A place for friends to meet... with reflections on politics, history, art, music, books, morals, manners, and matters of faith.
A blog by Elena Maria Vidal.
"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."
"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."
"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."
~Edmund Burke, October 1790
A Note on Reviews
Unless otherwise noted, any books I review on this blog I have either purchased or borrowed from the library, and I do not receive any compensation (monetary or in-kind) for the reviews.
I have learned over the years to never underestimate to ability of the Republican Party to shoot itself in the foot. Now that they have a really popular candidate they are doing everything to undermine him. Unbelievable. From the New York Times:
At
least two campaigns have drafted plans to overtake Mr. Trump in a
brokered convention, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, has laid out a plan that would have lawmakers break with Mr.
Trump explicitly in a general election. Despite
all the forces arrayed against Mr. Trump, the interviews show, the
party has been gripped by a nearly incapacitating leadership vacuum and a
paralytic sense of indecision and despair, as he has won smashing
victories in South Carolina and Nevada. Donors have dreaded the
consequences of clashing with Mr. Trump directly. Elected officials have
balked at attacking him out of concern that they might unintentionally
fuel his populist revolt. And Republicans have lacked someone from
outside the presidential race who could help set the terms of debate
from afar. The endorsement by Mr. Christie,
a not unblemished but still highly regarded figure within the party’s
elite — he is a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association —
landed Friday with crippling force. It was by far the most important
defection to Mr. Trump’s insurgency: Mr. Christie may give cover to
other Republicans tempted to join Mr. Trump rather than trying to beat
him. Not just the Stop Trump forces seemed in peril, but also the
traditional party establishment itself. (Read more.)
Men were built for fighting. Women were built for childbearing. It’s
interesting to note how stubbornly true—even obvious—these statements
remain, despite aggressive efforts to bury them. Modern people have a penchant for denying obvious things.
Dysfunctional politics and political correctness have brought us to the
point of potentially approving women’s inclusion in a military draft.
The Senate Armed Services Committee recently entertained arguments in
favor of requiring women to register for the selective service, and
three candidates endorsed the plan in New Hampshire’s Republican debate.
The trickle is turning into a stampede. Suddenly political correctness
requires that we all agree that girls can fight just as well as boys. The problem is that it’s just not true. We need to return to some
basic Aristotelian principles in order to explain why drafting women
would be both imprudent and unjust. (Read more.)
The laity under 60 (and some over 60) are
interested in an architecture rich in meaning, symbolism and history.
They would like to reconnect with the great Catholic tradition and want
churches to look like churches. The younger clergy even more so, and
they tend to be somewhat knowledgeable about art and architecture, so
their tastes are often more refined....The
pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI offered a positive
appraisal of traditional piety, devotion and liturgy. As people
embraced those things, including Eucharistic adoration, they saw the
congruence with the arts. John Paul II’s Letter to Artists and Benedict XVI’s Spirit of the Liturgy (among others) are great examples of Papal documents which inspire new art and architecture which respects the tradition. Another
factor is a natural tiredness for a dated architecture by the younger
generations, and a desire for something with more depth, solemnity or
mystery (which was generally missing). (Read more.)
The Chalice Well Gardens can be found in Glastonbury, along with Glastonbury Abbey and Glastonbury Tor - what a wonderful little town it is! The
Chalice Well Gardens are beautiful - especially on a warm summers
days.The Gardens is a place where you can meditate. It is also a great
place to take a book and spend the afternoon surrounded by tranquility
while you get lost in another world. The
Well has been in use for over 2,000 years. The water from the well,
which pumps a staggering 25,000 gallons a day, is said to have mystical
healing properties.(Read more.)
Edmund was born in Dublin, Ireland on 12th
January 1729. His mother was Mary Nagle, daughter of a Catholic family
from County Cork, while his solicitor father Richard, was a practicing
member of the Church of Ireland who lived and worked in Dublin. (There
is some evidence to suggest Richard had as a young man converted from
Catholicism in order to progress his professional legal career which
would have suffered if he remained Catholic during that era of Irish
history). As happened in many such families in Ireland of those times,
Edmund was brought up as an Anglican (Church of Ireland) while his
younger sister Juliana was brought up in the faith of her mother. By
maintaining dual religious adherences, families were thus able to
protect family fortunes which could be lost due to the impositions of
the Penal Code that had been passed by the Dublin Parliament in the
aftermath of the Williamite wars at the end of the previous century.
This pernicious Code impacted on Catholic, and to a lesser extent,
Dissenter populations of Britain and Ireland. It effectively destroyed
the old Irish and Anglo-Irish (mainly Catholic) aristocracy who had
supported the Stuart cause. The Legal along with other key professions,
was effectively closed to Catholics who constituted a huge majority of
the population of the island.
Burke’s
Catholic background was used on occasion by his political rivals to
challenge his right to be an MP. It was alleged by some that he received
his education in the Jesuit college in St Omer,near Calais, France,
though there is no evidence that he ever even visited St Omer in course
of his two visits to Paris as a mature man.
As told by an acquaintance, Frances Crewe:
Mr.
Burke's enemies often endeavoured to convince the world that he had
been bred up in the Catholic Faith, and that his family were of it, and
that he himself had been educated at St. Omer, but this was false, as
his father was a regular practitioner of the Law at Dublin, which he
could not be unless of the Established Church: and it so happened that
though Mr. Burke was twice at Paris, he never happened to go through the
Town of St Omer.
All
MPs serving in the House of Commons were required to take the Oath of
Allegiance and abjuration, the Oath of Supremacy, and to declare against
transubstantiation before they were allowed to take their seats. It is a
matter of record that no Catholic MP from Ireland took these oaths
during the eighteenth century.(Read more.)
Public thinkers have been usurped by practical atheists who are
politely styled “secularists.” Essentially, the secularist is not
without religion: rather, he has made a religion of politics and wealth,
and rejects any religion that worships anything else. Now, to be
secular is unavoidable for anyone who resides on this planet, except for
astronauts and even they have to come back down to earth. But
secularism distorts secularity, just as racism makes a cult of race. The
secularist makes a religion of irreligion, and is different from the
saints who are “in this world but not of it” because the secularist is
of the world but not rationally in it. This explains why the
secularist’s solutions to the world’s ills are so destructive. The
secularist is isolated from what is unworldly and thus lacks the
perspective that adequately measures things of this world. In contrast,
Saint Paul was a most worldly wise man and, not least of all because
he knew of a “third heaven” where a man, possibly himself, “heard
unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor.
12:4).
