Bernhardt Podcast #213: The Fire of Purification

Link to MP3 File

In this first episode of the second quarter of the 21st Century, Art and Ann say the uncomfortable part out loud: Los Angeles, the global font of Luciferian, soul killing propaganda and media for over a century, is long overdue for a cleansing burn. Will ANYONE repent? What kind of chastisement will be required for people to repent? Pray for the conversion of sinners, beginning with the one who stares back at you in the mirror as you brush your teeth in the morning.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/bishop-who-survived-communism-weighs-in-on-pope-francis/

Feedback: the email address for the podcast is [email protected]

The Infant Jesus of Prague handles Ann’s financial stuff. Click image for details. [If you have a recurring donation set up and need to cancel for whatever reason – don’t hesitate to do so!]

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It just isn’t a SPIFFANY Epiphany without the BNL arrangement of We Three Kings + God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

After I posted the explanation of the actual meaning of the lyrics of “God Rest (Make) Ye Merry (Mighty), Gentlemen” last year, a reader emailed to point out the etymology of the word “comfort”, as in “tidings of comfort and joy”…

Com: with

Fort: strength

Here is the medley of God Make Ye Mighty, Gentlemen with We Three Kings.

Tidings of Strength and Joy, Mighty Men, in this Great Octave of the Manifestation of Our Lord: King and God and Sacrifice!

Big God, Tiny Toes

Happy Feast of the Epiphany! Might one even wish you a Spiffany Epiphany!

This is one of my favorite paintings, and this week is the octave of the feast of its depiction: the Epiphany, or Adoration of the Magi.  This painting makes me smile every time I see it.  I love the depiction of Our Lady because she is so very beautiful. But the Star of this Show is the Baby Jesus – and His Big Toe.

Adoration of the Magi, Ottavio Vannini, early 1600s, Florence

When I look at this image, it seems not like a painting to me, but like a .GIF.  What do I mean by that?  I can see the movement of Our Lord’s toe as He is wiggling it, and I can see the subtle smile come across Our Lady’s face as she looks down at the scene of the very serious and lofty king leaning in to kiss the tiny toe of the Creator of the Universe and King of Kings, and He is PLAYFULLY wiggling it and making cooing baby sounds as the Magi puckers up and leans in to “get that Toe!” as so many of us have done exactly with other babies.

We have discussed many times in this space the infinite HUGENESS of God, using galaxies and galactic clusters as metaphors for His infinite bigness and our infantesimal smallness.  I am reminded of something Our Lord said to St. Catherine of Siena, to whom, let us not forget, He was MYSTICALLY ESPOUSED.  Listen to His words to His beloved Catherine:

“Do you know, daughter, who you are, And who I AM? If you know these two things, you will be blessed. You are she who is not; whereas I AM HE WHO IS. Have this knowledge in you and the enemy will never deceive you….

God Almighty can say to His beloved, “you are she who is not” because it is true relative to Him, and because ALL EXISTENCE, REALITY AND TRUTH is through Him, with Him and in Him.

And that brings us back to the Tiny Wiggling Toe. It is precisely through these infinite juxtapositions that we draw closer to God in our contemplation of Him.  The selfsame God that created and sustains the galaxies, galactic clusters and the entire universe is also the cooing Baby wiggling His Big Toe at the Magi crawling on the ground to kiss It.  

Without the Majesty of the Bigness, you can’t appreciate the Humility of the Smallness, and without the Condescension of the Smallness, you can’t appreciate the incomprehensible Love of the Bigness.

This is the same idea with the two species of Fear of the Lord – without the servile fear of the Lord as Our Judge, you can’t fully appreciate the filial fear that He established Himself with the words, “I no longer call you slaves, but friends….” The paradigm shifted with the Incarnation and proclamation of the Gospel from not sinning primarily for fear of punishment, to not sinning because He loves us so much that to disappoint or hurt Him in any way is (should be) revolting to us.

And likewise, without the filial fear of breaking Our Lord’s Heart, one can very easily cast aside the fact that He is, in fact, the Fearsome and Terrible Judge and He can be twisted by our minds into the horrific cartoon character “Jesus my Boyfriend”, or even worse, “Jesus my pet Golden Retriever”. People with no healthy servile fear of the Lord are called “cheap grace” Protestants, or just universal salvationists.

