Friday, February 28, 2020

Sodom, Condemnation, Conversion and Sanctification


Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate (molles), nor sodomites (masculorum concubitores), nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God.

And such some of you were: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:10-11, The Haydock Bible, 1859.

Homosexualism is a Sin Against Faith

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Summa Sermon Notes 6

Here are the Summa references for the EF for the 1st Sunday of Lent.

1st Sunday of Lent
EPISTLE (2 Cor. 6:1-10)
"We exhort you"
   Perseverance II-II Q.138.
   Does Perseverance need the help of grace? II-II Q.138, a.4.
"That you receive not the grace of God in vain"
   Can works of virtue done in charity become dead? III Q.89, a.4
   Can works deadened by sin be revived again by penance? III Q.89, a.5
"Behold now is the acceptable time"
   Was Christ born at a time suitable for the salvation of the human race? I-II Q.106, a.3
"Giving no offense to any man"
   Is scandal a sin and how grievous? II-II Q.43, a.1-4.
   Should temporal goods be given away to avoid scandal? II-II Q.43, a.8.
"In much patience"
   In what does patience consist? II-II Q. 136, a.1
   Is it the same as longanimity? II-II Q. 136, a.5
GOSPEL (Matthew 4:1-11)
"Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert"
   Why did Christ wish to be tempted in the desert? III Q.41, a.2
   Should He have been tempted publicly? III Q. 41, a.2, ad.1
"To be tempted" (by the devil)
   Why did Christ wish to be tempted? III Q.41, a.1
   The nature of the temptation II-II Q.97, a.1; a.2; a.4
   Why Christ after His fasting should wish to be tempted III Q.41, a.3
   Since Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, why did He tolerate them? III Q.41, a.1, ad.2
"By the devil"
   Why did Christ prefer to be tempted by the devil, rather than by the flesh? III Q.41, a.1, ad.3
"And then He had fasted"
   What is fasting? II-II Q.147, a.2; a.1, ad.3; a.3
   Are all obliged to fast under the Church's precept? II-II Q.147, a.3
   Are sinners obliged to fast under precept? II-II Q.147, a.4, ad.5
   When must fasting be observed? II-II Q.147, a.5
   Is excessive fasting sinful? II-II Q.88, a.2, ad.3
   How is fasting violated? II-II Q.147, a.6
   Why do we fast until the ninth hour and the Jews fasted until the evening? II-II Q.147, a.7, ad.1
   Why did Christ wish to fast 40 days and nights since it was not necessary for Him? III Q.41, a.3, ad.2
"Afterwards he was hungry"
   Why was Christ after 40 days' fasting more hungry than before? III Q.41, a.3
"And the tempter coming"
   Was Christ ever tempted within the 40 days? III Q.41, a.3, ad.2
"If Thou be the Son of God"
   Why did the devil use these words, "If Thou be," etc.? III Q.41, a.1, ad.1
"Command that these stones be made bread"
   Was this a temptation to gluttony? III Q.41, a.4
   Would Christ have committed gluttony if He changed the stone into bread to satisfy nature? III Q.41, a.4, ad.1
"Who answered and said"
   Why did not Christ, as God and man, overcome and lay the devil prostrate? III Q.41, a.4
"And set Him upon the pinnacle of the temple"
   Did the devil set Christ there so that all could see Him? III Q.41, a.4, ad.7
"Cast Thyself don"
   Whether this temptation is one of vainglory III Q.41, a.4
   Since the vainglorious are ever striving to get up, why did the devil tell Christ to throw Himself down? III Q.41, a.4, ad.2
"He hath given His angels charge over Thee"
   The guardian angels I Q.113
   Since man by free will can guard himself why have an angel guardian? I Q.113, a.1, ad.1
   If angels are assigned to guard us, why do men perish? I Q.113, a.1, ad.3
   Is an angel guardian assigned to each one? I Q.113, a.2
   Why not one angel to guard many men? I Q.113, a.2, ad.1
   When is an angel guardian assigned to us? I Q.113, a.5
   Do the angels weep at the sins of those for whom they are guardians? I Q.113, a.7
"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God"
   Is tempting God a sin? II-II Q.97, a.2
"And showed Him all the kingdoms of the world"
   Was there any mountain so high from which Christ could have seen all this? III Q.41, a.4, ad.7
"All these will I give to Thee if falling down Thou wilt adore me"
   Why did not the devil say here, "If Thou be the Son of God," s previously? III Q.41, a.4
   Was this last temptation of cupidity? III Q.41, a.4, ad.3
   Was this last a temptation of idolatry? III Q.41, a.4, ad.4
   Since there are seven capital sins, why was Christ tempted by only three of them? III Q.41, a.4, ad.4
"Begone, Satan"
   Why did not Christ repulse the devil in the first two temptations, as He did so emphatically in the third? III Q.41, a.4, ad.6
"The the devil left Him"
   Did the devil completely leave Him? III Q.41, a.3, ad.1
"And behold angels came and ministered to Him"
   When did the angels come and minister to Him? III Q.41, a.3, ad.2

