Are there Celtic or German origins of Halloween?

I know that there are some Celtic or Germanic elements to the holiday that we’ve come to embrace as Halloween. Which traditions are Catholic and which are not?

The festival is not ethnic or nationalistic. It is Catholic. Certainly there were regional appropriations of the festivals of the Church, and Halloween was no exception, but bottom line these festal days belonged to the Church as a whole which meant pretty much all of Europe. You might have some customs that were specific to regions, but the festival itself is a distinctly Catholic practice.

There are some folks that have come to believe that there is some association of Halloween with a pagan festival called Samhain, but this is not really the case.

In terms of customs that are specific to Catholicism, it is all pretty much derivative from the kinds of stuff that you find in the public festivities of Catholic culture. In this regard Mardi Gras is probably the best point of reference. We think of Mardi Gras and its attendant festivities as specific to one day, but it used to be that that kind of festival environment occurred with great frequency throughout the Church’s year. Think of all the customs associated with Halloween as a Mardi Gras before All Saints Day and I think you get a perspective in regards to all the excess and tomfoolery. The party was meant to culminate in Solemn Worship, after which one returned to the routine of life.


Unfortunately, the Church has surrendered the party to the secular culture. It has happened with Halloween. It is happening with Christmas.

http://www.ucatholic.com/blog/halloween-and-catholicism/

How is Halloween related to All Saints and All Souls?

What is the relation of Halloween to All Saints/All Souls? Which came first?

The practice of a festival day to honor the whole communion of Saints, rather than that just a single saint, seems to happen for the first time in the Catholic Church with the consecration of the Pantheon in Rome as a public place for the Church’s worship. This happened in the year 609 (or 610) on May 13th. The Pantheon had been originally dedicated for the use of Roman religion as a place where all the gods would be honored. Boniface displaced the images of the gods from their shrines and gave the building over to the Saints of the Church, particularly the Martyrs. This was a kind of “in your face” to pagan culture. Boniface was saying that the old gods had been defeated and were defeated by the faith of the Church’s Martyrs.

Also, May 13th was a day associated in Roman religion with what was called the festival of the Lemurs or ancestral spirits. It is likely that Boniface’s choice of this day to claim the Pantheon for Christian worship was intentional and it was a way of saying that the Martyrs are the great ancestors of all the baptized and it is their memory and witness that is rightly honored on the day that Romans recalled their ancestors.

How we get from May 13th to November 1st is interesting. The festival of All Saints seems to emerge from the dedication of another Roman church that was consecrated by Pope Gregory III. The church is named St. Peter and all the Saints. It was a subsequent pope, Gregory IV, who extended the annual festival that commemorates this church dedication to the whole Church as All Saints Day. The extension of festivals specific to the Church of Rome is an part and parcel of how the Catholic Faith becomes the underlying cultural matrix from which a new kind of European civilization would emerge.

All Souls Day (celebrated November 2nd) seems to emerge with the growth and spread of monastic communities and the practice of commemorating deceased members of monasteries. This practice gained broad cultural traction and in time was extended to the whole Church.


Halloween is the precursor to All Saints Day and as such is kind of like what December 24th is to Christmas Day. Remember, the calendar of the Church is filled with festival days, all of which were once associated with great, public celebrations. A holy day of obligation has not always meant spending 45 minutes in church for Mass and then going back to work. Holy Days were times for a party and if you look at the Church’s calendar, past and present, with this ethos in mind you will discover that the reasons for a party happened with great frequency..

http://www.ucatholic.com/blog/halloween-and-catholicism/

Can My Deceased Loved Ones Contact Me?

Are all dead people able to visit the living?

When the deceased make an appearance, they often come either to aid the living or to ask the living for help. They might request, for example, that prayers and Masses be said for them, or they might ask that certain papers of a confidential nature be destroyed. Sometimes a deceased relative of a person in need of the sacraments comes to inform a priest of the situation and to show him where the one in need is to be found.

  

How would the dead obtain the power to visit the living?

St. Augustine answered simply: “Through God’s secret ordinance.” It happens with divine permission and through divine power.

And why would God allow ghosts to visit?

