Bavarian Volkmusik Radio Station

First heard it on the below German Radio Station live streaming

BR Heimat - Tradimix & Liedermacher

N.B. EU list of online Germany radio stations (unfortunately most of the music on most of the stations is in English, not German at all!).

"Homosexual" Testimonies

Cf. Courage
Plinthos posts on the subject of "homosexual"

EWTN Catholic Commercial Contest: Cool 2B Catholic

Registration opens in mid-November. Completed film submissions will be accepted online from January 1, 2016 through May 1, 2016.

Santa Gianna Beretta Molla (Live Footage of the Saint and Her Family)

This is the best video documentary on Saint Gianna, with live footage of the Saint with her family and interviews with her surviving family members. Extraordinary!

Italian with Spanish subtitles

You Are a Masterpiece: In the Womb

Live footage of the nine months in the womb: National Geographic! Awesome!

Popular German Folk Singers, etc.

Reinhard Mey
Klaus Hoffmann
Hannes Wader
Konstantin Wecker
Wolf Biermann
Herman van Veen (Netherlands)
Wolfgang Steinitz
Thomas Felder
Charlie and His Orchestra
Gitte Haenning
Rex Gildo
Heino
Katja Ebstein
Wolfgang Petry
Guildo Horn
Ronald Kaiser
Helene Fischer
Cf. Wikipedia Music of Germany

The British band Mumford & Sons is doing interesting work with depth and quite a transcendent tone: "Awake My Soul"

"After the Storm"

‘My boyfriend said he would push me down the stairs if I didn’t have an abortion’

Lifesites

What is Human?

New York City Contraception Campaign Con't

New York City blanketed with taxpayer-funded ads pushing dangerous IUDs

NEW YORK CITY, October 6, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – "You spent the night in Brooklyn, but you left your birth control in Staten Island. Maybe the IUD is right for you." So goes New York State's latest campaign promoting a dangerous contraceptive/abortifacient for young women.

The promotional campaign, dubbed by the NY Department of Health "Maybe the IUD," is funded by taxes and comes from the department's partnership with the City University of New York.

Posters pushing the IUD are all over New York subways, bus shelters, social media, and elsewhere, with a dedicated website assuming that "every woman" should use contraceptives.

The state's "Maybe The IUD" promotional campaign is one part of a five-year plan to promote "sexual and reproductive justice."

Michael R. Long, state chairman of the Conservative Party, commented toLifeSiteNews, "With all the serious health issues facing the city of New York, wouldn't the Department of Health better serve women by encouraging them to abstain from sexual activity?"

Long criticized the tax-funded IUD promotional campaign, adding, "This program 'Maybe the IUD' does nothing more than promote promiscuity and that sends the wrong signal to all women. "

In the past, the state Department of Health created and issued a mobile app called "Find Condoms NYC," which scans their list of 3,000 sites that distribute free condoms and uses a smartphone's GPS to list and map the five closest spots.

An IUD is a T-shaped device wrapped in copper, which is toxic to sperm, or containing birth control chemicals. The chemical IUD is billed as a contraceptive, but it actually most often works as an abortifacient, changing the uterine wall so as to prevent implantation of an already conceived human. The Mirena hormonal IUD's instructions admit, "Mirena may stop the release of your egg from your ovary, but this is not the way it works in most cases."

Click "like" if you are PRO-LIFE! 

Side-effects of IUD use include Pelvic Inflammatory Disease – a bacterial infection that may cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and constant pelvic pain. In serious cases, a hysterectomy is needed. Other side-effects of IUDs include ovarian cysts, life-threatening sepsis, the IUD attaching to the uterine wall, and/or the IUD perforating the uterus –causing scarring, infection, and damage to other organs. 

Another complication of IUD use is the fact that fully ten percent of users find their IUD "expelled," or pushed out of their uterus.

Hormonal IUDs have their own serious risks, including irregular bleeding, vaginal dryness, flushing, migraines, hair loss, nausea and acne, weight change, hirsutism (male pattern hair growth), mood changes, skin discoloration and breast tenderness, back pain, arthritic-type pain in the legs and joints, fatigue, depression, panic attacks, chest pain, and vaginal odor.

