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Tuesday 20 January 2015

BIG posts days because

..the weather is horrible and I have been in a lot.

Unlike in Malta, where I was walking up to six miles a day, I have barely gone out, except to Mass and to buy food.

It is really cold....

Also, I am trying to get as much on the blog if I must stop as early as next week for reasons I cannot share at this time.

So take time and read the lot...17 today. Prayers for me, please, would be appreciated.


To sell a movie? Just because he is not religious, really?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2091786/Liam-Neeson-considers-converting-Islam-following-trip-Istanbul.html

Eve of St. Agnes Coming Up Again



On this eve, girl's are to put a piece of wedding cake, like they get in England in little boxes to put in the freezer under their pillows. Then, they will supposedly dream of the man they will marry....

Hmm...Anyway, happy feast and happy squashed cake under the pillow!

Because of Another Blog

 "Celine, during the SHORT MOMENTS that remain to us, let us not lose our time . . . let us save souls . . . souls are being lost like flakes of snow, and Jesus weeps, and we. . . we are thinking of our sorrow without consoling our Fiance . . . Oh Celeine, let us live for souls.” 




Correspondence July1889 General Correspondence: 1877-1890

 By Saint Thérèse de Lisieux









Is this label a rhetorical tautology?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-30885393

pagan (or wicca), same-sex "marriage"

Obvious, but good article....

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/how-to-kill-vocations

Hamlets of God


My dream had been the dream of Christendom somehow coming out of the ashes in a remnant strong and true, but under persecution. What I learned from the Pope Emeritus years ago was that this remnant would be isolated groups of people, not able to communicate or even live together.

The Christian world is my world. I have no other, but the City of God.

The two cities,the City of God and the City of Man, have lived together side-by-side, but not without open conflict, for over 2,000 years.

Now, the City of Man is about to attempt to crush the City of God on earth.

The City of God will become Hamlets of God.

I sincerely hope all my readers find a hamlet.


Stable Gone

The crib scene at Whitefriars is gone today. I shall repost a poem I wrote in 2012.

Newborn

A newborn sleeps in Bethlehem's stable
cold and tired from the trial of birth

A young mother does what every mother does
and worships the Child, but with a difference

The Mother is not every woman and the Child
not every man, but The Man, perfect, God.

For long moments the Mother watches and wonders
at this Creator Who has become her Son,

She alone understands the Triune God Who
lives with her and in her and now in her arms

She remembers the prophets, the songs of David,
her ancestor of psalms and sings a song of love,

to the sleeping Babe. How many years, she
wonders, does she have to love Him like this

alone, quiet, in the solitude between animals and
shepherds staring at the miracle in the sky.

How many years does she have, she wonders,
to protect Him from the cold and rejection

of His Own People? Not long...not long.

Another timely repost

Monday, 31 December 2012

Well, yet another Gramsci post; without the Spirit, the intellect stagnates and dies

Did philosophers and revolutionaries honestly believe that humans can be intellectuals without the life of the Spirit? Did and do they honestly want a better life while denying the soul?

Some critics of the Church since the Enlightenment state that the teachers and Popes did not address the modern issues of politics, science and modernism. This is a misunderstanding of the times and the teachings. Since the publication of Marx and Engels, the Church has been on the offensive, not the defensive regarding teaching concerning the effects of tyrannies, the materialists dialectic and the supposed war between the classes. All the popes since 1848 have addressed these ideologies. The problem has been in the implementation at the local
levels of the clarity of the Teaching Magisterium.

Why? Many priests fell into error and carried those errors into the pulpit for the last two-hundred years. Many
priests and even bishops themselves were and are communists and push for that version of a world-view,
based on materialism, rather the the spiritual message of the Kingdom of God.

As laity, it is our duty to take care of our brothers and sisters in poverty or troubles.

Gramsci was clear that the Church was the only institution to understand what he and other revolutionaries
 wanted in the culture wars and the destruction of Western civilization, itself created largely by Christendom.

Here is one of  his quotations. Gramsci understood that both Faith and Reason were held together in the Catholic Church, that Revelation and the Teaching Magisterium provided a cohesive block against the fragmentation
 of society.