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

A Homily on Fasting --Saint Thomas Aquinas

CHRIST AN EXAMPLE OF FASTING

THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT. --(FROM THE GOSPEL)

“When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered.” — Matt. 4:2.

S. AUGUSTINE says that it is the highest religion to imitate what we worship, so that, when Our Lord fasted, we ought to imitate Him in fasting. There are four reasons which ought to move us to fasting — firstly, the command of God; secondly, the example of Christ; thirdly, the manifold harm which befalls those who do not fast; fourthly, the manifold benefits which come to them from fasting.

I. On the first head it is to be noted, that the Lord commanded us to fast in a fourfold manner — (1) By Himself, to Adam and Eve in Paradise, when He commanded that they should fast i.e., abstain from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and eat it not. (2) He commanded it by the Law of Moses: Lev. 16:31, “It shall be a Sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls by a statute for ever.” (3) God commanded it by the Prophets: Joel 2:15, “Sanctify a fast.” (4) God commanded it by the Apostles: 2 Cor. 11:27, “In hunger and thirst, in fastings often” — whence he is a manifest transgressor of the precepts of grace who is unwilling to fast.

II. On the second head it is to be noted, that Our Lord taught us that there were four things necessary in fasting — (1) That we should be cleansed from all sin. (2) That we should conceal our fasting from the applause of men. (3) That we should fast with long-suffering and perseverance. (4) That we should overcome the temptations of the Devil. The first He taught in this, that He fasted when He was baptized; so also he who wishes to fast well ought first to be cleansed by penitence and confession: S. Matt. 6:17, “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face.” The second He taught because He sought the desert when about to fast; whence He showed to us that when we fast and do good works we must hide ourselves from the praises of men: S. Matt. 6:16, “When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance ….. that thou appear not unto men to fast.” The third He taught in this, that He fasted forty days and forty nights: S. Austine, “Subdue your flesh with abstinence from meat and drink as far as your health will permit.” The fourth He taught in this, that He did not give way to the temptation of the Devil: “Man shall not live by bread alone ….. Get thee hence, Satan;” Ecclus. 2:1, “Son, when thou comest to the service of God prepare thy soul for temptation.”

III. On the third head it is to be noted, that four evils come upon those who are unwilling to fast when they ought — (1) The evil of iniquity: Ezek. 16:49, “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread.” (2) The evil of loss, for he who is not willing to fast will have to fast for ever from the fruit of eternal life; and this is indicated in Gen. iii. 17, where it is recorded that Adam would not abstain from the forbidden fruit; wherefore the Lord said, “Now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life ….. the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.” (3) The evil of present punishment: Ecclus. 37:34, “By surfeiting many have perished.” (4) The evil of the punishment of perpetual hunger and thirst in the lower world: Isa. 65:13, “Behold, My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, My servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty” — which relates to the “heavenly feast,” from which they who do not fast now, but “fare sumptuously every day, shall not have a drop of water even” (see S.Luke 16:9-24).

IV. On the fourth head it is to be noted, that a fourfold profit flows from fasting — (1) The mortification of vices. (2) An elevation of the mind towards God. (3) The acquisition of virtue, (4) The reward of eternal blessedness. Of these four S. Gregory says: "If thou represseth vices by bodily fasting," behold the first; "though elevatest the mind," behold the second; "thou increaseth virtue," behold the third; "thou grantest rewards," behold the fourth.

St Thomas Aquinas, Homilies on Lent #2

Age-Old Lenten Fast: One Meal a Day and Total Abstinence

Communism's Violence and Intolerance, Irrationality

"The political moralism of the 1970s, the roots of which are far from dead, was a moralism that succeeded in fascinating even young people who were full of ideals. But it was a moralism that took the wrong direction, since it lacked the serenity born of rationality. In the last analysis, it attached a higher value to the political utopia than to the dignity of the individual and it showed itself capable of despising man in the name of great objectives,... forgetting about God,... [leaving] in his place big words (and values) that are open to every kind of abuse."