A risk unique to the copper IUDs is that excess copper causes bone/joint and connective tissue disturbances, cardiovascular degeneration, accelerated aging, depigmentation and dermatitis, anemia and neurological impairment. Too much copper produces free radicals, which lead to cell death. Other side-effects include anemia, increased cramps, pain during intercourse, extended PMS, weight gain, acne, and breast tenderness. 

The FDA lists long-term health dangers associated with an IUD named Essure, which include ectopic pregnancies, unintended pregnancies resulting in severe complications and miscarriages, pelvic complications, pain, migration of the metal inserts through the fallopian tubes into the abdomen, and many others.

Cf. U.S. Schools Implanting IUD's in 12 yr. olds, parents be damned!

Classic Greek Song Delight!

That to which I am presently listening, brushing up on my modern Greek.

N.B. Much, much more from the YouTube channel: Best Greek Classic Songs

Love that μπουζούκι!

Instrumental, long play.

Zealous Homicides Praised in Sacred Scripture

There are two examples of homicide praised in the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament) of men avenging God for sacrilege, false worship and immorality.

The first that comes to mind is from today's reading from the Novus Ordo Mass: 1 Maccabees 2:15-29. Mattathias slayed the Jew who, went up to offer false worship, according to the dictates of the civil law.
The other that comes to mind is the one mentioned at the end of the Maccabees passage: Phinees who drove the fornicators through the groin in the very act of their sacrilegious fornication: Numbers 25:1-13.

1 Maccabees 2:15-29 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

15 And they that were sent from king Antiochus came thither, to compel them that were fled into the city of Modin, to sacrifice, and to burn incense, and to depart from the law of God.

16 And many of the people of Israel consented, and came to them: but Mathathias and his sons stood firm.

17 And they that were sent from Antiochus, answering, said to Mathathias: Thou art a ruler, and an honourable, and great man in this city, and adorned with sons, and brethren.

18 Therefore come thou first, and obey the king's commandment, as all nations have done, and the men of Juda, and they that remain in Jerusalem: and thou, and thy sons, shall be in the number of the king's friends, and enriched with gold, and silver, and many presents.

19 Then Mathathias answered, and said with a loud voice: Although all nations obey king Antiochus, so as to depart every man from the service of the law of his fathers, and consent to his commandments:

20 I and my sons, and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers.

21 God be merciful unto us: it is not profitable for us to forsake the law, and the justices of God:

22 We will not hearken to the words of king Antiochus, neither will we sacrifice, and transgress the commandments of our law, to go another way.

23 Now as he left off speaking these words, there came a certain Jew in the sight of all to sacrifice to the idols upon the altar in the city of Modin, according to the king's commandment.

24 And Mathathias saw and was grieved, and his reins trembled, and his wrath was kindled according to the judgment of the law, and running upon him he slew him upon the altar:

25 Moreover the man whom king Antiochus had sent, who compelled them to sacrifice, he slew at the same time, and pulled down the altar.

26 And shewed zeal for the law, as Phinees did by Zamri the son of Salomi.

27 And Mathathias cried out in the city with a loud voice, saying: Every one that hath zeal for the law, and maintaineth the testament, let him follow me.

28 So he, and his sons fled into the mountains, and left all that they had in the city.

29 Then many that sought after judgment, and justice, went down into the desert:

Numbers 25:1-13

25 And Israel at that time abode in Settim, and the people committed fornication with the daughters of Moab,

2 Who called them to their sacrifices. And they ate of them, and adored their gods.

3 And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor: upon which the Lord being angry,

4 Said to Moses: Take all the princes of the people, and hang them up on gibbets against the sun: that my fury may be turned away from Israel.

5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Let every man kill his neighbours, that have been initiated to Beelphegor.

6 And behold one of the children of Israel went in before his brethren to a harlot of Madian, in the sight of Moses, and of all the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle.

7 And when Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest saw it, he rose up from the midst; of the multitude, and taking a dagger,

8 Went in after the Israelite into the brothel house, and thrust both of them through together, to wit, the man and the woman in the genital parts. And the scourge ceased from the children of Israel:

9 And there were slain four and twenty thousand men.

10 And the Lord said to Moses:

11 Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel: because he was moved with my zeal against them, that I myself might not destroy the children of Israel in my zeal.

