great Saint and Doctor Teresa of Avila, that St. Joseph is an unbelievably powerful intercessor and helper to souls in need (which, of course, is all of us), and is unwaveringly loyal in seeing our requests through to fruition, provided they are in accord with God’s Will. Just last night and today I had direct evidence of St. Joseph’s total effectiveness as an intercessor. He’s especially helpful for husbands and fathers, but he helps all souls, of course. He and Our Lady should be our first recourse when we have particular needs to offer up to Our Blessed Lord.
The first prayer is a prayer for the welfare of Holy Mother Church:
To thee, Blessed Joseph, do we have recourse in our tribulation, and having implored the help of thy thrice-holy Spouse, we confidently invoke thy patronage also. By that charity wherewith thou wast united to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and by that fatherly affection with which thou didst embrace the Child Jesus, we beseech thee and we humbly pray, that thou wouldst look graciously upon the inheritance which Jesus Christ hath purchased by His Blood, and assist us in our needs by thy power and strength. Most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, protect the chosen people of Jesus Christ; keep far from us, most loving father, all blight of error and corruption; mercifully assist us from Heaven, most mighty defender, in his our conflict with the powers of darkness; and, even as of old thou didst rescue the Child Jesus from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; keep us one and all under thy continual protection, that, supported by thine example and thine assistance, we may be enabled to lead a holy life, die a happy death, and come at least ot the possession of everlasting blessedness in Heaven. Amen.
Next, a Prayer for the Triumph of the Church. I can think of few prayers more needed in this time.
O glorious St. Joseph, chosen by God to be the foster-father of Jesus, the chaste spouse of Mary ever Virgin, and the head of the Holy Family, and then appointed by the Vicar of Christ to be the heavenly patron and defender of the Church founded by Jesus, most confidently do I 
implore thee at this moment thy powerful aid for all the Church Militant on earth. Do thou shield with thy truly paternal love especially the Supreme Pontiff and all the bishops and priests who are in union with the Holy See of Peter from all error, stain of corruption, and deviation from the Truth of Jesus Christ. Be the defender of all who labor for souls amidst the trials and tribulations of this life, and cause all the peoples of the earth to submit themselves in a docile spirit to that Church which is the sole ark of salvation for all men.
Be pleased also, dear St. Joseph, to accept this dedication of myself which I now make unto thee. I dedicate myself wholly to thee, that thou mayest ever be my father, my patron and may guide in the way of salvation. Obtain for me great purity of heart and a fervent devotion to the interior life. Grant that, following thine example, I may direct all my actions to the greater glory of God, in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary and in union with thee. Finally, pray for me, that I may be a partaker in the peace and joy which were thine at the hour of thy holy death. Amen.
Prayer for a Happy Death. I’ve seen similar prayers before, but I found this one to be especially beautiful: 
O glorious St. Joseph, behold I choose thee today for my special patron in life and at the hour of my death. Preserve and increase in me the spirit of prayer and fervor in the service of God. Remove far from me every kind of sin; obtain for me that my death may not come upon me unawares, but that I may have time to confess my sins sacramentally and have access to all the aids Holy Mother Church makes available to souls departing this life. May I bewail all my sins with a most perfect understanding and a most sincere contrition, in order htat I may breathe forth my soul into the hands of Jesus and Mary. Amen.
Finally, and I think also so vital in this time, a prayer to St. Joseph for purity. No soul, saving except Our Lady, practiced purity and perfect continence so well as St. Joseph, who, though married, abstained from the marital bed and never engaged in acts suitable for the creation of new life. I pray that St. Joseph may intercede with Our Blessed Lord to raise up many more such souls in this time of mass lasciviousness:
Saint Joseph, father and guardian of virgins, into whose faithful keeping were entrusted Innocence Itself, Christ Jesus, and Mary, the Virgin of virgins and sinless Mother of God, I pray and beseech thee, through Jesus and Mary, those pledges so dear to thee, to intercede for me that I may be kept from all uncleanness, and to grant that my mind may be untainted, my heart pure and my body chaste; help me always to serve Jesus and Mary in perfect chastity. Amen.
———-End———–
I pray you find these prayers useful! As for me, I plan to make the Prayer for the Triumph of the Church a daily prayer of mine. It’s not about what’s good for the earthly glory of the Church, but what is good for souls.
Some Wonderful Bits of Catholic Culture April 4, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Art and Architecture, awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Christendom, Ecumenism, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, history, Latin Mass, sanctity, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
I’ve found a “new” channel on Youtube called Holy Faith TV. It’s not that new, it’s been around almost a year, but it’s new to me.
They’ve got a lot of great traditional Catholic content and some really outstanding history. How about this incredible color video of Venerable Pius XII:
And here is a video from what was then a mainstream educational film company on the jubilee year of 1950. Can you imagine Scholastic doing a reverential and respectful video on the Church today? How much, and how much for the worse, our society has changed since then.
