Monday, June 15, 2015

Chaos

I opened  the paper today to all sorts of insanity,  not the least of which was news of a zoo in Georgia in the former Soviet Republic being deluged with flood waters and the animals escaping. Lions and tigers and bears plus a hippo and a crocodile "slithering its way down the street."   The Archbishop of St Paul had to resign over the sex abuse scandal and Archbishop Chaput just announced that 3 more church buildings in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will be closed as worship sites and sold for "profane use."   Two young men in their early 20's died as a result of a murder suicide yesterday.  Sharks are attacking people in waters where sharks aren't normally found.  Two hefty-sized women found cause to pommel each other in a Wal-Mart store in the shampoo aisle with the 6-year-old son of one of the women jumping in the fray.  The president declared June gay pride month and the world is gaga over a man in drag whose heavily air brushed photo appears on a heavily contrived and morally worthless rag.

It really does appear that the gates of Hell have sprung open. I wish I had Terry's sense of humor with which to point these things out but I don't. I just have the feeling God has seen enough of our act and is slowly bringing down the curtain.  I'm grateful for my conversion.  My husband laughed at me last week when I told him the end is near. I reminded him of how he will be begging to borrow one of my. blessed candles when the 3-days darkness arrives. OK no I didn't -  that reference was just to make Terry laugh. But it's true that I do believe we are seeing at least the start of the end times.  That doesn't mean I will necessarily live to see The End. The truth is that no one knows.  It's not something I willing to take lightly.

Last week I was sick with some dreck and woke up in the middle of the night convinced I would soon breathe my last.  That is truly how awful I felt. I said as sincere an Act of Contrition that I could manage and realized if God really did decide to take me that night I wasn't going anywhere near Heaven.  I recovered obviously but decided this episode was a good way to scare me to confession. I normally don't let 2 weeks go by without going.  I was creeping up on 3.  Padre Pio advised no less than once every 8 days. Sounds good to me.

Anyway... The End is closer than some people would like to believe.  God is out and abomination is in, in all its various forms and Lord knows we have no shortage of varieties in this world.  Confusion reigns, but isn't that the devil's specialty?

Like my confessor always says at the end of his advice to me:

Stick with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary and you can't go wrong.

Now, on a purely humorous note, I have concluded that women will spend a shorter time in Purgatory than men, because women spend a good deal of their earth there already.  What other reason could there be for hot flashes, those attacks that sneak up on you day and night and make you feel like you've just plunged your head into a brick oven?  

Somewhere I read that Hell is a combination of searing flames and bitterly cold water, so that there is no relief from the torture.  I have spent some time in such a place so I know God is letting me work off some of my temporal punishment now.  The so-called HVAC system is comprised of two temperatures - bitter cold air that suddenly blasts out of the vents and drops on you like a Polar ice cap,  immediately followed by a Saharan wind that comes blasting out of the same vents with no warning.  Forget about one consistent comfortable temperature.  

Work can be  Hell, and sometimes it is literally.  

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Quit Messing With the Mass




I could not have said it better myself.  Story here

.https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7918

Someone asked me what I thought the problem is and my response is simply this: poor priestly formation.

And let me remind opponents of traditional sacred liturgy:  It is NOT the language, it is the FORM of the Mass, though certainly language does play a part in enabling abuse.

Someone posted a photo still from the "Passion of the Christ" and asked:  Would you clap and applaud at this sacrifice?  Then why would you think such behavior is permissible and acceptable at Holy Mass?

How quickly we forget what the Mass is and Who it centers upon.