The strength of religions, and of the Catholic Church in particular, has lain, and still lies, in the fact that they
 feel very strongly the need for the doctrinal unity of the whole mass of the faithful and strive to ensure
 that the higher intellectual stratum does not get separated from the lower. The Roman church has always
 been the most vigorous in the struggle to prevent the “official” formation of two religions, one for the
 “intellectuals” and the other for the “simple souls” … That the Church has to face up to a problem of the “simple” means precisely that there has been a split in the community of the faithful. This split cannot be healed by
 raising the simple to the level of the intellectuals  .... but only by imposing an iron discipline on the
 intellectuals so that they do not exceed certain limits of differentiation and so render the split catastrophic and irreparable. 

Catholic intellectuals, including the laity, have a duty to combat the lies of the ideologies
 which have almost overcome the concepts of freedom and individualism. Our definition
 of the individual is not that of the socialist.  We are unique creatures, each one having
 a purpose, not to be subsumed by the bloated government. 

Those who are the enemy delight in the fragmentation of society, and society is built on
 natural, moral law and not the laws of men. This is the key to the strength of the Church
...that we have recognized that man-made structures are doomed to tyranny and/or chaos.

Tyranny will come to America and chaos to Europe for the purposeful loss of the culture
 wars has occurred. 

That Gramsci only saw the discipline of the Church as evil, rather than a guideline of the Holy Spirit intended to persevere Truth mirrors his own lack of Faith and Reason. 

The man or woman who will not bend to God, will not bend to the Church. Humility in scholarship is key.

We are on the edge, as most people will choose material comfort over truth. This is the sad decline of the human spirit. The remnant Church holds the real intellectual unity of a society, which Gramsci wanted through his groups of intellectuals at all levels.

Of course, this burgeoning of intellectual life has not happen, and in fact, societies are less intellectual now than in the recent past. Atheism makes one closed to the entire spiritual
 world, and therefore, the world of creativity and newness.

There has been a split in the Church, but not the one mentioned in the above quotation.
 The real split is between those who see the Spirit working in the Church and those who
 want to make the Church into their own image and likeness, into their own ideological institution. Hence, the liberal intellectuals have sold out to the Gramscian ideal of "intellectualism" but separated from the soul.

This state in a person or government is suicide. The intellectual gifts are connected to the spirit of man and woman, to the soul, to prayer and illumination.

Gramsci's material mind-set could not imagine an institution which is actually empowered by  GOD HIMSELF.
  That the Trinity dwells in each baptized Catholic and that there is insight and intellectual freedom partly
 defines us as made in the image and likeness of God.

Gramsci wanted men and women to be made in his image and likeness--and that is the primal sin of the angels;
 I will not serve.

Without the Holy Spirit and the individual free spirit of men and women, the intellect dies.

We are in that stage of Western Civilization. At the end of the year, we can only look forward to making ourselves
 and our families strong against the Gale of Stupidity and Barbarism which will engulf some reading this in their lifetime.

Repost on recusants and remnants

Thursday, 11 April 2013


NO MORE HIDING PLACES?: On Being a Recusant Catholic or Conscientious Christian from Another Denomination in 2013

Where are the hiding places? 

LifeSiteNews in the article I just noted in the last post, also refers to two other cases where those
 who have had religious convictions against gay marriage have been persecuted. Fines are persecutions. Ask the descendants of the once wealthy Recusant families in England. 

However many families, including the Mores, the Ropers, the Throckmortons, the Selbys, the Bounts,
 the Arundels (for centuries), and perhaps even the Shakespeares were fined over and over and over. From 1581, one sees this in the annals. Many families fled to France. Some were torn to pieces as sides were taken, such as in the Throckmorton Family. Some came to the States and Canada, such as the
 family noted below in the note. There are few, if any, hiding places NOW.




Recusancy. After 1581, recusancy became an indictable offence, so recusants often appear in quarter sessions records and the fines levied were recorded in the pipe rolls. After 1592 a separate series of rolls, the recusant rolls was created for this purpose which continues until 1691. The pipe rolls also contain the accounts of fines and forfeitures of lands collected under the recusancy acts. Pipe and recusancy rolls are available for viewing at TNA. In 1581, the fine for missing an Anglican service was raised to twenty pounds per month. Also, in that year, a treasonable offence resulting in death was committed by anyone converting to Catholicism or attempting to convert others to the religion. In addition, a fine of 100 marks and a year in prison was imposed on those hearing mass. The details of criminal proceeding and fines levied should be contained within quarter session records. An Act of 1581 also forbade the Catholic education of children.

Notice the last sentence. Parents were no longer allowed to raise their children in the Catholic Faith.



