non veni pacem

I’m having flashbacks to 2003, having to explain to neocons yet again that you cannot just go to war with a country that hasn’t done anything to you. At least back then (Iraq), they could blame blinded by “patriotism.” It doesn’t matter how much intel you think you have about WMDs, nukes, whatever. If the other country has taken no action against you, your preemptive aggression is unjust. While there are other, more nuanced aspects of Just War Theory, this one here is basic enough for a third grader to understand. Needless to say, the fact that this was done as proxy for a third country makes it even worse.

http://praybenedictus.com/

Updated 5:55 PM MST, June 21, 2025 Share TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency early Sunday acknowledged an attack on the country’s Fordo nuclear site. Quoting a statement from Iran’s Qom province, IRNA said: “A few hours ago, when Qom air defenses were activated and hostile targets were identified, part of the Fordo nuclear site was attacked by enemies.” The IRNA report did not elaborate. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict. There was no immediate acknowledgment from Iran of any strikes being carried out. The decision to directly involve the U.S. in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that aimed to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kilogram) bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground…

https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-war-nuclear-talks-geneva-news-06-21-2025-a7b0cdaba28b5817467ccf712d214579

American B-2 stealth bombers left the US and appeared to be heading toward Diego Garcia, a strategic military base in the Indian Ocean, on Saturday.

The warplanes were using the call sign MYTEE21, which has previously been associated with stealth bomber missions. The bombers were accompanied by eight supply planes.

The B-2 Spirit is designed for long-range strike missions and is capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear weapons.

It is the only aircraft capable of delivering the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, also known as the bunker buster bomb. Bunker busters could be used in a possible attack on Fordow, the Iranian nuclear facility buried 300ft inside a mountain.

It was unclear whether the bombers were heading to Diego Garcia or a US military base in Guam.

https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran/article/israel-iran-news-us-deploys-stealth-bombers-kkc6202r5

The Minnesota Star Tribune

“And I in him.” Read that again and again, and vow to assist at daily Mass as often as possible. You will bear much fruit.

Please, please, try to understand the power of the Eucharist. Harness Its power the way He intended for you. While we can never understand it fully, by practicing frequent worthy reception, you will quickly deepen your relationship with Him. He explained it quite plainly, even knowing the multitude would reject Him.

GOSPEL  John 6:56-59
At that time, Jesus said to the crowds of the Jews: “For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.” 

For good measure, read the entire sixth chapter of Gospel of St. John HERE.

It is the very meaning of being Catholic.

Blessed Feast, everyone!

(Sorry for the lack of posts. I am traveling for work. By all means, start following  Chris Jackson at http://bigmodernism.substack.com/)

How a Protestant misreading of Scripture may lead America into a catastrophic holy war

By Chris Jackson

Senator Ted Cruz believes the United States must support modern Israel, unconditionally, militarily, even preemptively against Iran, because of a single verse from Genesis: “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” In his eyes, this is a geopolitical strategy, authored by God.

Cruz stated it bluntly in his interview with Tucker Carlson. When asked why America should support Israel in striking Iran, even if it meant regional or global escalation, Cruz appealed not to prudence, nor to U.S. self-interest, but to Genesis 12. “Those who bless Israel will be blessed,” he said. End of story.

This is not a marginal view. It’s a core conviction of American evangelicalism, particularly among its political class. Members of Congress, presidential advisors, and even Pentagon insiders carry this belief into their policy calculations. But the tragedy is this: they are wrong.

Genesis 12: Not a Foreign Policy Manual

The passage Cruz invokes was spoken to Abram, personally, as part of God’s covenant with him and his descendants. It was not a blanket policy for Gentile nations in 2024. It certainly wasn’t a divine endorsement of whatever geopolitical entity calls itself “Israel” at any given point in history. The modern state of Israel, founded in 1948 by secular Zionists, many of them agnostic or atheist, is not a theocracy, not the Old Covenant nation, and not a valid fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

The Church Fathers knew this. Saint Paul, writing in Romans 9, makes it clear: “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” The promises of the Old Covenant were fulfilled in Christ and extended to the New Israel: the Church. “If you are Christ’s,” says Galatians 3:29, “then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” The Church, not a Middle Eastern nation-state, is the inheritor of the covenant blessings.

Yet Cruz and his fellow Christian Zionists turn this upside down. They read Genesis as though the U.S. must serve modern Israel, or else suffer divine wrath. That’s dispensationalism, a 19th-century heresy barely older than Mormonism.

From Bad Theology to Real Bombs

Cruz insists that supporting Israel means preemptively destroying Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure…

Read the rest: https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/when-bad-theology-starts-a-war-ted

“We” ??

The first reading in the Novus Ordo for today is Proverbs 8:22-31, and I find it totally sublime. The Triune Godhead is eternal, and here He is talking about Himself, through the hand of King Solomon. Blessed feast, everyone.

Thus says the wisdom of God:
“The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.

“When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race.”

Posted by the excellent thetimman at Saint Louis Catholic…

3 And when he was sitting on mount Olivet, the disciples came to him privately, saying: Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world? 4 And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you: 5 For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many.

6 And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not troubled. For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places: 8 Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. 9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another.

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. 12 And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold. 13 But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come. 15 When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand.

16 Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains: 17 And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18 And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. 19 And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days. 20 But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath.

21 For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. 22 And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. 23 Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. 24 For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. 25 Behold I have told it to you, beforehand.

26 If therefore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go ye not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. 27 For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be. 28 Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together. 29 And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. (Mt. 24)

__________________

It is never a bad time to read the 24th and 25th chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel, but they seem especially appropriate today. The riots in Los Angeles and other cities, clearly well-funded and coordinated, are ominous reminders of the appetite for evil and destruction held by so many Godless, or worse, people. On the other hand, the military mobilization for the parade announced for Saturday also triggers warnings. Existing on the internet, even for the small-fry blogger, introduces one to all of the current “rumors of wars”, so to speak.

You want the Q theory? The parade is a blind to allow the culmination of the glorious movie so-long planned out by the guardians of civilization to take down the satanic cabal of globalist pedophiles. We just have to sit back and watch. Of course, I was bid to sit and watch four years ago as the presidency was stolen by that same cabal.

So there’s that.

Naomi Wolf and Alex Jones are teaming up to predict Bolshevik revolution along with a mass-casualty event. Nice. I actually think they make a great couple.

The larger point being this: a godless society reaps what it sows. We are near the end, if one takes the proper eschatological perspective. We are two thousand years on from the Incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection and ascension of the Messias. Our days dwindle and one day will at last be the last day. These times are bad indeed. Whether or not the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart comes first or after (and it will come), we shall see that horrible day when antichrist assumes power. It hasn’t happened yet, and that time will make this seem like Xanadu.

We have a duty: love Christ, live for Him, die for Him, believe in Him and belong to His Church. Against the forces, natural and preternatural, that assail us we do not have the strength to win. We have to ask for the strength of Christ. With it, and the help of the heavenly hosts, we cannot fail.

Stay alert always. Have humility and have confidence. Cling to Our Lady.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.

Amen.

https://stlouiscatholic.wordpress.com/2025/06/12/wars-and-rumors-of-wars/