The contemporary attacks on Christianity, moral and political, are
redolent of the Decian persecutions, and yet an instinct of much of the
secularist media is reluctance to report, let alone condemn beyond
formulaic protocols, the beheading of Christian infants, the crucifixion
of Christian teenagers, the practical genocide of Christian communities
almost as old as Pentecost, and the destruction to date of 168 churches
in the Middle East. Very simply, this rhetorical paralysis betrays a
disdain for Judaeo-Christian civilization and its exaltation of man in
the image of God with the moral demands which accrue to that. Their
operative philosophy, characteristic of those who are empirically bright
but morally dim, is that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” There
is, for instance, the alliance of the inimical Pharisees and Herodians
to entrap Jesus (Matt. 22:15-16). That is the logic of the asylum where
very smart people are also very mad. For Christ the Living Truth, it is
worse than clinical insanity: it is, using his dread word, hypocrisy.
Many European sophisticates, such as the “Cliveden Set,” promoted the
Nazis. Even some prominent Jewish voters and other minorities supported
them, until the Nuremburg Racial Laws of 1935. This was so because the
Nazis were seen as a foil to the Bolsheviks and a means to social
reconstruction. Conversely, many Western democrats over cocktails
supported the Stalinists because they were perceived as the antidote to
the Nazis. The U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies,
1936-1938, wrote a book Mission to Moscow that whitewashed the
blood on the walls of Stalin’s purges. In 1943, with the active
cooperation of President Roosevelt, Warner Brothers made it into a film
that was hailed in the New York Times by Bosley Crowther as a
splendid achievement, praising the ambassador’s “Acute understanding of
the Soviet system.” If the Nazis seemed an antidote to the Bolsheviks
and vice versa, those unleashed bacilli nearly destroyed the world.
Satan is a dangerous vaccine.
Secularists play down Islamist atrocities because they seek to
eradicate the graceful moral structure that can turn brutes into
saints. Heinous acts are sometimes dismissed as “workplace violence.”
There even are those in high places who pretend that Islamic militants
are not Islamic and foster the delusion that false gods will not demand
sacrifices on their altars. These elites are like Ambassador Davies who
said, “Communism holds no serious threat to the United States.” Naïve
religious leaders who live off the goodwill of good people, will even
say that Christians and those who oppose them share a common humane
ethos, a similar concept of human rights, an embrace of pluralism, and a
distinction between political and spiritual realms. Secularists who
imagine good and evil as abstractions, do not consider the possibility
that hatred of the holy will take its toll in reality. By ignoring the
carnage committed by the twentieth century’s atheistic systems, they fit
the definition of madness as the repetition of the same mistake in the
expectation of a different result.
That mad kind of intelligence is offended by the precocious audacity of Winston Churchill writing in The River War at
the age of twenty-five: “were it not that Christianity is sheltered in
the strong arms of science, the science against which it [Islam] has
vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell
the civilization of ancient Rome.” For the secularist whose religious
crusade against religion does not understand the world or its history,
prophecy is the only heresy, and his single defense against false
prophets is feigned detachment. Indifference is the fanaticism of the
faint of heart. By not taking spiritual combat seriously, and by
seeking an impossible compromise with the opposite of what is good,
human wars cannot be avoided. There are different kinds of war, and only
prudence tempers both pugnacity and pacifism. James Russell Lowell
opposed the Mexican War and approved the Civil War, but with a sane
intelligence: “Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is
temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be
unwise in statesmanship.” (Read more.)
Whilst
visiting Constantinople towards the end of the 17th century, the
intrepid Gallard came into possession of a manuscript of The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor.
Impressed by the thrilling narrative, he published a successful
translation of the story in 1701 that enjoyed immediate success in his
native land. Recognising
the financial possibilities of the public's interest in such tales, he
set about a translation of a 14th-century Syrian manuscript of tales
from Mille et Une Nuitor, in English, One Thousand and One Nights.
This translation would eventually become a hugely influential
twelve-volume masterwork some 13 years in publication, with the
concluding volume appearing posthumously. Gallard's
work on the manuscript was further supplemented by more stories that
were related to him by Hanna Diab, a monk from Aleppo. Diab shared a
number of tales to the author that were incorporated into later volumes
of hisOne Thousand and One Nights series. Some of
Galland's stories appear to be of somewhat dubious origin and no Arabic
manuscripts have been found that tell the tales of Ali Baba or Aladdin, leading to speculation that the enterprising Galland made these up himself! (Read more.)
The walls are covered with old artwork and newspaper articles, the
floors covered with sawdust, and the seriously professional bar staff,
many Irish, do give it a feeling of being “Old New York.” Apparently no piece of memorabilia has been removed from the
establishment since 1910 and, based on the jumble that confronts you
when you enter, that’s entirely believable. Each piece is a
treasure – from Houdini’s handcuffs, which remain on the rail, to the
priceless turkey wishbones hanging from the dirty oil lamp above the
bar. The story goes that some local boys being shipped out to France
during World War I
celebrated their final meal with their families, a turkey dinner, and
each brought the wishbone to the bar. The plan was that they would
return and claim their wishbones. The wishbones that remain are those of
the young men who never returned. When I last visited, the barman told the me the story, with great
earnestness, and made no attempt to conceal his contempt for the city
health inspectors who recently suggested that it be removed from the
bar. They wouldn’t dream of it. (Read more.)
Not everyone who worked in a household
was considered a servant. During the Regency Era, the wealthiest of
households might employ a number of individuals who were considered, not
servants, but professionals, firmly part of the middle class. Not
surprisingly, these positions were held by men, although some might
argue, the governess approached this stratum as well. These professional positions included
the chamberlain, land steward, and house steward. All required
education; reading, writing and managing accounts were necessary skills
for these positions. Specialized knowledge in legal contracts, farming
and animal husbandry might also be required. Many men who held these
positions were often trained in the law as well. They might have been
law clerks or solicitors prior to their employment with the household.
Only the largest estates required, or could afford, these services. (Read more.)
From Vive la Reine: "A portrait of Marie Antoinette by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1779." This is one of the first portraits that Marie-Antoinette's mother the Empress thought was a fair likeness of the daughter whom she had not seen in nine years and would never see again.. The Queen is wearing court dress, although notice she wears few jewels, if any.
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Simon Binner killed himself on camera at a Swiss suicide clinic last October. His death aired last week as part of a BBC documentary on dying. Once we tried to stop people from committing suicide. Now we watch.
Advocates say it is “compassionate” to prescribe death-inducing
chemicals to the terminally ill, thereby giving them a choice to end
their lives “on their own terms.” They speak of dignity as if it were a
condition of the body, rather than a quality of the soul.