Are you paying attention? More on the flower fines from another angle. FromLifeSiteNews. There are more links.

The combination of legalizing same-sex “marriage” and odious “anti-discrimination” laws have faithful Christians saying their freedom of religion is being violated. And the court cases are piling up.

An appeals court in New Mexico found a Christian couple, Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, guilty of “discrimination” for refusing to photograph a homosexual “wedding.” They were ordered to pay more than $6,600 in fines after denying their services.

Canadian homosexual activists demanded “born again Christian” florist Kimberly Evans of New Brunswick be taken to court for refusing to sell flowers for a gay “wedding.”

Victoria Childress of Des Moines also faced threats of legal action for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual ceremony on the grounds that it violated her Christian faith.

More on the Recusancy Laws can be found here. I have taken a few of the laws and copied these.

1592
The first separate recusant rolls were compiled consisting mainly of Catholics and lasted up to 1691 (previously recusancy was recorded in the pipe rolls). The rolls recorded the punishments and fines of those who refused to conform to the Anglican doctrine. Memoranda Rolls 1217-1835: includes records of seizure of recusants' lands.
1593
Catholics were obliged to obtain permission to travel beyond five miles from their homes and those absent from home for more than three months were to leave the country. Another Act of the same year ordered that people of the age of 16 who refused to attend an Anglican service were to be imprisoned.

Catholics had to worship in isolated places

1606
The Oath of Allegiance was introduced, denying the authority of the Pope and those that refused to swear the oath were liable to be imprisoned. Convicted recusants were ordered to receive Anglican communion once a year or face a fine or seizure of their property. Recusants were also barred from office and professions including the military. Informers were paid £50 for revealing a priest saying mass or persons attending mass. All the restrictions applied to a Protestant who married a Catholic wife.
1625
Catholics forced to pay a double rate of taxation. Tax records can be found in Lay Subsidy Rolls and Catholics and other nonconformists should be recognisable as they paid a double rate.
1661
Clarendon Code 1661-1665. Four Acts passed designed to emasculate the power of nonconformists. Corporation Act. (1661). Catholics and other nonconformists were excluded from official posts unless they took the sacrament of holy communion at an Anglican service.
1662
Act of Conformity. The Act excluded Catholics from holding church office.
1662
Conventicle Act. Made meetings for Catholic and nonconformist worship illegal, even in private houses, where more than four outsiders were present
1665
The Five-Mile Act. Nonconformist and Catholic ministers were forbidden to live or visit within five miles of a town or any other place where they had preached.
1672
Declaration of Indulgence. The Penal Laws against Catholics were relaxed.
1673
Test Act. The strength of anti-Catholic feeling led parliament to order the enforcement of the recusancy laws and pass the Test Act in retaliation against the Declaration of Indulgence. The Act required all those taking up an official post, civil or military, to take the oath and to submit a sacrament certificate that they had taken Anglican communion. Between 1689 and 1702, the requirement to take the oaths and test was extended to beneficed clergy, members of the universities, lawyers, schoolteachers and preachers. The declarations can be found in TNA.
1676
A proclamation ordered a survey of every recusant aged 16 and over. The names were handed to the local Justice of the Peace who called on those named to take the oath or be jailed.
1678
The Popish Plot. A fictitious plot made up by Titus Oates which alleged that Catholics were planning to assassinate King Charles II and bring the Catholic Duke of York to the throne. Estreats Rolls held at TNA hold information on fines imposed on Catholics following the alleged plot. The Estreats Rolls contain valuable genealogical information on those accused of recusancy in the local courts. They will include the recusant's name, parish, rank or occupation and the fine levied.

http://hutchinsonfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/hutchinson-family-were-catholic.html


