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(excerpts from Matthew Plese via 1P5, link at the end)

“Lent, founded upon the three pillars of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is the primary season of penance in the year and must be observed with the greatest strictness for the love of God who instituted this season for our healing. Due to the primordial importance of Lent, over time, the history and customs of observed prayers, fasting and abstinence, and almsgiving have formed a definitive part of annual Catholic life. This Lent, adopt some of these – especially the fasting principles – which our forefathers in the Faith gladly observed.

“Lenten fasting is a cornerstone of Lent and rediscovering true Catholic fasting for Lent is necessary to resurrect Christendom. The Lenten fast began under the Apostles themselves and was practiced in various forms. St. Augustine in the fourth century remarked, “Our fast at any other time is voluntary; but during Lent, we sin if we do not fast.” At the time of St. Gregory the Great at the beginning of the 7th century, the fast was universally established to begin on what we know as Ash Wednesday. While the name “Ash Wednesday” was not given to the day until Pope Urban II in 1099, the day was known as the “Beginning of the Fast.”

“For more information on how the Lenten fast quickly deteriorated even more in the 1900s, see the article Fasting in the 1900s Pre-Vatican II.

…

“Lent also has a focus on prayer and this thankfully is still seen by the many Catholics who gladly continue to pray the Stations of the Cross each Friday of Lent, which has indulgences attached to them for those who meet the conditions. In addition to this practice, praying the indulged prayer to the Cross each Friday in Lent should be something more Catholics rediscover. Additionally, each day of Lent has a special stational church in Rome. These churches often have a connection to the Traditional Mass readings and prayers of that day – especially for catechumens – and reading about the daily stational churches is a worthwhile practice this Lent. Similarly, we would be remiss if we did not try to attend Holy Mass more often during this sacred season and, even for those days we cannot attend, read the prayers of the Missal since everyday of Lent has a proper Mass…

…

“Almsgiving refers to giving to the poor. By giving to the poor, we make reparation for sins as we see in the poor the person of Christ Himself. Though, while not strictly almsgiving, the giving of our time to visit the sick, the elderly, or those in prison also makes reparation for sin. Our Lord at the End of Times will judge everyone, and He will judge us against the works of mercy. Everyone will be judged against them.

“May the restoration in our own lives this Lent of increased prayer, fasting, and almsgiving be for the glory of God and the glory of Christendom.”

Read the rest:

https://onepeterfive.com/forgotten-customs-of-lent/

Originally posted February 13, 2024

Did Lent sneak up on you? Here are some tips.

Blessed waning Carnevale (the correct spelling, as it translates as “Meat, goodbye” carne vale). As such, it is a Catholic celebration when properly observed, and it lasts for weeks, not just one day. Alas, most of us no longer really say goodbye to meat/eggs/butter for all of Lent, as used to be required of all the faithful. Being a Keto/no carbs person for over 20 years, I am thankful for that.

Another thing that used to be required was actual fasting. As in, days with zero food. If you have never done it, you really should. It’s not even hard, especially when there are only two days when it is currently required. Examine your conscience; do you really think fasting means three meals a day, as the current discipline suggests?

Zero. Just do it. Once you’ve done it once, you will actually look forward to it. Come back and call me a liar if I’m wrong.

It would be different if it were multiple days or weeks in a row of course, in which case some sustenance would be needed. But for ONE day, come on. Zero calories, folks. Water, coffee, and no-calorie electrolytes are okay. It really is a fine way to start off towards your Lenten goals. Note well, those latter two things DO violate the Eucharistic Fast, which allows only water to be taken.

Speaking of goals, commit to them in writing. Post them on your fridge or some other prominent place. Here are some things that have been going through my head:

Commit to a limited number of things you will practice DAILY. Needless to say, this starts with the Rosary. If you can commit to daily Mass, it is highly recommended. Daily Mass in the TLM is really special during Lent, because each day has its own proper Mass, every single day of Lent. It is like being on a journey. Rosary and Mass, and we are now committed to one hour per day.

Now stop. Before you go further, do NOT attempt to take on the workload of a cloistered religious. You will fail, probably by the end of the week, get really discouraged, and be off to a rotten Lent. Instead, start small, and add things if you are able. Make your list aspirational, for sure, but start out smaller.

What about other structured prayer? Last year I did Benedictus and Divine Intimacy every day. This year I am moving mental prayer up the priority list, putting Adoration first. If you have never sat in quiet conversation with our Lord, or if it has been a long time, maybe try to get back to it. 15 minutes after Mass is a good place to start, but getting the solid hour once a week is where the heavy lifting gets done. The most effective way to do this is attempt to converse for the first 30 minutes, then shut up and listen for the next 30. He speaks in whispers.

Next on my list are books. How big is that stack of books you ordered, but haven’t read yet? It’s embarrassing. Constantly confessing wasting too much time on the internet, yet that stack hasn’t gotten any smaller. I am doing something about that this Lent.

There are still a few hours left, and I still have a few more things I’m mulling. Leave your best ideas in the combox!

Two more resources on fasting HERE and HERE.

Blessed Lent, everyone.

