The FSSP is in for a very rough time… if you know, you know.
Saint Margaret Mary did not shrink from the task at hand; let her be our model
Today is the Feast of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.
Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary, and requested three primary things from her:
- To promote the reality of His physical, human, Sacred Heart
- To establish the First Friday devotion
- To establish the Feast of the Sacred Heart
Think about this. Who was St. Margaret Mary?
She was a cloistered nun in far rural France in the 17th Century. How do you think she reacted when tasked with her mission? Do you suppose she threw up her arms, thinking it surely impossible that someone like her could be in a position to accomplish these things? How on earth was she supposed to create and spread a worldwide devotion from her tiny cell at the cloister in the 1680s? Can you imagine her saying, “But Lord, it’s too much. But, how? Why me? Boohoo.”
Except that’s not how people with faith, hope, and love react to seemingly unsolvable situations. This is especially true if one knows that the desired outcome, nay, the INEVITABLE outcome, is directly willed by God Almighty, who can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, and use anyone He pleases to accomplish the task.
Act, and God will act.
From a letter of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, virgin:
« We must know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge »
It seems to me that our Lord’s earnest desire to have his Sacred Heart honored in a special way is directed toward renewing the effects of redemption in our souls. For the sacred heart is an inexhaustible fountain and its sole desire is to pour itself out into the hearts of the humble so as to free them and prepare them to lead lives according to his good pleasure.
From this divine heart three streams flow endlessly. The first is the stream of mercy for sinners; it pours into their hearts sentiments of contrition and repentance. The second is the stream of charity which helps all in need and especially aids those seeking perfection to find the means of surmounting their difficulties. From the third stream flow love and light for the benefit of his friends who have attained perfection; these he wishes to unite to himself so that they may share his knowledge and commandments and, in their individual ways, devote themselves wholly to advancing his glory.
This divine heart is an abyss of all blessings, and into it the poor should submerge all their needs. It is an abyss of joy in which all of us can immerse our sorrows. It is an abyss of lowliness to counteract our foolishness, an abyss of mercy for the wretched, an abyss of love to meet our every need.
Therefore, you must unite yourselves to the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, both at the beginning of your conversion in order to obtain proper dispositions, and at its end in order to make reparation. Are you making no progress in prayer? Then you need only offer God the prayers which the Savior has poured out for us in the sacrament of the altar. Offer God his fervent love in reparation for your sluggishness. In the course of every activity pray as follows: “My God, I do this or I endure that in the heart of your Son and according to his holy counsels. I offer it to you in reparation for anything blameworthy or imperfect in my actions.” Continue to do this in every circumstance of life. And every time that some punishment, affliction or injustice comes your way, say to yourself: “Accept this as sent to you by the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ in order to unite yourself to him.”
But above all preserve peace of heart. This is more valuable than any treasure. In order to preserve it there is nothing more useful than renouncing your own will and substituting for it the will of the divine heart. In this way his will can carry out for us whatever contributes to his glory, and we will be happy to be his subjects and to trust entirely in him.
(End quote)
Happy Feast!
Take solace, and gain resolve, from the wisdom of St. Teresa of Avila
Happy Feast of St. Teresa of Avila. Selected quotes below from the great reformer of the Carmelites and Doctor of the Church. Oh how we love her. Apply these gems to yourself, exactly as you find yourself in today’s battlespace:
“Trust God that you are where you are meant to be.”
“It is certain that the love of God does not consist in experiencing sweetness or tenderness of heart but in truly serving God in justice, strength and humility.”
“God aids the valiant…both to you and to me He will give the help needed.”
“It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found / not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater.”
“Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with Him continually, and you will not sin, will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.”
“I had many friends to help me to fall; but as to rising again, I was so much left to myself, that I wonder now I was not always on the ground. I praise God for His mercy; for it was He only Who stretched out His hand to me. May He be blessed for ever! Amen.”
“To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.”
“How is it, Lord, that we are cowards in everything save in opposing Thee?”
“Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life…. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.”
“We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can, namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.”
“Let nothing disturb thee, nothing affright thee; all things are passing; God never changeth.”
“Time is but a shadow, a dream; already God sees us in glory and takes joy in our eternal beatitude. How this thought helps my soul! I understand then why He lets us suffer….”
“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
“What a great favor God does to those He places in the company of good people!”
“To have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that.”