1689
The Bill of Rights excluded Catholics from the royal succession. New oaths of supremacy and allegiance were passed and measures were introduced to restrict the freedom of movement of Catholics. The Toleration Act of 1689 eased some restrictions, but the specific acts under the Clarendon Code were not repealed until the 19th century.
1692
Following the double rate of taxation Catholics were forced to pay in 1625, Catholics were obliged to pay double land tax. Catholics and other nonconformist entries should be recognisable amongst the land tax records as they paid double the rate of others.
1699
Recusants were barred from purchasing or inheriting land and any Catholics found practicing their religion could be jailed for life.
1702
The Security of Succession Act. The Act introduced an oath whereby all officials had to deny the right of the son of the exiled James II to succeed to the throne. Some returns of Catholics taking oaths are held by TNA as well as certificates of those who refused to take the oath.
1714
Security of the Sovereign Act. TNA holds certificates of those who refused to take the oath.
1715
Catholics were blamed collectively for the Jacobite rebellion. As a result, everyone over the age of 18 was compelled to swear an Oath of Allegiance. Lists of those who refused to take the oath are normally available at county record offices.
1716
Catholics were required to enrol documents such as wills and conveyances that involved the transfer of property and details can be found in close rolls held by TNA.
1723
Following the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Catholics refusing to take the oaths of loyalty were required to register their names and estates at quarter sessions or face the seizure of their property. The returns describe the estates in detail, giving precise locations and dimensions of lands. The Forfeited Estates Commission was responsible for overseeing the seizure of the estates and details can be found in the close rolls held at TNA.
Resucant Thomas Throckmorton's Tomb

Extinction of Souls Part Three

Ways in which Europe (and America) has extinguished souls.


  1. Through the philosophy of materialism, a left-over from the Enlightenment
  2. Through relativism, all religions are the same and deserve the same protection-it is the duty of the State to protect the true Faith only and tolerate others
  3. Through the acceptance of fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and even incest
  4. Through the great sins of abortion and contraception
  5. Through the complacency of those who think they will not be affected by suffering
  6. Through gross individualism and selfishness, narcissism and the hoarding of personal wealth
  7. Through corruption at the highest levels of society, in banks, corporations and even the Church
  8. Through the lies of Masonry including the biggest one, that man can save himself without God, without grace
  9. Through satanism, which leads to temporary power
  10. Through the denial of heaven, hell and purgatory
  11. Catholics refusing to become holy because they do not want to suffer and face what it takes 
  12. The apostasy of the clergy
  13. Attacks on the family
  14. Attacks on independent thought, independent media, independent anything
  15. Denial of sin, satan
Remember when I wrote this?


Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Unreal City


Sometimes, some of us are blessed with being in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the
 right time.

In my life, since my twenties, when I was living in Minneapolis in a lay community, I had premonitions in my
 soul and input from friends and spiritual advisers that things in the next thirty years or more, were going to get bad.

The fact that the cultures of Europe and America are not only post-Christian, but anti-Christian has not
 shocked me.

I have been prepared for over forty years for persecution and have tried to cooperate with grace in order to be strong.

I am strong in my spirit and in my mind. I wish my body were stronger, but no matter, God is in charge
. I must pray for perseverance. We all must.



We are now at the crossroads of massive changes in all countries of the West. Catholics will and must choose between being cultural or counter-cultural.

Thankfully, my dad, when I was 16, a long time ago, told me that to be a Catholic was to be counter-cultural.

He was correct then, and more so now.

If there are any Catholics still living with the old head in the sand syndrome, they must stop hiding from the reality of these massive changes which were predicted and known by some of us for a long time.


For some, life is the status quo. May I quote T. S. Eliot from The Wasteland, which I first studied in depth in 1979:

I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar kine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

   What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
               Frisch weht der Wind
               Der Heimat zu,
               Mein Irisch Kind,
               Wo weilest du?
"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
"They called me the hyacinth girl."
–Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed' und leer das Meer.

   Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.



   Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
"You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable—mon frère!"


If you are a Catholic in denial about the coming great persecutions, wake up out of your sleep. Otherwise,
you will not be prepared for what is to come.

In my next post, I have some suggestions....

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.ie/2013/04/what-does-one-do-at-end-of-civilization.html

For potential podders...

http://tinyhouseblog.com/tiny-house-concept/teardrop-usa-minimizing-life/

I have to say this now....NOW

Blessed Margaret Pole
A very holy hermit friend of mine, a priest in a country not so far away, told me that all those who are working hard for the Catholic Church, for Christ, right now, are under attack. He means the real Catholics, not the career Catholics.

Yes, we are, big time. God has opened the doors of hell for the last battles to occur. These battles are for the purification of the Church, for the purification of the saints, and for the punishment of gross sin.

Those who in denial will not be able to withstand what is coming and already is happening to some.

My blogging days are numbered, and I mean days, if I do not get the help I need to find a very safe place. Please consider....

I wish I could share with you all the stories, as you who doubt the times would begin to see patterns of persecution.

Catholics who are Americans or British and individuals in Europe---first line being hit.

