Revised and Expanded: Saint Lucy, An Immovable Foe of Religious Liberty and False Gods

The saint whose feast we celebrate today, Saint Lucy, resisted all efforts made by the civil authorities to induce her to worship the idols when a suitor, who was angered by her rejection of him after she had given away her riches to the poor, betrayed her as Christian to the pagan officials of the Roman Empire in Syracuse, Sicily, at the beginning of the Fourth Century A.D., in the year 304 A.D.

Saint Lucy could have saved her life if only she worshiped the idols. Unlike the conciliar "pontiffs," men who have esteemed the symbols of various and sundry false religions, with their own consecrated hands, Saint Lucy refused to do so and was immovable when taken to a house of sin. She refused even to look upon the vice that was before her.

May this immovable foe of religious liberty help us to see more clearly with the eyes of our immortal souls that the Catholic Church cannot be in the least responsible for the abominations and blasphemies and sacrileges and defections from the Faith perpetrated by the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

May Saint Lucy, a model of purity and gentleness and grace and courage, help us to see so clearly that we flee to the catacombs where the Faith is protected without any concessions to conciliarism.

A blessed Feast of Saint Lucy to all who are named after this great witness to the Faith, especially my dear wife, who took Saint Lucy as her patron at Baptism, and our dear daughter, Lucy Mary Therese Norma, who has, of course, a special devotion to the virgin and martyr from Syracuse, Sicily.

I ask your prayers also for the repose of the soul of the late Father Salvatore V. Franco, who died on this day twenty-one years ago now. Father Franco, who suffered from serious heart problems but died of a form of leukemia that he only found out he had weeks before he died, was good enough to offer us refuge in his kitchen in Westbury, Long Island, New York, in April of 2002 until November of 2002 as he offered the Immemorial Mass of Tradition for us each weekday.

Although I had long before abandoned the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination on Sundays as I moved in "indult" circles, we made the decision to abandon all putative "offerings" of this abominable travesty during the week when Father Franco took ill and before he died. Father Franco, who was ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn in June of 1953, had a heart attack in 1963 at the age of thirty-seven, an act of God's Divine Mercy that kept him from being immersed in parish life as the conciliar revolution proceeded apace. Father Franco kept active, however, offering Mass and helping souls. We will be forever grateful to him for providing us with the refuge that he did in the months after Lucy's birth. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen. We still miss you, Father Salvatore V. Franco!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Forgettable Men Such as Christopher Ashley Wray Will Answer to Christ the King at the Particular Judgment

Each of us is going to face an exacting scrutiny of all our thoughts, words, and deeds at the moment of our Particular Judgment, which is why we must make a thorough Examen of Conscience every night before we go to sleep.

Although United States Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who is sharp as a tack at the age of ninety-one and who will be the Chairman of the United States Senate's Commiteee on the Judiciary once the one hundred nineteenth Congress convenes on Friday, January 3, 2025, has sent a withering letter to the outgoing Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Ashley Wray, itemizing the numerous ways in which the FBI's open politicization that began under Wray's sanctimonious predecessor, , continued and expanded under Wray's watch for the past seven years, Grassley's well-documented with footnotes aplenty review of the FBI's indemnification of the Obams, the Clintons, and the Bidens and its targeting of regime opponents, such as former and future President Donald John Trump, pales into insigificance with the scrutiny he will receive when bright light of Christ King shines in the darkest recesses of Wray's immortal soul at the Particular Judgment. Wray will not be able to obfuscate at that time nor will he able to say he has to fly to Atlanta, Georgia, to avoid answering for his many injustices and misuse of the public trust.

Then again, each one of us is going to be subjected to that same scrutiny. However, it is one thing to be aware of accounting we must make to Christ the King of the stewardship of the graces He has bestowed upon us, but it quite another to be smug in this life as to think that there will be no accoutability in the next. 

Pray for the conversion of the malefactors who abound in public life as we beg Our Lady for her graces every day for our own daily conversion away from sin, selfishness, and pride so that we can ever ready to face her Divine Son whenever He comes and under whatever circumstances we find ourselves when He will ask us to be that accounting of our lives.

