“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

–C.S. Lewis

Ann,

Podcast 230 is among your finest work.

The local archdiocesan seminary offers masters in theology programs to lay people. There were orthodox rumblings at the time. Benedict was Pope. It was pre-Francis. I was in my early 50s.

A female theology professor (then married, since divorced) taught the class that married couples can do pretty much anything so long as they’re both on board with the given act and that the session… consummated in the customary way. I challenged her in class and was told that I exhibited “pre-Vatican II antiquarianism.”

In a not-so-unrelated episode, the seminary had an auction every year to raise money. Among the biggest draws at the auction was the “Scratch Ticket Tree” where students would buy lottery scratch tickets, donate them to the seminary, and the seminary ladies would clip the tickets to this big metal table top tree like thing. It became by far the most discussed auction item. Never mind Our Lord. “All ya need is a dollar and a dream.”

The head seminary lady came in to the beginning of a class one day to make announcements, including about the upcoming auction and, naturally, the Scratch Ticket Tree. Seeing my disapproving reaction, she singled me out exclaiming in front of the class, “So, Steve! Have you brought in YOUR scratch tickets?”

I replied, “Professor, I’m old enough to remember when that was a mortal sin.”

Thank you, Ann, for your great work and a particularly outstanding episode.

God bless you.

S

Today is the Feast of St. Anne, the grandmother of Our Lord. Given that, she is obviously a POWERFUL intercessor. If you recall, back in ARSH 2018 when SuperNerd and SuperMommy were in desperate need of overnight home care assistance for St. Tiny Princess, we did a Novena to St. Anne, and she delivered promptly and BIGLY with the Sister Servants of Mary – Ministers to the Sick.

If you or anyone you know is in need of authentically Catholic, morally sane end-of-life care, especially, see if the Sister Servants of Mary are in your area. Also consider them a “safe Catholic tithe”.

Can you imagine having nursing care from women who spend an hour before Our Lord in the Monstrance, begging Him to let them see Him in the sick that they are about to care for, before going on shift, every day?

What has been stolen from us isn’t limited to the Liturgy. Education, healthcare, culture, music, architecture, clothing, everything has been touched and destroyed by the collapse of the Catholic Church since Vatican II (1965) and the Novus Ordo Mass (1969). If you think these things are merely coincidental, well, I can’t help you at this late hour.

The name “Anne” from the Hebrew “Hannah” means “Grace”, which is “Grátia” in Latin, and so the names Anne and Grace are Hebrew-Latin equivalents. So happy name day to all of the Graces out there too!

War is never the answer… except when it totally, totally is, and Apostles are appearing eight hundred years after their death and personally leading your massively outnumbered army into battle, and victory. But apparently, thanks to the “new pentecost”, we now know that St. James, dwelling INSIDE the Beatific Vision, missed the memo that war is never the answer, was mistaken, acted contrary to God’s Perfect Will, and committed grave, mortal sin eight hundred years after his death by waging war against the satanic enemies of God, His Holy Church and His people. Youbetcha. Makes perfect sense. And 2+2=864.

Here is Dom Gueranger’s beautiful and stirring commentary on the Feast of St. James from his “Liturgical Year” set:

… And how did he justify his name of Son of Thunder, since his voice was heard by a mere handful of disciples in a desert of infidelity?

This new name, another special prerogative of the two brothers, was realized by John in his sublime writings… With regard to James, too, then, eternal Wisdom could not have been mistaken. Let it not be thought that the sword of any Herod could frustrate the designs of the most High upon the men of His choice. The life of the saints is never cut short; their death, ever precious, is still more so when in the cause of God it seems to come before the time. It is then that with double reason we may say their works follow them; God Himself being bound in honour, both for His own sake and for theirs, to see that nothing is wanting to their plenitude. As a victim of a holocaust, He hath received them, says the Holy Ghost, and in time there shall be respect had to them. The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge nations, and rule over peoples; and their Lord shall reign for ever. How literally was this divine oracle to be fulfilled with regard to our saint!

Nearly eight centuries, which to the heavenly citizens are but as a day, had passed over that tomb in the north of Spain, where two disciples had secretly laid the apostle’s body. During that time the land of his inheritance, which he had so rapidly traversed, had been overrun first by Roman idolaters, then by Arian barbarians, and when the day of hope seemed about to dawn, a deeper night was ushered in by the Crescent. One day lights were seen glimmering over the briars that covered the monument; attention was drawn to the spot, which henceforth went by the name of the field of stars. But what are those sudden shouts coming down from the mountains, and echoing through the valleys? Who is this unknown chief rallying against an immense army the little worn-out troop whose heroic valour could not yesterday save it from defeat? Swift as lightning, and bearing in one hand a white standard with a red cross, he rushes with drawn sword upon the panic-stricken foe, and dyes the feet of his charger in the blood of 70,000 slain. Hail to the chief of the holy war, of which this Liturgical Year has so often made mention! St. James! St. James! Forward, Spain! It is the reappearance of the Galilean fisherman, whom the Man-God once called from the bark where he was mending his nets; of the elder son of thunder, now free to hurl the thunderbolt upon these new Samaritans, who pretend to honour the unity of God by making Christ no more than a prophet. Henceforth James shall be to Christian Spain the firebrand which the prophet saw, devouring all the people round about, to the right hand and to the left, until Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place in Jerusalem.

