By Charlie Johnston
“…in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark…”
Matthew 24:38
We are all being bombarded right now. The news is coming as if out of the nozzle of a wide open power hose. Some of it is true, some of it false, almost all of it manipulated. It is incredibly hard right now to separate the wheat from the chaff. Meantime among both family and colleagues, personal crises and challenges are rising. We are in the midst of the spiritual and technological equivalent of the bombing blitzkrieg of London.
People are constantly asking for my assessment of various commentators in both the political and religious arenas. It is a good time to remind all that I have always said it is more important to be true than it is to be precisely right. The relentless search for a guru, a man who is always right and never wrong avails us nothing. There is only one guru in the universe and He is God. Each of us are poor, stumbling servants of the Most High, unless we have already turned to the darkness. Thus, what I look for in commentary and counselors is meat: do they give me deeper insight? Do they challenge me, forcing me to refine my thinking? Do they stay grounded in established facts and evidence? If they do all these things they are useful to me. That is why I can admire and value a woman like Camille Paglia, with whose interpretations I disagree over 80 percent of the time. But she is that precious rarity among the left these days: an intellectually honest liberal who does not make up her own facts to make her case.
In these terrible times, even the minds of the best among us are clouded over with some measure of confusion. The most faithful sons of the Church are heartbroken at the barnacles encrusting the body of Christ. Many of them, while working from solid facts, are making panicked diagnoses and prescriptions. The magnificent Abp. Carlo Vigano commands my deep respect and admiration. On matters of fact that he recites, I have absolute confidence. On his interpretations of how we got here and where we are headed, I consider them and often reject them. He is a devoted son of the Church whose grief at where we find ourselves colors his judgment. Michael Voris of Church Militant is doing vital work that no one else in the Church is doing near as well. I value much of his work enormously. I worry that he is over-aggressive. That makes you vulnerable to ambush that can sap your credibility. I know. I ambushed more than a few over-aggressive opponents to blow them out of the water. Whether it was good or bad, it is a fact. In fact, I used that tactic frequently here a few years back, not to damage opponents, but to reveal their character to me. I was VERY controversial for a while and it was very important to me to know who, among theologians and such, were serious critics and who were just trying to make a name for themselves without much actual wisdom. So I took to occasionally making a case that St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine made without openly acknowledging it. Turns out that both of those Doctors of the Church made some pretty startling, counter-intuitive arguments at times. The pretenders would almost invariably attack my argument, unaware that it was St. Thomas’ or St. Augustine’s argument that they were attacking. The serious men would often contact me to go into more depth. I NEVER used it to discredit anyone, except to myself. But it was a very useful tool of discernment for me. I chuckled as one critic devoted almost an entire column to demonstrating how stupid I (actually St. Thomas) was.
Most of you know I have become dear friends with the eschatologist, Desmond Birch. Sometimes we chortle with glee agreeing with each other. At others, we take turns clubbing each other upside the head in disagreement. But I always come away better for the encounter, either having confirmed or refined my thought. And after a disagreement, we chuckle over how much vigorous fun that was.
Some of the public people I rely upon to always give me serious food for thought in the religious sphere are Dr. Robert Royal, Anthony Esolen, George Weigel, Jeffrey Mirus, and Fr. Mitch Pacwa. There are a host of others that I either read or have personal contact with. I can’t think of one that I agree with all the time – but among those named here, there is not one who does not make me better for having read his stuff. That IS the critical element to me. They are all true – and so they help me to be true.