So what exactly is the Good News?  Is it that God is NOT the Just and Terrible Judge of Mankind who will sort the sheep from the goats, and sift men like wheat from chaff, burning the chaff?  No.  The Good News, the GOSPEL is that the Just and Terrible Judge is also the Baby wiggling His Tiny Toe as the Three Kings crawl forth to kiss It.  The Gospel is that the Just and Terrible Judge ALSO loves you infinitely, and is thus 100% on your side.  Do you understand that?  THE JUDGE IS ON YOUR SIDE TO AN EXTENT THAT YOU SIMPLY CANNOT COMPREHEND.

All you have to do is say “yes” to Him.  All you have to do is say and believe, “Jesus, I know that You love me”, and then ACTUALLY ACT LIKE YOU BELIEVE IT.  Keep His commandments.  Don’t break His heart.  Enter His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Avail yourself of the Sacraments He established for YOU and YOUR SALVATION, most especially the Sacrament of Confession and the Sacrament of the Altar, which is His very Physical Substance.

Look at the Tiny Wiggling Toe.  Then go look up at the stars and galaxies and galactic clusters that He made and sustains without effort.  Put the two together and know that you are he who is not, and the Tiny Toe is HE WHO IS.

I hope this helps.

Happy Feast of the Holy Outboard Motor! Saint Raymond of Penafort, PRAY FOR US!

St. Raymond of Penafort was a Dominican who is basically THE father of Canon Law.

So, you can understand why we are especially, especially happy to celebrate his feast today, and beg his intercession, especially for any Canonists named “Raymond” that we might know of….

The Codex that St. Raymond assembled at the behest of Pope Gregory IX was essentially the codex that was in force from ARSH 1234 until the 1917 Code was promulgated.

Apparently, St. Raymond did a pretty good job. 😉

BUT, being the unlettered laywoman that I am, I can’t but be delighted by St. Raymond’s most famous miracle. Now, I want you to just stop and think in stillness about how brilliant and rigorous St. Raymond must have been, and then consider the veracity of what you are about to read. Do you think that a man like Raymond would have permitted a story like what you are about to read to spread like wildfire throughout the world, if it weren’t true? 160 miles in six hours is an average speed of 27 mph. This is a block quote from Wiki: And, just to be sure everyone knows, “Moors” are musloids.

Raymond of Penyafort served as the confessor for King James I of Aragon, who was a loyal son of the Church but allowed his lustful desires to shackle him. While on the island of Majorca to initiate a campaign to help convert the Moors living there, the king brought his mistress with him. Raymond reproved the king and asked him repeatedly to dismiss his concubine. The king refused to do so. Finally, the saint told the king that he could remain with him no longer and made plans to leave for Barcelona. But the king forbade Raymond to leave the island, and threatened punishment to any ship captain who dared to take him. Saint Raymond then said to his Dominican companion, “Soon you will see how the King of Heaven will confound the wicked deeds of this earthly king and provide me with a ship!” They then went down to the seashore where Raymond took off his cappa (the long black cloak worn by Dominicans over the white tunic and scapular), and spread one end of it on the water while rigging the other end to his walking staff. Having thus formed a miniature mast, Raymond bid the other Dominican to hop on, but his companion, lacking the saint’s faith, refused to do so. Then Raymond bid him farewell, and with the sign of the cross he pushed away from the shore and miraculously sailed away on his cloak. Skirting around the very boats that had forbidden him passage, the saint was seen by scores of sailors who shouted in astonishment and urged him on. Raymond sailed the ~160 miles to Barcelona in the space of six hours, where his landing was witnessed by a crowd of amazed spectators. In awe of this miracle, King James I renounced his evil ways, made penance, and thereafter led a good life.

27 mph, baby! Evinrude, eat your heart out!!!

Justín Castreau resigns. Just a reminder: That evil SOB is LITERALLY Fidel Castro’s son. No joke. No conspiracy.

Yes, Justin Trudeau is seriously Fidel Castro’s son. This isn’t a joke.

Pierre Trudeau started dating Margaret Sinclair in ARSH 1968 when she was 18 and he was the 48 year old Prime Minister of Canada. Margaret Sinclair was psychologically unstable and a sex pervert like Pierre Trudeau, who was also a closet Communist. Trudeau and Sinclair were “swingers” – perverts partaking in orgies, and Trudeau was an enthusiastic cuckold, enjoying watching other men fornicating with his fiancé/wife.

Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Sinclair married in March ARSH 1971 and honeymooned in the Caribbean where they met up with their Communist idol Fidel Castro. Castro, like most Communists, was also a sex pervert and engaged in orgies and cuckoldry with Pierre and Margaret Trudeau ON THEIR HONEYMOON.

Nine months later in December ARSH 1971 Justin “Trudeau” was born.

As anyone can obviously see from the photographs below, Justin Trudeau is Castro’s son. They are nearly identical in physiognomy. It isn’t even debatable.

Also note the attached picture of Pierre and Margaret Trudeau visiting Castro, and Margaret Trudeau’s clear physical intimacy with the mass-murdering Communist Dictator of Cuba.

Yes, in complete seriousness, Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro’s biological son, and like his father, Trudeau is a Communist dictator and monster, and mass-murderer. Nuremberg 2.0 can’t happen soon enough.

Puts a different spin and urgency on what the Truckers are doing, eh? Pray for the Truckers.

This is Margaret Trudeau looking on with clear satisfaction as father and son are reunited.

UPDATE: I mean… WOW. Señor Castreau y su Papí.

The Magi: “You are patrons of all late-comers, of all who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth…”

Over the transom from a longtime reader, this is a quote from Evelyn Waugh in his novelization of the life of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, who went to Jerusalem, found the True Cross of Christ, and brought it and other relics of The Passion back to Rome. It is “Helena”, and NOT “Brideshead Revisited” that is Waugh’s masterpiece.

This beautiful passage applies perfectly to those people, both simple and grand, lettered and unlettered, who in these days of the Bergoglian Antipapacy and ascendancy of the Antichurch, are making “that tedious journey to the Truth.”

Let us pray that all of those people of good will who still labor and suffer under the misapprehension that Jorge Bergoglio is or ever was the Vicar of Christ have… an epiphany.

A blessed Epiphanytide to one and all.


Helena perhaps… apprehended that her fame, like theirs, would live in one historic act of devotion; that she too had emerged from a kind of ‘ουτοπία’ [Utopia] or nameless realm and would vanish like them in the sinking nursery fire-light among the picture-books and the day’s toys.

“Like me,” she said to the Magi, “you were late in coming. The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle. They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way. For you the primordial discipline of the heavens was relaxed and a new defiant light blazed among the disconcerted stars.

“How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculations, where the shepherds had run barefoot! How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such strange gifts!

“You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage and the great star stood still above you. What did you do? You stopped to call on King Herod. Deadly exchange of compliments in which there began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent!

“Yet you came, and were not turned away. You too found room at the manger. Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love. In that new order of charity that had just come to life there was room for you too.

“You are my especial patrons,” said Helena, “and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.

“Dear cousins, pray for me,” said Helena, and “for His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.”

Say His Name, Say His Name

Today is the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.

The name of God, and as we celebrate today in particular the Most Holy Name of the Second Person of the Triune Godhead, Jesus, should be spoken early and often, but always with complete reverence, and with a head bow, and a doffing of the hat for gentlemen outdoors.

There is a weird trend amongst the uncatechized and the heretical quasi-Christian sects, to adopt Jewish practices as some sort of a sign of piety.  One of the most common is to write “God” as “G-d”. Make no mistake, to do this is to DENY THE INCARNATION AND THUS TO DENY THE TRINITY ITSELF. We say the Holy Name by God’s explicit command:

For anyone who has ever loved another, to hear the name of the beloved person spoken can make the heart fly.  And, to hear the beloved speak one’s own name is also a great joy.  Such is the case with Jesus Christ, who specifically said, “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you.  I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.”

The Most Holy Name, spoken with complete reverence, is a declaration of love, and not only is all of heaven enraptured by its every utterance, but Our Lord Himself, that font of infinite love for each of us, requited or no, loves to hear those who love Him speak His Name with loving reverence.  There it is again – that pesky bit about a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” that keeps popping up.  Funny, that.

