A Treasure To Be Shared

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy. - Leviticus 19:1-2 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. - Saint Matthew 5:48 Resolve to be perfect; resolve to be holy. As we meditate on the Nativity scene, and as we will again someday soon approach the Holy Eucharist, and as we live our daily lives throughout the coming new year, let us be mindful of the call to holiness. The following counsel contains many gems, like a glorious crown. Let us adorn ourselves with such wisdom! A Short Road to Perfection Saint John Henry Newman September 27, 1856 It is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well. A short road to perfection—short, not because easy, but because pertinent and intelligible. There are no short ways to perfection, but there are su...

1488 Matteo di Giovanni Prime Minister Justin "The Grinch" Trudeau for Advancing the culture of death:  https://edmontonsun.com/2014/05/08/edmontons-catholic-archbishop-is-outraged-over-justin-trudeaus-no-choice-but-pro-choice-stance Attempting to cancel Christmas:  https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/sorry-mr-trudeau-christmas-isnt-yours-to-cancel ;  https://globalnews.ca/news/7474576/watch-live-trudeau-coronavirus-update/ Attacking religious freedom:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZE2ty8W7mQ ;  https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/corbella-trudeaus-reversal-on-canada-jobs-attestation-a-great-christmas-present Scandal and Corruption:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54096059 ;  https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-short-history-of-justin-trudeaus-scandal-plagued-liberal-government ;  https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/opinion/columnists/bob-zimmer-disturbing-new-details-in-trudeau-s-we-scandal-1.24180702 ;  https://www....

We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice. - Pope Saint Paul VI When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? - Gilbert K. Chesterton Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men. - Saint Ambrose There are two births of Christ, one unto the world in Bethlehem; the other in the soul, when it is spiritually reborn. Men think of the former much more than the later, and celebrate it every year; but the spiritual Bethlehem is equally momentous…. It was the second birth that Saint Paul insisted on when he wrote from prison to hi...

A brief note to visitors that the Pages Section of this blog has been reorganized. Click on the drop down menu to explore everything from essays on the Holy Trinity, information on the Ordinariate and the Anglican Patrimony incorporated into the Catholic Church, prayer, various art, civil rights and law institutes, music groups and religious associations, historical images and many other hidden treasures! Feel free to dig around!

  Herbert Howells (1892-1983) A Spotless Rose (1919) A spotless rose is blowing, Sprung from a tender root, Of ancient seers foreshowing, Of Jesse promised fruit; Its fairest bud unfolds to light Amid the cold, cold winter, And in the dark midnight. The rose which I am singing, Whereof Isaiah said, Is from its sweet root springing In Mary purest maid; For through our God’s great love and might, The Blessed Babe she bare us In a cold, cold winter’s night.

Seventynine Creek | Gilbert Difficulties are things that show a person what they are. - Epictetus Strong reasons make strong actions. - William Shakespeare, Lewis in  King John To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. - Saint John Henry Newman My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms . - Dorothy Day O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake. For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks? I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice...

from:  https://cincinnaticathedral.com/boars-head-tradition/ edited for length This pageant is rooted in ancient times when the boar was sovereign of the forest. A ferocious beast and menace to humans, it was hunted as a public enemy. At Roman feasts, boar was the first dish served. Like our Thanksgiving turkey, roasted boar was a staple of medieval banquets. As Christian beliefs overtook pagan customs in Europe, the presentation of a boar’s head at Christmas came to symbolize the triumph of the Christ Child over sin. The festival we know today originated at Queen’s College, Oxford, England in 1340. Legend has it that a scholar was studying a book of Aristotle while walking through the forest on his way to Christmas Mass. Suddenly, he was confronted by an angry wild boar. Having no other weapon, the resourceful Oxonian rammed his metal-bound philosophy book down the throat of the charging animal, whereupon the brute choked to death. (Remember that tidbit before being rude to a libr...