This last month I have been disturbed by another phenomenon. Some people who have done work I liked in the past have written books or series of articles that posit, with comprehensive certainty, how we got here and what will happen next. Some of them are very comforting, others are very titillating – and the vast multitude have serious theological and historical errors. I have been mildly shaken by how many good people are taken in – the ones wanting comfort taking false comfort despite profound theological errors and the ones wanting titillation certain that they know the “secret” history and “secret” plan regardless of serial errors. Then I got to thinking that, unless you have already spent serious time laying down a base of theological and historical knowledge, you really don’t have time or leisure to get up to snuff now that it is so critical. Most adult Americans know the basics of American history, so if an author wrote a book positing how fortunate we are that the British put down the American Revolution or how the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was the proximate cause of Richard Nixon’s opening of China the reader would instinctively think that is not right…and so dismiss the credibility of the rest of the author’s argument no matter how dense and detailed. Absurdities greater than this are being peddled by people that have previously done serious work. I don’t know whether it is because of the panic these days have brought or if there is a more malign interpretation, but a lot of good people are being misled either way. I think it will become increasingly clear that you should seek neither comfort nor certainty, but devote yourself to taking the next right step under God, come what may.
Last week, two friends in conversation told me that I was a better writer than prognosticator. I let it pass with the first, but got a bit aggravated at the second pass. Noting that I had taken responsibility for my actual errors instead of trying to justify them, I asked him pointedly who else, five years ago, was saying that we were headed for a global civil war fought on cultural lines? Who else was saying that the heart of collapse would not be from some disaster movie, but the complete collapse of confidence in almost all the institutions we rely on? Who else had gotten closer to the big sweep of what we face? At the last question, after an uncomfortable silence, he said nobody had described what we face better. Whether you attribute my prognostications to an intuitive brilliance or to mysticism, I have told you true. But that was only the set-up for what is now truly needful, to establish firmly the credibility of my intuition and my resolution in taking full responsibility for my inevitable errors, neither blaming it on God or some mystical argle-bargle. And what you need to know now and that I tell you firmly is that, A-this is not the end (though it is the end of an era), B-Jesus is not going to come reign over us directly as king until we get heaven, C-while many will play helpful roles in the challenge before us, there is no man on a white horse coming to rescue us, relieving us of our responsibility, and D-this disorder was not foisted on us by some malevolent other (though malevolent others were, indeed, involved) but is a result of our failure to defend the faith when we should have, of our love having grown cold and presumptuous. It is not “they” who have crucified Christ, but “we.”
That being said, this is the hour of the hobbits. God has entrusted the renewal of the faith to His ordinary people. There is no place of safety, there is no place where we can avoid our duty before God now. We must each stand and publicly declare ourselves. We are called to be the heralds of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart – which will renew the faith of the world, a perfectly normal world in which we are given a renewed chance, with the fullness of our free will intact. It is entirely up to us what we will make of it. But we won’t have it until we make our stand before God – and before the world. Some of us will die in the process, either as martyrs or because God has better use for us in the eternal realm than the temporal. Do not desire to be a martyr or a king or unnoticed. Desire only to discern what God wants of you and to live it fully. He will choose our role if we acknowledge him in every moment and action. We will live the fullness of the communion of the saints as the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant work in tandem for the renewal of the faith and the world.
Each one of us will make errors in judgment as we go. If we try to justify them rather than candidly own up to our feet of clay, we will mutilate our souls a little and draw farther from God. Take counsel with each other and value those who tell you true, even when they are errant above those who want to convince you that they are gurus just like God.
Now we are at the penultimate point of a coup attempt in America that has been going on for four years. The media, all the institutions including much of the hierarchy, and social tech titans are all in censoring and silencing everyone who does not toe the line, even censoring the president. Everything is in suspense. Whether these institutions succeed in the coup or whether the American Jedi mount a serious defense of the Constitution and civil liberty; of faith, family and freedom will not resolve the conflict. Rather it is the beginning of the great battle.
You have been drafted into God’s army. Unlike with men’s rules, you are free to choose to accept or reject the invitation. But the battle will commence whatever you do. If you accept, you will not do battle as men do. Oh yes, there will be physical fighting in defense of liberty. But you are called to participate with Christ our Brother in calling the dead souls, those who have replaced all hope and joy with bitterness and anger, back to the peace and joy that is within Him. But there is no place of neutrality left. (Note: through some glitch, the original of this post simply repeated the last two lines of the previous paragraph. I have since replaced those last two lines with what I actually wrote – CJ)
We have been called to be heralds of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. Each of us will live the consequences of what we choose – and the best of us, like Christ on the road to Golgotha, will sometimes stumble. Now is the time to choose or perish.