Happy feast! -nvp
Columbus in his own words
Friendly reminder that the so-called “indigenous peoples” of the Americas were utter savages through and through. From the Indian to the Aztec to the Inca and even the Maya. Yes, the oh so kind and gentle Maya you learned about in the 70s and 80s with their tender maize and beans… just recently had their ancient script deciphered, and it turns out they too were inconveniently murderous. The “stolen land” folks will never admit that the pre-Columbian state of these great lands was that of perpetual warfare and slaughter. You’ll need to go learn it for yourself. Columbus conquered in the name of Christ the King. Happy Columbus Day!- nvp
h/t Donald R. McClarey:
Pope Leo flatly states that Columbus was guided by God on his voyage of discovery. That is certainly in accord with what Columbus himself thought, as demonstrated by this excerpt from his letter to Raphael Sanchez, Treasurer of Ferdinand and Isabella, reporting on his first voyage:
“But these great and marvellous results are not to be attributed to any merit of mine, but to the holy Christian faith, and to the piety and religion of our Sovereigns; for that which the unaided intellect of man could not compass, the spirit of God has granted to human exertions, for God is wont to hear the prayers of his servants who love his precepts even to the performance of apparent impossibilities. Thus it has happened to me in the present instance, who have accomplished a task to which the powers of mortal men had never hitherto attained; for if there have been those who have anywhere written or spoken of these islands, they have done so with doubts and conjectures, and no one has ever asserted that he has seen them, on which account their writings have been looked upon as little else than fables. Therefore let the king and queen, our princes and their most happy kingdoms, and all the other provinces of Christendom, render thanks to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has granted us so great a victory and such prosperity. Let processions be made, and sacred feasts be held, and the temples be adorned with festive boughs. Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven in the prospect of the salvation of the souls of so many nations hitherto lost. Let us also rejoice, as well on account of the exaltation of our faith, as on account of the increase of our temporal prosperity, of which not only Spain, but all Christendom will be partakers.”
https://the-american-catholic.com/2024/10/12/pope-leo-xiii-and-christopher-columbus/
US sending air defense battery and American troops to Israel
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel, along with the troops needed to operate it, the Pentagon said Sunday, even as Iran warned Washington to keep American military forces out of Israel.
Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorized the deployment of the THAAD battery at the direction of President Joe Biden. He said the system will help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October.
The delivery of the sophisticated missile defense system risks further inflaming the conflict in the Middle East despite widespread diplomatic efforts to avoid an all-out war. The Iranian warning came in a post on the social platform X long associated with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who noted the earlier reports that the U.S. was considering the deployment.
Israel is widely believed to be preparing a military response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack when it fired roughly 180 missiles into Israel.
In a brief exchange with reporters before leaving Florida on Sunday, Biden said he agreed to deploy the THAAD battery “to defend Israel.” Biden spoke at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa after making a quick visit to to see the damage caused by Hurricane Milton..
Happy Fatima Day! Virgin Most Powerful, pray for us!
“If men knew what eternity is, they would do everything to amend their lives.” -St. Jacinta
The Miracle of the Sun took place 107 years ago today, as foretold and promised by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. She had previously revealed the vision of Hell – the fact that it’s a real place and that real people are in it (First Secret), the need for reparation and the means by which we are to pursue it (Second Secret), and… the vision of the Bishop in White, part of the still not fully revealed Third Secret. One can surmise quite well what the still secret secret might contain.
“Make sacrifices for sinners, and say often, especially while making a sacrifice: O Jesus, this is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” As Our Lady spoke these words she opened her hands once more, as had during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now following back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me do). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. HERE
Sister Lucia later commented that this vision was so terrifying, she believed she would have died on the spot had Mary not previously assured the children their place in Heaven.
Terrified and as if to plead for succor, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:
“You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.
“This war will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light [this occurred on January 28, 1938], you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.
“To prevent this, I shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every month Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins-of the world. If my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, bringing new wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred and the Holy Father will have much to suffer; certain nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy a period of peace. In Portugal the faith will always be preserved…”
Here we have the establishment of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the prophesy of WWII, the desired consecration of Russia, the First Saturdays, etc.
About the “certain nations will be annihilated”… does everyone understand the magnitude of baby murder? We really need to stop using the word abortion… 1.5 Billion babies murdered worldwide just since 1980. That’s the same number of total people who were alive on the planet when this prophesy was made in 1917.
Now again the Third Secret is still being partially concealed by the Vatican. No time to go into the particulars, but you can do your own research. Here is part of the portion which has been revealed:
And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in white; ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions.
“We had the impression it was the Holy Father.” It just doesn’t make any sense that Lucia would add that qualifier, does it? Those in the Vatican, when parsing the true and complete Third Secret, which must be absolutely horrific, thought that this passage was not particularly relevant, or in any case surely harmless to release to the public. In 1917, or 1960, or 2000, who would have thought twice about a (singular) bishop in white, or the possibility of their being more than one? As in, “a bishop in white, who maybe was NOT the Holy Father.” And the mirror… if you watch someone pass in front of a mirror, what do you see? You see the true person, and you see a mirror image of the true person… an inversion/reverse of the true.