Apparently, to accomplish spiritual missions for themselves or others.  That’s why, if you ever do encounter some kind of apparition, the best thing to do is to pray for the soul and have Masses said for his or her repose.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/do-catholics-believe-in-ghosts

Do You Believe In Ghosts?

Do Ghosts Exist?

Our first task is to address the fundamental issue here: Do ghosts in fact exist? To answer that question we must define “ghost.”

According to Webster’s, the word means “the soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit.” That seems to fit best the popular use of the term, so we’ll accept it as a working definition. We should keep in mind, then, that in the present discussion, “ghost” does not refer to an angel or demon, a poltergeist or even an extraterrestrial. Rather, it’s that part of a human being which is not corporeal (bodily), and which has been separated from the body through death.

With this definition, Catholics should readily affirm that ghosts do indeed exist.  After all, it’s a fundamental part of Catholic belief that the human being is a union of soul and body; that at death, the soul and body are separated; and that after death, though the body usually decays, the soul survives, awaiting the Last Judgment, when the body will at last be raised and reunited with the soul.

From a Catholic perspective, then, not only the souls in hell and purgatory, but also the saints in heaven can be called ghosts (with the exception of Our Lady, who is not a disembodied spirit because her body was assumed with her soul into heaven). The question for Catholics, then, is not whether ghosts truly exist. They do. The more pressing question is whether disembodied human souls, in the present time before the Last Judgment, are able to manifest themselves to those still alive on earth.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2013/10/do-catholics-believe-in-ghosts.html

October 31: A Day in Germany That Lives in Infamy

On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.

In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called "indulgences"—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.

Luther's frustration with this practice led him to write the 95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German and distributed widely. A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent, however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.

The term "Protestant" first appeared in 1529, when Charles V revoked a provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose whether they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of princes and other supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance to God trumped their allegiance to the emperor. They became known to their opponents as Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all who believed the Church should be reformed, even those outside Germany. By the time Luther died, of natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary beliefs had formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation, which would over the next three centuries revolutionize Western civilization.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses?et_cid=56988099&et_rid=704938710&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.history.com%2fthis-day-in-history%2fmartin-luther-posts-95-theses

Why is the Music Scale Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti Do?

More Mental Floss  . . .

Solmization, or the practice of assigning syllables to the different “steps” of the scale, originated in ancient India. Fast forward a few thousand years, when Isidore, the Archbishop of Seville during the sixth century, lamented that "Unless sounds are remembered, they perish, for they cannot be written down." A Benedictine monk who was also a master of music named Guido d'Arezzo set to work to prevent so many sacred tunes from being lost. 

Brother Guido was familiar with solmization, and noted that most of the Gregorian chants popular at that time could easily be learned by singers if they could see the tone progression up and down the scale, and associate it with the sound. He assigned the notes of the scale—C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C—a syllable: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. (We know what you're thinking: Yes, it actually is SOL—it's traditionally written that way when the tonic notes are spelled out, and often referred to as the "sol-fa scale" colloquially—but that final L is hard to hear thanks to the LA that follows.)

Those weren’t just random sounds he chose; they came from “Ut Queant Laxis,” a well-known hymn of the Middle Ages that was chanted for vespers. Each succeeding line of the song started one note higher than the previous one, so Guido used the first letters of each word of each line: UT queant laxis, REsonare fibris: MIre gestorum , FAmuli tuorum: SOLve, etc. “Ut” was eventually deemed too difficult pronounce and was changed to “Do.”

Did the Guido method work? Well, as Rodgers and Hammerstein later put it, “When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything!”

http://mentalfloss.com/article/53280/why-are-notes-tonal-scale-called-do-re-mi

Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/53280/why-are-notes-tonal-scale-called-do-re-mi#ixzz2j9NhK6jw
--brought to you by mental_floss! 

Complete History of Coffee Making

The Complete History of Coffee Making in one visual . . .

http://visual.ly/complete-history-coffee-making

50 Years Later: The Greatest Beatles Performance of All Time

Months before the The Ed Sullivan Show, the band played a seven-song set for Swedish radio that settles any doubt about their electrifying live presence.