A Sign of Hope 
“This is all enabled when people focus all their attention inward rather than outward. Whenever it is all about “me” misery shortly follows – and if the person afflicted with such disorder does not turn away from self, it becomes progressively more disordered until simple happiness and joy is no longer possible.”
Charlie Johnston – “ Our New Advent” Nov. 29, 2020
“The sense of hopelessness we all experience in such circumstances really arises from our tendency to inject too much of self into the picture. Doing so, we can easily be overwhelmed by personal feelings of inadequacy or sheer physical powerlessness, by the realization of one man’s seeming insignificance in a corrupt world. We tend to concentrate on ourselves, we tend to think of what we can or cannot do, and we forget about God and his will and his Providence. “
Fr. Walter J Ciszek – “He Leadeth Me” 1973
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I offer this rather long excerpt below from Fr. Walter J Ciszek, SJ’s book “He Leadeth Me” as a kind of handbook or policy guide for understanding the Storm not from our own eyes but from God’s eyes and reacting to it, and acting within a “system” that seems to have us trapped in its evil grip. It is a kind of “how to survive under the worst possible circumstances” strategy recommendation born out of his own trial by fire for 23 years falsely accused and condemned as a Vatican Spy and sentenced to brutal hard labor in the Siberian gulag.
In this book, Fr Ciszek expands on the spiritual journey that accompanied and sustained him during those seemingly unending, hopeless and desperate years. Many of his fellow prisoners lost hope and perished. He did not. He wrote to try to answer the most frequently asked question upon his release back to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange in 1963: How did you manage to survive?
His response and commentary and insight on how to make the trip through a literal hell on Earth might serve each of us well as we look to be caught up in a similar journey in our own time. How will we survive?
Fr Ciszek’s response to that overwhelming question was a simple one: By God’s Providence and Constancy.
These are two things – Providence and Constancy – that we are going to have to understand and trust in completely if we expect to survive where others succumb to despair and hopelessness and a kind of annihilation of the soul.
Providence refers to God’s will for the world and each individual in it. Constancy refers to God’s love for us. Taken together these are the immovable bedrock foundation, or, the keel of the boat that we are traveling on as we traverse the raging Storm of our own “system” in 2020 and seemingly beyond in our own lifetimes.
How are we going to ACT in a manner consistent with God’s Providence and Constancy? It is the question each of us will have to answer for ourselves.
Here is how Fr Ciszek negotiated his own ride though hell and why it failed to break him:
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“Beyond all the misery we shared in common, there was one final humiliation I alone had to bear. In discussing with others the various reasons for our arrests, I made no secret of my thought that one of the reasons , surely, for my arrest was the fact I was a priest. If I thought this revelation might serve to emphasize my innocence, or give my fellow prisoners a greater sense of trust and confidence in me, or even give me an opportunity to serve them better, or console them in their anguish, I was in for a rude awakening. I was treated instead with contempt.
Apparently the many years of Soviet propaganda had had some effect. I was shocked to learn that many of my fellow prisoners looked on priests as parasites in society, living a life of ease paid for by the pennies of old women, or as immoral men given to drinking, woman chasers or perverts.
[Note: This occurred in 1941. Nothing much has changed]
The more educated prisoners or minor party officials had acquired a distorted image of the Church from Communist tracts in which the political, social and human aspects of the Church were described including all their errors, shortcomings, abuses, and injustices.
A priest to them, at best, meant a man out of step and out of place in a socialist society; at worst, he was a dupe in the employ of a Church that was itself a willing tool of Capitalism.
