Madonna and Child with St Ignatius of Antioch and St Onophrius, Lorenzo Lotto, ARSH 1508, Borghese Gallery, Rome
Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was a student of St. John the Apostle. Not bad. I love how in the image above, Our Lord is reaching toward St. Ignatius and handing to him His Sacred Heart, crowned with thorns, and pierced.
When I was reading my way into The Church (and being so scandalized by the Kennedys that I kept delaying my entry), one of the most helpful books I read was called “The Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words“, which is a compendium of quotations by the early Church Fathers, namely Ignatius of Antioch (died ARSH 110), Clement of Rome (died ARSH 99, consecrated a bishop by St. Peter), Justin Martyr (died ARSH 165), and Irenaeus of Lyon (student of Polycarp who was a student of John the Apostle, died ARSH 202). If you are genuinely interested in what EXACTLY was going on in the days, weeks and decades after Our Lord’s Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, and the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, I highly recommend reading the words of the Church Fathers themselves. It’s all there: the Mass, the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist, sacramental confession of sins, hierarchical structure of the Church Militant, everything.
Here is a quote from St. Ignatius.
In like manner, everyone who has received from God the power of distinguishing and yet follows an unskillful pastor and receives a false opinion for the truth shall be punished…
Be not deceived: if any man follows him who separates from the truth, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and if any man does not stand aloof from the preacher of falsehood he shall be condemned to Hell.
-St. Ignatius of Antioch
Boy, how timely and relevant is this? Remember folks, every one of us will stand ALONE before Christ at our Particular Judgment. There will be no finger pointing, no blaming of others. Every human being with the “power of distinguishing”, which means above the age of reason, and not suffering from mental retardation or other physical limitation to reasoned thought and apprehension of objective reality, will be held responsible for their actions.
Many people today are desperately trying to convince themselves and others that only degreed theologians or canon lawyers are competent to “distinguish”. This is a LIE. And it is so transparently ridiculous a lie as to be laugh-out-loud-able. We know from the Good Shepherd discourse, Our Lord’s words to the disciples of John the Baptist, the example of the Good Thief, and the witness of the Martyrs, many of whom were peasants, soldiers, and even children (St. Agnes of Rome was 13), coupled with the observation of the ever-escalating catastrophic failure of theologians and canonists of the past century, and plain old common sense, that “the power of distinguishing” belongs to all of us, and we are all expected to use it.
Trailing off after arch-heretic Antipopes, and likely False Prophet Forerunner of the Antichrist, in the name of “obedience” and “humility” or even some perverse notion of “piety” will NOT go over well. “But… but… but…the wolves and faithless hirelings and people with doctorates from Pontifical Universities told me it was okay….” Balderdash.
But a stranger [the sheep] follow not, but fly from him, because they know not the voice of strangers.
(I’m reposting this decade-old post because after putting in a spike high of $120 per ounce (for now), silver has pulled back to $92 per ounce as I write this. Here’s the thing: I strongly suspect that the same thing would play out today in the two-six if the experiment below were repeated. Most people would refuse to take physical silver at any price, even zero. Total inversion: real money is considered fake, and only fake money is considered real.
Pro tip: flea markets and estate sales are filled with meltable silver trinkets and vessels. –AB ’26
(Originally penned and posted on March 15, ARSH 2016)
Here is a man offering a 100 ounce bar of pure silver to people on the street IN FRONT OF A COIN SHOP for one dollar, then fifty cents, then twenty-five cents per ounce, then for effectively zero (offers to trade for one woman’s sunglasses) … and none of them have the least interest, EVEN AFTER BEING TOLD HOW MUCH IT IS WORTH, AND THAT THE COIN SHOP WOULD PAY THEM AT LEAST $1500 for the 100 ounce bar, cash on the barrelhead.
I highly recommend reading Ezekiel chapter 7 in full, but verse 19, “They shall cast their silver into the streets,” seems to be upon us.
I’m in contact with some traditional Catholic converts in Iran. They have a small, but growing community through the work of some very holy priests. As you noted a couple of podcasts ago, Persians would be great Catholics. I can confirm! Things are not going well for them in Iran, though. Since the internet came back on, they are now confirming some of the worst information about mass killings and note that the danger to converts and non-Muslims is very high.
Protesters are being executed without even a show trial. People are getting picked up on the street for anything suspicious and ending up dead as “Mossad agents.” The regime is clearly scared and lashing out. They really need our prayers! Also, prayers for the military planners that seem to be finalizing attacks on Tehran. It would be quite easy for them to make things even worse if they make the wrong choices.