One thing is for sure. Pope Benedict knew the real Third Secret. Everything going on in the Church and the world is bound up in it.
Boeing really isn’t going… and it is much worse than previously known
I don’t see how this ends well. FedGov bailout, probably. -nvp
(AP) – Boeing plans to lay off about 10% of its workers in the coming months, about 17,000 people, as it continues to lose money and tries to deal with a strike that is crippling production of the company’s best-selling planes.
Boeing had already imposed rolling temporary furloughs, but Ortberg said those will be suspended because of the impending layoffs.
The company will further delay the rollout of a new plane, the 777X, to 2026 instead of 2025. It will also stop building the cargo version of its 767 jet in 2027 after finishing current orders.
Boeing has lost more than $25 billion since the start of 2019.
About 33,000 union machinists have been on strike since Sept. 14. Two days of talks this week failed to produce a deal, and Boeing filed an unfair-labor-practices charge against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
As it announced layoffs, Boeing also gave a preliminary report on its third-quarter financial results — and the news is not good for the company.
Boeing said it burned through $1.3 billion in cash during the quarter and lost $9.97 per share. Industry analysts had been expecting the company to lose $1.61 per share in the quarter, according to a FactSet survey, but analysts were likely unaware of some large write-downs that Boeing announced Friday — a $2.6 billion charge related to delays of the 777X, $400 million for the 767, and $2 billion for defense and space programs including new Air Force One jet, a space capsule for NASA and a military refueling tanker.
Police find bag of drugs labeled ‘Definitely not a bag full of drugs’
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) – Authorities in Oregon pulled over a stolen vehicle and found a bag full of drugs.
Portland Police officers found a stolen car near SE 162 and Division. When officers pulled over 37-year-old Mia Rochelle Baggenstos and 35-year-old Reginald Lamont Reynold, they found more than just a stolen car.
While searching the vehicle, they found a bag labeled “Definitely Not a Bag Full of Drugs” full of drugs, along with scales, money and a loaded handgun, the Police Bureau said in a post on X.
Prayers work. More proof.
Under another post there was a comment from a reader who is a meteorologist about storms and prayer. HERE The parish priest prayed and had a procession against the storm. It inexplicably split and went around the parish.
I had the exact same experience once in Wisconsin when a storm bank with tornadoes was barreling down on my exact location, as indicated on the TV coverage with radar, right down to the addresses and time stamps. I went onto the porch, put on my stole, and recited the Litany with the prayers against the storm. Back inside, I watched as a baffled weather man said that the storm had split. The really bad went to the south and to the north around me. I’ve recounted this before.
Also, just a while ago, I wrote of an Italian priest who used the older ritual against a flood and it subsided, BAM!
When I say that bishops and priests should pray with the Litany, I mean it.
Thank you for your prayers. Please keep them going, now for those with losses and for the safety of those who must deal with the aftermath.
Loss of life was very low. 20 people? Is that not a miracle in itself?
Prayers are still needed. People are hurting. Everything is generally a mess, and will be for some time. Still over 2.2 million households without power.
Sunday is Fatima Day. Go to Confession tomorrow.
Milton goes in like a lion and out like a lamb, Thanks be to God
Image: Tampa Bay Times / ZUMA Press
UPDATE 4:35pm Eastern 10/10/24: Still 3 million without power, so please keep praying.
That must have been a terrifying night. The winds were over 100 mph in many places, along with over 90 tornadoes. All my friends and relatives are safe, with most losing only trees. I offered a Rosary in thanksgiving first thing this morning.
Did our prayers have effect? I have no idea. But I do know enough to always offer prayers of thanksgiving, every single day, for any and all blessings in your life. No matter what you are going through, graces and blessings are being offered.
I noticed two interesting things in the case of Milton.
First, the incredible speed with which it moved through. After taking five days to barely cover a hundred miles, once it made landfall it moved very fast, clearing the entire peninsula in a matter of hours. It was out over the Atlantic by daybreak.
Second, what happened to the 12-15 foot storm surge? Yes there was flooding, and mobile homes will be mobile homes, but there was no re-arranging of barrier islands, which is what a 15 foot surge will do. Where did it go? Winds at landfall were 120 mph. So where did all that water go?
Anyway, I am off to Mass and will offer my Communion in thanksgiving as well. Thanks also to all who prayed with me!