One of the most pervasive misconceptions about the Beatles is that they were awful as an in-concert act. The myth, as I recall my eighth-grade music teacher putting it, says the Beatles weren’t even playing up there on stage most of the time. They were only pretending to because no one could hear them anyway. And then when they did play, they weren’t much good, relying as they did on studio time and trickery to make their records sound nice. . .

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/50-years-later-the-greatest-beatles-performance-of-all-time/280801/

The Art of Manliness while Dining

Did you know about all of these rules?

I didn’t know about the napkin in the lap within one minute, the napkin to the left of the plate after eating, or the 4:20 position for the silverware.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDTB7jsc0UY#t=283

3 Visions of Hell

Reports from three people who have seen hell . . .

“All Was Thick Darkness”: St. Teresa of Avila

“The entrance seemed to be by a long narrow pass, like a furnace, very low, dark, and close. The ground seemed to be saturated with water, mere mud, exceedingly foul, sending forth pestilential odors, and covered with loathsome vermin. At the end was a hollow place in the wall, like a closet, and in that I saw myself confined. All this was even pleasant to behold in comparison with what I felt there. There is no exaggeration in what I am saying. [...]

“I felt a fire in my soul. I cannot see how it is possible to describe it. My bodily sufferings were unendurable. I have undergone most painful sufferings in this life… yet all these were as nothing in comparison with what I felt then, especially when I saw that there would be no intermission, nor any end to them. [...]

“Left in that pestilential place, and utterly without the power to hope for comfort, I could neither sit nor lie down: there was no room. I was placed as it were in a hole in the wall; and those walls, terrible to look on of themselves, hemmed me in on every side. I could not breathe. There was no light, but all was thick darkness. [...]

“Afterwards I had another most fearful vision, in which I saw the punishment of certain sins. They were most horrible to look at… [...] I have read of the diverse tortures, and how the devils tear the flesh with red-hot pincers. But all is as nothing before this; it is a wholly different matter. In short, the one is a reality, the other a picture; and all burning here in this life is as nothing in comparison with the fire that is there. I was so terrified by that vision,--and that terror is on me even now while I am writing,--that though it took place nearly six years ago, the natural warmth of my body is chilled by fear even now when I think of it. [...]

“Caverns and Pits of Torture”: St. Maria Faustyna Kowalska

“Today I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one’s condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it - a terrible suffering, since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God’s anger; the fifth torture is continual darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and, despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies.

“These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of their sufferings. There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable  sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like.”

“A Vast Sea of Fire”: Sister Lucy of Fatima

“The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned].

The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell 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 fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me).

The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals.” 

http://www.aleteia.org/en/religion/article/3-absolutely-terrifying-visions-of-hell-5574001

10 Reasons Catholics Love Football

by Matthew Archbold Sunday, October 20, 2013 8:31 PM Comments (21)

I was watching a little football this weekend and thought of a number of reasons that Catholics should love football.

10) There's a fair and a foul. There's in and there's out. Catholics believe in good and bad, good and evil. We're used to drawing lines.

9) There are rules. Football has a rulebook. Catholics have the catechism. When in doubt if something is good or bad, check the Catechism.

8) While there are many people out on the field, there's a few out there who dress a little differently and wear funny hats who have more authority to decide the rules. That one's self explanatory 'cause you know, bishops and Cardinals dress a little differently.

7) There's a hall of Fame where those who came before are acknowledged, appreciated and respected. Catholics are big into recognizing those who came before and calling on them.

6) Someone's keeping score. And let's face it, in the end, that's what really matters.

5) You must always be aware that time may be running out. Catholics always want to be aware that there may not be much time left. This game has consequences and you might not get a two minute drill.

4) Many are rooting against you. They may be loud or they may seem silent. But they are many who are definitely against you.

3) If there's a bad call, there's a way to make it right. Football has instant replay. Catholics have confession.

2) It's all about the down and out. See the clever worldplay there? You get it? The down and out is a pattern in football and Catholicism is all about those who are down and out.

1) Sometimes the best plan is just to take a knee. 'Nuff said.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/10-reasons-catholics-should-love-football#ixzz2j8msK25S

Refuge From The Coming Obama Zombies' Apocalypse

At First, I Thought This Was A Top Secret Facility. Then They Opened The Doors And… WHOA.