12 Therefore say to him: Behold I give him the peace of my covenant,

13 And the covenant of the priesthood for ever shall be both to him and his seed, because he hath been zealous for his God, and hath made atonement for the wickedness of the children of Israel.

Ad Orientem: Why Catholic Altars are Traditionally Located on the Eastern Wall of the Church

Saint Thomas Aquinas

"There is a certain fittingness in adoring towards the east. First, because the Divine majesty is indicated in the movement of the heavens which is from the east. Secondly, because Paradise was situated in the east according to the Septuagint version of Genesis 2:8, and so we signify our desire to return to Paradise. Thirdly, on account of Christ Who is "the light of the world" [John 8:12; 9:5, and is called "the Orient" (Zechariah 6:12). Who mounteth above the heaven of heavens to the east (Psalm 67:34), and is expected to come from the east, according to Matthew 24:27, "As lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." (Summa Theologica II-II.84.3.obj.3)

1) The east is the origin of the movement of the heavens

2) Paradise was there

3) Christ "the Light", "the Orient", ascended to the east and will come from the east.

Hence the Judea-Christian orienting of our temples facing toward the origin of the heavens, Paradise, and Christ.

The facade of the Temple was toward the east and so Ezekiel (47) saw the saving water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east. And the eastern wall of Jerusalem contains the Golden Gate, which is the only entrance of the Temple Mount.

Wikipedia has an excellent article on that Golden Gate (which I paste below).

P.S. I also noticed that the Jerusalem Cemetery is on that side, hence on the east, to await the rising Sun and the resurrection of the last day.  There is a tradition in many cemeteries to bury bodies facing east, i.e. the tomb stone facing east and the mortal remains laid out face up, feet first toward the east.

The Golden Gate, as it is called in Christian literature, is the only eastern gate of the Temple Mount and one of only two that used to offer access into the city from that side. It has been walled up since medieval times, in fulfilment of prophecy (Ezekiel 44:1-3). The date of its construction is disputed and no archaeological work is allowed at the gatehouse, but opinions are shared between a late Byzantine and an early Umayyad date.

The Hebrew name of the Golden Gate is Sha'ar HaRachamim (שער הרחמים), Gate of Mercy. In Jewish sources^{[dubious – discuss]} the eastern gate of the Temple compound is called the Shushan Gate. If the Golden Gate does preserve the location of the Shushan Gate, which is only a presumption with no archaeological proof, this would make it the oldest of the current gates in Jerusalem's Old City Walls. According to Jewish tradition, the Shekhinah (שכינה) (Divine Presence) used to appear through the eastern Gate, and will appear again when the Anointed One (Messiah) comes (Ezekiel 44:1–3) and a new gate replaces the present one; that might be why Jews used to pray in medieval times for mercy at the former gate at this location,^[1] another possible reason being that in the Crusader period, when this habit was first documented, they were not allowed into the city where the Western Wall is located. Hence the name "Gate of Mercy".^{[dubious – discuss]}

In Christian apocryphal texts, the gate was the scene of the meeting between the parents of Mary after the Annunciation, so that the gate became the symbol of the virgin birth of Jesus^[2] and Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate became a standard subject in cycles depicting the Life of the Virgin. It is also said that Jesus passed through this gate on Palm Sunday, giving it also a Christian messianic importance beside the Jewish one.^[2] Some equate it with the Beautiful Gate mentioned in Acts 3.

In Arabic, it is known as Bab al-Dhahabi,^[2] also written Bab al-Zahabi,^[3] meaning "Golden Gate"; another Arabic name is the Gate of Eternal Life.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, for Muslims each of the two doors of the double gate has its own name: Bab al-Rahma, "Gate of Mercy", for the southern one, and Bab al-Taubah, the "Gate of Repentance", for the northern one.

