Homilia - Triens Dies Solis Adventus

St. Jose Maria Escriva

Amici, Americani et Compatriotae,

This past Sunday - the Third Sunday in Advent - Fr. Kirby gave an excellent homily on St. Jose Maria Escriva at Our Lady of Grace. The liturgical readings may be found here:

Third Sunday of Advent Lectionary: 8

And a 12+ minute audio recording may be found here:

Homily - Our Lady of Grace - December 17, 2017

The sermon was excellent and covered the following points:

• Martyrdom and the Communion of the Saints
• The Spanish Civil War and Communism
• Holiness

Our Lady of Grace has received a First Class Relic of St. Jose Maria Escriva, hence Fr. Kirby's homily. This opened an opportunity to explain how the Church certifies and distributes relics, how great men of old were martyred for their beliefs and the importance of the Communion of the Saints. Protestantism misses much of this, ignoring to its peril Hebrews 12:1-2:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God."

Interestingly on the previous Thursday night  I attended a Protestant Bible Study with my wife, and while the faith chapter of Hebrews 11 was duly emphasized, the phrase at the beginning of chapter 12 was ignored:  "We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses." Strangely Protestants erroneously believe that the Saints being dead have no current function or purpose. But as Fr. Kirby pointed out, this was not the faith of the Church since the beginning. The Tradition of that great cloud of witnesses was preserved and gave us at the Councils of Carthage and Rome in the late 4th century AD our Bible. There was no true Bible before that - just the Greek Septuagint as the Old Testament and different collections of books from the Gospel writers and St. Paul. Individual churches accepted some of these, added others like the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, and rejected other like Hebrews, Jude and Revelation. But finally the Church Herself using the living Tradition of the great cloud of witnesses who went before us finally determined the authentic Canon of Sacred Scripture well after the Gospels and Letters in our New Testament had been written. Indeed, I got to explain this to a Baptist co-worker today who had never seen a Catholic Bible until I let her borrow one of my extra ones. She was amazed that such books as Sirach and Wisdom in the Deuterocanonicals (or Apocrypha as Protestants call them) had been rejected by the Protestants in the 16th century regardless that the undivided Church had accepted them for over a thousand years.

Fr. Kirby went on to describe St. Jose Maria Escriva's ministry which took place during the Spanish Civil War. Communists under the disguise of Republicans fought against Nationalists who were mainly Catholic. These communists murdered Catholics - clergy and laity without regard. This lasted from 1936 to 1939. While we may have objections to the style of government which arose under Francisco Franco as the Republicans were defeated, we must remember that the communists in Spain did what their Soviet brethren had done in Russia in the early part of the 20th century. Under communism more than 20 million people were murdered in the last century. Today snowflake airhead millennials cry about how communism will bring about social justice and serve the common good. But as Fr. Kirby explained, this is a lie from Lucifer himself. Communism is evil and must be eradicated from the face of the Earth. Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical against communism called Divini Redemptoris and Pope Paul XII issued a decree against it as a Papal Bull. One cannot be Catholic and be a communist, period.

The last thing that Fr. Kirby discussed was holiness - how holiness isn't just for the clergy but for all of us. As Hebrews 12:14 says:

"Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord." And 1st Peter 1:14-16 says:

"Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, 'Be holy because I [am] holy.'"

Considering that on Monday next week we celebrate the Birth of our Savior, Lord and King, it would do well for all of us to strive for holiness, for the alternative to not seeing God once we die is unacceptable.

Expeditio Mulierum - Violentia, Profanitas et Malevolentia

Amici,

The following video from the Geller Report needs no commentary - Women's March: Violence, Profanity and Hate, Our Reporter Attacked. Mark my words: this is the making of Civil War. May God have mercy on us all.

Noli Initiare Violentiam

Amici, Americani, Compatiotae,

Tucker Carlson of Fox News yesterday evening interviewed Jake Bittle, an English Major at the University of Chicago. This student advocated projectile vomit to protest against incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer who will be speaking at the University, and flipping cars over if President-elect Trump rejects the Paris Climate Change Accord. (ASIDE: One wonders if this student supports nuclear energy as a way to replace fossil fuel, or if he like most liberals is reflexively anti-fossil, anti-nuclear no matter what. END ASIDE) The video below speaks for itself.