Which leads to…

…a few words must be said about taking the Lord’s Name in vain – that is, violating the Second Commandment. It is strange, but thinking back as a child, I had a family member who used Our Lord’s Name – Jesus Christ – constantly as an expression of disgust and contempt, and delivered it with extreme hyper-enunciated gusto.  And from the time that I was a teeny, tiny child with absolutely no formal understanding of who Jesus Christ was, I knew that That Name was different and sacred, and that when That Name was said like that, that it was a very bad and scary thing, and that the person who said it was to be avoided.  Looking back now at my adult life, I can CLEARLY see that people who used Our Lord’s Name in vain as an expression of disgust should have been immediately rejected by me.  It is a classic example of the axiom “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”.

If you want to get your head around what exactly it is that you’re doing when you use His Name as an expression of disgust, simply replace His Name with the name of the non-divine person you love most in the world.  Then imagine yourself calling out that person’s name as an expression of disgust.  A few years ago now, if you remember, I had a chunk of human poop fall on my foot from a toilet brush in a trashed apartment that I was hired to clean.  Imagine human poop falling on your foot (Eeeewww!!!) and calling out the name of your most beloved person as an expression of disgust.  It’s depraved, right?  No one does that.  Well, your beloved person isn’t Perfect Good and Infinite Love who hung on a cross and died for your sins, now are they?  So how much sicker is it when we do it to God?  Yup.  There’s a reason why the Second Commandment is the SECOND Commandment.

It is a dead giveaway, folks.  A person who uses Our Lord’s name as an expression of disgust, ESPECIALLY in combination with profanity (avoid like the plague anyone who says or uses the expression “OMFG” whether spoken in full or written as an acronym – bad, bad, bad) is a person who A.) probably doesn’t actually believe in Him, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR POSITION, or B.) does believe in Him and hates Him.  I have seen both.  An example of the latter was a layman who held and to this day holds himself out as a super-Trad and Byzantine liturgical expert, who would frequently yell, “Oh, sweet JESUS!” or “Oh, sweet Baby JESUS!” as his preferred exclamation of extreme disgust, and he turned out to be… wait for it… not just a sodomite, but a sacrilegious sodomite. As in “bedding” seminarians, clerics and prelates, sometimes inside of Basilicas and churches, and then bragging about it in “safe circles”.  We’re talking straight-up satanic activity.  The signs were all there, first among them the consciously malicious use of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.

So, say Our Lord’s Most Holy Name as often as you can, always with love and reverence. To do so is a declaration of belief in the Personal Triune Godhead, His Incarnation, and belief in His almost too-good-to-be-true words, “You are My friends.”  Say His Name with love and let your heart fly at the very sound of it.  Say His Name with love and let Him joy in the sound of you, His beloved friend, saying it.

Say His Name, because consider that in these dark days of apostasy in the post-Christian West, Our Lord’s Name is said orders of magnitude more frequently as a curse or expression of disgust than it is in loving reverence.  I would guess that just the Irish alone, who are notorious for this terrible sin – they use Our Lord’s name almost as a verbal tick, often in combination with the “f” word – more than equal with their sacrilegious abuse of The Holy Name ALL OTHER UTTERANCES of Our Lord’s Name reverently spoken in the entire world every day. That’s how bad the Irish are, and how bad the world is.

And finally, the Most Holy Name is not only the shortest prayer, but also one of the most powerful:

JESUS.

I’m old enough to remember when flaming faggots weren’t allowed in the “intelligence” agencies… or any aspect of decent society.

Mailbag: Sometimes the clothes DO make the man…

Hi, Ann-

I admire and appreciate your stubborn, staunch advocacy for the importance of visual beauty, and the power of clothing to convey it. And I will never forget having been struck, around three years ago now, by the utterly unexpected sight of a lowly counter attendant at our local UPS store, a man perhaps in his late thirties, wearing a 1940-style vest and long-sleeved dress shirt complete with sleeve garters.

Ann, I was stunned. This was not a conventionally handsome man — in fact, an unkind person might say that he looked like a stereotypical “nebbish” — but he sure got my attention, and in the very best way. I complimented him on how wonderful he looked, and he seemed startled and shyly appreciative.

A few weeks later, my husband and I happened to be walking near the store and lo and behold, the same fellow was walking down the street with purposeful stride, this time in a beautifully-tailored 1940s-style overcoat, and wearing a fedora! Well. I decided then and there that if I were young again, unattached and ready to settle down, I would want to make THIS gentleman’s acquaintance, just on the basis of his appearance in those clothes (and also, I guess, having seen that he was employed, 😅)

Cheers, and Happy New Year-

C