-B
St. Anastasius of Persia, pray for us.
From Wikipedia:
Anastasius was born in the city of Ray. He was the son of a magus named Bavi. He was a soldier in the army of Khosrow II (r. 590–628) and participated in the capture of the True Cross in Jerusalem, which was carried to the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon. The occasion prompted him to ask for information about the Christian religion. He then experienced a conversion of faith, left the army, became a Christian, and afterwards a monk in Jerusalem. He was baptized by Modestus, receiving the Christian name Anastasius to honor the resurrection of Jesus Christ (“Anástasis” in Greek).
After seven years of monastic observance, he went to Caesarea, then subject to the Sasanians. There he interrupted and ridiculed the Zoroastrian priests for their religion, and was as a result arrested by the local marzban, taken prisoner, cruelly tortured to make him abjure, and finally carried down near the Euphrates, to a place called Barsaloe (or Bethsaloe according to the Bollandists), where his tortures were continued while at the same time the highest honors in the service of King Khosrow II as a magus were promised him if he would renounce Christianity.
Finally, after refusing to abjure, with seventy others, he was strangled to death and decapitated on January 22, 628.
His body, which was thrown to the dogs but left untouched by them, was carried from the place of his martyrdom to Palestine, then to Constantinople, and finally to Rome where the relics were venerated at the Tre Fontane Abbey.
A while back my wife was thumbing through some old Czech magazines we had lying around, one of which was published in 2009. In it, she stumbled across little blurb entitled “Maovo Myšlení” that is “Mao’s Thinking”. She took a picture of it and sent it to me, being astonished how much Mao’s quote from 1957 seemingly pertains to the worldwide political situation we find ourselves in today.
Here’s a translation:
Chinese comrades were not triflers. In the context of victory of their “noble” thoughts, they were prepared to sacrifice more than a billion people: “There are 2.7 billion people living in the world and approximately a third could perish. In the worst case scenario, even half of the world’s population could pass away. Nevertheless, half would remain and imperialism would be trampled into the ground and the world would become socialist. After many years would the world’s population would grow to 2.7 million and would certainly even exceed that.” Those are the words of Mao Zedung (pictured), which were stated in 1957.
If you do an image search of St. John Chrysostom, whose feast it is today, you will see that almost the entire artistic record depicts the same easily recognizable countenance. I never ceased to be amazed by the consistency of the images of the Apostles and Church Fathers. And for that matter, Our Lord Himself, whose image I believe was informed from the beginning by the Shroud of Turin. Obviously some images of saints and fathers are purely speculative or fictitious, but a surprising number are not. In many cases, history actually did record what these people looked like. St. John Chrysostom is always depicted with the type of male pattern baldness that we all know wherein the hairline recedes until just a tuft of hair remains at the front-center.
St. John Chrysostom, patron of bald guys with the pouf of hair on the forehead, pray for us.
Here are some awesome Chrysostom quotes.
Chrysostom on the Diabolical Narcissist trait of resenting helping others:
“Helping a person in need is good in itself. But the degree of goodness is hugely affected by the attitude with which it is done. If you show resentment because you are helping the person out of a reluctant sense of duty, then the person may receive your help but may feel awkward and embarrassed. This is because he will feel beholden to you. If,on the other hand, you help the person in a spirit of joy, then the help will be received joyfully. The person will feel neither demeaned nor humiliated by your help, but rather will feel glad to have caused you pleasure by receiving your help. And joy is the appropriate attitude with which to help others because acts of generosity are a source of blessing to the giver as well as the receiver.”
Chrysostom on how social media feeds Diabolical Narcissism:
“I do not know whether anyone has ever succeeded in not enjoying praise. And, if he enjoys it, he naturally wants to receive it. And if he wants to receive it, he cannot help but being distraught at losing it. Those who are in love with applause have their spirits starved not only when they are blamed off-hand, but even when they fail to be constantly praised.”
And since St. Valentine’s Day is coming up fast…
“[On what young husbands should say to their wives:] I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us… I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.”
Siiiiiiiiiiigh….Yep. There has been no greater force in the world in favor of the human female than Christianity. From. Day. One.
