Saturday, February 11, 2006
Winter Arrives In Hub
For the last few days, it has been decidedly chilly. And tonight, starting after midnight, we are expecting 8-15 inches of snow. If it happens, it will be the first really significant snow of the year.
But it comes so late that we are already more than jonesing for spring. The days are noticably lengthening. The sun is setting around 5:30 now. And, with the blessing, even if we get that dreaded snowstorm, it will not be around long.
But it comes so late that we are already more than jonesing for spring. The days are noticably lengthening. The sun is setting around 5:30 now. And, with the blessing, even if we get that dreaded snowstorm, it will not be around long.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Tomorrow Is World Day Of the Sick
I remind you:
A) Because praying for and visiting the sick are spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and
B) There is an indulgence attached to it!
A) Because praying for and visiting the sick are spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and
B) There is an indulgence attached to it!
At Best, A Snapshot
I just got around to updating my Current Reading section. I have made my way through several books since I last updated, including a re-read of Patrick O'Brian's Desolation Island, which I have not read in some 8 years (!). At best, the Current Reading is only a snapshot, not a reliable and comprehensive account of what I am reading, because I don't always update in the most timely manner.
Since I loved Eamon Duffy's The Stripping Of the Altars last year (best book I read all year), I am starting his Faith Of Our Fathers: Reflections On Catholic Tradition. Plus Warren Carroll's work on Spain has lead me to his other works. The Guillotine and the Cross is about the French Revolutionary assault on the Faith.
Since I loved Eamon Duffy's The Stripping Of the Altars last year (best book I read all year), I am starting his Faith Of Our Fathers: Reflections On Catholic Tradition. Plus Warren Carroll's work on Spain has lead me to his other works. The Guillotine and the Cross is about the French Revolutionary assault on the Faith.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
I'm Salivating Here
Deluxe Editions (reproductions, of course) of Black Hours, the Farnese Hours, and many other illuminated treasure are available from the Skriptorium.
The Farnese Hours will set you back 5,480 Euros (the Black Hours, which use black, royal blue, gold and silver illumination are a mere 3,980 Euros). I have seen another replica of the Farnese Hours. It was not a page by page replica, but was designed to give you a sense of it.
What the Farnese Horae look like, with the neato wooden box!
This is a treasure trove of replica Horae! The Hours of Joanna the Mad (7,592 Euros), Les Belles Heures (9,980 Euros), the Bedford Hours (9,900 Euros), and the Das Stundenbuch der Visconti (a whopping 12,000 Euros). And that is just scratching the surface.
Via In Illo Tempore Thanks, Mike, if inciting desires that cannot possibly be met unless I win the lottery is something to give thanks for!
The Depositio Of the Alleluia
We Are Here, We Are Here, We Are Here!
You might not be able to see my blog, but I'm here. I had the same problem earlier this morning trying to access Father Tucker's Dappled Things. The general framework for the blog loaded, but there was no content, not even links. And now it is happening to me. Blogger problem, or something more sinister?
How Do We Deal With the Growing Militancy of Mohammedans?
Some proposals.
First of all, the issue is different for the US from what the Europeans face. They are in close proximity to the Islamic world, and have unwisely over the last 50 years allowed huge Moslem immigration in order to get cheap labor. So the solution will be different for the US than for Europe.
For the US,
1) Continue with the next phases of the War on Moslem Terrorism, rooting out all governments that in any way support Moslem terrorism: Iran, Syria, Libya. It does not necessarily mean that we need to invade and conquer each of these states. But doing so would not be a disproportionate response to the attack of September 11th, and the ongoing threats and attacks on our allies.
2) End Moslem immigration into the US, including students. People come here for opportunity? True, they do. But if they can't come here, that forces them to put pressure on their own repressive Moslem governments to provide that same better life there. And if they won't comply with broad-based wishes of their people, those governments will fall (I'm thinking specifically about Saudi Arabia and Egypt).
3) Continue the intelligence operations on suspected Moslems in this country. In fact, intensify them.
