Merry Christmas! Christ is Born!

While it isn't Christmas Day anymore (no longer December 25), it is still the Christmas season.  As noted in the carol, there are Twelve Days of Christmas, lasting until Epiphany (January 6)--the anniversary of the Magi coming to worship the baby Jesus and to give their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

I went to the Vigil Liturgy on Christmas Eve, and while I was there I came to imagine a certain image in my mind that I've been pondering ever since: God the Father, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, were handing the Christ Child to me, and I received Him in my hands.

(Please note that this was NOT a supernatural apparition, any more than any image that comes to the imagination is.  I have never had a private revelation, and I don't know if I ever will.)

What prompted this image?  The birth of the Christ Child is the revelation that God is with us, that we may see His face and live, that God and sinners are to be reconciled.  Advent, the season before Christmas, is a time for anticipating not only the birth of Christ over 2000 years ago, but also His Second Coming on the Last Day, and the coming of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist at every Mass.  And the first Christmas Day was the first time that God became visible in a vulnerable form, as He does in the Eucharist.  And the Eucharist is Jesus Christ as much as the Babe born in Bethlehem.

So I imagined receiving the Christ Child in my hands, similarly to how one might receive the Eucharist.  I don't receive in my hands--even when possible I think it's inappropriate except for clergy, and I'm not ordained yet--but clergy do, and I believe God calls me to the priesthood.

But then the image became more full, because I realized that (especially assuming this is my calling) God, our heavenly Father and Creator of heaven and earth, is entrusting His Son, in a small, vulnerable, precious form, to me, one of His mere creatures.  And of course, Jesus is the Son of Mary as well--and the image called to mind the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on Candlemas (February 2), the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary, which is written of in the Gospel of Luke.  The only thing is that, while the image included God the Father, and not only Joseph and Mary, I myself was in the role of Simeon, the old man (I presume a Jewish priest) who received the baby Jesus and knew that the Holy Spirit had promised that he would not die before he saw the Christ.

That's definitely something I want to reflect on as much as possible as the year 2018 ends, and the year 2019 begins.

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Given that Christmas Day has past, I am happy to report that none of my predictions of 2016 have come true.  While I no longer have those blog entries up, for fear that someone might take them seriously (or think that I still believe them), I predicted the following:

1) I predicted that, under Donald Trump's presidency, the economy would collapse in October of 2017, worse than in the Great Depression, and that it would not be limited to the United States of America but spread over the whole world, in the worst economic crisis in all history;

2) I predicted that, after this (probably in 2018, but before Christmas), we would see false apparitions in the sky purporting to be heavenly revelations telling us what we supposedly need to know, what we supposedly have to do, and what we supposedly could expect in the near future;

3) I predicted that, after this (but still before Christmas of 2018), an Israeli named Joshua would go public, claiming to be the true Messiah, and gain a large following of people mistakenly thinking he was the Messiah (or mistakenly thinking he was the final Anti-Christ), and either way mistakenly thinking that we are now in the Last Days.



Obviously, none of that has happened.  And thanks to Father Christopher Zugger setting me straight shortly before Christmas of 2016, I have no intention of merely tweaking the above predictions in order to take into account the fact that none of those things have happened (as by simply shifting them to a later year, or feeling vindicated simply because the economy has been going down lately instead of up, or because Pope Francis has become less popular even among Catholics in the last four months).  I have no intention of making specific predictions of what will happen anymore, not unless I'm confident that a Church-accepted prophecy has said it, or that it's the only possible logical extrapolation of such a prophecy.  Anything beyond that is worthless except possibly as fodder for a science fiction novel.

I did this out of a disordered desire to see the world whole, including in time (even in terms of the future, which I cannot see but God can), and out of fear of being caught unprepared for major disasters--which, two years ago, the Lord made me to realize was because my heart's desire was incompatible with the First Commandment, the same desire that leads people to commit the grave sins of divination (either personally or going to so-called "psychics"), even though I never had anything to do with such things as crystal balls, tea leaves, tarot cards, palmistry, horoscopes, etc.  It didn't matter--I was guilty of breaking the First Commandment in my heart just as much as if I had done those things.  Therefore I was very much blessed that (over the course of FOUR YEARS!) I didn't let in evil spirits, to the point to where I would have needed an exorcism.



Having said that, however, I suspect that the year 2020 (not the new year to come, but the year after it) will likely be a watershed year, and I have three reasons for suspecting this:

1) According to the "Predicted and Scheduled Events" on the wikipedia article for the year 2020, people have claimed (I am convinced falsely) that the year 2020 will be a "point of no return" where "climate change" is concerned--that is, that if "man-made climate change" is not reversed sufficiently before the year 2020 ends, it will be impossible to reverse it at all, and therefore it will supposedly only be a matter of time before life on earth as we know it becomes impossible and a mass extinction happens on earth (again, I'm convinced that none of this will actually happen, but the point is that the claim is being made that it will);

2) Also according to the "Predicted and Scheduled Events" on the same article, NASA plans to launch a "Mars 2020" mission, supposedly to study the habitability of Mars, presumably in preparation for future manned missions (supposedly if Mars proves habitable), including presumably human colonization of Mars, especially if the above doomsday scenario were to make it "necessary";

3) 2020 is the next scheduled United States presidential election, so (barring anything unforeseen) President Donald Trump will presumably run for reelection--and if the economy does well enough, presumably he will be the Republican candidate and might be likely to win--and while President Trump does not oppose the space program, he definitely rejects the "climate change" narrative.



Given all that, while I have no intention of predicting anything more specific, the following scenario would not surprise me one bit (though it's still possible that it won't happen):

The idea that, come 2020, the Democratic presidential campaign may exercise scaremongering along the lines that, if President Donald Trump were to win reelection, it would literally mean the end of the world as we know it--not immediately, but inevitably, such that the only possible hope the human race would have of avoiding mass extinction would be the space program, and colonizing other planets.  And therefore, that the only way to "save the earth" from such a fate would be to vote against President Trump, presumably meaning to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, whoever that turns out to be--ignoring any and all real dangers that such a candidate may believe and intend to do as president, as supposedly a small price to pay and therefore worthwhile.

I don't want to predict anything more specific, but given the Democratic Party's attitude towards Catholic Christianity, as well as what the Democratic Party has done with its presidential campaigns of the last several years, I believe it's healthy to be concerned as to who they will nominate in 2020 (especially if they do use such scaremongering tactics), and I believe that I was right to leave the Democratic Party now, and that (while my intentions were good) I was wrong to rejoin the Democratic Party back in February of this year.  The Democratic Party has become steadily more pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality, and therefore more anti-Catholic--and yet it has consistently nominated formal Catholics (yet Catholics who reject fundamental Catholic moral teaching), either for President or at least for Vice President, every presidential election since 2004: John Kerry in 2004, Joe Biden in 2008 and 2012, and Tim Kaine in 2016.  Unless the next major schism in the Catholic Church were to happen before then, I see no reason to think that they will not do the same thing in 2020: that the Democratic candidate for President and/or for Vice President in 2020 will be formally Catholic, but who will fiercely put the Democratic Party's anti-Catholic platform before the actual Catholic faith.



Even if the above is right, though (and I'm going to stop there in terms of predictions), I don't want to go so far as to do any fearmongering myself.  I don't want to claim that voting for Donald Trump (which I myself did NOT do in 2016) is somehow necessary in order to save the Church in the United States of America, especially given how far from saintly Donald Trump has consistently proven to be.  The Church's fate is in God's hands, not the hands of any creature, angel or man.  At best, I don't think that Donald Trump is as big of an immediate threat to the Church.  While I believe it would be gravely sinful to vote Democratic in 2020 (assuming the above scenario is correct), and at best I would be violating my conscience if I did so, that is NOT the same thing as saying that the only moral choice is to vote Republican, to vote for Donald Trump.  We need to get out of that false dichotomy thinking, and I still thank the Lord for showing me the many false dichotomy traps that the world has put us into.

And the only way we can have hope of that is to root ourselves in Jesus Christ.

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This brings me to another topic that I think it prudent to mention here, namely a realization that I came to about the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Having already learned that these relate to entrusting our property, our bodies, and our wills to God, I was made to realize that these evangelical counsels point to a divinely ordained hierarchy that is the goal we should all be striving for:

1) obedience means God is above man;

2) chastity means the human soul is above the human body;

3) poverty means man is above his property.



If we do not believe that human beings are more important than their property, their wealth, we will become enslaved to non-persons, and to greed for more wealth and fear of losing what we have (and distrust that others might steal it from us, or be rivals to us in getting more)--and at worst, we will be willing to kill and die over trifling inanimate objects.  We're not all called to sell all our possessions and donate it to the poor, but we are all called to give alms to the poor, what we can spare and what is needed.