“…….here lies a spiritual power that no godless philosophy may hope to vanquish.” Take it to heart, leftists!
If an audience featuring Pius XII wasn’t good enough, how about Mass from 1948, offered in St. Peter’s. Sadly it is in black and white:
And here you go, marking the end of glory and the beginning of the auto-demolition of the Faith, a film on the death of Pius XII and coronation of John XXIII, before the fanon and sede gestatoria were scrapped by John’s successor:
It’s not all from the 50s. There is content dating at least back to Saint Pius X. And some of it is more modern commentary, from a wide diversity of sources, from people known well to this blog like Fr. Michael Rodriguez and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, to more esoteric sources. I can’t say I’ve watched much of the commentary, but as for the historical stuff, I love it. So much more like that!
Apparently Youtube contains just part of the content, there is a website that ostensibly has more but I haven’t really had time to check it out. Perhaps you will, and if you do, feel free to share anything of interest you may find!
As always, of course my happiness at finding this channel is not necessarily an endorsement of everything on it. But I think there is quite a bit good to find there.
And it’s not all strictly Catholic. There’s actually quite a bit from the Orthodox Church on the channel. For an example, here is Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, taking on the cultural masters in a way the last six popes have generally failed to do, with occasional exceptions from John Paul II and Benedict. In fact, he proclaims a truth that is readily apparent to most believing Christians of any Church, sect, or stripe: godless elites want to destroy Christianity:
The Awesome Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea at Our Lady’s Army of Advocates DFW March 30, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, priests, religious, Restoration, Spiritual Warfare, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
I haven’t the time to give much of a recap of the talk below, but I’ll wager this – once you start watching/listening, you won’t be able to stop. I’d never seen Fr. Relyea give a talk below, but he was absolutely fabulous. It’s just crack cocaine for traditional homeschooling Catholics. Give it two minutes and he’ll take you an hour-plus.
It’s also a wonderful palate cleanser from the post below. If you could imagine Christopher Walken having a twin brother as a traditional Catholic priest, that would be Fr. Relyea. Too bad he couldn’t come over to share some cigars with Dismas and me (that was another tremendous pleasure from the conference, meeting longtime reader and commenter Dismas).
We need more like this, captivating, motivating, exhilarating traditional Catholic priest-speakers.
More from the conference later.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Disney stuff. I’m not a big fan of Disney and we’ve generally disowned all that, but I do think demonic infiltration by underwear might – might – be a bit of a pious exaggeration. Perhaps pious exaggeration is a bit too strong, but it does strain credulity. It could be totally legit but it might come across to the uninitiated as a bit extreme. The Lord does work in mysterious ways, however, so who knows.
For the rest though I really enjoyed his talk. He’s a fun and gregarious guy, just a prototypical Queens/Brooklyn type.
Heretic Pope – Francis Declares “There Is No Hell” March 30, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in asshatery, catachesis, cultural marxism, different religion, disaster, error, Francis, General Catholic, horror, rank stupidity, Revolution, scandals, secularism, self-serving, Spiritual Warfare, unadulterated evil.comments closed
The Vatican has tried to sidestep this blatant declaration of heresy, but they have been very careful not to deny that he was accurately quoted. So Francis outed himself as a blatant heretic for at least the 10th or 11th time:
In another informal interview with Italian atheist journalist (and founder of liberal newspaper Repubblica) Eugenio Scalfari, published today, Pope Francis reveals that “hell does not exist”.
His exact words below (full interview behind paywall here, most important excerpt below):
Title of the interview: “It is an honor for me to be called revolutionary.” [That is also a kind of heresy, at least given the condemnations of leftist revolutions from past pontiffs]4
Excerpt on hell:
[Scalfari:] Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?
[Francis:] “They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”
Yeah, you wish.
The timing is no accident. Almost every year at Easter this creature occupying the Chair of Peter has taken perverse delight – diabolical delight – in showing his utter disdain for popular piety and the few tattered remains of Catholic tradition that exist outside the traditionalist-dominated remnant. He loves to mock and usurp it. His only use for the Faith he so obviously hates is as a vehicle to his own self-aggrandizement.
Of course, he also loves to be the star of his own self-directed drama, the movie of his mind where he is always the swashbuckling young Peronist waging constantly successful insurgency against the hidebound reactionaries of the Church and world of his imagination. He cannot see that he and his ilk are now the hidebound reactionaries wreaking destruction and causing suffering at every turn (as they have throughout their sorry lives), as his generation corrupted from the false and illusory ideals of the 60s into just another ruling class blinded by its own self-interest.
I’d be really harsh, but this being Holy Week and all, I’ll lay off. To me, really, this guy is a joke, elected by infinitely corrupted and corrupting old pederasts who themselves are more sorry and pathetic than anything else. They’d be laughable if they hadn’t done so damn much damage to so damned many souls. But my judgment is nothing. I’m just a man, and probably a fool. But God is eternal, and hell is real.
Francis will find that out to his absolute horror at some point in the not too distant future.
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