I know how brutal dying can be. I’m a hospice volunteer, and I helped
care for my own dad as he wasted away from terminal cancer. The fear of
helplessness or suffering and the desire to end a person’s suffering is
only human.
Enabling suicide, however, is not humane. In the five U.S. states and
as many western countries that have legalized physician-assisted
suicide, such laws have opened a Pandora’s Box of unintended
consequences that are anything but compassionate or liberating. (Read more.)
A princess who married one of Marie-Antoinette's many nephews. Joseph II was very fond of her. I wonder if in some ways she replaced the little daughter whom he lost. From Madame Gilflurt:
Elisabeth
was one of a dozen offspring born to Frederick II Eugene, Duke of
Württemberg, and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Like
so many children of her class, it was intended from the start that she
would make an expedient political marriage and negotiations swiftly
began to secure her a fiancé. The groom-to-be was eventually named as
Francis, nephew of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and the man who would
one day hold that title himself.
When
Elisabeth was 15 she travelled from Brandenburg to Vienna and took up
resident with the sisters of the Salesianerinnenkloster. In her new home
she converted to Catholicism in preparation for her marriage and
completed her education. Here she remained until 1788 when, on 6th
January, she married the twenty year old Francis. As the couple settled
into life together the new Archduchess swiftly became a favourite of her
new husband's uncle, Emperor Joseph II, who had brokered the marriage
to his nephew. He found her charming and refreshing company and she came
to view Joseph in a grandfatherly light, spending long hours in his
company. Her affection was of great comfort to the Emperor; his health
was falling and he had faced a series of high profile political
failures that left him disillusioned and unhappy.(Read more.)
Buchanan, former speechwriter and White House adviser to Richard
Nixon and Ronald Reagan, is legendary amongst conservatives for his
insurgent Republican presidential campaigns during the 1990s, which laid
the intellectual groundwork for the conservative nation-state movement.
Buchanan has been credited with presaging the revolt which has
manifested itself in the 2016 election and for correctly predicting the
consequences of mass migration, ideological free trade, and military
adventurism — predictions which were largely dismissed at the time he
made them.
This week, Trump seemed to scandalize the collective consciousness of
professional Republicans with his Saturday debate performance in which
he launched a full-throated assault on Bush Republicanism. Trump
repudiated all three pillars of Republican globalism: namely, military
adventurism, immigration multiculturalism, and trade globalism. (Read more.)
Or a Protestant might say, If it is true that the
Magisterium is needed for you to properly interpret the Scriptures,
then why has it not given an infallible interpretation of every
verse?
Such a question in fact begs the question, in that it assumes sola scriptura
without proving it. The person who asks seems to think the only
purpose of an infallible Magisterium, if such a thing exists, is to
give the definitive interpretation of Scripture. Once it has done
that, it has no further purpose and may recede and leave Christians
to the Bible alone.
But that is not the purpose of the Magisterium.
Its purpose is to maintain the integrity and unity of the faith, and
to keep Christians united in one body. That does not require it to
interpret all 31,000-plus verses of Scripture. In a few cases it does
do so, as with Matthew 16:18. Or it tells us that the woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:1)
is Mary. But its real purpose is to define faith and morals such that
the unity of the Church is preserved. To that end, it need not bind
scriptural exegesis in tight chains; it need only keep it within
certain bounds. It tells us not how Scripture must be interpreted so much as how it may not
be interpreted. You may not interpret Romans 3:28 to deny the
necessity of works in salvation. That is the difference: A Catholic
drives within the lanes; a Protestant is on a road without lanes,
getting into wrecks. (Read more.)
The little princess was christened three days after her birth. The
nobility of England gathered at the royal apartments to form a guard of
honour as the baby emerged from the queen’s chamber in the arms of the
Countess of Surrey. Beneath a gold canopy held aloft by four knights of
the realm, the baby was carried to the nearby church of the Observant
Friars. The way to the church had been cleaned, graveled and covered
with rushes and the ceremony was carried out with all the pomp and
circumstance required.
The procession of gentlemen, ladies, earls and bishops paused at the
door of the church, where, in a small arras covered wooden archway, the
baby was greeted by her godparents, blessed, and named Mary after
her aunt, the Duchess of Suffolk, Henry’s favorite sister. Queen
Katherine and her sister-in-law were on very good terms and would remain
so, but the Queen was no doubt pleased at the choice of name for
religious as well as family reasons. Mary (María) was also the name of
her sister the queen of Portugal.
Acting as Mary’s godmothers was her great-aunt, Katherine of York,
Countess of Devon, and the Duchess of Norfolk. Her godfather was Henry’s
chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey. After prayers were said and promises
made, Mary was plunged three times into the font water, anointed with
the holy oil, dried, and swaddled in her baptismal robe. As Te Deums were
sung, she was taken up to the high altar and confirmed under the
sponsorship of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. Finally, with the
rites concluded, her tittle was proclaimed to the sound of the heralds’
trumpets:
God send and give good life and long unto the right
high, right noble and excellent Princess Mary, Princess of England and
daughter of our most dread sovereign lord the King’s Highness.
Once the ceremony was complete, the little princess was returned to her mother in the Queen’s chamber at Greenwich Palace. (Read more.)
The idea of potage is to throw whatever you might have on hand in your
fridge, sauté it, add water and some herbs as you like, and throw it in
the blender. Perhaps it is a modernized version of the concoction
referenced in the nursery rhyme "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold,
peas porridge in the pot nine days old." In those days, they threw
everything in the pot and ate from the pot, threw more stuff in the pot,
and ate some more....
Potage d'hiver is apparently now a French soup, and I love to make it in
winter. Usually I take onions, leeks, carrots, celery, turnips, a small
red potato or two, and a parsnip. In this case, I couldn't find any
turnips, so I used what I had on hand: onions, leeks, celery, and
carrots sautéed in the pot with olive oil, then plain frozen peas,
cauliflower, and broccoli added with water, and some herbes de provence
and a lot of freshly ground pepper. Let that simmer for an hour or more,
and then blend it up. It's a good stick-to-your-ribs lunch. I usually
eat it plain, but any kind of garnish would be fine: cheese or garlic
croutons, shredded cheese, a dollop of yogurt or sour cream. (Read more.)
An organic socio-economic order takes into consideration life’s spontaneity, unpredictability and creativity. Return to Orderpresents
and celebrates organic society and its corresponding economy as a
refreshing contrast to modern economy. Organic society is full of
vitality and moods; nuance and meaning; poetry and passion. At the same
time, an organic economy is full of dynamism and capable of great
production. In fact, such a social order is so important that we do not
hesitate to call it the heart and soul of an economy.
