On April 26, 2023 Angela Asher, a young mother with 5 children (including a 2 month old baby) went to the hospital in Lubbock because she couldn’t breathe and was having extreme chest pain. She was diagnosed with acute heart failure and on the 28th she was transferred to Baylor hospital in Fort Worth. The doctors at Baylor in Fort Worth are hopeful that no surgical intervention will be needed but the road to recovery will be long and it may be months before she sees much improvement.
“Maybe that would be a good thing.”
A happy and blessed Feast of Pope St. Pius V Ghislieri to one and all!
Two years later, he declared in a Constitution:
“That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.
Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: “Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature, given that the wrath of God falls over the sons of perfidy, be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery” (chap. 4, X, V, 31).
So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.
Therefore, wishing to pursue with greater rigor than we have exerted since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss.” (Constitution Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568, in Bullarium Romanum, Rome: Typographia Reverendae Camerae Apostolicae, Mainardi, 1738, chap. 3, p. 33)
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Pray for us to the Lord Our God, Papa Ghislieri, that we be delivered from the brutal jackboot of the sodomites.
Okay, Ann, here’s one for ya.
I started reading your financial column when ‘the letter’ got published. I found that interesting, but what I found mesmerizing was the information about Catholicism. I am a 60 year old married woman with no religious training in my background at all other than what I have picked up from walking around on the planet.
I asked my husband if he would attend a Catholic service with me which he did. I have told him ‘I think those Catholics have it right’. However, he was born, raised and confirmed into the Lutheran church – he emigrated from Sweden to the USA as an adult. He says if we ever attend a church, it will be Lutheran.
So now what? Do I do the Ephesians 5:22-33 thing or what?
L
Dear L,
You do the First Commandment thing. God is first. If the hypothetical choice is hell for all eternity with your husband, or heaven for all eternity with God, which do you think God wants you to choose?
Hear this now: God does not will or expect anyone to choose hell out of “loyalty” to another person. Even their spouse. Or their child. Why did God make you? What is your purpose? What is the meaning of life? The answer is literally the first paragraph in the Catechism:
Read that over and over again until you get it.
Receive instruction and enter the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Do this through a Latin Mass parish, if possible. Not only are the odds exponentially higher that the instruction you receive will be CATHOLIC, but the old rites of initiation are vastly superior to the Novus Ordo watered-down rites. I so rue not entering the Church in the Old Rite, but now realize that it was all 100% in the Divine Providence, both in terms of people that I did meet, AND people that I was specifically prevented from meeting until after I was safely in the Barque. But my blanket advice is: However far the drive might be to a Latin Mass parish, it is worth it.
So, for those of you with DNs in your life, KEEP PRAYING, as I do, as St. Monnica did.
St. Monnica, pray for us.
St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monnica
Today, April 30, is the the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, and also the TENTH (!!) anniversary of my vacating of my old real estate holdings and officially entering into my status of living in the proverbial “van down by the river”.
Here are just a few of the illiterate laywoman Catherine’s words to remind us why she is a Doctor of the Church, defender of the Papacy, and our dear patroness:
“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
Yes, Ma’am.
“Start being brave about everything. Drive out darkness and spread light. Don’t look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything.”
Yes, Ma’am.
“You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.”
Yes, Ma’am.
He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.
Yes, Ma’am.
Preach the Truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.
Yes, Ma’am.
A soul cannot live without loving. It must have something to love, for it was created to love.
Yes, Ma’am.
It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light.
Yes, Ma’am.
To the servant of God… every place is the right place, and every time is the right time.
Yes, Ma’am.
Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.
Yes, Ma’am.
We are of such value to God that He came to live among us… and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to Himself. We can only respond by loving God for His love.
Yes, Ma’am.
We’ve had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence.
Yes, Ma’am.
Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God’s true nature. God’s heart is more gentle than the Virgin’s first kiss upon the Christ. And God’s forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being.
Yes, Ma’am.
You must believe in truth that whatever God gives or permits is for your salvation.
Yes, Ma’am.
Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things!
Yes, Ma’am.
And of what should we be afraid? Our captain on this battlefield is Christ Jesus. We have discovered what we have to do. Christ has bound our enemies for us and weakened them that they cannot overcome us unless we so choose to let them. So we must fight courageously and mark ourselves with the sign of the most Holy Cross.
Yes, Ma’am.
Enrich your soul in the great goodness of God: The Father is your table, the Son is your food, and the Holy Spirit waits on you and then makes His dwelling in you.
Yes, Ma’am.
Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.
Yes, Ma’am.
The devil fears hearts on fire with love of God.
Yes, Ma’am.
Of course you are unworthy. But when do you hope to be worthy? You will be no more worthy at the end than at the beginning. God alone is worthy of Himself, He alone can make us worthy of Him.
Yes, Ma’am.
Dear St. Catherine of Siena, mystical bride of Christ, and our most admirable, exemplary and charitable patroness, pray for us.
The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine to Christ Jesus, at the behest and witness of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Clemente de Torres. ARSH 1700
“Better that only a few Catholics should be left, staunch and sincere in their religion, than that they should, remaining many, desire as it were, to be in collusion with the Church’s enemies and in conformity with the open foes of our faith.”
“These ceremonies which are used in the administration of the Sacraments, each of which we receive as delivered and entrusted to us through the hands of the fathers, must especially be retained and observed with great devotion.”
“It behooves us unanimously and inviolably to observe the ecclesiastical traditions, whether codified or simply retained by the customary practice of the Church.”
“WE OUGHT TO INSTRUCT WITH MEEKNESS THOSE WHOM HERESY HAS MADE BITTER AND SUSPICIOUS AND HAS ESTRANGED FROM ORTHODOX CATHOLICS… THUS, BY WHOLE-HEARTED CHARITY AND GOODWILL, WE MAY WIN THEM OVER TO US IN THE LORD.”
“I beg You, O Lord to remove anything which separates me from You, or You from me. Remove anything that makes me unworthy of Your sight, Your control, Your reprehension, of Your speech and conversation, of Your benevolence and love. Cast from me, every evil that stands in the way of my seeing You, hearing, tasting, savouring and touching You, fearing and being mindful of You, knowing, trusting, loving and possessing You, being conscious of Your Presence, and as far as may be, enjoying You. This is what I ask for myself and earnestly desire from You.
Amen”
Monsters like Leroy Carhart force us to contemplate the infinite mercy, goodness and love of God, available to anyone, if they will only repent, believe, and ask for it. Let us pray that this man repents and is saved from eternity in hell.
Please pray for one of the country’s longest practicing late-term abortionists, Leroy Carhart, who is on his death bed. Pray for a death bed conversion.
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) April 26, 2023