I was stunned at the depth of feeling and prejudice against the Church that came spilling out, the more so under the circumstances. Most of us in this cell were political prisoners, nearly all of us unjustly suspected or accused of things we never did and yet not given an opportunity to answer the charges or to prove our innocence. We shared a common grievance and a common sense of personal anguish, outrage, humiliation and helplessness. There was at least a minimal sense of camaraderie among the political prisoners in the cell, a certain companionship in misery. But not for me when it became known I was a priest.
I was cursed at; I was shunned, I was looked down upon and despised.
Against the background of my Polish Catholic upbringing, where a priest was always treated as someone special whether you liked him as a person or not, this reaction to a priest on the part of my fellow prisoners made me by turns angry and bewildered. I was at a loss to understand it and furious at the added injustice of this stupid, blind prejudice. I was very nearly reduced to tears. It all seemed so totally unfair, so completely unjust, so degrading, so humiliating. Just as we all felt powerless to defend ourselves in the prison system itself, so on this level too I found I was not even able to explain myself or defend myself. Nobody would listen; very few in fact would even talk to me.
In the words of Isaiah, I felt “despised and the most abject of men.” To both prison officials and fellow prisoners alike, I was a thing of no value; I was worthless. And so added to the common feeling of helplessness and powerlessness, I suffered the hollow and sickening sense of being useless as well.
There was no one to turn to, no one to talk to, no one from whom I could seek advice or sympathetic understanding, no one to offer me any consolation. I had not seen Father Nestrov since our arrest. The other roommates from the labor camp must all have been in other cells.
And so, as I had done in every other crisis, I turned to God in prayer. I sought his help, his sympathy, his consolation. Since I was suffering especially for his sake, since I was despised precisely because I was one of his priests, he could not fail to comfort me when he himself, in his human life, had fitted Isaiah’s description of “ despised and most abject of men”. He, too, had sought for someone to comfort him and had found none. Surely he could sympathize with my plight; surely he would comfort and console me.
His way of consoling me, however, as had happened so often in the past, was to increase my self-knowledge and understanding of both his Providence and the Mystery of Salvation. When I turned to him in prayer in the depths of my humiliation, when I ran to him utterly dejected because I felt useless and despised, the grace I received in return was the light to recognize how large an admixture of self had crept into the picture.
I had been humiliated and I was feeling sorry for myself. No one was appreciating me as a priest and I was indulging in self-pity. I was being treated unfairly, unjustly, out of prejudice. There was no one to listen to my sad story and I was feeling sorry for myself. That was really the extent of my “humiliation.”
As for the humiliation I felt because I did not get the proper respect as a priest of God, –- was “the servant greater than the master?” Our Lord had said to his disciples, “If they despised me, they will despise you.” I had been taught from youth to respect a priest because he represented God among men. But as a priest I had also come to expect this respect (and even some adulation) from others. How then did I think I was following in the footsteps of the Master? If I had been more truly like Christ, should I not have expected humiliation and rejection? Why should I be shocked when it occurred? Should I not rather rejoice that I had been allowed to imitate him more closely?
In how many other ways, too, had I allowed this admixture of self, this luxury of feeling sorry for myself, to cloud my vision and prevent me from seeing the current situation with the eyes of God?
No man, no matter what his situation, is ever without value, is ever useless in God’s eyes. No situation is ever without its worth and purpose in God’s Providence. It is a very human temptation to feel frustrated by circumstances, to feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of the established order — whether that order is an NKVD prison, or the whole Soviet system, or the “status quo,” or “city hall, “ or “the rat race,” or the “establishment,” or social pressures, or the cultural environment, or the whole, oppressive rotten world!
Under the worst imaginable circumstances, a man remains a man with free will, and God stands ready to assist him with his grace. Indeed, more than that, God expects him to act in these circumstances, this situation, as He would have him act. For these situations, too, these people and places and things , are God’s will for him now.
