The great saint whose feast we celebrate today, Thursday, March 27, 2025, Saint John Damascene, fought the iconoclasts in his day, and while many, although far from all, of our Catholic churches are now in the hands of the conciliar iconoclasts, we can festoon our homes with images of Our Lord and Our Lady and Saint Joseph and other saints as we use these images to remind us that we are united to the saints represented in these images by means of the Communion of Saints that we hope to share Heaven with them for all eternity in the glory of the Beatific Vision. 

Today, course, is our daughter Lucy’s twenty-third birthday and the seventeenth anniversary of her First Holy Communion.

Please do pray for Lucy Mary Therese Norma Droleskey on her birthday today. Thank you.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John Damascene, pray for us.

This is a brief follow-up to a commentary published three days ago.

I am still working on the reflection that I will have vetted before publication. 

There will be a republished reflection about Saint John Damascene posted tomorrow, Thursday, March 27, 2025. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Although I am working on two other commentaries now, including the one that will be sent out for vetting prior to its publication, the news that President Donald John Trump has nominated the pro-Wuhan Virus vaccine, pro-Big Pharma Acting Director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.), Dr. Susan Monarez, to be the agency’s permanent director following his, Trump’s, withdrawal of the nomination of Dr. David Weldon serve as the C.D.C.’s director (see Sober Up in 2025) required me to prepare this brief commentary, which could just as easily been entitled, “Plus Ca Change, Plus C'est la Même Chose.

Remember, there is still an active Go Fund Me Appeal for A Used Car to which I hope that more readers will consider making a donation, either through the appeal or via PayPal.

A blessed Feast of the Annunciation to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Today's republished reflection is about the feast we today, Tuesday, March 25, 2025, the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, signifies the moment when the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, the very Word through Whom all things were made, personally entered into human history as He was made Incarnate in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who overshadowed Our Lady after she had given her perfect Fiat to the Will of the First Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Father, as that Will was made known to her by Saint Gabriel the Archangel.

The whole of human history is changed today--and no one can remain neutral about what happened on this day. If the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity really did become Man this day in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb so as to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross thirty-three years later, as we know is indeed the case, then every person and every nation on the face of this earth must acknowledge this fact and subordinate everything to the Deposit of Faith that He has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

We must pray to Our Lady every day so that we will never lose sight of the centrality of the Incarnation in our own lives and in the lives of our nations, never lose sight of the fact that Holy Mass itself is Incarnational as the Word Who was made Incarnate in her Virginal and Immaculate Womb is made Incarnate on altars of sacrifice under the appearances of bread and wine by true bishops and true priests. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ spent nine months in the tabernacle of Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb, thereby sanctifying the wombs of al mothers. He is in solidarity with every child in every mother's womb. Every abortion, whether by chemical or surgical means, is an indirect attack on the Incarnation that took place this very day.

A very brief new commentary will be published in a very few moments.

A blessed Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

The hour is late. I am tired.

This commentary discusses the results of a recent Pew Research Religious Landscape Survey that shows there is widespread acceptance of grave moral evils by self-identifying Catholics.

How did this happen?

Well, apostasy continues to have consequences, something that this commentary explains at length.

The next commentary on this site, other than my republished reflection for the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, may not appear until Thursday, March 27, 2025, the Feast of Saint John Damascene and the Commemoration of Saints Cosmas and Damian on the Thursday in the Third Week of Lent. 

A reminder:  Go Fund Me Appeal for Used Car was posted eight days ago. Three people have given via the appeal and six others have given through PayPal (and one via the snail mail). There is still a considerable amount to be raised. Thank you for your consideration of the appeal.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

I have said this before and I will keep on saying it: no matter how many bombs the Israeli Defense Forces drop on Gaza, no matter how many residential homes they destroy, no matter how many innocent civilians are killed, there will never be peace in the Holy Land or anywhere else in the world until and unless all men are converted to the true Faith and then exclaim una voce dicentes:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dóminus, Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus, qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Benedict of Nursia, pray for us.

This reflection contrasts the work of Saint Benedict of Nursia with that of the two most recent conciliar “popes.”

Much time is spent in this reflection giving attentionto Bergoglio’s denial of the commission that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ gave to the Eleven on Ascension Thursday to convert all men to the true Faith. Saint Benedict of Nursia, the father of western Monasticism and thus of Europe itself, had an intolerance for such teaching. So should we.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us. 