The zombie apocalypse may never happen, but hey, maybe it’s a good idea to own a house like this just in case. The fortress is virtually indestructible. Thieves, rioters and even an army couldn’t get in once you lock up.

It’s perfect. Especially if you hate socializing.

http://www.viralnova.com/zombie-house/

Why do images of St. Jude depict him carrying a painting of Jesus?

An interesting legend is told about St. Jude, the well-known saint of the impossible whose feast we celebrate today.  The story is that a king in ancient Turkey suffered from a terrible disease. He heard about Jesus and wrote him a letter, asking for a cure. Along with his letter, he sent an artist to paint Jesus’ face. Since Jesus couldn’t go to the king, he sent Jude, along with the artist’s painting. Through this image and through Jude’s prayers, the king was healed. That’s why images of Jude depict him holding a painting of the face of Christ.

This legend tells us something important about Jude and about all the saints. They really don’t heal anybody. In the story, the image of Jesus was key to this man’s healing. All the power that the saints have ever had to heal comes from the Lord: “It was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured… . By his stripes we were healed” (Isaiah 53:4, 5). Jesus is our healer, our comforter, our Savior.

But this legend illustrates another important point: Jesus needs saints. Jude was just a man like us, a sinner who was redeemed by the Lord. But God used him to bring healing and hope to thousands of people—and he still does today, centuries after his death! Jude shows us that we carry in our hearts the treasure of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to transform the world in God’s image. He shows us that we can become saints, just as he did.

Hey, Jude

October 28:  Saints Simon and Jude

Jude is so named by Luke and Acts. Matthew and Mark call him Thaddeus. He is not mentioned elsewhere in the Gospels, except, of course, where all the apostles are mentioned. Scholars hold that he is not the author of the Letter of Jude. Actually, Jude had the same name as Judas Iscariot. Evidently because of the disgrace of that name, it was shortened to "Jude" in English.

Simon is mentioned on all four lists of the apostles. On two of them he is called "the Zealot." The Zealots were a Jewish sect that represented an extreme of Jewish nationalism. For them, the messianic promise of the Old Testament meant that the Jews were to be a free and independent nation. God alone was their king, and any payment of taxes to the Romans—the very domination of the Romans—was a blasphemy against God. No doubt some of the Zealots were the spiritual heirs of the Maccabees, carrying on their ideals of religion and independence. But many were the counterparts of modern terrorists. They raided and killed, attacking both foreigners and "collaborating" Jews. They were chiefly responsible for the rebellion against Rome which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Don't You Wish We Had A Leader Like This Guy?

I wish the USA had a leader like this . . .

Australia’s new Prime Minister calls the carbon tax Socialism hiding as Environmentalism and says it will be abolished to strengthen the economy.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/aussie-pm-carbon-tax-is-socialism/

Epic Music For The End Of The World

This is the music that runs through my head every time I pour myself a bowl of cereal and then realize I'm out of milk.   (It also makes my time in the bathroom an epic experience.)

Dies Irae by Mozart:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqaARDsiJv4

It’s also the tune that will be played at the end of the world (and used to be played at Requiem Funeral Masses when there used to be such things).

King Henry V Speech on St. Crispin's Day

Watch this speech from the movie Henry V - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM

This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

October 25: St. Crispin's Day

Saint Crispin's Day falls on 25 October and is the feast day of the Christian saints Crispin and Crispinian (also known as Crispinus and Crispianus, though this spelling has fallen out of favour), twins who were martyred c. 286.^[1] It is a day most famous for the battles that occurred on it: the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the Battle of Balaklava (Charge of the Light Brigade) during the Crimean War in 1854 and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific theatre in 1944. The Battle of Agincourt was dramatised by William Shakespeare in Henry V featuring the St. Crispin's Day Speech in which Henry inspired his much outnumbered English forces to fight the French saying "the fewer men, the greater share of honour".

The feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian is 25 October. However, these saints were removed from the liturgical calendar (but not declared to no longer be saints) during the Catholic Church's Vatican II reforms. The reasoning used by Vatican II for this decision was that there was insufficient evidence that Saints Crispin and Crispinian actually existed. The feast remains as a "Black Letter Saints' Day" in the calendar of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662) and a "commemoration" in Common Worship (2000).

What Prayer Must You Say At Least Once A Day

Rabbi, how should we pray?

Pray in this manner . . .

Our Father, who art in Heaven . . . and lead us not into temptation . . .

Why would God lead us into temptation?

Actually, this is a matter of translation that can be confusing.   We are asking God to not allow us to yield to temptation.

Sins come from consenting to temptation. We ask God not to lead us into temptation, meaning "do not allow us to enter" or "do not let us yield to" temptation. God cannot be tempted and he tempts no one. This petition asks him to block our way into temptation and to give us the Spirit of discernment.

The Spirit helps us to know the difference between trials (needed for our spiritual growth) and temptations (which lead to death). We also discern between "being tempted" and "consenting to temptation" realizing that some things seem desirable but their fruit is death. "There is a certain usefulness to temptation. We discover our evil inclinations" (Origen).

The Next Step In The Homosexual Left's Crusade

The next homosexualist goal: elimination of “age of consent”, license for pedophiles

Posted on 21 October 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The next step in the homosexualist agenda is to eliminate the “age of consent” limit.   They approach their goals through creeping (and creepy) incrementalism.  They will eventually rehabilitate even pedophilia, with the consent and aid of the mainstream media and liberals everywhere, even within the Church.

From LifeSite (I’ll cut some bits out, but read the whole thing over there):

The homosexual Left’s new crusade: Normalizing adult-child sex

by Matt Barber

Mon Oct 14, 2013 11:53 EST
October 11, 2013 (WND) – So much for the left’s “consenting adults” rhetoric on sex. Forever the consummate conservationists, our self-described “progressive” friends at the ACLU, MSNBC and elsewhere have been ramping-up efforts to downsize from “consenting adults” to merely “consenting” – a far less cumbersome qualifier in the noble struggle for unrestrained sexual license.

Tolerating “intergenerational romance” for “minor-attracted” adults is all the rage these days.

[...]

Here’s the answer: There is no question. There is categorically a movement to normalize pedophilia. I’ve witnessed it firsthand and, despite “progressive” protestations to the contrary, the “pedophile rights” movement is inexorably linked to the so-called “gay rights” movement.

Two years ago I – along with the venerable child advocate Dr. Judith Reisman – attended a Maryland conference hosted by the pedophile group B4U-ACT. Around 50 individuals were in attendance, including a number of admitted pedophiles (or “minor-attracted persons,” as they euphemistically prefer).

Also present were a few self-described “gay activists” and several supportive mental-health professionals. World renowned “sexologist” Dr. Fred Berlin of Johns Hopkins University gave the keynote address, opening with: “I want to completely support the goal of B4U-ACT.”

Here are some highlights from the conference:

Pedophiles are “unfairly stigmatized and demonized” by society.“We are not required to interfere with or inhibit our child’s sexuality.”“
Children are not inherently unable to consent” to sex with an adult.

An adult’s desire to have sex with children is “normative.” [NB: Not "normal" but "normative".]

“These things are not black and white; there are various shades of gray.”

A consensus belief by both speakers and pedophiles in attendance was that, because it vilifies MAPs, pedophilia should be removed as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, in the same manner homosexuality was removed in 1973.

Dr. Fred Berlin acknowledged that it was political activism, similar to the incremental strategy witnessed at the conference, rather than a scientific calculus that successfully led to the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder: [Did I mention "creeping incrementalism"?] The reason “homosexuality was taken out of DSM is that people didn’t want the government in the bedroom,” he said.

[... some ugly stuff here...]

You may think that such abject evil simply represents the fringe of today’s sexual “progressivism.” It doesn’t. It represents the honest.

Consider, for instance, that during Obama’s first term, the official website for the Department of Health and Human Services linked to “parenting tips” that referenced children as “sexual beings” and suggested that they should experiment with homosexuality and masturbation.  [From the First Gay President!]

