Ave Maria!

Dear Ann,

For some reason, probably Providence, the Titanic has been on my mind all week leading up to Pentecost. I went back and found your post on the comparison of the barque of Peter and the Titanic and the smearing of Bruce Ismay. Something was really haunting me after the tons of research I have been doing this week on the vessel and it’s this:

With 2,000+ people on board, and roughly only 700 people survived and as you mentioned the life boats (even though there should have been more, of course) were NOT filled to capacity. I watched a recent video where the speaker came to the defense of Ismay, because he said some passengers didn’t board the boats for two reasons:

1.) They really didn’t believe the Titanic would sink because “it’s impossible, she’s unsinkable” (bla bla 🙄).

2.) Several passengers below deck were waiting in their cabins for instructions… and they never came. The crew simply was not prepared for a disaster like this. The organization wasn’t there.

Sound familiar? Two things hit me here, which of course reminded me of the Titanic symbolizing Holy Mother Church. The attitude of “she’s unsinkable” is equivalent to “Bergoglio is Pope, Bergoglio is Pope, shut up!” And so half of the Church’s members (like Titanic passengers) stay on board under that good old “diabolical disorientation” that Our Lady warned us about. The other half? Like #2, they are just waiting to be to told what to do, to be led! But those in charge (cardinals and bishops, and of course right now… no Pope), ARE DOING NOTHING.

Then there is the Ismay camp. Those of us who have tried for dear life to get people onto lifeboats, but to the #1 group I spoke of, we only get “shut up, stupid, Bergoglio’s the Pope, and what are you? You’re just a passenger with no safety training” (cough cough, degrees or Canon Lawers 🥴). We are the “schismatics” or “sedevacantists”. BUT, are they forgetting the words of Our Lord?

“Then Jesus said to them: All you shall be scandalized in Me this night. For it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed.” Matthew 26:31.

To me it’s so obvious we are being dispersed in little lifeboats representing the Barque of Peter. So today I KNEW it was Providence because after watching the 1958 Film of the Titanic last night called “A Night to Remember” (of course Ismay is portrayed like a coward in the movie, but that’s expected, right?), it shouldn’t have surprised me when on the Feast of Pentecost the homily today was about Saint John Bosco’s vision of the boat representing Holy Mother Church. On board? The Pope and Cardinals. With two pillars: Our Lady and the Lamb of God. We must climb aboard the life boats of tradition. We cling to Mary and we cling to the Latin Mass. You’re so right. And lastly, to bring this lengthy Titanic Novel home, in the Saint Andrew’s Missal, there are lovely definitions of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, and would you just get a load of the Gift of Fortitude:

“A permanent POWER which the Holy Ghost communicates to our WILL to ASSIST us in overcoming the difficulties which might deter us in the practice of what is right.”

I’m not saying getting into a life boat isn’t hard, and most of the time it’s easy to get gaslit by the “higher ups” who tell us we are being “disobedient”, because we are the Ismays of the Church. But how good is the Paraclete? He gives us “permanent power” to “overcome difficulties” and “do what’s right”.

🕊️ HAPPY PENTECOST 🕊️ ,

J