A man may not be able to change the “system,” any more than I could change the conditions in that prison, but he is not for that reason excused from acting at all. Many men feel frustrated , or disappointed, or even defeated, when they find themselves face to face with a situation or an evil they cannot do much about. Poverty, addiction, alcoholism, social injustice, racial discrimination, hatred and bitterness, war, corruption and the oppressive bureaucracy of every institution — all can serve as a source of bitter frustration and a feeling sometimes of utter helplessness. But God does not expect a man single-handedly to change the world or overthrow all evil or cure all ills. He does expect him, though, to act as He would have him act in these circumstances ordained by his will and his Providence. Nor will God’s grace be lacking to help him act.
The sense of hopelessness we all experience in such circumstances really arises from our tendency to inject too much of self into the picture. Doing so, we can easily be overwhelmed by personal feelings of inadequacy or sheer physical powerlessness, by the realization of one man’s seeming insignificance in a corrupt world. We tend to concentrate on ourselves, we tend to think of what we can or cannot do, and we forget about God and his will and his Providence. Yet God never forgets each individual’s significance, his dignity and worth, and the role each has been asked to play in the workings of his Providence. To him, each individual is equally important at all times. He cares. But he also expects each man to accept as from his hands, the daily situations He sends him and to act as He would have him act and gives him the grace to act.
What each man can change is first of all himself. And each will have — indeed, must have — some influence on the people God brings into his life each day. He is expected as a Christian, to influence them for good. He may instead influence them for evil, but they will touch his life this day — for God sees to that — and he will therefore have some influence of some kind upon them. He will in some small way at least touch their lives, too, and it is in that touching that God will hold him responsible for the good or ill he does.
In that simple truth lies the key to any understanding of the mystery of Divine Providence and ultimately of each man’s salvation.
God does not ask the impossible of any man. He was not asking more of me, really, than he asks of every man, every Christian, each day of his life. He was asking only that I learn to see these suffering men around me, these circumstances at the prison in Perm, as sent from his hand and ordained by his Providence,. He was asking me to do something as another Christ; to forget about self and feeling sorry for myself and to act in the situation after the example of Christ himself. He was asking me to forget about my “powerlessness” against the “system” and to look instead to the immediate needs of those around me, this day, in order that I might do everything that it was in my power to do by prayer and example. That was all he was asking of me or expecting of me. It was all I had to do, but it was plenty — and it could not be done while I sat feeling sorry for myself. Nor was I powerless to do it, for it was within my power to do it, and I could count on his grace to sustain me.
And not the least of his graces was the light to see and understand this truth: to see that this day, like all the days of my life, came from his hands and served a purpose in his Providence. I had to learn to believe that, no matter what the circumstances, and to act accordingly — with complete trust and confidence in his will, his wisdom and his grace.”
Fr Walter J Ciszek, “He Leadeth Me”.
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❤
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Storm tracker Ed,
Thank you do very, very much!!!
These words from Fr Walter J Ciszek, “He Leadeth Me”. Perfection.
Providential
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This book helped me get through a hard time in my life. Thank you, Ed. Now I feel the need to dig it out and read my favorite parts again.
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Fr. Heilman’s homily from this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ppy-Aioc1w
It is 10 minutes and I cannot paraphrase it or even give a summery–it is so powerful.
Today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. May we have the resolve, courage, strength and fortitude to face our current Pearl Harbor. May the honor of those who fought before us not be lost, for we owe them a tremendous debt.
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Leader: Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be scattered.
R: And let those that hate Thee, flee from before Thy Face!
