Will It!

Almost all of us in the Church have suffered or currently suffer from some sort of an addiction.  It may be a drug, porn, gossiping, cursing, procrastination, or something else but the point of the matter is we are all battling our own vices.  We might be going to Confession and telling the Priest our sins yet we feel that we are not making improvements because we fall three days later into our old ways of life.  It is very easy to listen to the Devil and to shake your head in approval as he tells you that you will never overcome this vice(s). However, success in the spiritual life requires discipline.  Yes, we need to pray because without Christ we can do nothing however we need to cooperate with the assistance God gives us.

Do not give up so easily.  Think about it this way.  You have only two choices when it comes to your vices.

1.) You succeed in conquering them and you save your soul.

2.) You fail and you go to hell.

We need to be very blunt with ourselves when it comes to these matters.

We need to will ourselves to victory because such a wonderful outcome does not come with hopeful thinking.  

Will victory and it shall be yours!

29 November 2015
First Sunday of Advent
Semidouble I Class

Last Day of the Liturgical Year!

As First Vespers of Advent approaches, let us clean our hearts to prepare for the Lord on The Feast of The Nativity!

From First Vespers,

"Fratres: Hora est jam nos de somno surgere, nunc enim propior est nostra salus, quam cum credidimus."

"And that knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed."



28 November 2015
Saturday of Our Lady

Feast Day of St. Catherine

From First Vespers,

"Haec est quae nescivit torum in delicto: habebit fructum in respectione animarum sanctarum."

"This, is one which hath not known the sinful bed, she shall have fruit in the visitation of holy souls."



Pray for us, St. Catherine!

A Warning from St. Basil The Great

From the Second Nocturn of Matins today (Last Sunday After Pentecost)

"Whenever the desire to sin cometh over thee, I would that thou couldest think of the awful and overwhelming judgment-seat of Christ. There the Judge shall sit upon a throne high and lifted up. Every creature shall stand before Him, quaking because of the glory of His presence. There are we to be led up, one by one, to give account for those things which we have done in life. Presently there will be found, by the sides of those who have in life wrought much evil, dreadful and hideous angels with faces of fire, and burning breath, appointed thereto, and showing their evil will, in appearance like the night, in their despair and hatred of mankind.

Think again of the bottomless pit, the impenetrable darkness, the lightless fire, burning, but not glowing the poisonous mass of worms, preying upon the flesh, ever feeding, and never filled, causing by their gnawing unbearable agony lastly, the greatest punishment of all, shame and confusion for ever. Have a dread of these things, and let that dread correct thee, and be as a curb to thy mind to hold it in from the hankering after sin.

This fear of the Lord the Prophet hath promised to teach. But he hath not promised to teach it to all, but only to such as will hear him not to such as have fallen far away, but to such as run to him, hungry for salvation, not to such as have no part in the promises, but to such as by baptism are born children of adoption, set at peace and oneness with the Word. Come, ye children, saith he, that is to say, Draw nigh unto me by good works, all ye who by the new birth have become the worthy children of light, hearken unto me, all ye who have the ears of your heart opened, I will teach you the fear of the Lord, even the fear of that Being of Whom we have just been speaking."

22 November 2015
Last Sunday After Pentecost

Wisdom From Flannery

"In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness, and tenderness leads to the gas chamber."

-Flannery O'Connor

20 November 2015
Feast of St. Felix of Valois
Confessor

If by Rudyard Kipling

"If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"

 

If by Rudyard Kipling 

The Joy Having Little Lads

Fr. Blake in his post today said,

"Europe is dying because Europe is not having children."

Amen.  I don't know what all this business about is when people are getting married and yet are only willing to have no kids or one or two kids.  Now, each situation is different because some people want to have many kids yet because of some mystery they cannot.  I feel for those people.  However, for those who are Catholics yet are utilizing contraception.....Come On Man!  Of course having kids can be a Cross.  Imagine working all day and then coming home to get some sleep only to be awaken by the loud cries of two little lads!!  Oh the frustration must be real.  However, there is much joy in having a beautiful Cross like this.