If we do not believe that the soul is more important than the body, then we will become enslaved to our bodily appetites, such as for food and for sex, as well as for any and all bodily pleasures and comforts--and to our emotions and passions.  At worst, we will be willing to hold others in our thrall solely in order to satisfy our own sexual appetites, and we will live in fear and distrust of all.  We're not all called to be celibate, but we are all called to fast sometimes (when appropriate, and at least the minimum the Church requires), and to live chastely.  If we are neither insane nor possessed by demons, we have no excuse for not being in control of our own bodies.

If we do not believe that God is more important than man, then we will have a yearning in our heart that can never be satisfied--and if we will not humble ourselves and turn to Him to satisfy it, then we will not only seek satisfaction in vain, but at worst we will seek scapegoats to blame for this fact, and so punish them unjustly.  We're not all called to take vows of obedience, nor to pray the entirety of the Divine Office, but we are all called to pray some, and to go to Mass regularly, and to do at least the minimum that God and the Church require of us.



The specific relevance that this has given the above suspicions about the near future is that we need to let our reason govern our emotions if we're to avoid falling victim to fearmongering.  And our reason can only properly do this if it willingly subjects itself to the God who made it.

This is another way of understanding the old adage that courage is not the absence of the anxious feeling of fear, but the refusal to let that anxiety paralyze us into inaction when something must be done and we must be the ones to do it.  It's okay to feel fear: Our Lord Himself felt it in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is letting that fear override us, not merely feeling it, that makes cowards of us.

And I would be a hypocrite if I pretended that I wasn't a fearful person, even unto letting my fears prevent me from saying or doing things that I want to, even at this point in my life.  But I recognize this as a flaw, and I want to rely on the Lord to help me to become braver, especially since I believe I'm going to need it in the near future.

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Merry Christmas to you all, and have a happy and blessed Christmas season.



Christ is born!  Glorify Him!

The Ministry of the Church

I first returned to the Church just over eight years ago, and this spring I will have been confirmed eight years.  In that time I have been privy to the essence of the Ministry of the Church, but only recently have I (as someone with Asperger's Syndrome) come to understand it completely enough to put into words, and so I share this with you:

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The Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and therefore Her Ministry is His.  That Ministry is the salvation of souls from the fires of hell (from sin and Satan), and the perfect Communion of those souls with God through Jesus Christ.

When I took my Confirmation classes, one thing that I learned was that we must make confession when we commit mortal sins, and we must do so before receiving Holy Communion again (lest we nullify that Holy Communion and in the process commit another mortal sin).  I also learned what distinguishes a mortal sin from a venial sin which need not be confessed before receiving Holy Communion:



1) It is not a mortal sin if it does not involve grave offense against God and/or the desire to gravely injure neighbor;

2) It is not a mortal sin if, at the time you did it, you had an innocent ignorance of the fact that it was a grave sin (an innocent ignorance that wasn't your fault, as opposed to willful ignorance--a refusal to believe it or to find out something you didn't want to know);

3) It is not a mortal sin if, at the time you did it, your exercise of free will was to any degree compromised by external circumstances beyond your control--such that, but for the fact of these circumstances, you would never have done it.



Given this, while we all have free will, and we must respect the family unit (especially in the case of children too young to be morally responsible for their own actions), as well as private property, there are two things which we can do in order to minimize the possibility of ourselves committing grave sin, as well as to help other people to be free to avoid it themselves:

First, there is learning what God commands us to do, and what He commands us NOT to do.  It helps to know why, as well as to know the consequences of doing His will vs. opposing His will, but the main thing is to do what He commands with a loving heart, as much as we are able.  But to do this we must learn what He wants us to do.  We must learn about the revealed faith, listen to those wise in the faith, and pray contemplatively to God to listen to Him directly.  And those of us wise in the faith, and for whom it is our place, we must teach it to others--and distinguish the true faith from falsehoods lest people be deceived.

Second, there is exercising our free will to its greatest capacity and making it possible for others to do the same.  Of course, if someone is being held captive by another human being, the goal would be to convert the captor, since the only true enemies are sin and Satan, not other human beings.  But the only non-convertible obstacles to our complete exercise of our free will (that is, obstacles which must be removed from the person held captive by them) are twofold: corporeal obstacles and spiritual obstacles.  A human being is both body and spirit and the goal is to convert him; everything else is either only body or only spirit.

A bodily obstacle to the exercise of free will is a physical malady that needs to be healed.  More specifically, this refers to maladies that cannot be healed in the ordinary way by ordinary medics, maladies that prevent us from using part or all of our bodies as we would like: blindness (preventing us from using our eyes to see), deafness (preventing us from using our ears to hear), muteness (preventing us from using our mouths and throats to talk), lameness (preventing us from using our legs to walk), paralysis (preventing us from moving part or all of our bodies), maiming (missing part of our bodies), madness (preventing us from using our reason), infertility (preventing us from conceiving children), leprosy (which makes one unclean), seminal discharges (which makes one unclean), blood discharges (which makes one unclean), and death (the wages of sin which prevents us from using any part of our bodies).  And of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: we must prevent ourselves (and others who cannot do so for themselves) from coming upon such maladies in the first place, if we are fortunate enough not to have been born with them.

A spiritual obstacle to the exercise of free will is an unclean spirit that needs to be exorcised.  The only sentient created species besides human beings is the species of angels, which are 100% spirit, without a body.  But holy angels always do the Lord's will and will never be an obstacle to our exercise of free will, especially to live out the Gospel.  Only the rebellious angels (Satan and his minions) will do that.  On the one hand, this means not listening to them in the first place--never nursing or acting on a desire for superhuman knowledge and/or power without letting God make the first move for the purpose of His will being done.  On the other, this means exorcising people and places with such unclean spirits.  And people who have demons aren't limited to those who have no control over their bodies at all because of demons possessing them, but also those who allow demons to haunt them, and who listen to what those demons say (as by being a diviner or sorcerer).  We must be completely free of their influence.



But most importantly of all: we are all conceived in original sin, and we all commit some number of personal sins, and the wages of sin is death.  Therefore we don't have it within our power to prevent this entirely: we need the grace of God, through Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to be forgiven our sins and saved from the fires of hell and led to heaven.  And we receive this grace through the sacraments of the Church: we are baptized once, and confirmed once, and then we must regularly receive the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion.  If needed, we must receive Anointing of the Sick, and depending on what God calls us to, we might either marry or (in the case of a man) be ordained to the clergy.

But it isn't only the external receiving of the sacraments that grants us the grace.  We must do so with a heart of virtue, especially the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (love most of all)--otherwise we nullify the sacraments in receiving them, and that is a mortal sin.  We must regularly participate in the prayer of the Church: Mass and the Divine Office, at least the minimum required, but as much as our situation allows and we desire.  And we must obey the Ten Commandments and--as we're able and as it's needed--perform the Works of Mercy.  In particular, we must exercise the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience--at least the minimum required, but as much as our situation allows and we desire, meaning some degree of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer.

However, it isn't actually giving alms, fasting, or prayer in and of themselves that merit anything: it is our will to do whatever God wills us to do, and our will that His will be done, be it through us or not--and our exercise of that will, in dependence upon God's grace, constantly and throughout our lives.  If we do this, God will grant us His grace when we receive the sacraments.

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Knowing this helps me to understand Jesus Christ's Ministry, and that of His Apostles, as recorded in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles--something I've especially taken an interest in since I have considered a vocation to the Franciscan Order (since this is what inspired Saint Francis of Assisi).



Jesus taught and preached the Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven, and His Apostles did the same.

Jesus performed healing miracles, and His Apostles did likewise: most especially, the blind were made to see, the deaf were made to hear, the mute were made to speak, the lame were made to walk, the paralyzed were made to move their own bodies, the maimed were made whole, lunatics and epileptics were made sane, the barren were made to conceive children, lepers were made clean, men were healed of seminal discharges, women were healed of blood discharges, and the dead were raised to life again.

Jesus cast out unclean spirits, and His Apostles did the same in His name.

And of course, Jesus forgave sins, and after His Resurrection He gave His Apostles the Holy Spirit, and with Him the authority to forgive sins as well.



And all of this was done in public arenas, not for the purpose of showing off and gaining the prestige of human beings, but so that all could receive the heavenly gifts, because the Gospel is not esoteric knowledge only for a select few.  Hence these things were done in people's homes, in synagogues, and in other locations where there were a lot of people (though there was always time to retreat from the masses to pray).



In addition, Jesus exercised the evangelical counsels, and commanded His disciples to do the same: traveling with literally no possessions except a single tunic (and that for modesty purposes only--having sold their possessions and donated to the poor), wandering from city to city, finding whoever is God-fearing in that city and granting a blessing of peace to them, staying with them for the night, and receiving only whatever their hosts gave them--preaching, healing, and exorcising in the meanwhile--and then leaving that house and that city to go to another, and to do the same thing.