https://illuminadomine.com/the-holy-face-medal/
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Charlie, could you elaborate on the “choose or perish” aspect. Is this a collective decision or something individual to each of our circumstances. I want to choose wisely but am still uncertain what this choice necessarily is. There are a series of choices that seem to weigh on our conscience such as the election, whether to get a vaccine, whether or not to civilly disobey certain mandates, etc. At the risk of being superficial and obtuse, I feel stupid asking but also, I don’t want to miss something crucial that I’m not well-prepared for. I think essentially, the closer we stay to Christ in the sacraments, scripture and daily prayer, the more atuned we will be to the right decision
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Contemplativejoy, the “choose or perish” reality is what each of us is doing right now. In the way each one lives and via the choices each one makes, our hearts are being revealed to God. There is no middle ground, we are either for Him or against Him. Exactly 4 years ago today, Charlie posted a piece entitled, Each Soul Is the Battleground. Here’s an excerpt for us all to consider:
The most important is that ALL things serve to accomplish God’s will. ALL things. God never interferes with our free will. But He is omniscient and knows what we will do – and so orders it to accomplish His purpose. If you are Pharaoh, God knows the hardness of your heart – and uses it to demonstrate His power and to free His chosen people. If you are King David, God knows your intense passion and courage, including it slipping frequently into disorder. But He also knows your love. So He uses it to found a kingdom which is a foreshadowing of the Kingdom He will open up to us with the coming of Christ. If you are St. John Paul, He uses your fortitude, courage and brilliance to fortify His Holy Church. If you are Roman persecutors of the early Church, God uses your persecution to spread the Gospel and the faith throughout the world. Whether you are obedient or disobedient, good or evil, scheming or docile, whatever you do ends up serving God’s purposes, even when you intend exactly the opposite. The only thing that is ever at stake is your own salvation.
We are constantly revealing ourselves and giving ourselves up to judgment. If you speak of charity, but devise it so as to give yourself advantage, you reveal yourself to God. If you speak of faith, but are ever eager to be on the side that seems to be winning, you reveal yourself to God, even if you actually deceive yourself. It was not just St. Peter who was called to walk on water to Jesus, ignoring the waves of the Storm around him. We are all so called, called by God to ignore the fearful waves of trouble, the howling winds of ambition to keep our eyes on Jesus and use all He gives us to serve Him by serving His people. When you can recognize both temporal triumph and temporal disaster as the same fraud wearing different clothes; when you can recognize that the only reality that lasts is loving and serving God; when you understand that you most fully serve God by loving your neighbors and seeing in them His Divine Image, you are at the beginning of wisdom.
The devil already knows all this. He knew it from the moment of his rebellion. He knows he will not win – and that, in fact, every gambit he plays will only serve to accomplish God’s will. He knows he will get no kingdom after this world has passed, but will be as isolated and forsaken as all others who have rejected God. The devil is pure malevolence, his sole purpose to negate what God has created – to mutilate, torture, terrify, seduce, and ultimately destroy as many of the souls God has created as he can. That is the only “victory” he ever gets. The satan works with furious resolve to try to pervert your best qualities into parodies of virtue. He seeks to turn your love into lust, your initiative into greed, your search for righteousness into a shallow self-righteousness preening. With everything we do, we accomplish God’s will while revealing whether we are God’s or the satan’s man. It is only ever our soul that is at stake, not God’s sovereign will.
There is a great spiritual war going on right now…and each soul is the battleground.
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JESUS = GOOD NEWS.. 😉
https://blog.adw.org/2020/12/the-fire-next-time-a-homily-for-the-second-sunday-of-advent-2/
https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-men-of-good-will
https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/06/the-scars-of-2020/
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/12/05/the-point-of-greatest-fear/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/06/national-pro-life-group-raphael-warnock-deeply-disturbing-uses-scripture-to-defend-abortion/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/6/china-agents-us-government-helped-influence-policy/
https://cloverchronicle.com/2020/12/06/opinion-america-is-at-stake/
The Mysterious Bronze Objects That Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries
https://www.mentalfloss.com/shopping/637988/best-amazon-deals-december-4-2020?utm_content=infinitescroll1
https://humanevents.com/2020/12/03/the-plot-against-the-small-businesses/
In Defense of Community Defense Groups | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!
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LifeSite is promoting the following news site with a focus on the fraudulent election. I think I’ll make this my new home page;
https://freespeechwire.com
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Thank you, I have bookmarked it! Something happened to LifeSite recently; who removed them? I hope all these new sites attract millions of conservatives; and I hope it’s not a sin to want the “bad guys” to go bankrupt, with all their lies while testifying before Congress!