Work on part seven of "Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini" continues. I am sorry for the delay. However, I am trying to be very methodical in its composition.

Our Lady of Guadauple, pray for us.

Four Hundred Ninety-Three Years Later: The Americas Will Always Belong to Our Lady

Two articles on Our Lady of Guadalupe are being republished today, Thursday, December 12, 2024, Each has been slightly revised and, of course. In addition to this article, there is also May We Be Made as Simple and Trusting: On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe that was published in four parts back for the first time in 2010. The commentary is also included in To Live in Light of Eternity, Volume 1 (Revised).

A fuller description of today’s feast is found in the introduction to May We Be Made as Simple and Trusting: On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe below. A Spanish language translation of this commentary that was prepared by the late Mr. Juan Carlos Areneta ten years ago can be read at: Las Américas Pertenecen a Nuestra Señora.

Finally, please pray for my younger brother (and only sibling), who turns seventy-one years of age today. Our late mother died on March 18, 1982, and our father died on September 5 1992. The years have certainly passed quickly.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not on the universal calendar of the Catholic Church nor is it a mandated feast in the United States of America except in the Archdioceses of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Santa Fe as well as in the Dioceses of Monterery, Fresno, Tuscson, and El Paso. We can nevertheless celebrate with joy on the Advent ferial day.

A new commentary will be published within forty minutes of this posting.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

May We Be Made as Simple and Trusting: On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

[N.B. The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not on the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. According to the General Roman Calendar of 1954, this feast is particular to the Archdioceses of San Francisco and Los Angeles and to the Dioceses of Monterey, Fresno, El Paso, San Diego, and Tuscon. This having been noted, however, today is an Advent ferial day upon which a votive or requiem Mass may be offered. Thus, this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe should celebrated as widely as possible.]

Our Blessed Mother gave us two great miracles on this day four hundred ninety-two years ago this very day.

Acceding to the demand of Apostolic Administrator [later Archbishop] Fray Juan de Zumarraga, O.F.M., the Mother of God saw to it that Castilian roses grew atop Tepeyac Hill so that her little "Juanito," Juan Diego, a fifty-five year-old widower to whom she had first appeared on December 9, 1531, could provide proof that it was she who had made the request of Fray de Zumarraga to build a shrine in her honor on the hill where she appeared. 

The administrator's guards, who had treated Juan Diego with such cruelty and even racism, spied those roses and tried to grab them out of Juan's tilma as he waited to see Fray de Zumarraga. The roses, quite miraculously, disappeared every time the guards sought to snatch them away from Juan Diego. Those Castilian roses were presented by Juan Diego to Fray Juan de Zumarraga, who knelt before the Indian convert to the Faith as he gazed upon the miraculous image that Juanito did not know was there: the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who was clearly expecting the Baby Jesus. 

Remember, this was Advent in the year 1531, just forty-nine years after Christopher Columbus first set foot on the Island of San Salvador to implant the Cross of the Divine Redeemer in this hemisphere for the first time since Saint Brendan the Navigator had done so in the First Millennium.

Our Lady's miraculous image showing her expecting the Baby Jesus is quite symbolic of the expectant desire she had then—and has now—for the conversion of the peoples of the Americas to the true Faith, that each person and each nation be born anew as they submit themselves to Christ the King through His Catholic Church. Over nine million indigenous people converted to the true Faith within a short time following her apparition to Juan Diego on this day four hundred ninety-two years ago, almost person for person the number of people lost to the Faith as a result of the Protestant Revolt in Europe. It was almost as though God was saying to those who left, “Fine. I will have My Mother get new souls to populate Holy Mother Church and hence Heaven itself.”

The Americas were indeed converted to Catholicism, which is why the devil had to attack the Faith in Latin America with such ferocity by means of the Masonic revolutionaries who were supported in both philosophical and monetary terms by the lodges in the nascent Untied States of America. Great crimes were committed against Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Most Blessed Mother as a result. These crimes continue to this day, which is, of course, one of the reasons that Saint Michael the Archangel appeared with Our Lady as she spoke to Juan Diego. Our Lady has crushed the head of the serpent with her heel and Saint Michael the Archangel is our helper to crush him in our own lives and in the Americas where he reigns, albeit temporarily, in civil government and in popular culture.