Joseph Ratzinger, Subiaco Address, April 1, 2005, in Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006, 28, also published in The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, New York: HarperOne, 2008, 326 and in Joseph Ratzinger in Communio: Volume 2, Anthropology and Culture, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013, 189.

This wrongly-directed "political moralism," mentioned by Ratzinger, is very evident in today's contempt for chastity, the contempt for the sanctity and reverence of the human body (especially that of the female), and the contempt for marriage, for the marital/procreative act and for the nuclear family, and in the consequent murder of the unborn and in a general confusion regarding gender. Contraception and reproduction sterilizations are deemed "healthy" while virginity and celibacy are derided and condemned as draconian repressions of "nature," but human nature is supposedly denied. This new elite morality has abandoned basic intelligence and rational argument in favor of raw violence in the violation of the weak and defenseless person in the name of "rights," "freedom," "tolerance" and "women's health." In the name of free-speech and tolerance, this new elite forbids all discourse which might challenge its irrational politically-correct agenda.

Thursday, February 20, 2020

A Harvard Professor's Conversion to Catholicism

O Maria, sine labe concepta, ora pro nobis qui confugimus ad te

Español

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Book Sale

4 Volume complete set Pius X Breviarium Romanum, 1926 Pustet Edition; one volume: 1930. --$500
4 Volume complete set 1694 Beviarium Romanum, Antwerp. Brass clasps. --$700
15 Volume complete set Daniel Rops, Histoire de L'Eglise, 1962-1965. --$250
25 Volume complete set Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 Second Edition. --$500
15 Volume complete set The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914. Volume 14 1913 printing. --$250
16 Volume complete set Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, 1901. --$350
https://newjersey.craigslist.org/bks/d/irvington-breviary-oxford-english/7078669514.html

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Racist USA

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

The ubiquitous anti-immigration rhetoric causes me to raise a question. Why not create a legal path for the illegal immigrant to become legal? Why not create a just amnesty program, e.g. $10,000 dollar fine to regularize immigrant status for those who have been living and working here for over five years? That would solve the artificial need for a wall. The problem with that is it would eliminate the white control of the ethnically diverse nation. There are myriad towns of the nation which have a significant hispanic population but they cannot vote or hold any political office, though they are involved and exemplary in every other aspect of the life of the town! That cripples the improvement of the nation because the inhabitants thereof are not allowed to freely determine their own lives.

Another huge area in which you clearly see the racism operative in America is in real estate. There are tens of thousands of neighborhoods in America which are controlled by whites and have a policy of preferential option for whites. If you are not white the real estate agents don't want to sell to you. "For sale by owner" should be made much more commonplace to eliminate this wrongful discrimination. Federal and State law enforcement should go into towns and break up the local racist real estate policies which artificially separate our cities and our nation. There are still many places where the proverbial railroad tracks form racial barriers. If you don't want a boarder wall, the place to start is to eliminate the real estate racism.

The racist white American is a man who lives in a neighborhood with mostly white people and would frown on a black family or a Mexican family buying the houses in his block, even though they be of presumably the same socio-economic status as himself. That is racism. He would not want his white son to marry a black wife, or, what is considered even worse, his white daughter to marry a black man.

Pornography and every manner of sexual immorality, contraception, and abortion are doing to the noble Catholic hispanic immigrant family what it has already done to the American black: genocide in America. When they abort themselves to social insignificance the problem is solved by genocide. Just get them to take the pill and you exterminate them. Notice that the morning after pill has been approved for sale over-the-counter sale for over a decade. And they say abortions are down! They are not down, they are being induced earlier, by pills.

Civil Anarchy is the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Friday, February 14, 2020

6th Century Byzantine Monastery Identified in Spain


El Pais reported the recent findings on January 18, 2020. Below is a report in English from eu.greekreporter.com.

Byzantine Monastery Discovered in Spain
By Ola Goroveci January 22, 2020

Archaeological experts from the University of Alicante in Spain have recently identified the first Byzantine monastery ever found on the Iberian peninsula. They first came across several round metal objects at the archaeological site, which is located in the area of Elda, Alicante. The exact identification of these objects had proven to be a mystery since the 19th century.