4) Encourage Moslems in this country to either convert to Christianity, or leave for their native lands. This does not need to be governmental coercion, but social pressure. America is all about assimilation. Part of life in the "melting pot is adopting English as your language, acceptance of the secular institutions of the United States' government, becoming part of traditional Western Civilization, and becoming one of the two religions Americans have practiced since the country's inception: Christianity or Judaism. We need to stress assimilation more.
5) Tighter border controls. The border patrol must be much more aggressive in patrolling the border in order to both catch and deter illegals. Seek out and send back illegal immigrants in all parts of the country very aggressively. No more allowing illegals out of custody until their hearing. The only issues in the hearing is whether an illegal is here illegally, and whether he is covered by one of the various amnestys. They need to be held from arrest until deportation.
6) Moslem recruiting in places like federal and state prisons needs to come to a complete halt. That ministry can no longer be welcome in US correctional facilities.
The Europeans have a much worse problem. As we saw in the riots in France last year, as we saw in the anti-Israel rampages that went on there a few years ago, when synagogues were torched, Europe is sitting on a demographic powderkeg with a lit fuse rather quickly nearing the contents of the keg. So Europe's response will have to be even more drastic than that of the US.
1) First of all, the prospect of Moslem domination of any European country, or of Europe as a whole, is unacceptable. It is not something anyone can live with. Yet that is just what will happen when the Moslem population there reaches majority status, which might happen by the third quarter of this century, earlier in some countries. So to prevent this from ever happening:
A) End all Moslem immigration now.
B) Aggressively seek out illegals and deport them.
C) Deportations of unemployed Moslem individuals and even whole families. If they are not contributing to European society, back they go.
D) Face the fact that European goods will be more expensive because the cheap labor will not be available. Stress quality.
2) Europe will have to stress its traditional Christian roots, as the Holy Father has repeated called on it to do. Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe. Ultimately, those Moslems who wish to remain in Europe, in order to fit in, will have to abandon Islam, and convert. Spain did it as part of the Reconquista. All of Europe will have to follow suit, or become Islamic Republics by 2100.
3) The native European birthrate needs to be dramatically increased. So all the trappings of the feminist revolution must be dispensed with. Young native European people will have to marry earlier, eschew homosexuality, birth control, and abortion, and have more children. Women will have to either stay at home, or devise careers they can work at from home. Because they will not have Moslem nannies to rely on.
Then we have the joint response of the US and Europe:
1) Withdrawal of recognition from the Palestinian Authority until a genuinely democratic and liberal governing coalition which completely eschews the use of violence comes to power. As such a thing does not now exist in either Hamas or Fatah, such leadership will have to be groomed. And that may take a generation.
2) The withdrawal of aid to Moslem nations that encourage anti-US or anti-Israel, anti-Christian sentiments to be taught in schools, preached in mosques, printed in the press, or broadcast. These are not free countries anyway. Government censorship is ubiquitous. Let the governments there start censoring those who blame the US, hate Christianity, or despise Western Civilization.
3) Continued aggressive law enforcement/intelligence response to possible terrorist threats. This needs to be coordinated on a bilateral basis between nations, regardless of transitory differences between Western states.
What will happen if all this does not take place? There will be a continued escalation in violence wherever Islam and the West come into contact. Europe will be Islamic within 100 years. And acts of terrorism against Christians and against the US will escalate. I advocate fairly hard measures, and they have to be adopted by people too blind to see that they are necessary. But unless they are, Civilization will be plunged into an Islamic Dark Age, with Bronze-Age Moslem fanatics dynamiting St. Peter's, the Louvre, and every bastion of Christendom and Western Civilization with the approval of the Islamic governments of Europe.
First of all, the issue is different for the US from what the Europeans face. They are in close proximity to the Islamic world, and have unwisely over the last 50 years allowed huge Moslem immigration in order to get cheap labor. So the solution will be different for the US than for Europe.