And if there was no one God-fearing in a city who would grant them shelter, food, and water, and listen to them and let them heal and exorcise there, shaking the dust off their (bare) feet and leaving it in that city as a sign that its people would suffer a worse fate even than that of Sodom and Gomorrah.



Travel was literally with no private property, having only a single tunic--no change of clothes, and no sandals (traveling in bare feet).  And the tunic was for the purpose of modesty--aside from its being plain, not something to draw people's attention, it was to cover their bodies lest someone lust after their naked bodies.  Their private property was to be sold, and they were to have given to the poor (those who are poor against their will, having taken no vow of poverty), so that their property (and the money from selling it) would do someone some good.  This is the evangelical counsel of poverty.

The Apostles were married (Peter is specifically described as having a mother-in-law), but while a married man may be ordained to the priesthood (depending on the canon law), a single or widowed priest may NOT get married, and therefore may NOT engage in sexual relations.  Rather, he must master his bodily appetites through fasting, and living off the Blessed Sacrament (being holy enough to where it will do him good, of course), and letting his body be at the disposal of God and the sick who need it more.  In short, he must unite his body completely only to Jesus Christ and to the least of His brethren, the poor and sick--and he is only free to do this if he is not married and has no obligation to provide sexual love and children.  This is the evangelical counsel of chastity.

And the Apostles (minus Judas Iscariot, who played the part well enough that the other Apostles didn't suspect him) obeyed Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and followed His example by their prayer.  The evangelical counsel of obedience requires prayer, asking God's will and listening to Him as He tells it to us.  And most especially there is the prayer of the Church, the Mass and the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours).  There was no Mass until Jesus instituted it at the Last Supper, but there were hourly prayers even among pre-Christian Jews.  And of course, Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father.



Poverty is the ultimate in almsgiving: acknowledging that all of our property is God's before it is ours, and so giving it to Him to do with it as He wills--donating our property directly, and/or the money from selling it, to those who are poor without willfully making poverty vows.  It also means not keeping more than we absolutely need.  Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, but because of original sin, we're subject to lust--the perversion of our God-given sexual appetite--the least of the Seven Deadly Sins and so the one most prominent in leading people to hell.  And therefore even someone taking a vow of poverty must cover himself modestly and protect his chastity and that of others.

Chastity is the ultimate in fasting: acknowledging that our bodies belong to God before they belong to us, and so giving Him our bodies to do with them as He wills.  This includes Holy Communion and the sacraments, as well as service to those in need, as well as donating blood and organs to the sick who need them more.  Again, it means only keeping what we absolutely need of our bodies and freely giving the rest to the least of Christ's brethren who need it more, and therefore to Christ Himself.

Obedience is the ultimate in prayer: acknowledging that the only thing we can ever have 100% control over is our free will, and so trusting and loving God that we subordinate our wills to His.  This includes, of course, the prayer of the Church: Mass and Divine Office.  It also includes obeying our earthly superiors (inasmuch as they don't command us to sin or prohibit us from doing our duty to God), even and especially when we don't want to, and think we can get away with it.

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But of course, God doesn't call all of us to live this perfect life--and so this highest standard is certainly NOT the minimum necessary to enter eternal life in heaven.  What it is, instead, is the goal that we must strive for by doing as much of it as we can given our circumstances: at minimum, we must do what the Church prescribes, but if our circumstances allow us to do more, we should try to do more, especially if we feel enough of the love of God and neighbor to find the motivation to do more than the minimum.



So while those who aren't religious brothers and sisters need not take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, we must at least give alms, fast, and pray to some degree.  In particular we need to give monetarily to the Church (traditionally it was tithing, 1/10th of our income), to fast when the Church requires it of us (in the Latin Rite we fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, abstain from meat on all Fridays during Lent, and do penance on all other Fridays), and to pray the Mass every Sunday and Day of Obligation, and at least some of the Divine Office.

Likewise, what Jesus did and what He commanded His disciples to do depends on there being some people who were NOT doing what they did, but who were still God-fearing people.  For example, if people of God were to come to our door, we should welcome them in, share our food and water with them, give them a place to sleep for the night, receive their blessing of peace, and listen to their preaching, and allow them to heal and exorcise and forgive us as we need it, as they offer, and as they're authorized to do so--and then not hinder them as they leave to go to another city.  This, of course, is performing the Corporal Works of Mercy to them, as well as letting them perform the Spiritual Works of Mercy upon us.

While this is less perfect, such people have hope of entering eternal life in heaven as well.



If everyone were called to the ideal, though, then what we would have is this: the whole world of people would regard all property as belonging first to God, and only to us inasmuch as we need it, so that the only private property in existence would be what we absolutely need, and no more; we would all regard our bodies as belonging first to God, and so we would not get married, we would not have sexual relations, we would not have babies, and we would fast on all days except Sundays and Solemnities (when it is inappropriate to be penitent), consuming nothing but the Body and Blood of Christ, and going to daily Mass; we would all pray the entire Divine Office, and pray contemplatively, and do the Lord's will for us.

If that were to be the case, the human race would go extinct once all people alive today died of old age!  Or rather, they would IF such broad and deep piety were not to hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

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But the point is that this is impossible without God, and no one comes to the Father except through His Son Jesus Christ.  Because of original and personal sin, we cannot perceive God as He is and so we cannot love God as we ought--although we are designed to be unsatisfied without Him.

Therefore it isn't wrong to desire such an ideal in and of itself, only to break the First Commandment by looking to creatures rather than the Creator as the means to this end.  This is why Communism is so evil: because its end goal is similar to the aforementioned ideal of a world full of public property, only private inasmuch as it's needed, and no one lording it over anyone else, and not having children--but its intended means are entirely manmade, emulating the Devil's rebellion against rightful authority and usurping dictatorial power that isn't rightly ours, rather than emulating Jesus Christ's humility and love.

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To sum up, the Ministry of the Church is as follows:



1) teach and preach the Gospel, the Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven, in Jesus Christ the King, the Son of God;

2) heal the sick, especially those whom ordinary medics cannot heal, from maladies that prevent the sick from using their bodies to their fullest;

3) take authority over nature in the name of Jesus Christ, not just in the corporeal but in the spiritual--exorcising demons and unclean spirits from those who have them;

4) forgive sins through the grace of the sacraments, which unite us to Jesus Christ's once-for-all Sacrifice on the Cross.



The Ministry of the Church is NOT:



1) teaching and preaching a false, heretical message, or truthful or moral relativism;

2) causing harm to any others for any reason, or abandoning them to their fate, or attempting to heal by means of magic or recourse to unclean spirits;

3) neglecting or harming creation, or putting non-human nature before man in a false environmentalism, or fearmongering about our supposed ability to destroy life on earth entirely--or consulting unclean spirits directly or through human mediums for non-natural power and/or knowledge (sorcery, divination, etc.);

4) bearing grudges even against the repentant, giving license to sinners by treating sin as non-sin, being presumptuous in assuming we (or anyone else) don't need God's forgiveness for anything, or despairing that God can, will, or should forgive us (or anyone else) something so terrible--or attempts at forgiving sins without recourse to Jesus Christ but only to creatures.



And especially it is NOT about keeping our faith to ourselves.  We must respect others' free will, their families and family duties, and their private property, to be sure--but we must act on the faith at all times and in all places ourselves, and we must share it except where we know that there are only enemies of Christ who would bring worse sin upon themselves if we did reveal His mystery to them.  Where there is anyone open to the Lord, we must seek and find Him, and bring Him, because the Gospel is for everyone.

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This also helps to explain the primary roles of holy men in various cultures and religions, as well as the multiple semantic aspects of the term "inspire" (which means "take in the spirit"): teaching, healing, and performing arts such as music and dance.

And according to Aristotle, teaching and healing are two of three cooperative arts (farming being the third, requiring property--land and crops): arts that facilitate natural processes, making them happen more quickly and more easily, rather than producing anything that nature cannot produce as in the productive arts (painting, sculpture, architecture).

And the performing arts of poetry, music, dance, and theater are arts which, at minimum, don't require any specific props for us to use--and more than one person can, at different times and in different places, perform the same performance, because no actual product has been produced (like a painting, a sculpture, or a building).



And if I'm called to the priesthood, as I suspect, then I need to exercise three offices:

1) Teaching Catholic doctrine;

2) Worshiping according to the Liturgy (the Mass and the Divine Office) for the purpose of sanctification;

3) Shepherding my flock, looking after them and guiding them aright in the faith.

This is especially necessary now, when too many bishops and priests, at too high of a level in the hierarchy, fail in these duties and so fail their flock.

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Advent is almost over now: just eight days until Christmas.  Eight days until Jesus Christ the Lord arrives!  Now is the time to prepare for His coming, and for our meeting of Him as our Judge.

The Year of the Lord 2018 is almost over, and how happy and relieved I am to know that my predictions of 2016 have NOT come to pass, and that I can and must stop attempting such specific predictions from now on!