In the 6th century, Emperor Justinian forced people to keep a cache of state-minted coins in the main churches of each city. In this way, merchants could show that the coinage they used in economic transactions corresponded with the official money that the Emperor had minted. The churches used to work as guarantors that buyers of precious metals were not cheated and that the coins in general use had the actual value that they were meant to have. If the operations were fraudulent, the tax revenue was lower — something the Emperor kept close tabs on. “This apparently is how the monastery of “El Monastil” functioned as a Byzantine administrative and fiscal headquarters by order of the emperor,” explains Antonio Manuel Poveda, a professor of Ancient History and director of the Archaeological Museum of Elda.

The painstaking research at Elda lasted almost 25 years due to the difficulties of identifying the architectural remains. Many different clues had been found during this time, but nothing had proven conclusive. But now, the results of the latest research have proven that what had been thought to be a Roman or Visigoth site on the highest part of a hill on the outskirts of Elda, was in fact a Byzantine basilica, the first ever built in Spain — and it functioned as an important center for fiscal administration in those times.

The first to point out the presence of possible remains at the monastery site was local municipal archivist Lamberto Amat in 1873, although he could not verify the exact date of its construction. However, 50 years ago, the organization El Centro Excursionista Eldense discovered a large number of archaeological materials, but it still was unable to identify them categorically and put them into any specific time frame. It wasn’t until the 1980s when archaeologist Enrique Llobregat could confirm what he called the “existence of a Christian monastery” at the top. He related that he had discovered some marble fragments made according to the Greek style.

Now, in addition to the set of coins with descriptions in Greek, in the last excavations, directed by Antonio Manuel Poveda, a large octagonal column base has also been found, which is typical of Byzantine architecture and unique to date throughout the Peninsula. A pyxide, or cylindrical ivory box, decorated with a scene of Hercules capturing the Cerinea deer was also found at the Elda site. Pyxides were common objects throughout the Greek world and often contained small objects. This seems to be indicative of an attempt by the Byzantines to fuse their Greco-Eastern ancestry with Western Christianity. The convent church occupied an area of about 84 square meters (904 square feet) in this hilltop religious center. Various metal items from Byzantine-era liturgical rituals have now also been found and identified, including a tiny knife (lancia), used in the preparation of the sacred bread before Communion, as well as a teaspoon (cochlear), which is still used in the Communion rite today throughout Orthodoxy. Poveda asserts “These objects constitute the only Hispanic group belonging to the Byzantine Christian ritual in Spain. In addition, North African, Oriental and local ceramic materials have also been documented, dating from the second half of the 6th century.”

The archaeologist added that in 1991, when the A-31 highway was built in this same area, a total of ten graves with 16 bodies were unearthed during construction works. Four of the people had been wearing rings engraved with the Greek letter sigma, and one of them even had a Greek cross.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Monday, February 10, 2020

The American Elite Democratic Front Runners


A homosexual, a communist, a bad Catholic and a white woman. All are pro-abortion homosexualists in the name of freedom, rights and decency.

Saturday, February 8, 2020

11 Ways for Bishops to Reform the Clergy


1. Eliminate communion in the hand, including "the cup." For rare occasions of both species make intinction the norm.
2. Orient all Masses.
3. Have a weekly Extraordinary Form High Mass in the Cathedral.
4. Enforce clerical dress (Roman collar with cassock/clerical suit) with a $500 fine.
5. Confession/spiritual direction of women/children must be in a traditional confessional, with a wall between priest and penitent.
6. Enforce priestly celibacy law according to Canon 1395, with strict penalties for external sins against the 6th commandment.
7. Promote and encourage the norms for recitation of the Breviary as per Vatican II, to be chanted in common, in Latin (SC, 99-101). Have Latin Vespers chanted daily, especially on Sundays and Solemnities, in the Cathedral, by all the clergy and staff of the chancery and Cathedral rectory.
8. Promote the traditional fasts and penances, according to the pre-Vatican II norms, e.g. Fridays, Lent, Feast Day Vigils, Ember Days.
9. Have annual diocesan-wide Cathedral patron feast pilgrimage with a Solemn High Extraordinary Form Mass, encouraging all the parishes to walk in procession, in prayer and penance, in testimony.
10 Have annual diocesan-wide Corpus Christi processions for reparation, again culminating at the Cathedral Solemn High Extraordinary Form Mass.
11. Make altar boys/men the diocesan norm. The girls/women may form female scholae, serve as ushers, hospitality, etc.

I emphasize the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy for its lack of ambiguity and because the common language and Rites of the Church are a great instrument of unity. Of course the homily would be in the vernacular(s). The language barrier is overcome by familiarity with the sacred rites and by providing worship resources in the pews with the necessary texts and translations. Besides, many people have pocket phones through which to access all relevant materials. The greatest obstacle to Latin in the liturgy is ideological and wrong-headed and must be overcome.