For the US,
1) Continue with the next phases of the War on Moslem Terrorism, rooting out all governments that in any way support Moslem terrorism: Iran, Syria, Libya. It does not necessarily mean that we need to invade and conquer each of these states. But doing so would not be a disproportionate response to the attack of September 11th, and the ongoing threats and attacks on our allies.
2) End Moslem immigration into the US, including students. People come here for opportunity? True, they do. But if they can't come here, that forces them to put pressure on their own repressive Moslem governments to provide that same better life there. And if they won't comply with broad-based wishes of their people, those governments will fall (I'm thinking specifically about Saudi Arabia and Egypt).
3) Continue the intelligence operations on suspected Moslems in this country. In fact, intensify them.
4) Encourage Moslems in this country to either convert to Christianity, or leave for their native lands. This does not need to be governmental coercion, but social pressure. America is all about assimilation. Part of life in the "melting pot is adopting English as your language, acceptance of the secular institutions of the United States' government, becoming part of traditional Western Civilization, and becoming one of the two religions Americans have practiced since the country's inception: Christianity or Judaism. We need to stress assimilation more.
5) Tighter border controls. The border patrol must be much more aggressive in patrolling the border in order to both catch and deter illegals. Seek out and send back illegal immigrants in all parts of the country very aggressively. No more allowing illegals out of custody until their hearing. The only issues in the hearing is whether an illegal is here illegally, and whether he is covered by one of the various amnestys. They need to be held from arrest until deportation.
6) Moslem recruiting in places like federal and state prisons needs to come to a complete halt. That ministry can no longer be welcome in US correctional facilities.
The Europeans have a much worse problem. As we saw in the riots in France last year, as we saw in the anti-Israel rampages that went on there a few years ago, when synagogues were torched, Europe is sitting on a demographic powderkeg with a lit fuse rather quickly nearing the contents of the keg. So Europe's response will have to be even more drastic than that of the US.
1) First of all, the prospect of Moslem domination of any European country, or of Europe as a whole, is unacceptable. It is not something anyone can live with. Yet that is just what will happen when the Moslem population there reaches majority status, which might happen by the third quarter of this century, earlier in some countries. So to prevent this from ever happening:
A) End all Moslem immigration now.
B) Aggressively seek out illegals and deport them.
C) Deportations of unemployed Moslem individuals and even whole families. If they are not contributing to European society, back they go.
D) Face the fact that European goods will be more expensive because the cheap labor will not be available. Stress quality.
2) Europe will have to stress its traditional Christian roots, as the Holy Father has repeated called on it to do. Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe. Ultimately, those Moslems who wish to remain in Europe, in order to fit in, will have to abandon Islam, and convert. Spain did it as part of the Reconquista. All of Europe will have to follow suit, or become Islamic Republics by 2100.
3) The native European birthrate needs to be dramatically increased. So all the trappings of the feminist revolution must be dispensed with. Young native European people will have to marry earlier, eschew homosexuality, birth control, and abortion, and have more children. Women will have to either stay at home, or devise careers they can work at from home. Because they will not have Moslem nannies to rely on.
Then we have the joint response of the US and Europe:
1) Withdrawal of recognition from the Palestinian Authority until a genuinely democratic and liberal governing coalition which completely eschews the use of violence comes to power. As such a thing does not now exist in either Hamas or Fatah, such leadership will have to be groomed. And that may take a generation.
2) The withdrawal of aid to Moslem nations that encourage anti-US or anti-Israel, anti-Christian sentiments to be taught in schools, preached in mosques, printed in the press, or broadcast. These are not free countries anyway. Government censorship is ubiquitous. Let the governments there start censoring those who blame the US, hate Christianity, or despise Western Civilization.
3) Continued aggressive law enforcement/intelligence response to possible terrorist threats. This needs to be coordinated on a bilateral basis between nations, regardless of transitory differences between Western states.