Dr. David Weldon’s nomination to serve as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was withdrawn by President Donald John Trump just twelve hours before Weldon was to face his first confirmation hearing before the members of the United States Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).

This commentary explains the power of Big Pharma and that the nearly invisible but nevertheless very powerful Susan Summerall Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff and former lobbyist for Big Pharma, played in the demise of Weldon’s confirmation.

As always, the commentary includes a supernatural perspective to help readers keep focused on the consequences of world where men do not submit themselves with docility and humility to Christ the King and His true Church in all that pertains to the good of souls.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Today, of course, is the great Feast of Saint Joseph, the Chaste Spouse of Our Lady, the just and silent man of the House of David. Saint Joseph denied himself his biological fatherhood in order to serve as the ever-virginal spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the most loving foster-father to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

In him, Saint Joseph, is to be found every virtue for a husband and father to imitate: patience, charity, forbearance in all difficulties, fortitude, perseverance, temperance, and total self-abnegation. Those of us who are husbands and fathers must learn to be more silent, to learn to be more loving, to learn to be more patient, to learn to be more meek, to learn to be ever-ready to worker harder and harder at our life's work so as to help our wives and our children to live as redeemed creatures here below in order to know eternal happiness hereafter in Heaven. Saint Joseph is the model of home life and the patron of artisans, the protector of widows and orphans, the patron of those who are in danger of death. May we invoke his patronage each day after we invoke that of his Most Chaste Spouse, Our Lady, and never be slow to turn to him in our spiritual and temporal needs:

"O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in thee all my interests and desires. O thou Saint Joseph, do assist me by thy powerful intercession, and obtain for me from thy divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; so that, having engaged here below thy heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of fathers. O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating thee, and Jesus asleep in thy arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near thy heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine head for me, and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. Saint Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen!"

The next original article is proceeding and should be ready for publication in less than twenty-four hours. 

Finally, here is a link to Father Francis X. Weninger's Three Sermons on the Feast of Saint Joseph.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

A blessed Feast of Saint Joseph to you all! 

As I was unable to complete the next original commentary yesterday, Monday, March 17, 2025, the Feast of Saint Patrick and the Commeoration of Monday in the Second Week of Lent, I am excerpting a section from an article on the true purposes of education from six years ago to include the section concerning Dom Prosper Gueranger's reflection on Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, whose feast we celebrate today, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, and the Commemoration of Tuesday in Lent, and our Saint's contribution to Catholic catechesis and education. This is a relatively short commentary that is interspersed with my own interjections on a subject about which I had dedicated over three decades of a college professor of political science, although, of course, I have always considered the work of Christ or Chaos, whether in its printed life (1996-2004) and in its digital existence (February 20, 2004, to the present) as educative in nature.

Today, March 18, 2025, is the forty-third anniversary of the death of my mother, +Mrs. Norma Florence Red Fox Droleskey, who was the adoptive daughter of Chief Red Fox, at the then named Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she had spent her adolescent years until she joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1943 at the age of twenty-two, at the age of sixty-one years, twelve days. My mother died of stomach and esophageal cancer that had been diagnosed on Friday, January 29, 1982, just six weeks before she died. Most of that time was spent at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Hospital in Houston, Texas. It is hard to believe that I am now over twelve years older than she was at the time of her death. How the time has flown. Prayers for the repose of her immortal soul would be very much appreciated. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and all of the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Today is also the eighthteenth anniversary of the death of the late +Father Daniel Johnson, who was ordained to the Holy Priesthood in 1954 and served as the pastor of Saint Mary by the Sea Church in Huntington Beach, California, form 1979 to 2004. Father Johnson was very zealous for souls. He personally walked the boundaries of the parish three times during his quarter-century pastorate, visiting (or leaving his card with an invitation to join the Catholic Church if no one was present to answer his knock) every residence and business to encourage fallen away Catholics to the return to the Faith and to invite non-Catholics to convert. Father Johnson brought five hundred fifty-four souls into the Faith, including Mohammedans, Jews, and Mormons. Sharon herself was baptized at the hands of Father Johnson on July 31, 1999, nearly twenty months before I met her on March 11, 2001 at Saint Mary by the Sea Church as I was giving the “Living in the Shadow of the Cross” lecture program. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all of the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

It was also on this date in 2008 that Mrs. Theresa Colgan, the mother of a former student of mine from Saint Francis College in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1985-1986 academic year, died. Please pray for her immortal soul as well. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and all of the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen,

There are also several birthday intentions that will be remembered in our own prayers today. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.