And 15 days from now as of this writing, the Year of the Lord 2019 will begin.  While my predictions of 2016 have proven false, it does seem clear to me that things have changed this year that will not go back to the way they were before.  In particular, we need to pray and fast over the February 2019 synod, that it goes according to God's will--because if it doesn't, we laity must let the Spirit move us to do our part for Mother Church, since in that event we won't be able to trust our spiritual fathers to do what's right.  Also, as of January 3, 2019, the Democratic Party will once again have a majority in the House of Representatives, and all that implies for the party's anti-life, anti-chastity, anti-family platform at the federal level of the United States of America, which is supposed to be the leader of the free world.  (On that note, I have now left the Democratic Party again, and am registered non-partisan.)

Again, I refuse to act on a desire to break the First Commandment again, and attempt specific predictions like I did in 2016, but I can and must look at the likely generic consequences of one event happening vs. the opposite happening.

The time for complacency is over, and the time for action has begun.  Good is not merely absence of evil; rather, evil is absence of good.  Good is substantial, and active.



So be good, for goodness's sake!

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Thank you for being with me.  God bless you, and please pray for me and accept my prayers for you. Amen.

Shepherds

At least a month ago, I came to a conclusion, one that I feel more confident about now than I have ever felt about anything before (although I still need to pray, learn more, and seek advice):



I believe that God is calling me to the priesthood.



I have a number of reasons why I think this: what really prompted me to consider that is the fact that, in seeking paying work, I have looked to the various offices of holy men in different cultures and religions outside of what is a church vocation (like the priesthood) rather than a paying occupation.  I've been doing that for a long time now, and by October 19 (possibly earlier), I finally realized that I was ignoring the obvious: why would I be considering this if I weren't called to be a man of the cloth myself?

And indeed, this got me to thinking about other things that appear to me to be signs of my calling: I've always enjoyed how orderly the Mass was, even as a child before I fully understood or appreciated it, and have been good at memorizing--and I now know I'm good at cantoring, so I could chant a High Mass; when I was little I used to imagine that I was a priest celebrating Mass; I've been attracted to the Liturgy of the Hours and the Liturgical Calendar for years; I've wanted to do the best that I could, and found it difficult choosing just one path; I've often imagined, after confession, what I would say to a penitent if I were hearing his confession; I've found new appreciation for the Book of Leviticus and the Old Testament sacrifices prefiguring Christ's own Sacrifice; etc.

(And if anyone has kept up with this blog long enough, I used to post daily Scripture readings and comment on them in a sort-of "homily" such as a priest might do at Mass.)

What's more, after this I asked several people whom I know whether they thought I might be so called, and no one answered in the negative--and some answered in the affirmative.



Previously on this blog I said that I thought I was called to the married life (and while an ordained priest may not get married, outside of the Latin Rite a married man may be ordained), but now I think that I was thinking more intellectually with that.  I didn't seriously act on it, and where I thought of my anxieties as something that kept coming to me and so as perhaps something I was meant to do, now I think that if it were my calling I would have felt more of a sense of peace and joy with it.

At any rate, all vocations are holy, and all are needed, especially now--but God is only calling me to one, and I will be most happy and fruitful if I answer that call.

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I have no delusions, however.  The priesthood is of particular importance: it is successorship to the Apostles themselves, being granted the authority that rightly belongs to Jesus Christ alone as the Son of God--forgiving sins, being an authority figure, caring for the flock, teaching and preaching the faith.  It is a tremendous responsibility.

Because of this, I have no delusions about my own imperfections, vices, and habitual sin.  I need to look to the Lord for the grace to turn away from that permanently.  I don't have to be a perfect priest, only to will what God wills, and He will take care of the rest.

But it isn't just my own unworthiness that I recognize: it's also the fact that, as an aspiring priest, I will be a particular target for the Devil and his minions, both demonic and human.  Satan hates our shepherds and desires most to strike them, so that the sheep may be scattered and easier to pick on--as a wolf might attack a human shepherd in order to have his run of the sheep.

And there are many ways in which the Evil One might target me.  One is exploiting my weaknesses and tempting me with sin, especially those that I have committed on a regular basis and keep having to confess before receiving Holy Communion--and even more so, tempting me with despair that I will ever be rid of it (or conversely, with presumption that I don't even need to work that hard at it), either of which could turn me away from continuing to come to Christ for forgiveness.



But there are other ways: he can work through his most loyal minions.  I don't desire to be an exorcist unless God calls me to this, but even if He does I can't pretend not to be afraid of the experience even of confronting one demon out of hell, much less more than one.

And there are also human minions.

Right now is the time when good shepherds are most urgently needed, and only for the last three months have I been made to be as fully aware of this as I ought to have been.  This sex abuse scandal rises too high in the Church, and is too widespread, and is worse than people may think (and yet all the better that it is coming to light at last).

First, contrary to popular belief, most sex abuse on the part of wicked priests takes place in the seminary, where such a man has access to many victims--and so his victims tend not only to be male, but not children.  In other words, this is not pedophilia but homosexual abuse.  Because of this, I would have to take care to guard my own chastity in seeking a seminary to enter, lest I either become a victim of sodomy (which cries out to God for justice), or worse--lest I be tempted into participating in the sin of my own free will myself.  The fact that I am in my mid-30's and no longer a child will not save me.

Second, those who have so completely given themselves over to the Enemy will stop at nothing to continue in their ways, unless they repent (and some require much prayer and fasting on their behalf in order to have hope of repentance--and even then it's still their own decision).  It was true in Our Lord's day, and it's true now.  Anyone whom they perceive as a threat they will desire to be silenced, however necessary.

I have no delusions about it being possible to look into my background and air my dirty laundry, either to blackmail me into silence and ceasing to resist, or else in an attempt at a character assassination and discrediting me, to prevent people from listening to me.  I have no delusions about being asked loaded questions in an attempt to trap me by my own words.  I have no delusions about the possibility that I or those dearest to me may be threatened physically--and it may not end at mere threats.

And the worst of it is that high-ranking Church clergy should be among these vicious wolves.  Certainly those who have so turned away from Christ will not desire me to join their ranks unless they can neutralize me, either by turning me or by silencing me in any other way--intimidation or just plain destroying me.

If the world hates me, it has hated Jesus Christ first.  I cannot expect better treatment than that of my Lord and Master.

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But Jesus Christ, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will triumph in the end.  I have no doubts about that, and I intend to cling to them and ask them to protect those whom I love.  God will remove the wicked false shepherds and replace them with true and good shepherds--and if I'm called to be one, I hope and pray I am the latter.

True priests of the Catholic Church should act like Jesus Christ and His disciples, NOT like His enemies among the priests, scribes, and Pharisees.  Such false priests will drive away the faithful, either physically or by making impressionable people think that such evils are morally permissible, or even good.  Whether their hearts are truly with the Devil, or whether they have been blinded by their own vices and honestly don't intend this, they are doing the Enemy's work, not the Lord's.  And Christ will not tolerate it forever.

If even the highest-ranking shepherds are really wolves, then God will act otherwise to stop them.  The faithless Jewish priests revolted against Rome and saw the Second Temple and the City of Jerusalem destroyed.  The pagan Romans' hearts were not necessarily with Christ, but He turned even their evil actions and intentions toward His holy will.

Likewise, the same may happen with secular authorities now, which makes our elections more pressing now than they have ever been before.  In the United States alone, multiple states are now investigating this sex abuse scandal, and it's even reaching the federal government.  It may be too much to hope to have outright friends in such high places (certainly President Donald Trump is in danger of his soul), but the least we can hope for is to have those who are not our enemies, and who are no friends of the corrupt clergy.  This 2018 election has been important, and things will continue in 2020 and beyond.



For almost two years now I have stopped trying to prognosticate--to predict with excessive precision what will happen in the future, especially where not specifically prophesied about in Church-approved prophecies.  That is acting on a heart that loves not the First Commandment.

Nevertheless, I still suspect that we are now living in a time when Jesus has given Satan 75-100 years, and added power, in an attempt (which will prove vain in the end) to destroy the Church--as Pope Leo XIII told.  I also still suspect that this 75-100 year period probably began on January 25, 1938 (and it certainly hasn't ended), so that I suspect that it will end sometime on or before January 25, 2038 (just over 19 years from now as of this writing).

And if so, I can expect the Devil to pull out all the stops, precisely because he knows he doesn't have much longer before he needs to give up his power back to Christ, and he knows how far he still has to go in his goal of destroying the Church.

And now that the sex abuse scandal is coming to light, evil will be exposed for what it truly is: evil hates the light and wants to escape into the darkness, or else destroy the source of the light.  But good loves the light and desires to remain in it always and to shine it everywhere.  In other words, I believe that the evil days won't be with us much longer, but also that things will get worse before they get better.  We need the grace of God now more than ever before.