May we rely upon the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Empress and Patroness of the Americas, to help us to be courageous enough to plant seeds for the conversion of the Americas, including the United States of America, to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by the Catholic Church.

Perhaps an extra Rosary today on this glorious feast day will help us to be more faithful and more courageous in our promotion of the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen. 

Finally, today is my only brother's (and my own sibling's) seventy-first birthday. Please pray for him today. Thank you.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe!

A blessed Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to you all.

Punished for the Thought Crime of "Faithism"?

As I believe that I have said all that I needed to say about Father Joachim Heimerl's false ecclesiology when I wrote the introduction to the re-posting of Memorandum from Saint Ambrose to All Catholics: “The Catholic faith derives so much strength and support from the words of the Apostolic See, that it is criminal to entertain any doubts concerning it,”  I have decided to write a commentary about a high school student in Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, Josh Alexander, who is being fined $47,000 by the supposedly "Catholic" school district in which he is enrolled for committing the thought crime of "faithism" when he used Sacred Scripture to prove that there are only two genders. male and female. Such actions can never emanate from the Catholic Church, and we must pray that this young man comes to see that fact and avail himself of the true Sacraments where they can found in London, Ontario. 

As Syrian strongman Bashir al-Assad has been overthrown by Mohammedans intent on making what was a cradle of Catholicism in the first few centures of the Holy Faith, we need to pray for the Catholics and other Christians in Syria. Much like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Assads have ruled by the amoral use of brute force. However, they did, albeit not without various restrictions, protect Syrian Christians, whose fate now will be determined by faithful, not secular, Mohammedans who do not necessarily cotton to "infidels." 

Thus, this will all be incorporated into the text of "Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini, part seven." which I hope to have published by Tuesday, December 10, 2024, the third day in the Octave of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the commemoration of Pope Saint Melchiades.

Finally, as a reminder, the Donations page has been updated as the need for non-tax-deductible financial gifts is very urgent at this time. I have received several donations in the last two days. However, the money has gone to pay bills and thus the need still exists to raise about $2350. Thank you.

 

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8, 2024

I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION." Those words, uttered by the Mother of God herself to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in the Grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, France, on March 25, 1858, was a Heavenly ratification of the solemn, infallible proclamation of the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus.

"I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION."

Our Lady was conceived in the womb of her holy mother, Good Saint Anne, without any stain of Original or Actual Sin in anticipation of the merits that would be won by her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on the wood of the Holy Cross. She, the Singular Vessel of Devotion, had the perfect integrity of Adam and Eve before their Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden.

It is important, therefore, to get the doctrine of Original Sin right in order to understand the great miracle worked by God in the soul of the fairest flower of our race, Our Lady, from the very first moment of her Immaculate Conception. To get anything about the doctrine of Original Sin wrong leads to the efforts on the part of Modernists to deconstruct the doctrinal definitions of Original Sin and of the Immaculate Conception.

Alas, the Catholic Church, our Holy Mother on earth, our Mater and Magister, is as spotless as the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary. Holy Mother Church does not deconstruct infallible dogmatic definitions. Holy Mother Church cannot do so, which is why we need to pray to Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces and our Immaculate Queen, to help us to make no concessions to the counterfeit church of conciliarism that has promulgated an abominable "liturgy" and whose officials feel feel to "reinterpret" dogmatic truths according to Modernist propositions that have been condemned by the authority of our spotless Mother on earth, Holy Mother Church.

Mindful of the effects of our own sins on our immortal souls and of our need to make reparation for them to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, may we make the Secret prayer for today's Holy Mass our own:

"Receive the saving Victim we offer to Thee, O Lord, on the solemn feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary: and grant that, as we confess that by Thy prevenient grace she was kept free from every stain of sin; so, by her intercession, we may be delivered from all our offenses. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God."