What will happen if all this does not take place? There will be a continued escalation in violence wherever Islam and the West come into contact. Europe will be Islamic within 100 years. And acts of terrorism against Christians and against the US will escalate. I advocate fairly hard measures, and they have to be adopted by people too blind to see that they are necessary. But unless they are, Civilization will be plunged into an Islamic Dark Age, with Bronze-Age Moslem fanatics dynamiting St. Peter's, the Louvre, and every bastion of Christendom and Western Civilization with the approval of the Islamic governments of Europe.
Holy Father Meets With First Lady Laura Bush
Not much substance, but diplomatic contacts like this are always helpful.
And an opportunity to see a nice mantilla picture.
Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich
A nice, short biography of Blessed Anna.
And the e-text of The Dolorous Passion Of Our Lord Jesus Christ, excellent reading for the upcoming Lent, of course.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
The Household Of Faith
One of the best descriptions of the true Catholic faith from Father Frederick W. Faber's All For Jesus
One of the most divine and striking characteristics of the Catholic religion is the communion of saints; the way in which everything belongs to everybody, and nobody has any spiritual property of his own. The merits and satisfactions of our dear Lord, the joys and woes of Mary, the patience of the martyrs, the perseverence of the confessors, and the purity of the virgins, they all belong to all of us. Just as the blood circulates through from and to the heart all over the body, so in the Church there is no division or separation. Heaven, purgatory, and earth, it is all one body.
We interchange our merits, we circulate our prayers, we pass on our joys, we infect with our troubles, we use each other's satisfactions as they come to hand. We have all sorts of relations with Heaven, and we know exactly how to manage them. As to purgatory, we have a regular science, and endless practical methods for it, with which we are quite at home. On earth, kith and kin, blood and country, Jew, Greek, Scythian, bond and free, it is all one. This is what strikes heretics as so very portentous about us; there is no other word than portentous for it.
We talk of the other world as if it were a city we were familiar with from long residence; just as we might talk of Paris, Brussels, or Berlin. We are not stopped by death. Sight is nothing to us; we go beyond it as calmly as possible. We are not separated from our dead. We know the saints a great deal better than if we had lived with them upon earth. We talk to the angels in their different choirs, as if they were, as they are, our brothers in Christ. We use beads, medals, crucifixes, holy water, indulgences, sacraments, sacrifices for all this as naturally as pen, ink, paper, axe, saw, spade, or rake, for earthly work.
We have no sort of distrust about the matter. We are all one household, and there is an end of it. The blessed Lord God is our Father; His dear majesty is our affair; our Elder Brother created us, and has our own nature; Mary is our mother, the angels and saints are all the kindest and most familiar of brothers. So we go up and down stairs, in and out, and to each other's rooms, just as it may be. There is no constraint about it at all. The air of the place is simply an intense filial love of the Father Whom we all adore, so that our reverence is children's reverence, and our fear, children's fear.
How can they understand this, who live outside the household? Must it not necessarily seem to them a system of human mysteries, an unscriptural fabrication. They are "strangers and foreigners." How can they divine the ways, the feelings, the sympathies of the "fellow citizens of the saints and the domestics of God"? They can read the words, but they can know nothing of the heat and life, the strength and perception, the health and the love that are in them. A veil is over their hearts--truly their hearts rather than their understandings--when Paul is read; for they who would understand the edifying of the body of Christ must first "all meet into the unity of faith."
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Into the Great Silence
Old Blog, New Address
Fellow Evil Traditonalist Ian at Nobis Quoque Peccatoribus has a new URL. I am adjusting my template accordingly. Plus he has a great new look.
Get Ready To Say Goodbye To the Alleluia!
Sunday is Septuagesima (it is actually relatively late this year). In the traditional Latin Mass, the last time the Alleluia is used is the vigil of Septuagesima. Then you don't hear it again for roughly 70 days, until Easter.
The "Religion Of Peace" At It Again
Our Catholic brethern in the Philippines are really on the front line in Mohammedanism's assault on Christendom and Western civilization. I don't think I heard about this outrage anywhere else.
In the words of Her Danish Majesty, "We must show our opposition to Islam."
In the words of Her Danish Majesty, "We must show our opposition to Islam."