Construction history

The Golden Gate from within the Mount

The gate is located in the northern third of the Temple Mount's eastern wall. The present gate was probably built in the 520s AD, as part of Justinian I's building program in Jerusalem, on top of the ruins of the earlier gate in the wall.^{[citation needed]} An alternate theory holds that it was built in the later part of the 7th century by Byzantine artisans employed by the Umayyad khalifs.^[4] The Ottoman Turks transformed the walled-up gate into a watchtower.^[4] On the ground floor level a vaulted hall is divided by four columns into two aisles, which lead to the Door of Mercy, Bab al-Rahma, and the Door of Repentance, Bab al-Taubah; an upper floor room has the two roof domes as its ceiling.^[4]

The sealing of the gate

Closed by the Muslims in 810, reopened in 1102 by the Crusaders, it was walled up by Saladin after regaining Jerusalem in 1187.Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt it together with the city walls, but walled it up in 1541, and it stayed that way until today.^[5]

While Suleiman may have taken this decision purely for defensive reasons, in Jewish tradition this is the gate through which the Anointed One (Messiah) will enter Jerusalem,^[6] and it is suggested that Suleiman the Magnificent sealed off the Golden Gate to prevent the Messiah's entrance.^{[citation needed]} The Ottomans also built a cemetery in front of the gate, in the belief that the precursor to the Anointed One, Elijah, would not be able to pass through the Golden Gate and thus the Anointed One would not come. This belief was based upon two premises. First, according to Islamic teaching Elijah is a descendant of Aaron,^[7] making him a priest or kohen. Second, that a Jewish kohen is not permitted to enter a cemetery. This second premise is not wholly correct because a Kohen is permitted to enter a cemetery in which either Jews or non-Jews are buried, such as the one outside the Golden Gate, as long as certain laws or Halakha regarding purity are followed.^[8]

In Christian culture

Giotto di Bondone, Legend of St Joachim, Meeting at the Golden Gate, 1305 is an early depiction of the scene.

Honoring the Jewish tradition (see above) and inspired by apocryphal accounts of the life of the Virgin Mary, medieval Christian artists depicted the relationship of Jesus' maternal grandparents Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate. The couple came to represent the Christian ideal of chastity in conjugal relations within marriage. The pious custom of a bridegroom carrying his bride across the threshold of their marital home may be based in the traditional symbolism of the Golden Gate to the faithful. In early medieval art, the now-formal tenet of the immaculate conception of the mother of Christ was commonly depicted in a form known in Italian as the Metterza: the three generations of grandmother, mother, and son.

The metaphor also features heavily in the personalist phenomenology of Pope John Paul II, his Theology of the Body, a collection of reflections on this theme Crossing the Threshold of Hope were written to encourage the Roman Catholic faithful facing the challenges of materialism and increasing secularism and published on the cusp of the new millennium in 1998. The threshold between the earthly and heavenly realms symbolized by the Golden Gate represents the Mystical Body of the Church, often viewed as the Bride of Christ.

In Christian eschatology, sunrise in the east symbolizes both Christ's resurrection at dawn on Easter Sunday and the direction of hisSecond Coming. Sanctuaries for Christian congregational worship at an altar are often arranged with respect to the east. City gates in Christian urban centers often contain religious artifacts intended to guard the city from attacks and to bless travelers. The Ostra Brama inVilnius, Lithuania contains an icon of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, which is venerated by both Roman Catholic and Orthodox inhabitants.

Topography east of the Old City

The Golden Gate is one of the few sealed gates in Jerusalem's Old City Walls, along with the Huldah Gates, and a small Biblical and Crusader-era postern located several stories above ground on the southern side of the eastern wall.

v t e Old City of Jerusalem Christian Quarter Jewish Quarter Armenian Quarter Muslim Quarter Temple Mount

Secularism's Church: The Public School

"The public school has become the established church of secular society." Ivan Illich
Brainy Quote

"The Catholic Church Produces Saints"

The great philosopher Max Scheler of the University of Munich's convincing argument (himself a Catholic convert from a Lutheran/Jewish heritage) to Dietrich von Hildebrand for why he should convert to Catholicism

As a young student of philosophy, Dietrich one day made the acquaintance of the great German philosopher Max Scheler (whose writings, by the way, were to have a great influence on the future John Paul II). One day, quite out of the blue, Scheler said to von Hildebrand, "the Catholic Church is the true Church". Dietrich was taken aback. Having for so many years lived in Florence, he had surprisingly never met a Catholic. But then Scheler made a key statement through which, unwittingly Scheler opened for his young friend the path to conversion. He said, "The Catholic Church produces saints". Scheler then spoke about the saints and powerfully sketched the personality of St Francis of Assisi. Slowly but surely, the face of the Holy Catholic Church began to shine more and more clearly. It was a slow process but he was on the way, and on 11 April 1914 — Holy Saturday — my husband entered the Church.