To the adjective organic, we add the august adjective Christian.
An organic order cannot be reduced to a natural manner of organizing
society. It must be founded upon Christian virtue if it is to promote
fully the common good. When virtues—especially the cardinal virtues of
prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance—are practiced in an organic
society, everything enters into a proper balance and rhythm because each
acts in accordance with his nature. This is the foundation for true
order and also the true progress and prosperity that is so needed today. (Read more.)
On Sunday May 13th, 1917, the children were pasturing their flock as
usual at the Cova da Iria, which was about a mile from their homes. They
were playing when suddenly a bright shaft of light pierced the air. The
lady spoke to them and said: “Fear not! I will not harm you.” “Where
are you from?” the children asked. “I am from heaven” the beautiful lady
replied, gently raising her hand towards the distant horizon. “What do
you want of me?”, Lucia asked. ” I came to ask you to come here for six
consecutive months, on the thirteenth day, at this same hour. I will
tell you later who I am and what I want.”
It was Mary’s final appearance, on Oct. 13, 1917 (exactly 33
years, to the day, after Pope Leo XIII’s vision), that became the most
famous. An estimated 70,000 people were in attendance at the site,
anticipating the Virgin’s final visit and with many fully expecting that
she would work a great miracle. As everyone gazed upward, and saw that a
silvery disc had emerged from behind clouds, they experienced what is
known [as] a ‘sun miracle.’ Not everyone reported the same thing; some
present claimed they saw the sun dance around the heavens; others said
the sun zoomed toward Earth in a zigzag motion that caused them to fear
that it might collide with our planet (or, more likely, burn it up).
Some people reported seeing brilliant colors spin out of the sun in a
psychedelic, pinwheel pattern. The whole event took about 10 minutes.
With these apparitions at Fatima, God asked for the Consecration of
Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope in union with all of
the bishops of the world. Our Lady of Fatima said that if the
Consecration of Russia was done, Russia would be converted and there
would be peace. However, if the Pope and the bishops did not obey the
request, Our Lady said that Russia would spread her errors throughout
the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church and of Holy
Father, the martyrdom of the good and the annihilation of nations.
I find it interesting that Our Lady appeared in Fatima with these
warnings exactly 100 years before the 500th anniversary of the
Protestant revolt (1517-2017). (Read more.)
2016 is the centenary of the apparition of the angel at Fatima. The angel said he was the Guardian of Portugal, and the Portuguese always believed their guardian was St. Michael. From Unveiling the Apocalypse:
On the centenary of the apparitions of the Angel of Peace to
the shepherd children of Fatima, it should be worth contemplating the famous
private revelation given to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, requesting the king
to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 17th June,
1689. The requested consecration wasn't carried out, and as a
consequence on 17th June 1789, exactly 100 years later, the Third
Estate proclaimed itself as the National Assembly, which stripped
the king of his legislative powers during the French Revolution.
Sr. Lucia received a number of private
revelations which referenced this apparition, indicating that the
consecration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was similarly comprised of a 100
year period. This has led many Catholics to conclude that the upcoming centenary
of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 2017 is of crucial importance
to the Secret of Fatima itself.
A comparison between both requests for consecration was made during an
apparition to Sr. Lucia at Rianjo in 1931:
They did not wish to heed My request! Like the King of France, they will
repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread its
errors throughout the world, provoking wars, and persecutions against the
Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.
This apparition was also referred to in the appendix of Sr. Lucia's
autobiography:
Make it known to
My ministers, given that they follow the example of the King of France in
delaying the execution of My command, they will follow him into misfortune. It is
never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary. (Sr. Lucia, Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words, p199)
You see, ô my God! all the wounds
which tear my heart, and depth of the abyss into which I have fallen.
Evils without number surround me on all sides. My personal misfortunes
and those of my family, which are dreadful, overwhelm my heart, as well
as those which cover the face of the kingdom. The cries of all the
unfortunate ones, the moaning of oppressed religion resounds in my ears,
and an interior voice still informs me that perhaps Your justice
reproaches me with all these calamities, because, in the days of my
power, I did not repress the license of the people and the irreligion,
which are the principal sources; because I served the weapons of heresy
which triumphed, by supporting it by laws which doubled its forces and
gave it the audacity to dare all.
(Read more.)
The strategic
victims are tiresome in the extreme, but what interests me more is the
special virtue of those who aren’t like that, who don’t look for
payback, who won’t administer the last vicious kick to a fallen
opponent, who don’t look for people to sue and who in their own quiet
way contribute to the rule of law. I do not have a name for their
virtue.
It partakes a little of magnanimity, of
the kind shown by Ulysses Grant and his army at Appomattox. The
circumstances of his meeting with Robert E. Lee were so extraordinary,
and Grant’s conduct so exemplary, that Americans today cannot fail to be
moved when they recall it. Unless they happen to be social justice
warriors. Grant observed Lee’s splendid new sword and privately decided
that he would not ask Confederate officers to surrender their weapons,
lest he embarrass Lee. The surrender signed, Lee left the Court House on
his horse, quietly observed by a group of Union officers who were moved
to tears by the pathos of the scene.
Union General Joshua Chamberlain took the
surrender. Wounded twice in the days before Appomattox, he remained in
command and drew up his brigade to greet the Army of Northern Virginia
as it marched past for the last time. As it did so, Chamberlain ordered a
“carry arms” salute for a worthy foe. The Confederates were led by
General Gordon, at the head of the old Stonewall Brigade, who reared his
horse and dropped his sword in a return salute, which was carried on
down the line on both sides.
What Chamberlain and Gordon had done was
an act of chivalry, and chivalry is also a virtue of those who do not
rush to the courthouse. We saw the same kind of chivalry in the novels
of Patrick O’Brian and in old Western movies where the marshal and
outlaw each waited for the other to draw first. This in turn was how the
British and French fought in Voltaire’s account of the Battle of
Fontenoy (1745). As both sides approached each other for battle, the
English officers saluted the French by taking off their hats. The French
officers returned the compliment, and an English captain called out
“Gentlemen of the French guards, give fire.” For the French, Count
d’Androche replied, “Gentlemen, we never fire first. Do you fire,” at
which the English finally obliged. (Read more.)
Among your faculties there is one that, unless it is
disciplined and kept in control, is apt to do more to make a fool of
you and lead you wrong than any other. It was Nicolas Malebranche, the
French thinker, who coined the phrase “the fool of the house” to
describe the imagination.