Indulgences For World Day of the Sick
February 11th.
This is a new one on me. I'd never heard of World Day of the Sick before, let alone imagined there were indulgences attached to it.
Here is a great idea. I think the Holy Father's aides ought to go through the old Raccolta (the directory of indulgenced prayers prior to 1968) and the Enchiridion of Indulgences, and issue a new Enchiridion, one that restores many of indulgences stripped in the 1968 Enchiridion, and comprehensively notes all new indulgences, like this one, and the one for the Divine Mercy Novena.
This is a new one on me. I'd never heard of World Day of the Sick before, let alone imagined there were indulgences attached to it.
Here is a great idea. I think the Holy Father's aides ought to go through the old Raccolta (the directory of indulgenced prayers prior to 1968) and the Enchiridion of Indulgences, and issue a new Enchiridion, one that restores many of indulgences stripped in the 1968 Enchiridion, and comprehensively notes all new indulgences, like this one, and the one for the Divine Mercy Novena.
Blessed Pope Pius IX Edition of Today's Catholic Cultural Heritage Images
Here is a great website devoted to Blessed Pope Pius IX, our Supreme Pontiff from 1846 until 1878. He was the last Pope to hold temporal power in Italy, defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady, and called Vatican Council I, which defined the dogma of papal infallibility
His excellent Syllabus of Errors can be found here.
His magnificent Chalice and Paten.
His pastoral staff
Wow! His tiara. Would that the popes would re-adopt the use of the tiara!
His ring.
His tomb.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Eighteen Years Since the Blizzard of '78
Eighteen years ago this morning, it was snowing so hard that there were thunder claps. There was coastal flooding, hurricane force winds, and the storm ended on the 7th with a coating of ice on top of almost 3 feet of snow. Massachusetts declared a week-long state of emergency. Vehicular traffic on the streets and highways was prohibited. Some cars, caught in the storm along Route 128 in Needham and elsewhere, were abandoned right in the middle of the traffic lanes.
In contrast, today we are enjoying comparatively mild weather, with temps above freezing, and very little in the way of snow this winter. So may it continue. The worst of the New England winter usually comes between January 10th and February 20th. The forecast through Friday shows no significant snow, and temps at or above freezing. So far, so good.
In contrast, today we are enjoying comparatively mild weather, with temps above freezing, and very little in the way of snow this winter. So may it continue. The worst of the New England winter usually comes between January 10th and February 20th. The forecast through Friday shows no significant snow, and temps at or above freezing. So far, so good.
I've Been Tagged
Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.
1) LutherPunk
2) Jonathan (AFCM)
3) Irish and Dangerous (Me, Danny)
4) Dymphna's Well
5) Recta Ratio
Next select five people to tag
1) Ginny
2) SmockMomma
3) Dan Matsui
4) Dom Bettinelli
5) John At The Inn
What were you doing 10 years ago?
February 1996: I was happily getting ready for the 1996 campaign season, my first as a re-enactment officer. There were lots of uniform fittings, boot fittings, sessions getting things like sword, epaulette, gorget, gorget ribbons, hat lace, etc. taken care of, plus I was training and helping kit out recruits. I was also helping Phil Gramm's presidential campaign until he dropped out.
What were you doing 1 year ago?
February 2005 was the beginning of Lent, and I was meeting weekly with my RCIA candidate and attending RCIA Masses with him.
Five snacks you enjoy:
1) Cheez-Its
2) Pepperoni
3) Lindt Intense Orange Bars
4) Cape Cod Sea Salt and Vinegar Kettle-Cooked Potato Chips
5) Cocktail Peanuts mixed with Raisinets and Junior Mints
Five songs you know all the words to:
A. The Lincolnshire Poacher
B. The British Grenadiers
C. Heart of Oak
D. Men of Harlech
E. The Minstrel Boy
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
A. Set up a fund to have many Masses said in various places for me and my deceased relatives in perpetutiy
B. Travel to Ireland to look up relatives
C. Second home in Florida or South Carolina
D. Set up a charitable trust for providing food and clothes for the poor
E. Plant an apple orchard and windmill farm and sell electricity back to the provider to pay the electric bills of those who cannot afford them.