On the Legacy of Her Beloved Husband
Alice von Hildebrand EWTN


Dietrich's greatest debt to Scheler was that the latter's thought, still steeped in Catholicism, opened up for him the way to the Church by convincing him that she had both received and retained the fullness of revealed Truth.

This was to young Dietrich a revelation. Although born and raised in a Catholic country, he had never met a Catholic, let alone a convinced and practicing one. He was totally ignorant of the Church's doctrines. Two of his tutors (Ludwig Curtius and Alois Fischer) were fallen-away Catholics. He had been trained to enter churches as places rich in artistic beauty, but his parents were blind to their sacred character. Reverent as Dietrich was toward religion, he was nevertheless baffled by Scheler's assertion that the Roman Church was the one true Church of Christ, and he asked him to explain why he claimed this supremacy for the Catholic Church. With ease, Scheler brushed aside the dormant prejudices against the Church that the young man had picked up from both his tutors and his milieu. Then Dietrich's remarkable readiness to learn, his receptivity toward those who knew better than he, came to the fore. Scheler told him that the Church produced saints. "What is a saint?" the young man inquired. Once again, Scheler deployed the full scope of his genius. He applied all his gifts to sketching the essence of sanctity, and he illustrated his teaching by mentioning Francis of Assisi, describing his life in the most vivid terms. Scheler's arguments about holiness were so powerful that they convinced his young friend that the life of a Saint Francis of Assisi could not be explained by purely natural ethical categories; his holiness had to come from another source.

Alice von Hildebrand, The Soul of a Lion, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000, 73-74.

Paris Shooting at "Death" Band Blasphemous Concert

The American Band at the Paris Bataclan Theater massacre last night was "Eagles of Death Metal"! How morbidly appropriate!

Question: why would you go to a concert with a band which glamorizes death and every manner of blasphemy and immorality? Warning, the lyrics of the above song are a mantra of banal blasphemy, sexual immorality, devil worship and the objectification of women.

Moral: sing and celebrate life, virginity, holy marriage, goodness and truth, and love and serve God, if you want to live! There is no glamour in death, would that the death metal proponents should get the message and convert to Jesus Christ, the Savior from sin and death.

Turn to God and confess you sins and your life is changed in Christ!

When will neo-pagan Paris and France and Europe get the message and realize that blasphemy should be against the law! The Charlie Hebdo slaughter was also to shut up the brazen blasphemers.

Remembering the Faithful Departed and the Cuba of Old

"The Door, Am I, of Peace"

The Virtues of Faith (right), Hope (left) and Charity (center)

This is the 1901 sculpture on top of the great monumental portal of the 1876 Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón (Christopher Columbus Cemetery) in San Cristóbal de la Habana (Sancti Christophori de Habana), or simply "Havana", one of the most important cemeteries of Latin America.

La entrada del Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón se caracteriza por este monumento escultórico en su tope, de mármol de Carrara, de 34 m de longitud por 21,66 m de altura. El conjunto representa las virtudes teologales: fe, esperanza y caridad. Esta portada es obra del arquitecto español Calixto de Loira. Los relieves y las esculturas en mármol de Carrara son del cubano José Vilalta de Saavedra. La gigantesca portada es de estilo neobizantino.

Before 1901

Today

N.B. The sculptor Saavedra, also sculpted, among other important statues, a monument to the great Cuban engineer Francisco de Albear who was responsible the catchment of the Vento springs and their conveyance to Havana for the water supply of the city, now known as the Acueducto de Albear. He designed the project in 1855 and the construction started in 1861, being completed only in 1893. The project was distinguished with the Gold Medal of the Éxposition universelle of Paris 1878. The aqueduct is still in operation.

Cf. lezumbalaberenjena is a Flickr account (apparently of a Cuban-Canadian) with many fine photos of various parts of Cuba.

A lion of the world famous Havana Paseo del Prado - a kilometer of marble pavement and benches outdoor promenade, of a century ago!