Disillusioned young people like these fail to consider that ordinary American citizens in the heartland are listening to them throw their temper tantrums in public over the fact that their candidate did not win the Presidential election, and these citizens are often supporters of their Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Threatening their justly acquired property and by implication their families and their persons will one day be taken seriously. This is a dangerous and explosive combination.

Now for the record I believe in the principle of the non-initiation of force. I also believe in the principle that one has a right to defend his family, his justly acquired property and livelihood, and himself. Therefore, these young students need to beware lest the fires of hatred that they have stoked result in an explosion from the muzzle end of someone's firearm. God forbid that that should ever occur. But adult young people acting like spoiled rotten little brats will one reap what they have sown, and it won't be pretty.

Now also for the record - once again - I did NOT vote for Donald Trump whom I thought to be an unprincipled foul-mouthed playboy gambler bone-ignorant of the Constitution, NOR did I vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton who is a murderous pathological liar, and an unremitting advocate of the expansion of the infanticide of the unborn and the sanctification of the putrid filth of homosexual sodomy. Therefore, I voted for Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party because I thought that that party's platform was closest to Church teaching. However, Trump won and frankly I was relieved because no longer would the threat of Democrat incursion on religious liberty continue. And while Trump was NOT my choice, he WILL BE our President just as Barack Hussein Obama has been our President for the past eight years even though I vehemently opposed him for the same reasons that I opposed Hillary Clinton - abortion and homosexual marriage. Romans 13:1-7 is very clear, and St. Paul wrote this when Roman Emperors ruled the known world and were more evil than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined together:

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

So to all you millennial cry baby spoil brats out there, I say grow up. You lost. Too bad. We conservatives lost in 2008 and 2012, and we didn't overturn cars, nor burn buildings, nor threaten and beat on people with whom we disagreed. Move on and do something good for the Republic instead of pitching a childish fit that you didn't get your way. Help the poor. Care for the sick. Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty. Do something good to take your mind off this failure. If you don't grow up and act like adults, then beware lest some foolhardy individual who takes the Second Amendment seriously shows you the discharge of the muzzle end of his rifle. I do NOT want that. I cannot imagine ANY Christian wants that. But God will let you reap what you are sowing. That's what St. Paul says - "Be not deceived, God is NOT mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap." So repent before it is too late. Give peace a chance as you liberals always say.

One last thing before I close. For those of us who are Christians, no matter who is President, Jesus Christ is King, Lord and Savior. Even if that witch Hillary Clinton had won to become our President (and yes, we would have had to respect her as such regardless of her personal evil), we still have the assurance that in the end God wins and justice will prevail. But for secular liberals, there is no God so they have to replace the God vacancy with Caesar - nanny government. And when Caesar turns out to be someone whom they don't want, then their whole world falls apart. Their god has failed them and thus their only recourse is a temper tantrum. Well, that's what happens when you have false gods. For Christians, whether Trump or Hillary is President, God is still on the Throne and His sovereign will cannot and will not be thwarted. He is love. He is Holy. He is Merciful. But the flip side of His mercy is His justice. Let us then beware lest His mercy for those whose persons and families and property are assaulted turns out to be His justice for those doing the assaulting. I have been on the receiving end of the Holy Spirit's baseball bat of "wake the heck up, get sober and act like an adult," and it doesn't feel good one bit.

Gubernatores Russiani Christiani Erant

Amici, Romani, Compatriotae,

Regardless of whether the recent flights of Russian jets violated Turkish airspace by less than 5 miles or not (something Turkish jets routinely do with impunity over Greek airspace), photographs of the belongings recovered from the murdered pilots of those jets reveal that they were Christian, as the one provided below shows. This was obtained from an article at the UK's Daily Mail. Clearly visible is a Cross or Crucifix (it appears shown from the back side) and an upside down small icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary with baby Jesus on a black rope.



Russian Pilot's
Christian Artifacts

What we know for certain is that Barack Hussein Obama as a liberal progressive Democrat ingratiates himself with Muslims, advocates the infanticide of the unborn and sanctifies the putrid filth of sterile sexual perversion, whereas Vladimir Putin for all his obvious and deplorable faults in having annexed the Crimea and having invaded Ukraine yet openly defends Christian Orthodoxy in the Middle East and basic Christian sexual morality at home and abroad. So the question is this: do we side with Muslim Turks and liberal progressive President Obama, or with the Christians? Sometimes the question really has to be that simple in order to elicit the only logical and correct answer. And pray for the repose of the souls of the pilots whom the Muslims murdered, and for the consolation of their families.