Five bad habits:
A. Eating too much
B. Not exercising enough
C. Only brushing the teeth once a day
D. Giving in to peer pressure to do something else when I should be praying
E. Plucking my eyebrows with my fingers
Five things you enjoy doing:
A. Blogging
B. Walking
C. Reading
D. Writing
E. Listening to music
Five things you would never wear again:
A. orange, yellow, red, and purple plaid golf pants
B. red sneakers
C. a digital watch
D. sideburns
E. my hair, over the top of my shirt collar
Five favorite toys:
A. model tanks (I had about a half dozen growing up, many more now)
B. toy soldiers
C. assorted toy guns (I had a real arsenal of toy guns)
D. plastic Roman helmet, shield, and sword
E. long, heavy plastic US Cavalry saber (I used to slash bushes apart with it)
1) LutherPunk
2) Jonathan (AFCM)
3) Irish and Dangerous (Me, Danny)
4) Dymphna's Well
5) Recta Ratio
Next select five people to tag
1) Ginny
2) SmockMomma
3) Dan Matsui
4) Dom Bettinelli
5) John At The Inn
What were you doing 10 years ago?
February 1996: I was happily getting ready for the 1996 campaign season, my first as a re-enactment officer. There were lots of uniform fittings, boot fittings, sessions getting things like sword, epaulette, gorget, gorget ribbons, hat lace, etc. taken care of, plus I was training and helping kit out recruits. I was also helping Phil Gramm's presidential campaign until he dropped out.
What were you doing 1 year ago?
February 2005 was the beginning of Lent, and I was meeting weekly with my RCIA candidate and attending RCIA Masses with him.
Five snacks you enjoy:
1) Cheez-Its
2) Pepperoni
3) Lindt Intense Orange Bars
4) Cape Cod Sea Salt and Vinegar Kettle-Cooked Potato Chips
5) Cocktail Peanuts mixed with Raisinets and Junior Mints
Five songs you know all the words to:
A. The Lincolnshire Poacher
B. The British Grenadiers
C. Heart of Oak
D. Men of Harlech
E. The Minstrel Boy
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
A. Set up a fund to have many Masses said in various places for me and my deceased relatives in perpetutiy
B. Travel to Ireland to look up relatives
C. Second home in Florida or South Carolina
D. Set up a charitable trust for providing food and clothes for the poor
E. Plant an apple orchard and windmill farm and sell electricity back to the provider to pay the electric bills of those who cannot afford them.
Five bad habits:
A. Eating too much
B. Not exercising enough
C. Only brushing the teeth once a day
D. Giving in to peer pressure to do something else when I should be praying
E. Plucking my eyebrows with my fingers
Five things you enjoy doing:
A. Blogging
B. Walking
C. Reading
D. Writing
E. Listening to music
Five things you would never wear again:
A. orange, yellow, red, and purple plaid golf pants
B. red sneakers
C. a digital watch
D. sideburns
E. my hair, over the top of my shirt collar
Five favorite toys:
A. model tanks (I had about a half dozen growing up, many more now)
B. toy soldiers
C. assorted toy guns (I had a real arsenal of toy guns)
D. plastic Roman helmet, shield, and sword
E. long, heavy plastic US Cavalry saber (I used to slash bushes apart with it)
These Are More Than A Few Of My Least Favorite Things
Spam. I hate it. I hate sifting through it. I hate clicking on my email to find that I have (as I had this morning afer a three-day absence from the computer) 357 items in the Inbox and 238 in the Bulk folder. Why is the entire computer literate population of Nigeria trying to scam me? And why is every internet virus propogator out to get me?
But two things I like are the Check All and Delete buttons.
I like a nice empty Inbox. And now I have one.
But two things I like are the Check All and Delete buttons.
I like a nice empty Inbox. And now I have one.