(I originally wrote and posted this on June 23, ARSH 2010, almost a full year before I went viral. Wow. It’s almost as if you could see this all coming, or something. Actually, I have seen this coming since the late summer of ARSH 2008 when I realized that the United States was about to elect and install a Communist plant who wasn’t even an American citizen. Things like that tend to end . . . badly. If California, Oregon and Washington secede, there will be Chinese Red Army boots on the ground within a year, easily, invited in as “peacekeepers” and “health safety enforcers.” Many leftists today are Maoists. They WANT to be under Chinese rule. I remember so very well saying “If Obama usurps, it will end with Chinese boots on the ground in North America” to a friend in Denver over drinks in the Chili’s at Arapahoe & Parker in the summer of ARSH 2008 and watching his face fall in the “she’s crazy” sense. Being a Cassandra is not for the overly-sensitive. I think my old friend, from my RCIA class no less, still lives in Denver. Say a prayer for him and his safety. Denver is spinning out of control fast, from what I’ve been told.)
I have received many emails and have heard much talk about the U.S. breaking into two countries ‐ one Constitutional Republic built on a foundation of Christian principles consisting of the Mountain, Central and Southern states (essentially a Second American Republic), and a Marxist‐Socialist‐Atheist confederation consisting of the Pacific Coast states, the Upper Midwest (IL, MI, WI) and the New England states.
While it is sorely tempting to think about drop‐kicking the liberal states and going our separate ways, the reality is that this would be a MASSIVE mistake, and would almost certainly set in motion a chain of events that would end Western Civilization.
If this sort of “divorce” were to happen, we all know that the Second American Republic (SAR) would thrive while the Marxist Confederation (MC) would quickly fail catastrophically. When that failure happened, the MC would come begging to the SAR to bail it out. Now, you might be thinking, “Screw ‘em. They made their bed, now they can sleep in it. They’ll get no help from us.” That’s a knee‐jerk reaction, and it would be the WRONG reaction. Why? Because if the SAR turned down the MC’s requests for help, who would be the ONLY other nation capable of bailing out the MC? China. And as we should all understand with crystal clarity, the liberals in the MC states would be, without question, idiotic enough to actually INVITE the Chinese to take over their economy, and eventually their land ‐ purely as a “peacekeeping force” to control the food shortage riots, you understand. So, in order to stave off Chinese involvement in North America, we would have to bail the MC out anyway. It’s a textbook “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
In the event of a divorce wherein the SAR didn’t prop up the MC, the ports of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle would be completely vulnerable, and eventually would be thrown wide open to a cold invasion by the Chinese – almost certainly by invitation. The same could also be said for the East Coast ports. Boston, New York and Washington D.C. would be vulnerable and/or invite a “peacekeeping force” from the U.N., probably led by Russia.
Now we need to talk military tactics. Assume that what I have just laid out actually came to pass. The SAR and Constitutionalist refugees from the MC states are now compressed into the geographic center of the continent. To the west lies the Chinese Army. To the east lies the UN/Russian army.
This is called a “Strategic Flanking”. In fact, this would be the largest strategic flanking in world history. To be “flanked” is very, very bad. If you are fighting any sort of battle, you want to keep your adversary in front of you at all times and your sides CLEAR. You must NEVER allow the adversary to move along your sides (flanks). Combat tacticians are CONSTANTLY looking for a way to move their troops in such a way so that they “gain the flanks”. Once a force loses its flanks, it becomes nearly impossible (without a massive advantage in weaponry) to escape. The most famous tactical flanking in history was executed by Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC. With fewer than 40,000 men, Hannibal drew the Roman army of 90,000 men into his center, and then wrapped around their flanks on both sides, thus forming a semi‐circle around the Romans. By doing this, Hannibal was able to COMPLETELY DESTROY the Roman army with fewer than HALF the number of men.
The most famous strategic flanking to date is probably the flanking of Nazi Germany by the Soviet army to the east and the Allies to the west. While this involved the entire European continent, the flanking I describe above on the North American continent would dwarf the Nazi flanking in size and scope. It is not hard to imagine a massive Chinese force pushing and compressing the SAR from the west, eventually wrapping around the northern flank, with a UN/Russian force compressing from New England in a southwesterly direction, pushing the people of the SAR south towards the Gulf of Mexico – which is at this moment being taken out of strategic play by the Russians via the cold lodgements of Cuba and Venezuela – and utter defeat.
Given these obvious tactical realities, I hope that one and all now see that the TERRITORIAL BOUNDARIES OF THE FIRST AMERICAN REPUBLIC MUST BE PRESERVED. Integrated sovereignty MUST remain intact from “sea to shining sea”. Amicable divorce is NOT an option. We can not allow Marxism to establish any quarter, even in the spirit of “compromise” and the avoidance of possible hostilities, because that “compromise” and “avoidance” would be to sign our own death warrants, and the death warrant of Western Civilization. It would be far better to fight a civil war of territorial preservation than to fight a war against a conquering Sino‐Russian invasion.