During all your waking hours, pictures are forming themselves in your
imagination, whether you are conscious of them or not. Your memory
recalls past scenes as they were. But the imagination comes into play
and changes those former scenes and experiences into new shapes. When
you daydream, for example, you see yourself in new surroundings, you are
the hero of remarkable adventures and achievements that never were or
will be, and you pass through admiring throngs and are hailed as heroes
are hailed. Things that never happened and never will happen may thus
become more real to you than reality itself, so that you may fall into
such a deep reverie as not to notice what goes on around you. (Read more.)
“Parents have the most grave obligation,” reads the Code of Canon Law,
“to do all in their power to ensure their children’s physical, social,
cultural, moral and religious upbringing.” In other words, our grave
obligation as far as the Faith is concerned is comparable to our
obligations regarding food and shelter: Provide what is necessary for
our children to thrive and flourish – to give them a good start on making it on their own.
“Why?” Fr. John Hardon asks of this grave obligation to form our kids
in the Faith. “In order to prepare them for eternal life in heaven. The
only reason under God that parents even should bring children into the
world is to prepare them for heaven.” Thus, it’s not my job to keep my children on the straight and narrow trajectory toward eternal life, but rather to prepare them for undertaking that task themselves.
For insight on how to carry out that grave duty, let’s
turn to Dreher again. He writes that the average American Catholic
worshiper “may find himself having to hold on to the truths of his faith
by exercising his will and his imagination to an extraordinary degree,
because what he sees happening around him does not convey what the
Church proclaims to be true.” This might be news to Dreher and the folks
at Pew Research; it ain’t news to the Church.
Indeed, it’s been that way from the beginning, starting with the
Apostles themselves – including especially St. Peter, the first pope and
betrayer-in-chief. There’s always been a disconnect between the visible
Church – the one we ourselves inhabit in the here-and-now, the one with
fallible, petty, sinful human beings in it like you and me – and the invisible Church “spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners,” as C.S. Lewis
described her. Using the voice of Screwtape, a senior demonic tempter,
Lewis goes on to characterize the Christian’s experience of that
disconnect in this way:
One of our great allies at present is the
Church itself. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic
erection on the new building estate. When he gets to his pew and looks
round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has
hitherto avoided. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of
tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the
patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be
somehow ridiculous.
Sound familiar? Of course! It’s a great description of what the average Catholic has to go through every weekend, and it’s precisely
why “exercising his imagination and will,” as Dreher puts it, is so
crucially important. We’ll always come up against hypocrisy and dryness
in the practice of the faith, regardless of location or epoch. Yet if,
with God’s grace, we persevere – imagining that God might succeed in making even us saints and willing
to seek after truth no matter the cost – then neither circumstances nor
setbacks can ultimately deter us. “If once they get through this
initial dryness successfully,” the more seasoned Screwtape warns his
demon apprentice regarding a young Christian, “they become much less
dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.” (Read more.)
I recently joined author and blogger Genevieve Kineke on her radio program to discuss the historical realities behind the show Downton Abbey. From Feminine-Genius:
I thoroughly enjoyed a two-part conversation with Mary-Eileen Russell on
Downton Abbey -- NOT the plot per se (so no spoilers!) but on the lives
of women in the early part of the 20th century. There is so much to
unpack, both upstairs and downstairs, but a good understanding of
history allows us to consider the world at the cusp of the women's
movement -- and what drove it. (To Listen Click Here.)
I guess it was inevitable that they would clash. But this article offers wise insights. From Catholic Vote:
At times like this, it’s helpful to return to the Catechism. Here again is what the Church teaches on immigration:
2241
“The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able,
to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of
livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public
authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that
places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.
Political
authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are
responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to
various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’
duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to
respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the
country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying
civic burdens.”
The Pope is a pastor, not a
presidential candidate. The Pope has rightly called on nations and
leaders to focus on the human dignity of the immigrant. But Catholic
teaching also emphasizes the obligations of civil leaders and of those
migrating. Both have rights and duties that must be respected.
We can’t help but conclude that the
exchange between the Holy Father and Trump is regrettable. We wish it
didn’t happen, and fault the media for setting up the controversy. Trump
will now use the comments to further inflame the debate — in a country
with a long history of prejudice against Catholicism and the papacy.
Meanwhile, Catholics who want a secure border and enforcement of our
laws will be told the Pope is against them.
The immigration debate needs more
clarity and light, not more heat. And the papacy deserves more respect
than the flippant comments from Trump.
CV is committed to an immigration solution that secures our
borders, protects our national security, and is welcoming of legal
immigration. We can welcome the stranger, secure the border, and demand
that our laws be respected at the same time. (Read more.)
“Where is the sweetness of young love?” they ask you. “Don’t people get
married anymore?” You point their attention to their streets. There are
families in every house. Sometimes it’s a grandmother and grandfather
whose children have moved “away,” to the next block over, or across
town, or, since this is America, to the neighboring county. Otherwise
it’s a mother and father with children, and the children are everywhere.
If the weather is fair, you can hear the music of their games. A boy
covers his eyes with his hands and leans against a telephone pole,
counting down from 100 by fives, till he cries out, “Ready or not, here I
come!” Or is that a ball that’s scooting through the “outfield” down
the pavement, while the kids cry, “Go, go, go”? What crime can such a
place fear, when the streets and alleyways and back yards and porches
are governed by spies more restless than any the CIA have ever trained,
not to mention their grandmothers rocking on their porches and chatting
with one another? Tell them that that is gone. (Read more.)
For some reason lost in the mists of time, Le Brun kept a red shawl in
her studio and draped it around a variety of her subjects. It shows up
as a sash in a self-portrait; enhancing the gowns of Countess von
Bucquoi and Princess Yusupova; fluttering behind the artist’s daughter
in Julie Le Brun as Flora; and encircling Count Emmanuel Nikolayevich Tolstoy in 1823. (Read more.)
Trump
is holding firm to his pro-marriage and pro-life convictions, and continues to be
very supportive of our veterans. I disagree with Dreher that Trump is
amoral. He has morals; they may not be the same as
Dreher's, but he has them, and high standards as well. He is not always a gentleman in his manner of speaking but he loves America and wants it to be strong. Too many gentlemen have let America decline. He has been accused of xenophobia but all he wants is for people to obey the law and come in through legal channels. I do not know what it wrong with wanting the immigration laws respected. Both my parents and three of my grandparents all obeyed immigration laws when they came here. From The American Conservative:
Religious liberty is where the real fight is, specifically the degree
to which religious institutions and individuals will have the freedom
to practice their beliefs without running afoul of civil liberties for
gay men and women. This is where having a friendly administration
matters most to religious and social conservatives. And this is an area
where religious and social conservatives are in the most danger of being
bamboozled by the GOP Establishment.