You may also recall that Mr. Obama appointed Kevin Jennings, founder of the “Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network,” or GLSEN, to the post of “safe schools czar.” The position is now defunct, ostensibly due to national outrage over Jennings’ appointment.

[...]

Again, read the rest there.

Mark my words, dear readers.  Do you think this isn’t going on?  You are deluding yourselves.

For decades our society has been slowly but surely and purposely shifted by those in control of the mainstream media and entertainment industry.

At first, because of the rise of AIDS, active homosexuals were constantly portrayed as innocent, though perhaps quirky, victims. Once the notion of homosexuality was shifted from its moorings and a new status was created in the minds of the public, another shift took place in the media. Now, TV shows and movies are saturated with homosexuals who are far more sophisticated, with it, intelligent, good looking than their more dysfunctional heterosexual counterparts. Victim time is over. It is cool to be “gay”.

For years an artificial sub-culture has been carefully crafted.  It is busting out into a “new normal”.

The are more goals down the line.

You can see where this is going.

I also direct your attention to an article in First Things back in 2009.  Already this trend was being noticed by others.  HERE  One point in the article is that even through pedophila lost its “cool” aspect among elitists along the way, it is regaining it.  It was being rehabilitated in some circles.  That was in 2009.

Keep your eyes on this, friends.  It is going to get a lot worse.

Liberal Lament

Since I voted for Obama, my taxes have gone up, gas has doubled, my employer stopped offering health insurance, my wife and sons have lost their jobs, my Momma's welfare check is late, and they are trying to take my guns away. 

Damn you George Bush!

Murdered by the Mohawks

October 19 –  Eight Jesuit Martyrs of North America - t. Isaac Jogues, St. Jean de Brebeuf, and Companions

Isaac Jogues and his companions were the first officially recognized martyrs of the North American continent officially recognized by the Church. As a young Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, a man of learning and culture, taught literature in France. He gave up that career to work among the Huron Indians in the New World, and in 1636 he and his companions, under the leadership of John de Brébeuf, arrived in Quebec. The Hurons were constantly warred upon by the Iroquois, and in a few years Father Jogues was captured by the Iroquois and imprisoned for 13 months. His letters and journals tell how he and his companions were led from village to village, how they were beaten, tortured and forced to watch as their Huron converts were mangled and killed.

An unexpected chance for escape came to Isaac Jogues through the Dutch, and he returned to France, bearing the marks of his sufferings. Several fingers had been cut, chewed or burnt off. Pope Urban VIII gave him permission to offer Mass with his mutilated hands: "It would be shameful that a martyr of Christ be not allowed to drink the Blood of Christ." Welcomed home as a hero, Father Jogues might have sat back, thanked God for his safe return and died peacefully in his homeland. But his zeal led him back once more to the fulfillment of his dreams. 

In a few months he sailed for his missions among the Hurons.

In 1646 he and Jean de Lalande, who had offered his services to the missioners, set out for Iroquois country in the belief that a recently signed peace treaty would be observed. They were captured by a Mohawk war party, and on October 18 Father Jogues was tomahawked and beheaded. Jean de Lalande was killed the next day at Ossernenon, a village near Albany, New York.

The first of the Jesuit missionaries to be martyred was René Goupil who, with Lalande, had offered his services as an oblate. He was tortured along with Isaac Jogues in 1642, and was tomahawked for having made the Sign of the Cross on the brow of some children.

Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649): Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit who came to Canada at the age of 32 and labored there for 24 years. He went back to France when the English captured Quebec (1629) and expelled the Jesuits, but returned to his missions four years later. Although medicine men blamed the Jesuits for a smallpox epidemic among the Hurons, Jean remained with them.  He composed catechisms and a dictionary in Huron, and saw 7,000 converted before his death. He was captured by the Iroquois and died after four hours of extreme torture at Sainte Marie, near Georgian Bay, Canada.

Father Anthony Daniel, working among Hurons who were gradually becoming Christian, was killed by Iroquois on July 4, 1648. His body was thrown into his chapel, which was set on fire.

Gabriel Lalemant had taken a fourth vow—to sacrifice his life for the Native Americans. He was horribly tortured to death along with Father Brébeuf.

Father Charles Garnier was shot to death as he baptized children and catechumens during an Iroquois attack.