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And we need especially to pray and fast for our priests and seminarians: for the true repentance of those who are wicked; for the removal of those who will not repent; for strong hearts in the good ones, and (if the Lord wills it) for their physical protection as well; and for justice not only against the wicked clergy, but for the innocent and good clergy, that these latter may not be falsely accused and convicted of similar evils.  And of course, for good men to answer vocations to the priesthood even with all these terrible evils going on right now.

The clergy are NOT the enemy, but our fathers, and I would say this even if I were not convinced that I am called to be one of them.  They simply have the highest responsibility, and therefore their corruption hits the world the hardest.  They are only worthy to be called our spiritual fathers if they answer to Our Father in Heaven, and do not make the Devil their father.



And the same for our secular leaders.  Just voting isn't enough (and even there, we may have to settle for being practical if we're to act temporally at all in this regard); there is also petitioning, and most especially prayer and fasting for them as well.

Which brings me to one more thing.  I haven't acted on this yet, but I now think I was mistaken in reregistering as a Democrat.  Far be it from me to want to be a rat leaving a sinking ship, and far be it from me to judge beforehand, but it's clear to me now that the Democratic Party's leadership is giving itself over to evil, and will not tolerate hindrance.  Hence I don't know how much practical good I can do within its ranks--and I have to be careful of the company I keep, especially since there are Catholic politicians in the Democratic Party who are not only pro-abortion, but who have not been excommunicated on that basis.

Indeed, from 2004 on, every Democratic presidential ticket has had a pro-abortion "Catholic" either running for president or vice president.  (John Kerry in 2004, Joe Biden in 2008 and 2012, Tim Kaine in 2016.)  I cannot even appear to support this.

I really wish it were possible simply to de-register as a Democrat, but it's not that simple.  As I did in 2012, only with a greater appreciation for things now, I feel more confident about leaving the Democratic Party as the right thing to do, than I do about joining the Republican Party.  The Republican Party is not an outright friend to the Catholic Church: while the party platform is pro-life, too many individual Republican politicians have said they are against abortion "except in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother".  The fact that incest is even there indicates a support or at least tolerance for giving unborn babies the death penalty for what their parents did, which doesn't bode well for a pro-life reason for restricting abortions (and so it doesn't bode well for actually being "pro-life" rather than merely "anti-abortion").  Such depersonalization is part of the reason why I thought it was a good idea to reject the Republican Party: because, while the morals they preach are at least on the fundamental level correct, the individuals are all too often hypocrites who depersonalize and clearly show a lack of love.  (I have experienced this firsthand, so I know whereof I speak.)

Honestly, the main reason I would even consider rejoining the Republican Party (as I did briefly in 2012) would be for practical reasons (registered Democrats and registered Republicans get more of a voice in primaries than anyone else), and also because of something else that I've read about in the National Catholic Register and other trusted Catholic news sites: many "Wiccans" (witches) are casting "binding spells" against President Donald Trump, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and those who "aid or abet them"--not to cause harm but to prevent them from acting.

A house divided against itself cannot stand, and so the minions of the Evil One would not do this unless out of fear that the Lord's will might be done if their victims were not thus bound.  Therefore, this is the primary attraction that the Republican Party has for me right now.

But only by repentance and faith in the Gospel can one be protected against such preternatural evils, and as I said, President Donald Trump has in the past publicly refused to ask forgiveness because of a false belief that he hasn't done anything that needs to be forgiven.  That is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and only if enough people love President Trump (not what he thinks, says, and does, but the man whom God made and loves) to pray and fast for his repentance might he stand a chance of humbling himself and truly repenting, and so receiving the grace to be freed from such spells.  (We also need to pray and fast for those casting them, for their souls are in peril.)  And certainly the Republican Party is not rooted in Jesus Christ completely, and it must not be idolized (indeed, when founded it was heavily anti-Catholic).



Indeed, perhaps I discern something of the Lord's will in all this.  In 2016, my biggest fear in the event of a Donald Trump presidency had nothing to do with what he might actually do as president (or fail to do), and everything to do with the fear that people might idolize the man, overlooking his genuine vices and sins simply because he calls out genuine evils of the establishment and intends to fight them.  If I thought Donald Trump were a saint, I would not feel it as urgent to pray and fast for him, because the grace of God would protect him against such binding spells.  But precisely because he's not, it's dangerous to his own soul as well as to the United States and the free world to act as if he were.  And maybe it's God's will that the one standing the best chance of enacting His will temporally is so far from being a saint, lest we be tempted to idolize the man and forget the God who allowed him to come to power in the first place.

One last thing that I still suspect about the future: Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser prophesied that the current age of the Church would end, and the next age would begin, with a saintly pope and a great Holy Roman Emperor (which obviously still hasn't come to pass yet).  At minimum, I would think that a prerequisite for this would be to make the world lose faith in human leadership that doesn't have recourse to God, whether that leadership is clerical or secular.  If so, then we must not idolize President Donald Trump or those who support him, not even when their actions are genuinely good--because again, at least for the present, they are far from being saintly.  (Even Vice President Mike Pence, the first Vice President to participate in the March for Life since Roe v. Wade, is a lapsed Catholic guilty of the sin of heresy.)

And the same thing for political parties like the Republican Party (of which Donald Trump wasn't always a member anyway), especially if we register with them.  As I said, the binding spells against Republican politicians and justices is the biggest attraction to me to rejoining the Republican Party--but the biggest thing that gives me pause is precisely the hypocrisy that I decried before, the hypocrisy that partly prompted me to rejoin the Democratic Party back in February.  This is why I wish that I could just de-register as a Democrat.  I could certainly re-register non-partisan (which is probably the closest equivalent), but that would give me less of a voice in primary elections, because then I could neither vote in Democratic or Republican primaries.  It's primarily because I don't feel completely certain of what I should do in this regard that I haven't yet changed my voter registration.

I welcome prayers in this regard: I don't want to mistake my own will for God's, nor simply to believe that because something is NOT my will that necessarily means it's God's will (I now think I made the latter mistake in February, when I thought I was called to marriage).  I may simply re-register non-partisan after all, although I would find it difficult to vote for good Republican candidates in Republican primaries, and so would have to settle for whoever won the nomination, good or bad.

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One last thing before I sign off: I've thought about mentioning my belief in my calling for a month now, but haven't done so.  Part of what prompted me to do it now is the latest "Vortex" on Church Militant TV (I am not affiliated with them, and the opinions expressed here are my own and no one else's).  I was so disgusted and angered by it that I won't even link to it here, and I don't intend to watch it again.



In the Byzantine Rite the Saint Philip's fast before Christmas has begun (it began on November 15, this past Thursday)--and in the Latin Rite, Advent will begin on December 2 (13 days from now as of this writing).  It's not only a time of fasting and penitence before the Nativity of Our Lord, but also an anticipation of His Second Coming (and, for those of us who won't live to see it, an anticipation of our personal judgment when we die).  So it's a good time to mention all this.

Plus, on my next birthday I will be 35, "Midway upon the journey of our life" as Dante put it--and so a good time to start thinking about my own mortality and what to do with my life until then.



Please pray for me, and I will pray for you.  God bless you.

Thank you for being with me.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

I've been in the habit of reading and reflecting on the Gospels with my friend Eric, one chapter at a time.  Today it was Luke Chapter 4.

This passage in particular got my attention as we reflected on it:



"And all spoke well of Him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth; and they said, 'Is not this Joseph's son?'  And He said to them, 'Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, "Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard You did at Capernaum, do here also in Your own country."'  And He said, 'Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in His own country.'"

(Luke 4:22-24)



Clearly the people of Nazareth, where the synagogue was where the above passage takes place, were familiar with Jesus as a human being--they knew He was the Child raised by Joseph and born to Mary, and they may have known Him for many years, maybe even since He was a baby.

The trouble is this: precisely because the people of Nazareth were privileged to know about Jesus during His "hidden years" (those not recorded in Scripture, when He acted little differently from anyone else), they would have found it all the easier to assume that they knew what there was to know about Him.  Therefore, they would have found it harder to listen to Him--harder to accept that He had anything to teach them.  Besides, He was a carpenter, who worked with His hands, and who didn't even have a scholarly education.

Because they found it so difficult to accept that this Man whom they had known for years could be privy to such authoritative Wisdom, I trust it was a mercy that Jesus did not perform the great wonders in Nazareth that He had done in other cities like Capernaum, where He was a stranger to them.  (Even in Capernaum they weren't so holy as all that, but Jesus did perform His first public miracle there, an exorcism of a possessed man in a synagogue.)



As we reflected on this passage, I came to realize more far-reaching implications.  The scribes and Pharisees were the most familiar with the Torah, the Divine Law given to Moses, because they had studied it as part of their scholarly education--and whom did Jesus most rebuke?  The scribes and Pharisees.