I'm 24 and I hope that marriage is in God's plan for me.  Come on my fellow Catholics, let's make some babies!

Look at how much the Muslims are doing even though they are doing it in the name of a false religion.

16 November 2015
Feast of St. Gertrude
Virgin

The Long Autumn and Winter

An empty ballpark at a Southern California park. 

The Mass of the Missionaries

Ever since I converted to the Church, I have always been interested in the martyrs.  I feel that to give your life for Christ is such a beautiful act of love for God which cannot be understood here on Earth.  Often in our parishes, during the Feast Day of these martyrs, their stories are told to the congregations.  Sadly, what gets left out is the fact that they received their strength from their reliance on God through the Sacred Liturgy. The Traditional Mass and the Traditional Office were their guides in their strenuous labors.  It was their connection to the Catholics of the past.  It was their connection to the missionaries that they read about when they were young.  

I have been delighted to see the FSSP and the ICKSP among others carrying on this legacy.    How sublime must it be for a Traditional Priest when he says "Introibo Ad Altare Dei..." every morning or when he starts Lauds with " Deus in adiutórium meum inténde...".   He may be sick, poor, and maybe even his missionary work seems to be failing, yet armed with the Traditional Liturgy he follows others who came before him doing the work which the Lord has called him to do.   

May the Lord continue to give many graces to traditional societies and may the Traditional Liturgy grow into the hearts of present and future Catholics. 

12 November 2015

Feast of St. Martin

Pope and Martyr 

Saints

Today is the Octave Day of All Saints.  This has been a wonderful week for those who were praying the Divine Office for the repetition brought many important points home.  Often it can seem to us that saving our souls is impossible especially when we consider our surroundings and how the world seems to have gone insane.  Nevertheless, the Saints show us that even though the task of salvation is difficult, it is not impossible.  They were humans like us yet they kept the good fight going and were victors over their passions.  As this wonderful Octave closes, let us have the Saints as our guides as we continue the delicate work of our salvation. 

8 November 2015

Octave Day of All Saints 

Chemistry, Death, Judgment

Suppose you had a Chemistry final in two weeks time and the material that you have to review/study seems to be infinite.  You are stressing over it yet five of your friends tell you that the final will not be difficult.  They say that you should relax because everyone passes it and that preparing for it would be a waste of time.  Seeing that they seem convincing, you believe them and you spend the next two weeks doing everything but study.  Finally the day of the test comes and you walk into the exam room with complete confidence that you are going to pass.  The horror arrives at the moment you see the first question and realize that you do not know how to answer it.  You look at the second....third...and fourth page and the sense of dread increases in you.  Unsurprisingly, you fail the test.

Now, suppose that you are a Catholic who attends Mass on Sunday yet never hears about the reality of death and Judgment.  Everyone around you seems to already canonize their dead realtives by saying things like,

"Uncle Jimmy was such a good man.  He's smiling in heaven right now and playing golf with Uncle Thomas."

Hearing things like this make you happy.  You say to yourself,

"I am a good man.  I go to Church on Sundays.  I don't really go to Confession that often but then again I don't commit those really big sins and the sins (wait, maybe they're not even sins!) I do commit are really minor.  Heaven is going to be great and after my great life here is finished, I am going to be there."

My friends, I bring up these two situations because I find a theme in both of them.  In both cases, we see two people who are overly confident in the reaction of their peers when it comes to a huge future event.  Sadly for them, their friends/fellow Catholics are wrongly mistaken and instead of following the time tested advice of working hard, the two folks have taken the wide path.

When our short journey here on earth is over, we will be judged.  Either we will go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.  If we die and we have a mortal sin on our soul, we will go to hell.  If we die in a state of grace, we will most likely have to enter Purgatory before entering Heaven.  If Catholics around us are not taking the reality of a strict Judgment seriously, we should never let them influence our view(s).  The Church has always recommend for Her children to take this topic of death with the utmost seriousness.  Prayer, penance, and hard work.

Labor in the Lord's Vineyard while you still have time.



Salve Regina!

Please Pray For The Faithful Departed

Seen on Zephyrinus' blog.

What a ride