How sick is it that I have to post this crap? I’m a 33 year old single woman (when this was written). I should be planning my next business move, or thinking about recreational travel. Instead, I’m standing here, mid‐morning on a Wednesday, writing essays on secession dynamics and military tactics for the North American theater. This is the living, breathing definition of FUBAR. God save us.
Ann Barnhardt
June 23, AD 2010
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Because this clip can never, ever be posted too much, here is Larry Grathwohl, the man who infiltrated the Weather Underground, outlining Bill Ayers’ and Bernadine Dohrn’s plan for balkanizing the former U.S. territory after overthowing and collapsing the Republic, and delegating administration of the quadrants of the landmass to Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. Since Cuba and Vietnam are mere satellites, the dynamic today is clearly that of a Sino-Russian axis.
Bill Ayers, you will remember, wrote Obama’s fictional “autobiography” Dreams From My Father, and Ayers’ family supported and groomed Obama for the Presidency from the time he was a teenager. It appears that Chicago Communist Frank Marshall Davis handed Obama off to the Ayers group, partnered with the satanist faggot Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Chicago in the early 1980s. Bernadine Dohrn’s fingerprints are also all over Obama’s course syllabus when he was an adjunct lecturer at the University of Chicago. And of course, Obama’s entire adult life and political career has had Ayers and Dohrn as the main enablers and drivers.
Oh, and just as an aside, Grathwohl’s eyewitness testimony confirms that Ayers and Dohrn have planned on and anticipated the need to murder fully 10%-15% of the population as “unreformable, die-hard capitalists.” In the early 1980s when this interview was recorded, the population of the U.S. was 250 million, thus Grathwohl’s number of 25 million that Ayers and Dohrn were planning on killing. Today, that number would be 30-45 million Americans that will need to be “eliminated” in order to quash the “counter-revolution.”
“St. Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John, and was consecrated by him Bishop of Smyrna. He was reckoned the chief of all the Christians of Asia, because he had been taught by several of the Apostles, and other persons who had seen the Lord.
During the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and while Anicetus presided over the Church of Rome, Polycarp came thither to discuss some questions regarding the time for observing Easter. He found some heretics at Rome, who had been led astray by the doctrine of Marcion and Valentine, and brought back many of them to the faith.
One day Marcion met him by accident, and said to him: Do you recognise me? whereto he replied: I recognise the devil’s eldest son.
Some time after, in the reign of Mark Antonine and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, during the fourth persecution since Nero, when the Pro-consul was ruling in Smyrna, the whole population being assembled in the theatre, clamoured against Polycarp, and to please them he was burnt. He wrote an extremely useful Epistle to the Philippians, which is publicly read in the Churches of Asia even to this day.”
Roman Proconsul: “Then do this, old man. Just swear by the spirit of the emperor and that will be sufficient [to prevent your execution].”
St. Polycarp: “If you imagine for a moment that I would do that, then I think you pretend that you don’t know who I am. Hear it plainly. I am a Christian.”
Thou art a vessel of election, holy Paul the Apostle: thou art indeed worthy to be glorified. The preacher of truth, and doctor of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Through thee all the Gentiles have known the grace of God. Intercede for us to God, who chose thee. (Tract of the Mass of the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul)
Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Here’s what St. Paul DIDN’T say as he was laid out supine on the Damascus road:
“But, but, but, I’ve worked for YEARS to get to this level of seniority in the Temple bureaucracy. I’ve just reached the highest pay grade for my department! I’ll lose my pension! And the health insurance – I CAN’T walk away from the health insurance. You don’t understand. Full dental! FULL. DENTAL.! Hey! Dontcha think I would be FAR more effective working, you know, on the INSIDE? Huh? Huh? Like a mole. I could be an incredibly effective mole, passing info from the inside out, and then, you know, steering and shaping the narrative internally?
Right? See where I’m going with this? Right?
No. Being converted means BEING CONVERTED, not half-in half-out.
In this episode the Tombstone Four discuss the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, in honor of St. Emerentiana on her feast day. We then discuss the final testament of Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, in which he quite tepidly embraced Pascal’s Wager. Adams, like every dead human being that has ever existed, is now Catholic. The question is, did he make it through his particular judgment? We conclude with a brief discussion of the parabolic spike in silver prices which has been a long time coming, and the inconvenient fact that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange doesn’t have the physical silver. But hey, you can use your vault certificate to light a fire, or if you run out of Charmin.
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 any reason – don’t hesitate to do so!]