By Roberto Wakerell-Cruz

Senate Democrats blocked a bill on Monday that sought to prohibit trans-identifying men from competing in women’s sports. The legislation, which required 60 votes to advance, failed in a 51-45 party-line vote. Democrats overwhelmingly favor the notion that men who say they are women really are actual women.

The bill aimed to define Title IX protections based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” which it had been until changes made under the Biden administration. Republicans say the issue as a matter of fairness in women’s athletics, with President Donald Trump signing an executive order last month directing federal agencies to enforce Title IX as it was originally intended when it was added as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act in 1972.

“Around the country we have seen men — biological men who identify as women — take up spaces and medals in athletics meant for actual women,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “This is a matter of fairness and equality.”

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-senate-fails-to-pass-protecting-women-and-girls-in-sports-act-after-every-democrat-backs-men-in-womens-sports?utm_campaign=64510

Interesting take from “Rifleman” over at menofthewest.net :

…Trump understands one thing very clearly: money. They fund all of this at our expense. That’s the one thing we learned very early in the DOGE efforts. I think none of us realized just how pervasive this really was. Even George Soros dipped into the USAID money rather than his own pocketbook for much of the grief he has dealt us. And USAID is only the tip of the iceberg.

Get it through your heads. We have ONE CHANCE to fix this, and it won’t be done by pitching fits about justice and retribution, nor by squashing the DEI brigade, correcting America’s views on immigration, or even de-Zionizing the GOP. All that can come later. We need to cut off their oxygen supply at all other costs as our primary goal. Because if they get back in power, the retribution we saw from 2021-2024 was nothing compared to what they will visit upon us in 2029.

Trump saw their Achilles Tendon, and it is that the Left does not know how to earn an honest buck, plain and simple. They have built up a ridiculously complex system of financial legerdemain in order to hide it from us, but most of it comes right out of our pockets, via Uncle Sam. Get rid of that and Clown World’s circus tent collapses. Focus on that goal. Focus on defunding all of the madness. Then, when that is done, we can start on the long-term goals.

Also remember: we don’t need as much money as they need. This is another truth they are terrified of our discovering. We do not need a $7 trillion/year federal budget. We don’t need it because we are about family and community, not institutions and organizations. This is why another master stroke by Trump would be to end the United States income tax and shutter the Internal Revenue Service. We don’t need even a tenth of the things our hard-earned money and unasked-for debt has gone to. Trump is absolutely correct that tariffs and excise taxes would easily support all legitimate responsibilities of the Federal government, actually returning power to the people…

Read the rest: https://www.menofthewest.net/i-want-to-see-arrests/

You really have to watch the first 40 minutes of Zelensky being a total bitch, to understand why the fireworks happened. Apparently he had been acting that way all day, and towards the entire WH staff. Like he owned the place, the way it was under Biden. He wasn’t groveling, he was issuing orders. At one point he starts trying to renegotiate the mineral deal, talking about “security guarantees.” Calling Putin a terrorist and many other things. Clearly not ready or wanting for peace.

In his final visit to America, the bad actor had his “I would like to have seen Montana” moment.

Timestamps are from @thatsKAIZEN

2:00 Trump compliments Zelenskyy 4:00 Zelenskyy calls Putin a terrorist 12:00 Trump cracks joke with Zelensky 13:56 Zelenskyy interrupts Trump 17:20 Zelenskyy throws his hands up in seeming frustration 19:00 reporter asks Zelenskyy why he’s not wearing a suit 19:22 Trump commits to sending arms to Ukraine 19:41 Zelensky raises eyebrows and rolls eyes at Trump’s statement 22:55 Trump takes the edge off of the suit question by joking with Zelensky that he likes his outfit 23:49 Zelensky contradicts Trump and keeps painting Putin in a negative light 24:19 Zelensky says Putin will never accept ceasefire and pushes for American security guarantee 25:55 Zelensky says Putin hates Ukrainians 27:00 Zelensky says Putin should pay all reconstruction costs 29:19 Zelensky shakes head as Trump speaks 32:22 Zelensky says Putin wants to annex Poland 32:30 Zelensky says Putin will attack America 33:00 Zelensky interrupts Trump 39:19 This is when Trump went on the offensive by calling out Zelenskyy hatred for Putin and started to escalate 39:14 Vance says Zelensky has been disrespectful, and conversation continues to escalate 42:40 Apparently calls Vance “suka”, meaning bitch, under his breath.

Then the real fun begins, for seven full minutes.

Whoops! That’s sure going to put a dent in the multi-billion dollar trafficking laundering!

Reposted from Fr. James Altman on X:

The USCCB, as a client of USAID, must follow the Administrative Procedures Act in a dispute. Instead some bishops filed a lawsuit. Consequently they lost their client status. In other words, they get no more of our tax dollars to aid and abet their treasonous crimes against the people.

Do NOT be fooled. As much as 74% of Catholic Charities revenues went to salaries and benefits for employees, another percentage to illegals, leaving only a smaller percentage to help poor American citizens.

The corrupt and anti-Catholic USCCB just defunded itself!!

Through their pervert abuse and cover up, and through locking faithful Catholics out of God’s churches, they already lost the financial support of the Faithful.