And who did Jesus allow to come to Him, and say would enter heaven even before the scribes and Pharisees?  Tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners.  In short, outsiders.  Jesus even preached to a Samaritan woman, exorcised the daughter of a Canaanite woman, and healed the servant of a Roman centurion--all non-Jews, people whom the Jews weren't supposed to hang out with!



And today, who has the most familiarity with Jesus?  It would obviously be the pope and the bishops of the Church--but I would argue most especially those of the West.

Christianity began in Jerusalem, then spread throughout the Roman Empire over the next four centuries.  Then, during the AD 600's, Islam took over northern Africa and the Middle East.  Christendom remained primarily in Europe, and even there, Spain and Portugal were Islamic until 1492, and there was a significant Muslim presence in the southeast as well.  And then in 1054, the Eastern churches split off from Rome.  And of course, it was from Western Europe that most of the overseas colonial empires came to exist, in the last few centuries of history (most of which are now independent nations).  Granted, some of these were Protestant because of the Protestant Reformation, but mostly southwestern Europe remained Catholic, even if this became more formal than material over time.

The point is that we in the West are the most likely to have heard of Jesus Christ, of Christianity, of the Catholic Church.  Not to the same degree elsewhere in the world.



This made me think of something that Shane Schaetzel said on his old blog.  Unfortunately, since he restarted his blog, I'm unable to provide a link or even a quote, but I know for a fact that it was on his old blog that I read this.  (The closest thing to something similar that I can find is at this link: https://completechristianity.blog/2018/09/03/where-do-we-go-from-here/ )

Shane Schaetzel is a Traditional Vatican II Catholic.  He recognizes the truth about the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) where too many Catholics, especially in the West, do not.  On his blog he has stated that Vatican II was specifically meant to combat the Modernist heresy that was already beginning to infect the human element of the Church, NOT (as is commonly supposed by supporters and detractors alike) to introduce this heresy into Catholic teaching and practice.

The evidence he provided was to contrast the Catholic Church (and the application of Vatican II therein) in Africa and Asia, with that in the West.  He said that in Africa and Asia, which have largely remained untouched by the Modernist heresy, they have applied Vatican II correctly, as the Council Fathers intended--and the Church is flourishing and growing!  People are converting and taking the faith seriously, which would certainly explain the persecution and even execution of Christians in those lands--they must be loyal to Jesus Christ to refuse to renounce Him under pain of torture and death!

On the other hand, in the West, where Modernism has taken root in the human element of the Church, the opposite is happening: Vatican II is applied in a way more consistent with the Modernist heresy than with the revealed Gospel, and the Church is fizzling out and shrinking.  That is, more people leave the Church than enter, and more of those who don't formally renounce the Church are being more lax about their responsibilities.



The point that I'm trying to make is this: we in the West have had a Christian tradition (and specifically a Catholic Christian tradition) for centuries--only in the last few hundreds of years has it been different, and even then largely as a reaction against the old Christian order.  We've gotten used to it.  And it's here, in the West, that Modernism has infected even the human element of the Church, even at the highest levels: Modernism, which Pope Saint Pius X said in 1907 was the "synthesis of all heresies".  It's here, in the West, that we see the most contempt for the Holy Trinity, for Jesus Christ and His Church: it's here that we see the most brazen blasphemies in the media tolerated, while they will bend over backward to avoid offending non-Christians and even anti-Christians.

But in Africa south of the Sahara desert, and in Asia outside of the Middle East (and maybe India, since Saint Thomas the Apostle preached there), the Church has only existed within the last few centuries, beginning during the Age of Discovery in 1414.  And while that was going on, the Church endured the Protestant Reformation in Europe, and then Europe sought a non-religious "balance of powers".  And it's primarily in these regions that I hear about people being threatened with torture and death unless they will, by word and/or action, renounce Jesus Christ and their Christian faith--suggesting that it's primarily in those regions that anyone has to resort to such extreme measures to part a Christian from His Savior, because the faith is flourishing there.  Certainly I haven't heard of such a thing here in the West--where it's too easy to convert a Catholic or other Christian away without resorting to threats of torture and death.

Which is making me wonder if a new Catholic "Renaissance", if you will, is to be found in those regions of Africa and Asia.  I've given up trying to predict the future with too much accuracy (and I certainly don't want to give up my own country for a loss prematurely, and fail to pray and fast for her!), but those seem to me to be the "outsider" groups most likely to cling to Christ, and to be saved, and to be the center of a rebirth of faithful Christianity.

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And finally, this brings me to a more unpleasant topic.  On September 22, 2018 (last Saturday as of this writing), Pope Francis made a deal with the People's Republic of China.  Supposedly this was done in order to give the Vatican greater control over the appointment and removal of bishops in China.

However, as part of the agreement, it is the authorities of the Chinese government who will actually select the bishops, and His Holiness recommunicated seven excommunicated men who had already been appointed as bishops by Beijing.

Let us not forget that the People's Republic of China, which took over the country in 1949, is a Communist dictatorship that hates and opposes God and all religion.  Indeed, the very next day, September 23, 2018 (this past Sunday), the officially recognized Church pledged their loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.



This is a giant slap in the Holy Face of Jesus Christ.



Literally.  When Jesus revealed the Holy Face devotion to Sister Mary of St. Peter, she reported what He had said (from here: http://www.holyfacedevotion.com/revelations.htm ):



"The Savior made me understand that His justice was greatly irritated against mankind for its sins but particularly for those that directly outrage the Majesty of God--that is, Communism, Atheism, cursing, and the desecration of Sundays and the Holy Days."



Communism, such as that espoused loyally by the People's Republic of China (and especially by purported Catholic Christian clergy), contributes to the blows and spit that desecrate the Holy Face of Jesus, which Saint Veronica wiped away with her veil.  It ought to be condemned sharply, not enabled.

Sadly, I absolutely understand and sympathize with those who have accused this of being a "selling out" of the Church to her enemies in China.  This is making me feel more and more like it would be best for Pope Francis to abdicate the papacy as soon as possible: how can the Vicar of Jesus Christ preach faith and trust in Jesus Christ and the Church when his actions are such?  How can faithful be expected to trust Jesus Christ when His Vicar does this to His flock in such a dangerous country?  I fear both for the Holy Father's soul and for the souls of those who may be led astray by such actions, and I am extremely disappointed.

The only good that might come out of it, again, is that the true Church in China (the "underground" Church) will be put to the ultimate test of faith, hope, and love--which will breed truly great saints of modern times, who can pray and intercede on behalf of the whole world.



Today is the first day of the Novena to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, and I intend to participate in it.  Please pray for me that I remain faithful to it for all nine days (the Feast Day is October 7).



Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.

Graces and Mercy

Today was the day of my Secular Franciscan meeting: my first since my initiation last month.



While I've learned enough about the faith to know that this is only a drop in the ocean (so far), after today I'm beginning to recall what Father Michael E. Gaitley said in his books 33 Days to Morning Glory and 33 Days to Merciful Love.  Specifically, he said that once you've made the consecrations (to Jesus through Mary, and to Divine Mercy Saint Therese style), you can expect great graces to be showered upon you, assuming you keep an open heart and do not willfully reject these consecrations.

I'm beginning to suspect that I am feeling such a thing now.  This isn't the first day that I've felt what I'm feeling now, but it is the first day that I've thought of it in these terms.



Aside from the many gifts that I received from the other members of the fraternity, as well as ideas and motivation for what I can do to become a better Catholic Christian (and Secular Franciscan) that I haven't been doing lately, I've come to many insights with regard to the Gospels.  This came as a direct result of reading a chapter with my friend Eric every day that we're on Skype: we go through it section by section, and then reflect on it.  I'm coming to recognize a lot of such inspirations that I had never even thought of before, and Eric suggested that I mention them.

I've mentioned one at the end of my previous blog entry, "Asperger's Syndrome": that of Adam and Eve (the first man and woman and the father and mother of us all) being the first workers who began work late (working for less than a full day before resting on the first Sabbath).



There's another one that I came to even earlier, and that Eric specifically suggested that I share: it has to do with the Temple veil being torn in two when Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday.

First, some background: the veil covered the Holy of Holies, the most sacred room in the entire Temple.  In the days of the Temple of Solomon, it contained the Ark of the Covenant, a chest which itself contained the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, as well as the staff of Aaron and a jar of manna from heaven.  It was the physical Presence of God on earth in those days...until the Babylonian Exile, beginning around 586 BC.

The Holy of Holies was so sacred that only the high priest of Israel was ever allowed to go inside, or even to look inside--and then only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (last Wednesday, September 19, was Yom Kippur this year), so that he could make a sacrifice in atonement for his sins and for the sins of the whole nation of Israel.  Anyone else going inside, or even looking inside would die--as would the high priest on any day other than Yom Kippur.  Indeed, apparently they would tie a rope to the high priest's leg as insurance in case he died while inside the Holy of Holies, so that they could pull out the body without removing the curtain and thus risking death themselves!