CP | Gilbert ...let's remind certain proponents of the cause that man does not live on bread alone. "Health and safety" protocols have ignored the importance of the spiritual, emotional and psychological needs of human beings during this pandemic. Physicians - not all mind you - are prone to the temptation to act like gods. Just ask nurses forced to contend with a doctor whose ego is the size of Jupiter. If there is a heresy amongst physicians, it is imagining that by caring for the body (alone) everything else is well and good. To be fair, most doctors are humble enough to admit their limitations and stick to the care and maintenance of the body, and the same would also readily admit the need to help their patients acknowledge and tend to their psychological and spiritual needs. Unfortunately, we have too many health experts guiding pandemic strategies who completely ignore the other real needs of human beings, needs which if met in a timely manner can stay a person'...

Screenshot | New Yorker https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-silence-of-pope-francis-11607381295 Jimmy Lai has embraced his destiny. Last Wednesday the founder of one of Hong Kong’s most popular newspapers, Apple Daily, was arrested on ginned-up fraud charges. On Thursday he was clapped into jail as a national security risk. Thus did a man who started the week a Hong Kong billionaire end it a Chinese dissident. Mr. Lai’s jailing has provoked condemnation from figures as diverse as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky and New York Rep. Eliot Engel. They have been joined by journalists, activists and politicians such as the Labour Party’s Sarah Champion and other members of Parliament who on Monday raised Mr. Lai’s plight in Britain’s House of Commons. But there is one place where China’s bullying elicits only silence: the Vatican. Which is strange, because Jimmy Lai is not only Hong Kong’s most well-known champion of democracy; he is also its most promine...

Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk by Jan Matejko (1862) Events do not just happen, but arrive by appointment.  - Epictetus There is a lack of authority on the part of those who pretend to exercise power; a lack of trust and belief in those who are supposed to have authority, namely those in leadership; and manipulation by the press, which, at times, cares little for the truth but which erodes the confidence and trust of the people in the authority of the press. No one seems to be offering real values or solutions to bring about healing. These factors have created the crisis in both society and the church.  - Archbishop Christophe Louis Yves Georges Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination. - Dr. Thomas Sowell The habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all th...

saintsabina.org One of many the beautiful and good and true things that pulled (pushed?) me into the Ordinariate experience was an obvious qualitative difference in preaching between Ordinariate priests and too many diocesan clergy. Ordinariate priests I encountered routinely focused on the word of God in their sermons, not themselves nor some trivial item drawn from the sports section of a mainstream rag. Those same Ordinariate priests practiced an ars celebrandi  fully informed and shaped by the sublime nature of the Holy Eucharist. The actions of those holy priests I encountered were full of care and reverence for Jesus Christ in the sacred Liturgy. I quickly learned that one of the reasons why this was/is so is because of the clarity of the orientation of the Ordinariate Mass itself. That is, Divine Worship, the Ordinariate Form of the sacred Liturgy, sometimes known as the Traditional English Mass, is typically celebrated  ad orientem . Which is to say, there is no doubt ...

Destruction (1836) part of the Course of Empire series by Thomas Cole  https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/the-suicide-of-a-civilization The people of a dying culture produce almost no art worthy of the name. Boredom sits heavy upon the soul. Nothing is sacred. The Romantic poets of the nineteenth century, often residually Christian at best, believed that the impulse for great art and music and poetry must be divine. What inspires? They who lose the divine lose the human also. It is as Jesus says, that to them who seek the kingdom of God, all the good things of the earth will be given also. The converse is true: from those who have little, from those who seek only the things of earth, even that little which they have shall be taken from them. The art of the dying culture not only loses its excellence. Whole kinds of art disappear; no one cares for them anymore; no one cares to learn with great patience and many failures, or to appreciate, which requires patience also, or to preser...

Laughing Fool ca. 1500 | possibly by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen  Yes, weak men have done their best to destroy the Church since Judas. When Napoleon warned Pope Pius VII's Secretary of State that he had the power to destroy the Church, Cardinal Ercole Consalvi responded with pluck, “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the Church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.” The Holy Spirit is in charge. There is no other explanation for the Church's continued existence. But we can do our part to pray for healing, grace, clarity, and true leadership from all our shepherds. 2 Things To Do When Shepherds Don't Shepherd by Theology of Home on November 29, 2020 https://theologyofhome.com/blogs/in-place-in-person/2-things-we-can-do-when-shepherd-dont-shepherd - - - It will be very difficult pastorally to reform the “open house” inclusive approach, because many regard the reception of Communion as being like accepting a...