Catholics who are desiring to work in different countries for Catholic religious institutions-second line.

Catholics who are missionaries-first line.

Pray very hard to see what I can see, and hear the stories I have heard here.

Pray for me, as I am very vulnerable.

If you do not believe me, believe another, greater and more famous blogger.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/01/dont-tell-me-you-dont-wish-to-fight-for-the-moment-you-tell-me-that-you-are-already-fighting/#comment-491270

And, a not so famous commentator wrote this...

Supertradmum says:
Father Z., Thanks for publishing these. I have been writing for weeks on the battle we are already in and some of us, on the more obvious front lines, are being shot at, spiritually and physically.
I wrote again, yesterday, that there is no middle ground, no neutral territory. I was told this by holy people in the 1970s and took it to heart.
When I walked about Dublin (until I leave next week, going to Mass and praying), the exact words of Dante, echoed by T. S. Eliot, came to my mind. Most people are on their way to hell. Most people have dead souls. I grieve at this fact, but one cannot deny this. One cannot find but very small groups of real Catholics.
You, Father Z and others, like me in my small way, have tried to wake people up to the coming trials. You have tried to encourage confession and I have tried to encourage the road to purity of heart. We do not have much time. If I do not find a safe place soon, I shall be one in a cell, in silence, but not in a holy place.
What can we do to wake up American Catholics who have so much power and yet are living as if nothing is changing around them? 1938 is now.
Again, you were very brave to quote Ann. Thanks again. I pray for you. Please pray for me.

I have taken Blessed Margaret Pole as my special patron in these times.

Reminders of past posts on her.

11 Nov 2014
She was the last Plantagenet and is a martyr for the faith. She is one of my personal patrons. Etheldredasplace: "The Last Plantagenet". 28 May 2013. I posted something about this great saint last year. Margaret Pole remains ...
20 Feb 2014
It can obtain for us what God alone can bestow, the grace of contrition and of perfect charity, the grace also of eternal life, the very end and purpose of the divine governance, the final manifestation of its goodness. He also ...
28 May 2013
Purgatory is the place where those who refuse to go through the purgations on earth, which demand some silence and prayer, go, to endure the final cleansing, and sadly, to also endure punishment for not responding to ...
28 May 2013
I posted something about this great saint last year. Margaret Pole remains one of the most interesting saints of the horrible purge of Henry VIII, and one of his most famous victims. She was obviously a saint before her ...
07 Feb 2014
Today, as I am in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, this is the memorial day of Blessed Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. She was the last Plantagenet and is a martyr for the faith. She is one of my personal patrons.
28 May 2012
Today, as I am in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, this is the memorial day of Blessed Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. She was the last Plantagenet and is a martyr for the faith. She is one of my personal patrons.
11 Dec 2014
... Sherborne's Old Castle, Sir Walter Raleigh, Arundel Castle, the Duchess of Norfolk, the last Plantagenet Margaret Pole, Cardinal Pole, fantasy novels, The Phantom of the Opera, the Passionists, St. Alphonsus, Glastonbury, ...
Etheldredasplace: Naming Children and Margaret Pole
27 May 2014
The must sees today included Blessed Margaret Pole, so my week began with her and ended with her. How is that for synchronicity? How blessed was I to start the week in Sussex where Blessed Margaret's Mass was ...
27 May 2014
I think of Blessed Margaret Pole, one of my patrons I have adopted when thinking of confidence. She had to face the fact that she was being persecuted by her godson. Such hard times. Garrigou-Lagrange again:.
27 May 2014
A Fictive Monologue of Margaret Pole. Posted by Supertradmum. I sit and wait for the last call, being told by the jailer that I have one hour of life. What does one think of in one's last hour? I think briefly of my own sins, forgiven, ...
11 Nov 2014
She was the last Plantagenet and is a martyr for the faith. She is one of my personal patrons. Etheldredasplace: "The Last Plantagenet". 28 May 2013. I posted something about this great saint last year. Margaret Pole remains ...
20 Feb 2014
It can obtain for us what God alone can bestow, the grace of contrition and of perfect charity, the grace also of eternal life, the very end and purpose of the divine governance, the final manifestation of its goodness. He also ...
28 May 2013
Purgatory is the place where those who refuse to go through the purgations on earth, which demand some silence and prayer, go, to endure the final cleansing, and sadly, to also endure punishment for not responding to ...