Why? Every single one of the GOP candidates will say the right thing
(from a social conservative point of view) on religious liberty. But
will they deliver? Don’t you believe it. The Indiana RFRA fight was the
Waterloo of social conservatives. Big Business has come down decisively
on the side of gay rights, and forced Gov. Mike Pence and the state GOP
lawmakers to back down. They forced Gov. Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas to
back down. As I cannot repeat often enough, I was told last fall by
multiple sources in a position to know that the Congressional
Republicans have no intention of making religious liberty an issue going
forward. For one thing, they don’t want to be called bigots, and for
another, the donor class is against it. I don’t doubt that Marco Rubio
and Ted Cruz (at least) would like to protect religious liberty, but I
am convinced that they are too beholden to the donor class to do
anything more than make speeches.
That brings us to Donald Trump. He has said publicly that he will make protecting religious liberty a priority.
Does he mean it? I have no idea, and you don’t either. He is no
religious conservative. But he is a populist who doesn’t care what the
donor class thinks, because he is not indebted to them. It is reasonable
to think that religious liberty stands a better chance with Trump in
the White House than any other Republican. (Read more.)
The federal government is seeking to create a new bureaucracy that
would intervene in family life and could even see state-appointed
monitors conduct routine home visits to assess a child’s well-being. The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) has published a draft document which outlines a
plan that will treat families as “equal partners” in the raising of
children, opening the door for government intrusion at all levels. The paper describes how government employees will intervene to
provide, “monitoring goals for the children at home and the classroom,”
and that if parents are failing to meet the standards set,
“evidence-based parenting interventions” will be made to, “ensure that
children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs are met.” The program bears the hallmarks of a controversial scheme in
Scotland, set to take effect later this year, under which a “shadow
parent” appointed by the government would monitor the upbringing of
every child until the age of 18. The document also extends the understanding of the word “family,” to
include, “all the people who play a role in the child’s life,” a
definition that could include not only teachers but government monitors. (Read more.)
Roses in an alternative color, like this
brilliant mango, are particularly pretty. They look great in this
white-washed tray and rustic bark containers that remind me of
chocolate. I filled the tray with the most delicious chocolate-covered
almonds and then peppered it with chocolate red hearts. It doesn’t have
to stay as a unit. You can take out the mini bouquets and put them
around the house, in different corners of the room, or even display them
in a row on a mantle.
Instead of a big
blob of a rose arrangement, you can do a petite bouquet, like
this breathtaking lavender rose in a silver mercury glass. Very feminine
and girly, it’s the perfect arrangement to treat yourself or a
girlfriend to!
Delicate tea roses in celadon pots embedded in a basket of moss
creates a springy, garden look. The scale has a sweetness to it. Again,
the bouquets can live together in the tray or beautifully alone. Tea
roses add a lovely fragrance to the house too. (Read more.)
As you may have heard by now, Justice Scalia was found dead in a
hotel room early February 13th, apparently having died of natural
causes. He was 79 years old. Most people know him as one of the most
influential conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices in recent memory.
Depending on your politics and morals, that makes him either a hero or a
villain.
What isn’t as well known about him, though, is that he was a
life-long faithful Catholic, and one who, though reaching the heights of
worldly success in his field, took seriously even those doctrines which
are held in the most contempt by the modern world.
“This kid was a conservative when he was 17 years old. An archconservative Catholic,” a high school friend said
about him. “He could have been a member of the Curia. He was the top
student in the class. He was brilliant, way above everybody else.”
Perhaps the time he most opened up about his Catholic faith publicly was in a wide-ranging interview he did with New York Magazine in 2013, from which the exchange at the beginning is from. “Yeah, he’s a real person,” Scalia continued, speaking of the Devil.
“Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes
that.”
The interviewer asked if Scalia had ever personally seen evidence of the Devil.
“You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all
sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people
and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.”
“What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way. […] He got wilier.”
Scalia sensed the interviewer was taken aback by his literal belief in the Evil One.
“You’re looking at me as though I’m weird,” Scalia said. “My God! Are
you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the
Devil?”
“I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so
removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody
would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil,
for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have
believed in the Devil.”(Read more.)
Elisabeth
Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842) is one of the finest
eighteenth-century French painters and among the most important of all
women artists. An autodidact with exceptional skills as a portraitist,
she achieved success in France and Europe during one of the most
eventful, turbulent periods in European history.
In 1776, she married the leading art dealer in Paris; his profession
at first kept her from being accepted into the prestigious Académie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Nevertheless, through the
intervention of Marie Antoinette, she was admitted at the age of 28 in
1783, becoming one of only four women members. Obliged to flee France in
1789 because of her association with the queen, she traveled to Italy,
where in 1790 she was elected to membership in the Accademia di San
Luca, Rome. Independently, she worked in Florence, Naples, Vienna, St.
Petersburg, and Berlin before returning to France, taking sittings from,
among others, members of the royal families of Naples, Russia, and
Prussia. While in exile, she exhibited at the Paris Salons.
She was remarkable not only for her technical gifts but for her
understanding of and sympathy with her sitters. This will be the first
retrospective and only the second exhibition devoted to Vigée Le Brun in
modern times. The eighty works on view will be paintings and a few
pastels from European and American public and private collections. (Read more.)
For most of the 1980s and ’90s, our grandmother, Elizabeth Maxwell,
rented a tiny brick house hidden behind a grander home on Meeting Street
in Charleston, South Carolina. Her stocky dwelling had served in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the separate kitchen house for
the large stucco mansion directly in front of it—detached, so that the
occasional hearth or chimney fire wouldn’t engulf the entire property.
The place was perfectly suited to our Gran, partly because of its
size—she’d been widowed since 1971—but more so because she was a
passionate cook and an ardent recipe collector and she loved to
entertain.
In 1997, Gran’s landlady and friend, Elizabeth Young, who lived in
the big house, became a widow too, and for several years the two of them
were very much in demand on the South-of-Broad reception, wedding, and
cocktail circuit, attending a party—if not two, and often three—most
nights. Heels clacking, pocketbooks swinging, they’d set out around 6
p.m. in Mrs. Young’s black Taurus, always parked in front of the
wrought-iron gate, for a leisurely evening of open bars, cheese bites,
finger sandwiches, and shrimp every which way.