Now they lost the taxpayer’s money train.

Here’s the notice from the Trump administration.

Reportage from The Pillar:

State Dept. terminates USCCB migration funds

The State Department canceled a contract with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Thursday, likely bringing to a halt a nationwide effort organized by the USCCB to provide resettlement services for refugees to the United States.

In a Feb. 26 letter, U.S. State Department comptroller Joseph Kouba told the USCCB that its financial agreement for refugee resettlement “is immediately terminated as of Feb. 27, 2025,” because the grant “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

“Effective immediately upon receipt of this Notice of Termination, the Recipient must stop all work on the program and not incur any new costs after the effective date cited above. Payment requests for legitimate costs incurred prior to this notification are allowable.”

The government’s decision came after the USCCB filed Feb. 18 a lawsuit which challenged a federal decision to suspend federal funding for refugee assistance programs administered by various Catholic Charities outlets across the country, with the USCCB distributing funds and serving as coordinator of the programs.

https://www.complicitclergy.com/2025/02/28/in-their-haste-to-sue-trump-us-bishops-just-shot-themselves-in-the-foot/

This was her Four Seasons Landscaping moment, if you know what I mean. It also reminded me of Romney’s “binders full of women,” if you know what I mean. Does anyone know what year Clown World really started?

Well, now she’s telling Kash FAFO. Is it all theater? Tune in tomorrow.

By Father David Nix|February 27th, 2025

There is a mysterious line from Our Lady of Akita which continuously haunts me.  If what happened in Akita, Japan is a genuine apparition, then the Mother of God said the following: “The only arms [weapons] which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son.”  I believe that means the Rosary and the Sign of the Cross with be the best (and possibly only) prayer weapons during a certain dark time of Church history which would probably come upon man in the 21st century.

Many Catholics believe Akita is the rosetta stone to understanding Fatima.  If true, the Mother of God appeared to a deaf nun named Sr. Agnes Sasagawa for several apparitions and locutions (yes, miraculous since she was deaf.)  On the 13th of October 1973 (the same year abortion was legalized in the USA and only a few years after the end of Vatican II) Sr. Agnes claims Mary said the following to her:

“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres… churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

Many people believe this is upon us with the current scandals in the Church reaching fever-pitch as never before.  But right before that warning, Sr. Agnes said Our Lady warned even more specifically:

“As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.”

Could this mean nuclear war?  Could this mean most Catholics would be left without the sacraments?  It seems to say that the only prayer for many Catholics will become the Rosary and the Sign of the Cross. That seems to imply either a loss of civilization or valid sacraments or both.

But perhaps the message is not to depress us so much as to prepare us.   It is great to go to weekly confession, but we must be spiritually prepared to not need it.  It is great to go to daily Mass, but we may have to become spiritually prepared to not even have weekly Mass.  (I’m not saying I want any of these things, of course, but it appears such a punishment could be upon us if Akita is a valid apparition.)

If such is the case, then we shouldn’t mope about but rather we must maintain great courage and hope that the Rosary itself will then bring down the necessary graces for perseverance in this time of Church history.  This is because it seems to me that never in any Marian apparition in 2,000 years have we ever heard a warning like this:   “The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son.”

I assume that is the sign of the cross, so we should get good at that too. And by “good,” I mean slow, not fast.

Catholic Charities: Insurrection As Charity

By Maureen Mullarkey

Below is the flyer distributed by Catholic Charities via diocesan churches in February. It speaks for itself. My local parish ran it in the weekly bulletin early in the month. I asked the pastor whether he had included the flyer at his own initiative. Or was it a diktat from the New York archdiocese?

I hoped it had been obligatory. But, no. It was the pastor’s own decision to broadcast it for the benefit of any parishioners who had reason to make use of it.

Herewith:

The flyer was bilingual, printed in both English and Spanish. My parish added an addendum of its own:

Impacting immigrants. The wording skirts the truth. Immigrants are not the targets of ICE. They are lawful applicants for entry into the country. The only people “impacted” by the executive order are illegal migrants—law-breaking aliens, to be precise.

It does not to occur to enough churchmen that illegal migrants are, in effect, thieves. They are stealing resources from American citizens. Perhaps this is because good men, who themselves live on donations, are habituated to seeing the United States as the ultimate donor? I dislike the thought. But I cannot shake it.

The Manhattan Institute estimates that that every new illegal immigrant has an average net fiscal burden of about $130,000. The study finds that immigrants without a high school diploma who arrive in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 24 – the profile “most commonly represented among immigrants who entered the country unlawfully,” – can receive $332,000 in taxpayer-provided benefits over their lifetime, including healthcare and other welfare program benefits. The report also details that “the border crisis is expected to cost $1.15 trillion over the lifetime of the new immigrants who entered the country unlawfully, overstayed a visa, or were paroled.”

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that the 1.1 million illegal aliens granted parole by the Biden-Harris Administration between January 2021 and February 2023 may become “qualified aliens” with a $3 billion per year cost in welfare benefits…

Read the rest: https://studiomatters.com/catholic-charities-insurrection-as-charity