Father Noel Chabanel was killed before he could answer his recall to France. He had found it exceedingly hard to adapt to mission life. He could not learn the language, the food and life of the Indians revolted him, plus he suffered spiritual dryness during his whole stay in Canada. Yet 

he made a vow to remain until death in his mission.

These eight Jesuit martyrs of North America were canonized in 1930.

A Forgotten Founding Father - Isaac Jogues

In narrating the birth of our country, no one would forget figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and, of course, George Washington. Yet Catholics know that it is truly the spiritual that forms and shapes the external reality. In this sense, when we look for the true spiritual fathers of our country, we would be absolutely remiss to forget the figure of St. Isaac Jogues (1607-46). Though on mission to French Canada, his captivity brought him deep inside the present territory of the United States; he may have been the first white man to traverse the Adirondack Mountains on foot and was one of the first to sail down the Susquehanna River through central Pennsylvania. If only his christening of the present day Lake George had stuck as Lake of the Blessed Sacrament! St. Isaac Jogues, along with his other fellow Jesuits, sanctified our nation with their blood, laying the true spiritual foundation for our country, one that we need to take up and make our own.

Unlike most martyrs, we could say that Jogues was martyred twice. After a successful stay with the Hurons (where he made the consecration described above), he surrendered himself to the Mohawks, who had captured or killed most of his travelling party. He was subjected to excruciating torture, running the gauntlet of Indian clubs, suffering from fire and knife, hanging by his arms, extreme hunger and cold, constant fear of death, and even having several of his fingers cut and bitten off. Kept alive as a slave, after more than a year he was able to escape with the help of the Protestant Dutch settlers. He returned to France and received a dispensation from the Pope Urban VIII to celebrate Mass without the use of the proper fingers (the Pope reportedly said “It would be shameful that a martyr of Christ be not allowed to drink the Blood of Christ”). Jogues’s vow of self-offering, however, was not complete without a second and complete martyrdom. He returned to the Mohawks first as an ambassador of the French and then as a missionary, when he was killed with the blow of a tomahawk.

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/a-forgotten-founding-father-st-isaac-jogues

Family Traditions

How many of these traditions does your family practice?

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/16/60-family-tradition-ideas/

October 18: Name That Saint

Who wrote the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles?

Who was a Greek physician who converted to Christianity?

Who lived in with the Christian community in Antioch?

Who accompanied St. Paul when others deserted him?

Who wrote the Gospel that has an emphasis on parables of charity, the Good Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son?

Who may have personally interviewed Jesus’ mother, Mary, and included her direct testimony about Jesus’ infancy in his Gospel?

Who is the patron saint of physicians, surgeons, writers, and artists?

Happy St. Luke’s Day!

Whatever Became of the Child Who Sat in Jesus' Lap?

I wonder if Jesus called him Ignatius or Iggy.

Legend says that the child who sat in Jesus lap became a friend of St. John, became the Bishop of Antioch, and was fed to lions  (gruesome picture below) . . .

October 17:  Ignatius of Antioch – Bishop and Martyr

Ignatius of Antioch (Ancient Greek: Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιοχείας, also known as Theophorus from Greek Θεοφόρος "God-bearer") ((c. 35 or 50) - (from 98 to 117))^[1] was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle.^[2][3] En route to Rome, where according to Christian tradition he met his martyrdom by being fed to wild beasts, he wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology. Important topics addressed in these letters include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.

Ignatius converted to Christianity at a young age.^[4] Later in his life he was chosen to serve as the Bishop of Antioch, succeeding Saint Peter and St. Evodius (who died around AD 67). The 4th-century Church historian Eusebius records that Ignatius succeeded Evodius.^[5] Making his apostolic succession even more immediate, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reported that St. Peter himself appointed Ignatius to the episcopal see of Antioch.^[6]Ignatius called himself Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition arose that he was one of the children whom Jesus took in his arms and blessed.^[2]

Read more @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Antioch

10 Things Disappearing From Elementary Schools

You may remember these 10 things, but your school kids (and grandkids) may not  . . .

http://mentalfloss.com/article/53144/10-things-disappearing-elementary-schools