People would casually remark—Wedon’tknow where they get the energy! At their age! (Read more.)
At the end of the road, the monastery was overflowing: this was one of
the great festivals for Syriac Christians in Iraq and beyond. There was
feasting and prayers, and the singing of Syriac chant, perhaps the
oldest extant music in the world, a sacred and archaic call and response
in a language that would have been understood by Jesus.
This time,
eight months later, they drive by night while, behind them, Mosul burns.
The fathers stay eyes-front, following the rear- lights of the car
ahead. Children are quiet but awake. There is no laughter and no
singing, no cars toot their horns. The monastery is dark, lit only in
flashes from the headlamps. Otherwise, it is only by the smell of the
oleander, and the steady cooling of the air, that they know they are on
the road to Mar Mattai.
Among them is Sarmad Ozan, formerly a
young deacon in the cathedral in Mosul, where he sang the daily liturgy.
When ISIS captured the city, the cathedral clergy thought they would
stay. In a few days, however, ISIS issued its infamous decree: convert
to Islam, pay a tax on unbelievers or die. Sarmad, his fellow clergymen
and this band of 50 Christian families fled to find sanctuary in their
mountain stronghold.
They leave behind the bodies of brothers and
fathers, and the shelled--out ruins of their shops and houses. They also
leave behind much of what it meant to be a Syriac Christian.
The
ancient cities of Nimrud and Nineveh that they visited proudly to show
their children the glories of the Assyrian empire from which they claim
descent – soon these will be bulldozed by ISIS. They leave behind the
treasures of Assyria in the Mosul museum – ISIS will loot the smaller
antiquities for the black market and smash the statues too big to sell.
And on the way to Mar Mattai, they pass the monastery of Mar Behnam: its
gates are already barred by ISIS. From the steeple flies the black
flag. In a few months, it will be destroyed.
What they carry with
them is their liturgical music. It preserves strains of the earliest
religious chants of Mesopotamia and of court songs sung for Assyrian
emperors 2,000 years before Christ. Its antiquity is matched by its
simplicity: clergy and congregation sing together, dividing between boys
with high voices and older, bigger men who sing more deeply. Beyond
this there is no distinction of note or pitch, and no melody. The call
and response format is thought to enact a conversation between man and
God.
Tonight,
they will again sing the old songs. They make for the inner rooms: the
hermits’ cells burrowed into the cliff--face; the Saints’ Room, with its
reliquaries set in niches in the rock; the chapels dug deep into the
holy mountain.
There, crammed into the rough caves, Sarmad and the
other deacons push to the front and stand in a line. They are joined by
the old monks and the priests, in black cassocks and embroidered
skull-caps. The priests start the singing in deep voices, then the
deacons and younger men answer at a higher pitch. Now the other men in
the congregation fall in, back and forth, call and response, as it has
been for millennia.
It grows quicker, and louder, filling the
small rooms in the belly of the monastery. But Sarmad hears something
else – the congregation are weeping as they sing. Because tomorrow,
or soon after, they will leave for the Kurdish territories, for the
refugee camps and then for abroad, in Sarmad’s case for Newcastle in the
north of England, where he was when I spoke to him; and they may never
hear this music again. (Read more.)
About 30 years ago, designer and author Charlotte Moss, left Wall
Street and emerged as a “Decorator to Watch” on the pages of House
& Garden. Her dynamic interior design business has attained
international recognition as a model of Southern style, wit,
hospitality and, of course, luxury. She was recently named to Elle
Décor’s Grand Masters list of top designers. A truly creative person,
she shared her passion for her favorite hobby with us: collage.(Read more.)
The new president saw that his country was deeply indebted and politically divided. Though France was America’s first ally, most U.S. trade post-independence was with Britain. The finances of the newly established federal government, set up by
Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, depended greatly on customs
duties from foreign trade. But Britain angered many Americans by refusing to abandon its
military forts on U.S. territory stretching from present-day Michigan to
upstate New York along the Canadian border. The British also encouraged
American Indian attacks on U.S. settlers. During such tension of the 1790s, some people — including a member of
Washington’s Cabinet — got swept up in the emotion of France’s
revolutionary fervor.
“Was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?” Secretary
of State Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1793 letter to William Short, an
American diplomat in France. “My own affections have been deeply wounded
by some of the martyrs to the cause, but rather than it should have
failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated.”
That year was flush with: Louis XVI’s execution. France’s declaration of war vs. Britain. France’s fight against Spain, whose empire bordered America. (Read more.)
First abortion...and now women in combat. One barbarism leads to another. Women of America need to rise up in outrage. Not only are so many women deprived of motherhood by abortion, but now we are literally being sent into hand-to-hand combat. Any civilizations that puts its mothers in the front lines is doomed. From The National Review:
...Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio each embraced the idea
that women should register with the selective service, making it
possible for America to draft women into ground combat. The argument for
registration is based on the new Pentagon policy opening up all combat
jobs to women. Women have served in non-combat roles for decades without
any serious push for selective-service registration ensuing. In fact,
the Supreme Court, in Rostker v. Goldberg (1981), has used the fact that
men and women have different roles as justification for rejecting
constitutional objections to the all-male draft.
We have repeatedly condemned the Obama administration’s decision to
open all combat roles to women, and we have mainly done so by citing a
combination of contemporary studies and historical experience to make
the case that gender-integrated ground-combat units are less effective
than their all-male counterparts.
But that is not the only argument. Indeed, there are other fundamental
reasons to oppose not just the presence of women in the infantry but
their forcible conscription into its ranks. Such a policy inverts
natural law and the rules that have grounded our civilization for
thousands of years.
Men should protect women. They should not shelter behind mothers
and daughters. Indeed, we see this reality every time there is a mass
shooting. Boyfriends throw themselves over girlfriends, and even
strangers and acquaintances often give themselves up to save the woman
closest to them. Who can forget the story of 45-year-old Shannon Johnson
wrapping his arms around 27-year-old Denise Peraza and declaring “I got
you” before falling to the San Bernardino shooters’ bullets?
Ground combat is barbaric. Even today, men grapple with men, killing
each other with anything they can find. Returning veterans describe
countless incidents of hand-to-hand combat with jihadists. In his book
about the Battle of Ganjgal, Into the Fire, Medal of Honor recipient
Dakota Meyer describes just such an encounter with a Taliban fighter.
The Taliban tried to capture Meyer, and they ended up wrestling in the
dirt. (Read more.)