The Cassock Fine: Clergy Reform 101

Monday, February 3, 2020

Deus Providebit: The Present Moment


One of the principle obstacles to the interior life is lack of peace. We are never entirely in the present moment. We are groaning over what has happened, or agitating ourselves over what is about to happen or could happen. We erect a pyramid of the difficulties we have already had and those which we foresee. And then this mountain crushes us...

..."God will provide!"...

..."Seek God within yourself. Be the repose of God, and God will be your Repose."...

... Abandon the past to Mercy, the future to Providence, the present to Love. God asks only one thing of us: to love Him fully in the duty of the present moment with its joy, its labor, its suffering; to lend oneself to it with all the living forces of the soul; to open the soul wide to the overwhelming and urgent grace it bring; to yield one's soul up to it, pliant, and, at the same time, active; "to be completely faithful to the action of love in order to give each portion of grace its maximum return for His glory."...

Raoul Plus, Toward the Eternal Priesthood, New York: Pustet, 1946, 281.

Super Bowl Halftime Occult Porno Pelvic-Gyration Show


The halftime show last night was the worst I have seen. Shameful! It was most degrading of women to have women performing scantly clad on a stage on all major television networks center-staging their crotches and butts and incessantly gyrating them to the spectator throughout the show. I've never gone to a strip club but those gestures must surely be common there. The show was also filled with Satanic ritual imagery, which is brought out in the viral video below.

What is most appalling is the main-stream nature of the show and how the media are unanimously raving over it as if it were something good, as if a performance of excellence, in fact.

Which virtues, one might ask, are they praising? Is it praiseworthy for girls to show their bodies to the whole world, and not just their bodies, but the most shameful parts of their bodies, the parts that all decent people cover with the greatest decorum, and insist on keeping hidden and protected. Or is it praiseworthy to seduce men and boys to look at such lowly parts with gratification? Both actions are vices, not virtues: immodesty, lewdness, voyeurism and lust.

But in an age in which social-media nude images have become commonplace, "sexting," even for minors (which is against the law); and every manner of sexual immorality is condoned and praised; fornication in all its forms is decriminalized and promoted; and consequently condoms, contraceptive/abortifacient poisons and abortions are deemed healthy, good and necessary, it should be no wonder that pornographic cabaret has the day, and everyone seems to be OK with it.

Where are the true feminists in America (both men and women) who will stand up for the defense of the dignity of women and children, and fight back against this beastly sensationalism of the female orifices? It is a corrupt age which complacently tolerates the abuse of its women, children and...minorities. The immigrant Latin-American women of my lifetime have hitherto been renowned for their purity and modesty, in every sense, consistent with their deep and sincere Catholic Christian faith. There has been a decades-long assault also on that, the results of which were showcased last night.

Mark 9:42 ...whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Cf. The treatise on the political movement in America which promotes sexual immorality as a tool for power is E. Michael Jones, Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control, North Bend Indiana: Fidelity Press, 2018. See also Donald T. Critchlow, Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; and Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church, Export, Pennsylvania: New Engel Publishing, 2006.
"The Sex Education Movement ...has, as one of its key objectives, the promotion of a pansexual or bisexual agenda in which homosexuality and pedophilia play a key and pivotal role. The growing number of homosexual and pedophile priests and brothers, including homosexual bishops, as well as lesbian nuns, have formed a sixth column within the Church in the United States..."
1987 Randy Engel article quoted in The Rite of Sodomy, ix.

N.B. Superbowl Child Prostitution is a notorious reality finally receiving some attention, but with lewd halftime shows, there is a contradictory message. The show will glamorizes lap-dancing, but then outside we say "don't try that at home!"

Here is the video on the occult imagery.


This video shows an unmistakable masonic influence. The enemies of the Catholic Church enlist Catholic women to misrepresent and trash womanhood to make women into dogs and attempt to make that glamorous. They love to take Catholic virgins and turn them into whore icons. It is similar to what they do with politicians, e.g. Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, John Kerry... and what they have done now even with the Pope. They make a Pontiff of a confused Prelate from the most Catholic part of the globe to misrepresent and confuse the Catholic faith through deliberate ambiguity, to promote their agenda, the agenda of Satan, the father of Lies.

I call them "whore icons" because the one lives unwed in open concubinage for decades, now with her second lover who has fathered her children, and the other is now on her fifth "marriage," at least. It is no wonder that these idols of unstable homes are linked to freemasonry.