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Praying for all here and remembered all in prayer at Adoration yesterday.
As we get closer to a vaccine, please pray for all health care workers. Many will be pressured to get the vaccine in order to work. My husband is an ER physician. I have begged him to really pray about if this is the right thing to do. I have been praying the Immaculate Conception Novena to Our Lady praying for her help. I don’t want him to get it even if it means he loses his job and may not be able to work in health care. He thinks so much of the info out there is conspiracy theories. I don’t know what to do other than pray. God help us!
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Praying for your husband and all health-care workers, Becky.
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Praying, too, Becky for your husband and all health workers. Many in my family are teachers and that’s another front line push for vaccines. Trusting God in all things.
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Becky, I am thankful I am no longer in your husband’s position. That being said, there may be other options. This is the one that I am holding out hope for: https://www.jp2mri.org/campaign-covid19-vaccine
Timing is important, but delay can be a benefit. Since the approval for these vaccines were rushed through, there may be some unexpected results and I suspect there is a fair amount of lack of transparency. Personally, I hate being someone else’s “experiment.” Your husband should have a choice as to which vaccine he “wants” to get.
Also see: https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/CovidCompareMoralImmoral.pdf
This was just updated on 12/05/20.
I think that choosing Truth is about to get much darker when it comes to vaccination, as there is going to be a lot of confusion. Beckita’s post just above from 12/07/20, 3:44 pm, is actually consoling, in a way. Your husband may be like Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos (and many others), who were willing to sacrifice themselves for the God-given vocation that Jesus is sharing with him–healing the sick. You are doing the right thing by praying and surrendering him to God.
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Another healthcare worker here not wanting to get the vaccine and gearing myself up for the pressure.
Bishop Strickland’s team is putting out great info on it.
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Praying for you and your co-workers, Briana. 🙏🔥♥️
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Months ago I saw a chart which had all of the companies producing the vaccine which included stem cell usage. do you know if there is an updated version? Or does anyone else have that information now. One of my very liberal friends(Catholic) had no idea this was going on. she is against abortion but votes democrat. Anyway, I would like to give her some short and sweet info.
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Becky, I’m also praying for your husband. May the Holy Spirit open his heart to the Gospel.
𝙄’𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙖 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧, Becky. Nonetheless it’s a fact that the first two vaccines available will permanently change cells within your body. This type of vaccine has never been used on human beings before these recent Phase 3 trials. Those trials were on 30,000 people, but they only ran for, at best, 3 months. Although it’s logical to assume that they will be harmless, we still have no scientific proof of the possible long term effects. In fact, in Phase Three trials, only 15,000 people receive the vaccine itself, the other 15,000 are given the placebo. Ask your husband to research this information. Everyone who takes these cell modifying vaccines are effectively part of a medium to long-term trial.
He doesn’t need to take your word for it. The CDC admits it on their site;
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html
Some excerpts from the above CDC link – please read the above complete link before forming a full opinion;
“COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are given in the upper arm muscle. Once the instructions (mRNA) are inside the muscle cells, the cells use them to make the protein piece. After the protein piece is made, the cell breaks down the instructions and gets rid of them. …….
𝑵𝒆𝒙𝒕, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒊𝒏 𝒑𝒊𝒆𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆. Our immune systems recognize that the protein doesn’t belong there and begin building an immune response and making antibodies, like what happens in natural infection against COVID-19. ……
There are currently no licensed mRNA vaccines in the United States. ……”
Important to note that the above mentioned protein piece remains on your cells permanently. It’s only the mRNA instructions that dissipate. No-one has ever conducted a medium to long term trial to assess the effects of artificially modifying your cells in this way. Yes, researchers have been studying this form of treatment for decades, but the only large scale tests on human beings are the Phase Three trials.
Again, these Phase Three trials have been conducted on 30,000 people over approximately 3 months. where 15,000 have been given the vaccine, and 15,000 the placebo.