When critics attempt to justify the Pentagon’s decision to open all
combat jobs to women — or drafting women into those roles — by
referring to the Israel Defense Forces, they’re betraying considerable
ignorance. Israel’s history with women in combat is vastly overblown,
its present policy is more restrictive than the Pentagon’s, and it’s in a
fundamentally different strategic situation than the United States. To
the extent there’s a valid comparison with the United States, Israel’s
history should stand as a cautionary tale for American policy-makers.
It is true that women fought as part of the Haganah, the Jewish
militia that defended Jewish settlements during the struggle for
survival prior to and following World War II. But, as outlined in a
comprehensive paper for the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort
Leavenworth, this policy — born of desperate necessity as Jewish
citizens defended their homes and villages from genocidal assaults —
also showed the limits of gender-integrated units. Mixed-gender units
had higher casualty rates, and Haganah commanders stopped using women in
assault forces because “physically girls could not run as well — and if
they couldn’t run fast enough, they could endanger the whole unit, so
they were put in other units.”
Indeed, when the IDF was formally established, women were soon put into
an “Auxiliary Corps.” When the IDF engaged trained Arab armies in some
of the most vicious conventional combat engagements in the modern era,
it did so with all-male combat units. As reported in the Leavenworth
paper, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion justified the changes
with a statement of sheer common sense:
There is a fundamental difference between the Haganah and the IDF.
Until November 1947, the Haganah was for local defense. There was a need
to defend the place of settlement and the call to defense included
everybody who was capable. But an army is a totally different thing. In
war, an army’s main task is to destroy the enemy army — not just defend.
When we protected the home with rifle in hand, there was no difference
between boy and girl. Both could take shelter, and everything he knew —
she knew. But in an army and in war, there is a reality of inequality in
nature, and impossible to send girls to fighting units. Yet an army
also needs non-combat units. And women are needed for appropriate
professions to strengthen the nation’s fighting force by releasing men
from those tasks for combat.
Law professor and Instapundit Glenn
Reynolds reminds us: For all of human history, extreme poverty has been
the norm. “Globally, we’ve changed that ‘normal condition’ by the spread
of free markets and free inquiry, which have led to a global growth in
knowledge and skills that has made almost everyone rich by human
historical standards,” Reynolds wrote in USA Today.
Socialism has been proven not to work in
Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and Greece for example. A quote from
Yeonmi Park – an escapee from North Korea – published a book titled In
Order To Live, A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom. Park has said
to have lived a privileged life in North Korea. In an interview
conducted she was asked what this “privilidged life” meant. She replied,
“That I could eat three times a day. Not
having a car, not having 24-hour electricity, but having some candy or
an apple once a month. Basically, I didn’t get killed by the [North
Korean] famine so that means I was pretty lucky.”
In these socialist countries this is the
norm. A socialist system means everyone is equally poor. According to
Trading Economics, the personal income tax in Greece is at 46 percent.
Do socialists want equality that much that they’re willing to drag
everyone down with them? Socialism has been proved time and time again
to not work, however millennials are still advocating for it in America –
the land of freedom and opportunity. Dear socialists – people in places
like Greece love socialism so much that they’re risking their lives to
get away from it. Don’t let America come to this as well.
So, free college, free healthcare, free
everything. Sounds great in theory, right? According to The Wall Street
Journal, Bernie Sanders’s tax plan will cost $18 trillion. That’s almost
double our U.S national debt which has been acquired since 1775. And
where will Bernie Sanders acquire this excessive amount of money? Taxes –
your hard earned money. (Read more.)
"My father was a terrific technician. He could take any medium and make
the most of it. Once I was making a watercolor of some trees. I had made
a very careful drawing and I was just filling in the lines. He came
along and looked at it and said, 'Andy you've got to free yourself.'
Then he took a brush and filled it with paint and made this sweeping
brushstroke. I learned more then from a few minutes of watching what he
did than I've ever learned since." ~Andrew Wyeth, as quoted in "Wyeth's World," by Henry Adams, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2006 (Read more.)
It’s a big mistake to think that the number one reason the mighty
women of yore adorned their heads with lace was to prevent men from
lust. Chapel veils, or mantillas (manta means “mantle” or
“cloak”), are beautiful pieces of black or white lace draped over a
woman’s head as a reminder to the world that God was born of a woman,
that God has betrothed himself to his Church, and the Church is a sacred
vessel. God can touch a woman in a way he cannot touch a man. He can
fill her with life. The number one reason why head coverings are awesome is because only sacred vessels are veiled, and women are sacred.
In the Old Testament the Ark of the Covenant is veiled behind the curtain because it is holy. In the New Testament, as I have illustrated before, the Virgin Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant to the umpteenth degree. Like the old golden chest, she is a sacred placewhere the Lord’s presence dwells intimately with his people. Except now, it’s God in the flesh. The God who is everywhere was in
Mary, his divine presence radiating out from her, the Light of the
World waiting to be born. And this is why Mary is always veiled.
When attending Mass or in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, a woman covers her head because she is a life-bearing vessel. Think about it. The chalice is veiled until the consecration because it holds the living blood of Christ. The ciborium in the tabernacle is veiled between Masses because it holds the living Body of Christ. The monstrance is traditionally covered in a canopy during procession because it holds the living
Christ. Life-bearing vessels are veiled because they are sacred. By
divine decree, the source and summit of all life was once in the womb of
the Blessed Virgin Mary. The incarnation, God’s great shout out to
motherhood, is the climax of creation.
Mothers are a menace to the assembly line.
They remind us that we are alive.
This is why Satan hates mothers almost as much as he hates chapel
veils. He hates everything for which they stand. Mother’s are an
eschatological sign, a reminder that God has not given up on the world.
The veil reminds us that God did not leave us naked, shivering in the
garden. The veil is a celebration of the fact that the curse has been
reversed. We are not our own, we are Christ’s. As his Bride, Mother
Church is called to be fruitful and to multiply, preaching the Good News
and baptizing, bringing Christ’s life to the world. (Read more.)
"The Goddess of Spring" wasn’t Walt Disney Picture’s last foray into Greek mythology or myth-inspired animation (hello, Fantasia),
but it’s worth noting that animators used this myth to practice for
their famous retellings of European-style fairy tales in the tradition
of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. Given recent research that shows that both types of tales could share common roots,
perhaps it's no surprise that the spring maiden who launched an entire
genre of movies was not German or French, but rather Greek. (Read more.)
Marie-Antoinette "en gaulle" by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
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St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
"...Bud forth as the rose planted by the brooks of waters. Give ye a sweet odor as frankincense. Send forth flowers, as the lily...and bring forth leaves in grace, and praise with canticles, and bless the Lord in his works." —Ecclesiasticus 39:17-19
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