The point is that, because of original sin and personal sin, we are not worthy--and because we are finite, we could not comprehend God in His entirety even if we were not fallen.  But especially because we are, we cannot come to Him, not by our own efforts.  Even the high priest being allowed to enter is an exception, not the rule, and that was only to sacrifice for his sins and the sins of all Israel.

This practice continued until about 586 BC, when the Babylonians conquered the Jews, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the Jewish people to Babylon.  Decades later, the Jews were liberated by the Persians, and allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.  However, although the Second Temple kept the tradition regarding the Holy of Holies, there was one thing missing: the Ark of the Covenant.  No one knows exactly where it is, although tradition holds that it is buried somewhere around Mount Nebo, along with the corpse of Moses.

The reason the Ark of the Covenant was never in the Second Temple is because that's the Temple that was around at the time of Jesus Christ.  The Ark of the New Covenant is His Mother Mary, and once she became the new vessel containing the physical Presence of God on earth, the Second Temple was on its way out.

And Jesus died on the Cross to take away the sins of the world: He is, in one Person, the High Priest offering the Sacrifice, the Sacrifice itself, and the God to whom the Sacrifice is made.  He is fully God and fully Man, and so alone is a pleasing Sacrifice in atonement for the people's sins.  And He died on Good Friday, two days before the first Easter Sunday--tradition holds that He died on the same day as His Incarnation in the womb of Mary, March 25 (nine months before Christmas Day).  The point is, that is nowhere near Yom Kippur--it is, in fact, at the opposite end of the calendar!

And once Jesus died on the Cross, at about 3 pm, the Temple veil tore in two and exposed the Holy of Holies for all to see!



So what is the significance?  This is where the Lord blessed me with an interpretation of it--more specifically, a simile that might help make it easier to understand.

The Holy of Holies being thus exposed, by God Himself, is the sign that He is pleased with Christ's Sacrifice (and not with the sacrifices of the wicked priests), and that His Sacrifice is sufficient to take away the sins of the world, and therefore to make Temple worship obsolete at last.  It is a sign that Jesus Christ's own Body is the Third Temple, and the last.  It is a sign that, as stated in the Christmas carol "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing", "God and sinners reconciled!"

In short, it is a sign that the gap between God and man is and need be no more: that we may now see the Face of God and live (that Face being the Holy Face of Jesus Christ).  The image that came to me (though not actually seen by the priests) was of God the Father opening His arms for a welcoming embrace of love--and given the hard hearts of the priests, an exhortation to come back into His embrace for their own sake.



But what did the priests think of it?  Especially given their continued hardness of heart afterward, and the fact that God therefore allowed the Romans to destroy the Temple in AD 70, I have a guess--and Father Michael E. Gaitley's books have pointed the way to this.

Remember, the original intent was to hide the Holy of Holies because anyone going inside, or even looking inside, would die (with the sole exception of the high priest at Yom Kippur, which was six months away).  And now, thanks to no one except God Himself, the Temple veil was torn and the Holy of Holies was exposed for everyone to see!

Being the sinners that they were, the priests probably feared that they would all be struck down!  More specifically, they probably thought that God was angry with them and showed this anger by tearing the veil and exposing the Holy of Holies so that they would all die.

To use the aforementioned image again (remember, there is no indication that the priests actually saw this image), they mistook God's loving, welcoming outstretched arms for a threatening gesture, for someone looking to strangle the lifeblood out of them all because He was so furious with them.



And even when this proved not to be true (Temple worship continued for another 37 years), presumably they managed to veil the Holy of Holies again--indicating that their hearts were still hardened.

Continuing the simile, they built a barrier between themselves and God's loving, welcoming embrace, rejecting it--because they feared that they needed the barrier to protect themselves from His wrath (as if such a thing were possible if He really were to try anyway!).

And because they did so, and did not themselves tear down the Temple in recognition that the Body of Jesus Christ (including His Mystical Body the Church) was the Third Temple, God would not accept the sacrifices made therein--including the sacrifices made for sin on Yom Kippur, since they had not properly repented of those sins.  And therefore, the only one who would accept those sacrifices was the Devil.  Therefore, because the Jewish priests wouldn't do it themselves, God mercifully allowed their conquerors the Romans to destroy it in AD 70, so that no more sacrifices could be made to Satan therein.



For the moment, this is the only insight I'll mention in this blog entry.  But glory be to God Most High!  Little by little I'm recognizing His blessings upon me, and I want to share them, to give back, not just to keep taking and taking.

Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.



P. S.  I'm editing to mention just one more insight.  Because we in the Church are the Mystical Body of Christ, it has finally occurred to me to recognize that the various saints can be compared to the various devotions to Jesus Christ (the Holy Face, the Holy Wounds, the Sacred Heart, the Precious Blood, etc.).

And many saints are specifically dedicated to such devotions.  For example, Saint Therese of Lisieux (whose feast day is next Monday, October 1), is devoted to the Holy Face of Jesus (whose Feast Day is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday--the last day before Lent).

And Saint Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is next Thursday, October 4), is the first one to receive the stigmata (to mystically receive the Holy Wounds of Christ on his own body), although the vast majority of saints receiving the stigmata were women, not men.

(Indeed, I'm becoming interested in Saint Catherine of Siena in particular, a Third Order Dominican whose feast day is April 29, because of her mystical marriage to Christ.)

Asperger's Syndrome

I don't want to lump together everyone who has Asperger's Syndrome, not least because I know so few people who have it (and in this day and age, it might be easy for people to lie and claim they have it when they don't--or to make themselves believe they have it when they don't), and so I can only speak from my own individual perspective.

Having said that, I can't help but suspect that my Asperger's Syndrome does figure significantly into what I'm about to say, in terms of my problematic situation--which I'm sure many others suffer from, although I don't know of anyone besides myself who does.



When I was little, it was easier to be proactive, at least at times.  I followed my instincts to begin--doing what I liked and avoiding what I didn't like.  Then, as I learned the rules, I followed those, and tried to encourage others to do the same.

But as I got older, I came to realize that this wasn't good enough.  I can't always follow my instincts: sometimes they're wrong, and even if they're not, sometimes people will react negatively--or not at all when I really want them to.  Also, not everyone follows the rules, not even when they know the rules, and the rules make sense and are easy to follow.  Plus, not all human rules actually do make sense.

Consequently I became insecure, to the point where it was a lot easier to be reactive than proactive.  When being proactive I can't help feeling anxious to some degree, wondering how the other person will react, but deep down wondering "Is this right for me to do?" because I don't already have confirmation that it is.  When being reactive I don't have that problem: someone else has already confirmed that it is right, or at least okay, to do--and so unless I have serious reason to doubt this, I have confirmation before I do it myself.  This is not good because, without a root in objective Truth, that makes me easily led by the nose.

And where I'm not easily led by the nose, I tend to get stubborn, digging my heels into the ground, refusing to listen to a contrary view and rationalizing it on the grounds that it's illogical--even if I really ought to be listening, if for no other reason than to show love to the other person.  Plus, it may not be illogical; it may just be that the person giving that view isn't using logic (or at least logic I can understand and accept) to arrive at it.  Also, when I act like this I betray the fact that my faith in my own view is weak, and I betray how shallow my Christlike exterior truly is.  But I have acted this way anyway because I've found some objectivity to cling to with regard to my position, be it logic, mathematics, or theology or morality (now that I'm convinced of Catholic Christianity's Truth).



Because of this, I've reached a point at which I'm afraid to ask for what I want, even if what I want isn't unreasonable, for fear that I will appear needy, whiny, annoying--or else bossy and pushy and demanding.  As a result, I don't ask for what I want; instead, I hope against hope that I will get what I want without needing to ask--that someone else will both know what I want and give it to me because of this--and when I don't get it (which is very common) I get resentful of those who aren't giving it to me.  And whether I mean it or not (or recognize it in the moment or not), that means I'm being resentful of God Himself.  Worst is that, when I finally do indicate what I want, I actually am being needy, whiny, annoying--or bossy, pushy, and demanding.  I say things like "We never do this" or "You never want to do this with me" or etc., rather than making it an invitation, something that someone is more likely to respond positively to.

And at other times I either get bored or else I retreat into my own mind, or to screen technology, to basically run away from the rut I've been in for years now--to put blinders on the fact that I'm still in it.



I now think that this has a lot to do with why I identified with the original Peter Pan story as written by J. M. Barrie, as well as with J. M. Barrie himself, for the last decade and a half.  I feel like a "mirror", like a "mime".  I tend to reflect what others do unless I either know it's false, evil, or ugly--or unless I personally strongly dislike it--including how they treat me.  And while this may make me good at writing or acting, it comes at the cost of not knowing who I really am, irrespective of any "role" I might make up and put on for others.  It is not unlike having an extraordinarily long childhood (not to mention that I look younger than I am and I'm shorter than the norm).