A number of prayers from The Raccolta in honor of Our Lady's Immacualte Conception can be found in Appendix A. Appendix B contains material on the Immacualte Conception as found in The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

A blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you all!

Republished: Memorandum from Saint Ambrose to All Catholics: “The Catholic faith derives so much strength and support from the words of the Apostolic See, that it is criminal to entertain any doubts concerning it.”

This is one of those articles whose titles are self-explanatory, However, I do want to explain why I republishing this article now on the Feast of Saint Ambrose and the Commemorations of the First Sunday of Advent and of the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

The Society of Saint Pius X's district superior for the district of Germany, Father Joachim Heimerl, has published an article on LifeSite News in which he plainly says that the conciliar sect is run by "old homosexual men" and that this sect is plainly at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church. At the same time, though, he still believes that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is "Pope Francis, who turns eighty-eight years of age on December 17, 2024:

Meanwhile, the Antichrist reigns in the house of the Lord, and the Pope himself has erected an idolatrous altar to him with Fiducia Supplicans. It will not be the last, should Francis remain in office for much longer.

I would disagree with all those who attest that Francis is not the legitimate pope and that this is the only reason why these hair-raising conditions are possible. There is no other pope but Francis. But it probably took a pope like him to expose the workings of Satan in the Church and take it to the extreme. Yes, Francis is the legitimate pope, and he is pope not to the glory of God but to the eternal shame of the Apostolic See, which he has desecrated with Fiducia Supplicans.

And yet: perhaps God only wanted to make the disfigurement of His Church visible through Francis in order to restore it through a worthier successor to Peter? Who knows?

Until then, it is important to listen to the voices of the right men, namely those who do not represent “gay heresy” and thus their own disposition, but who, like Bishop Strickland, are the voice of God. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Mt 11:14). (Fr. Heimerl: Francis' 'synodal church' is controlled by old homosexual men.)

This is what passes for ecclesiology in the Society of Saint Pius X: the heresy of Gallicanism. 

Well, even though I have to put aside my ongoing work on part seven of "Benedictus Qui Venit Nomine in Domini, part seven," by writing a commentary about the continued triumph of the sodomite agenda within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, this republished commentary that I am offering today is about as direct a rebuttal of Father Heimerl's false ecclesiology that I can offer. 

Holy Mother Church is inerrant. She is incapable of making any terms with error of any kind:

In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

As a reminder, the Donations page has been updated as the need for non-tax-deductible financial gifts is very urgent at this time. Thank you.

Oh well, I will be back at work on the computer later today.

A blessed Feast of Saint Ambrose to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus I (whose feast is on December 11 but who is mentioned in this commentary), pray for us.

Revised and Expanded: Saints Nicholas of Myra and Ambrose of Milan Opposed Heresy with Zeal for the Honor and Glory of God

Work continues on the next original article.

For today, however, I offer the readers of this site revised and expanded reflections on two saints who opposed heresy, Saint Nicholas of Myra and Saint Ambrose of Milan. 

Also, the Donations page has been updated as the need for non-tax-deductible financial gifts is very urgent at this time. Thank you.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas of Myra, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose of Milan, pray for us.

Victims Only of Their Own Mendacity, part two

I very much wanted to have this second part of my two-part series completed by yesterday, which is why the appendix contains Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on Saint Peter Chrysologus as found in his The Liturgical Year.

However, I could not complete this commentary by this time yesterday. I apologize for the delay.

Another original commentary will appear in a day or two, and an updated Donations page will also be posted as well, which means that, yes, non-tax-deductible financial gifts are very much needed right now.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.

Saint Barbara, pray for us.

Saint Sabbas, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier: A Rigid Fundamentalist Who Sought the Conversion of Infidels

A Novena in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which begins today and ends on December 11, 2024, can be found in the appendix to this reflection.

Part two of my current series should be published around this time tomorrow, Wedneday, December 4, 2024, the Feast of Saint Peter Chrysologus and the Commemoration of Saint Barbara. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, S.J., pray for us.

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