I was also struck by the Offertory of tomorrow’s Mass, the Feast, Psalm 18: 5

Their sound went forth into all the earth; and their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 18: 5 is now a literal truth and yet WE are the ones who refuse to proselytize, who now openly state that conversion of our fellow human beings to Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is neither desired nor necessary.  

Why?  Well, the answer is found in the Epistle of today’s Mass from 1 Corinthians 4: 9-15

For I think that God hath set forth us apostles, the last, as it were men appointed to death: we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men.

Because one can’t possibly be expected to do ANYTHING that might cause the world to think poorly of us, much less hate us, right?  And then in verse 15, St. Paul sums it all up:

For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers.

Nam si decem millia paedagogorum habeatis in Christo, sed non multos patres.

Indeed.  Especially in these unprecedentedly dark days.

St. James the Moorslayer, Son of Thunder, pray for us.

Celibacy is to not be married, which must now be explained to be between one human male and one human female.

Chastity is to not sin with regards to sex, both inside and outside of marriage.

Continence is to abstain from the marital embrace by mutual consent in perfect chastity.

Sex is the reproductive act. Tab A into Slot B. Sex means “the act of sexual reproduction”. Nothing else. Every other genital act is…

Sodomy. Let me repeat that. EVERY GENITAL ACT BETWEEN PERSONS OR DONE SOLITARILY THAT IS NOT PENILE-VAGINAL INTERCOURSE TO UNOBSTRUCTED (mechanically or chemically), INTERNAL COMPLETION IS SODOMY.

When a man and woman who are not married to each other engage in the marital embrace, that is, sexual intercourse, this is the mortal sin of fornication.

These concepts, while related, are different from each other and cannot be used interchangeably.

Sodomite priests often snarkily claim that they are not breaking their vows of celibacy because they are not married, and that sodomy is therefore licit for them. They often say this to their victims when they are grooming them. “The only vow I took was to not marry a woman. No problem! Eeew!”

“Chaste sodomy” is an ontological impossibility, as is “homosexual marriage” (pseudogamy).

The only way for a celibate to be chaste is to not engage in any genital activity whatsoever. Period. No spouse, no sex. And obviously all forms of sodomy are mortally sinful always and everywhere, including sodomitical acts between a married man and his wife, no matter how “common” and “normalized” those acts have become in today’s utterly pornographied culture.

Remember this simple phrase: THAT DOESN’T GO THERE. If “that”, say for example a penis, doesn’t have a natural function “there”, say, in a mouth, then that act is sodomy and it is always and everywhere a mortal sin not only against the Sixth Commandment (Divine Law), but primordially against THE NATURAL LAW, meaning that it is cooked into our natures as human beings to know that it is wrong, in the same way that everyone knows that willful murder of innocent persons wrong. No Ph.D. in moral theology needed.

Married couples are called to chastity by only engaging in licit sex with each other which is open to the transmission of life. Sexually active married couples therefore should be and are expected to be chaste.

Continence is to not engage in the marital embrace. Married couples can together choose to be continent, either for a phase or season, or perpetually.

All of the Apostles except St. John were almost certainly married, but upon being ordained priests and bishops by Our Lord immediately entered into perfect perpetual continence with their wives. Thus only St. John was celibate, but all of the Apostles were chaste and continent.

All married priests and deacons were understood to be perfectly and perpetually continent. It went without saying, because it was obvious that a man who offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or served on the altar as a deacon was espoused to Christ and His Church. It is a testament to how far gone a culture is that clerical continence is not instantly understood and naturally assumed with married priests and deacons, and even elicits rage when mentioned.

These terms, especially “celibacy“, are misused today almost as a rule across the board. Words have meaning and are not interchangeable. We should use these words correctly ourselves, and charitably correct others when they misuse them.

I hope this helps.

[This note came appended to a donation. -AB]

Hi Ann,

Can you please ask your readers for their prayers for repose of the soul of baby boy born 25 weeks premature in California, and then left to die?

I don’t have the baby’s name as its not being reported. His surrogate mother was Brittney Pearson who had to be induced early as she was diagnosed with cancer and required treatment.

The “fathers” (plural) did not want the baby, as it could have had heath complications from being born prematurely. They also refused offers of adoption. The story has multiple levels of horror. But the boy was born alive and the mother got to hold him before he died so there is a chance that he was baptised.

Can I please ask for your prayers to Our Holy Mother for her intercession for the baptism and salvation of this little boy? This could be also one for St. Tiny Princess.

Thank you,
Michael

PS May the abomination of IVF be ended.

It ought to be considered a great misfortune, not only for individuals, but also for Houses and Congregations, to have everything in conformity with their wishes; to go on quietly, and to suffer nothing for the love of God. Yes, consider it certain that a person or a Congregation that does not suffer and is applauded by all the world is near a fall.
-St. Vincent de Paul