Plus, I don't even know that I am that good at it.  I might be good enough to please myself, but when it comes to sharing my work with others (something I long to do), I fear that they won't agree.  At worst, I fear that I might confuse them because of something I overlooked and neglected to put into my writing or performance, so that my readers/audience didn't get it.  And these fears tend to hinder my creativity and my productivity.  At any rate, I haven't gotten my name out there as a writer or an actor, and certainly I haven't been paid for it.

I feel like the stranger who longs to be welcomed, and who fears greatly that he will not be welcomed.



Because of this, I quit working for Aspergers Training, Employment and Life Skills.  I no longer feel that I can in good conscience work for such an organization.  I worked with someone who I presumed knew the special needs of people with Asperger's Syndrome, given the organization he worked for--and he consistently showed, over a period of years, that he did not.  I have no resentment against the man, or even the organization--I wasn't treated unkindly, and please do not badmouth either!--but I felt hypocritical in working for them.  My heart was never in it, and I don't feel that I can in good conscience recommend them.

But that means that I'm back to where I was before early 2015, and where I had been for nearly six years before that (more if you don't count the years I was an adult in college): unemployed.



More and more, though, I'm coming to realize that what I'm truly longing for is God Himself.

God gave me the instincts that I have, and where my most passionate desires aren't innately sinful, they are a sign of what God wants me to do (either to do what I most passionately desire, or--in some cases--to do what I passionately desire to avoid).  And while not all rules come from God, if they don't require me to sin or forbid me from doing my duty by Him, I must follow them.  What matters is what God thinks, not what other people might think--or even what I think.  Jesus was crucified: obviously He didn't care what others thought of Him!

And part of a root in God doesn't just mean knowing what the Church teaches and so having "pre-confirmation" that what I'm doing is right--it means taking risks, making myself vulnerable, out of 100% trust in God and love of Him.  I've come to realize that, by definition, that means acknowledging that sometimes I cannot possibly know before the fact--and I cannot rely on other people as my confirmation that what I'm doing is right--but I need to act anyway.  God can do more with my mistakes than with my inaction.

I need to humble myself and listen to others--and especially to listen to God in contemplative prayer.  And I need to accept that the other might have a point, even if I don't see the logic in their arrival at it, and even if I perceive the other person being prideful and so fear I'm "giving them the satisfaction" by doing what they say (that very fear is as un-Christlike as it gets).

I need not to be afraid to ask for what I want, including of God in prayer.  Jesus responding to Mary's prayer when the wedding feast at Cana ran out of wine--will He not all the more desire to respond to my prayers for things that are more important?  In particular I need to stop acting as if doing so were "bothering someone".  God Himself doesn't act that way: He doesn't refrain from acting out of fear He's "bothering someone", so why should He be bothered unless what I want is sinful?  I need to be more inviting if I want to be more invited, or to feel more welcome.

And I cannot run away from my problems, whether physically or mentally--they won't go away that way.  I will only be removing myself from a position to address them.

I need to reflect God, to mirror Jesus, to imitate His example.  Only thus can I learn who He made me to be, who I really am irrespective of any role I might put on.

I need to welcome the stranger myself--and that especially means welcoming Jesus into my heart by spending time with Him, sharing with Him, and especially listening to Him.



The trouble is that I'm out of the habit.  Given my situation it may well take a long time and a lot of effort before I reach a point that I'm satisfied with, even to a significant degree (I can't expect complete satisfaction this side of heaven), and that can get discouraging.

But I know that, unless something is impossible by definition, there is a chance of its being possible, and therefore of its happening.  I also know that, concerning my most intense desires that don't go away no matter how little they're fulfilled--as long as they aren't sinful, God placed them in me and they are a clue to what I need to act on and what He wants me to do and to be.  And I know that if I never give up, no matter what my apparent failure or lack of progress, He will answer my prayers if doing so will not hinder my salvation (and I know that He knows better than I do what will or won't).

I might have more of a shot of its happening faster if I have the prayers and intercession of others, especially Mary and the saints.  On the other hand, perhaps this is meant to teach me patience (something I know escapes me a lot), and persistence, and a truer faith even when I'm blind to the results of it.  Plus, maybe I'm not ready for everything I want all at once, and so maybe that's part of the reason God withholds it from me to the degree He does.

********

Come to think of it, this relates directly to something else that I wanted to mention.  It has to do with an insight that I received last night, when my friend Eric and I were reading and reflecting on the Passion narrative in the Gospel of Matthew.



According to Genesis Chapter 1, God made Adam and Eve on the sixth day of creation--what we would now call Friday.  Given that, and given that they were His last creations, coming after the animals, Adam and Eve did not exist for the entirety of that Friday.

And the very next day, the seventh day (what we would now call Saturday), was the Sabbath, the day of rest.  That means that Adam and Eve did no work on that day.  In other words, literally all the work that Adam and Eve did before the first Sabbath was done on the previous Friday--and only for part of the day because before that they hadn't been created yet!

In sum, Adam and Eve did less than a full day's work before their first Sabbath rest!



When I realized this, it got me to thinking about Jesus Christ's parable of the workers in the vineyard:



"'For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.  And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, "You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you."  So they went.  Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.  And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, "Why do you stand there idle all day?"  They said to him, "Because no one has hired us."  He said to them, "You go into the vineyard too."  And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, "Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first."  And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.  Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.  And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat."  But he replied to them, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?  Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or do you begrudge my generosity?"  So the last will be first, and the first last.'"  (Matthew 20:1-16)



A denarius was a day's wage for a laborer, and so it was a fair wage.  And those who worked from the beginning of the day had no problem with those who came last receiving this very wage--only when they themselves received the same, and no more, did they complain.  As the householder said, they had agreed for a denarius, which was a fair wage, and they weren't treated unfairly.

Also, the third hour means roughly 9 am by our modern standards; the sixth hour means roughly noon; the ninth hour means roughly 3 pm; and the eleventh hour means roughly 5 pm.



The point is that it isn't the amount of work that we do that determines our reward: we do not enter heaven by our own efforts, but by God's generosity to us.  If it was the amount of work we do, what of the poor, the sick, and the captive?



But now, thinking about Adam and Eve in the context of this parable really helps to illustrate it for me.  Adam and Eve certainly were not working from the first hour of their first day of existence--and the very next day was the Sabbath, on which they weren't permitted to do any work!  But surely, especially given that they hadn't yet committed the original sin, God was no less generous with them on that first Sabbath than on others, when they'd had the chance to do a full week's worth of work before the Sabbath!

And Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, and this was before they committed sin--therefore they correspond to the laborers in the parable who started work late.  And Adam and Eve were not only the father and mother of us all, but they repented of their sin and rejoiced when Jesus Christ broke the gates of Hades and allowed the Old Testament saints out and into heaven.



This gives me further hope, because I am indeed a "late bloomer".  Even though I was baptized as a baby and raised only in the Catholic faith, I fell away slowly when young.  I only returned in 2010, and now I'm in my mid-thirties, which is making me think of the beginning of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Dante begins this poem "Midway upon the journey of our life", which means when he was 35, half of a Biblical lifetime.  I'm not too far from that now, and I still haven't become financially independent, and I haven't entered into my vocation yet.  In many ways I'm still a child.

But I need to recognize and embrace my dependence upon God, because I will always have that no matter what.  If I recognize and embrace my littleness, Jesus Christ's merciful love will flow to me as a "little soul", that I might become a great saint.  And it is only humility that makes us desire not only to become saints, but the greatest saints we can--to be as close to God in heaven as we possibly can, for all eternity.



This is making me recall Disney's Mulan.  (Wow, it's hard to believe that movie is 20 years old!)

Fa Zhou, Mulan's father, early in the movie, says to her: "My, what beautiful blossoms we have this year. But look, this one's late. But I'll bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all."

Then, towards the end, no less than the Emperor of China says of Mulan: "The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all."

I don't pretend to be enduring the greatest of adversity, not by a long shot--but the point of the above parable is that it's not about comparing individual situations, especially not in an envious way.  I am a late bloomer, but maybe that's because of what I have to endure, and maybe I will be all the better of a man and a Christian because of it, when I finally do bloom.

********

But the main reason I posted this blog entry first, before the others I wanted to mention, is because I am slowly getting the message that I need to rely on God more and more.  That being the case, I don't expect to have as much time to work on this blog in the near future, because being online can be a real distraction--even when I am trying to focus my searches on my faith, sometimes I'm not looking for the specific matters that will help me, or shake me out of my comfort zone, and at any rate I'm not directly addressing the Lord in prayer.

Granted, I'm not exactly updating regularly as it is, but you only have my word for what my life is like outside of this blog, unless you know me personally.  I need to stop letting myself be dragged this way and that by capricious whims, and to stop putting off my responsibilities.  I need to learn to listen to God, and to grow closer to Him and to be the person that He made me to be.

Please pray for me, and I will pray for you.



Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.