Please note; 𝙄’𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙖 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧. Check with your own medical authority before forming an opinion.
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May the Holy Spirit guide him, Becky. We are concerned about our daughter who is a nurse. She doesn’t want the vaccine, and doesn’t know if she would have the courage to lose her job over this.
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When he was on a missionary trip in a remote part of Africa, Dr. David Livingstone received a letter from an organization in England that wanted to assist him The leader of that organization wrote, “have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to send some men to join you on your mission.”
Dr. Livingstone wrote back, “if you only have men who will come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come even if there is no road at all.”
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“People need trouble –– a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.” — William Faulkner
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“Fortitude is the guard and support of other virtues.” — John Locke
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“Patience and fortitude conquer all things.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“A true competitor gets the most joy out of the most difficult circumstances. The real competitors love a tough situation….that is when they focus better and function better.” — John Wooden
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It only stands to reason that if the world continues to reject God, it rejects His gifts. What is He going to do with all that Fortitude? Give it to those who ask for it –– and in abundance!
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𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎?
“It looks like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Freeman Moss may have colluded to help rig the votes in Fulton County, GA.
Here they are in the middle of what looks like the transfer/concealing of a USB Thumb Drive.”
Watch it quick before Youtube censors it.
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Wow, go to full screen and you can see what’s going on. The look guilty as ________ (fill in the blank!)
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Interesting analysis of the Catholic vote in the Presidential election in the NCR:
https://www.ncregister.com/news/2020-catholic-vote
They say it was a split. Within the range of error. It might be argued that Catholics put Biden over the top. This is a scandal.
Interesting nuance: Catholics In Name Only (CINOs ??) that is to say nominal, inactive, non-practicing Catholics accounted for the Biden support. Active Catholics supported Trump. By and large.
Talk about a lot of wood to chop. It seems we will have to clean up our own house before we can take on the task of renewing the broader cultural zeitgeist. We IS the broader cultural zeitgeist.
50% of Catholics are CINOs? This is a big problem.
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“The Immaculate Conception shines like a beacon of light for humanity in all ages.” –Pope St. John Paul II
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Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Our Lady, Patroness of the Americas and the United States.
News just came over the internet that Texas has filed a case directly to the Supreme Court (which is allowed when states are suing states) against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. The apparent basis for the suit is that by violating their own, and federal, election laws the defendant states have violated the rights of not only their own people but of the voters in all states that conducted proper and legal elections.
Pray for this case. it could result in nothing but it could be a profound game changer.
May God’s will be done.
JT
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Indeed, JT and All, the year was 1846 and the 23 Bishops who had gathered in the Diocese of Baltimore – and at that time the Diocese included all states and territories of the USA – followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit to take their next right step of consecrating the Diocese, our entire USA, to the Immaculate Conception. (Fuller history here.)
America.is.HER.turf. Imagine that! She is the one who exorcists call upon when faced with particularly tough situations when casting out demons and, in Sublime Humility, she intercedes. Surely she is interceding NOW for our land as she hears our heart cries in prayer and, by virtue of Papal decree, she is joined by her earthly spouse, St. Joseph, Terror of demons, in a special way as Pope Francis on this very day has issued a decree launching a special year dedicated to St. Joseph coinciding with the anniversary of his declaration as Patron of the Catholic Church, hailing him as a model of fatherhood and a key intercessor in modern times. Published Dec. 8, on the 150th anniversary of Quemadmodum Deus by Pope Pius IX which declared St. Joseph patron of the Catholic Church, the decree formally instituted a year for St. Joseph, which will run until Dec. 8, 2021.
Onward! We continue to pray and fast, to TNRS and to be ASOH, to make our stand for God via CORAC while she who is the Highest Honor of our Race works with her earthly spouse, the Terror of demons, to rid our land and our world of evil influences.
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❤ ❤ ❤
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JTBrannigan, the Texas lawsuit is a surprise move for sure.
Here is a link to the actual document, which people can download for leisurely reading:
Click to access Texas%20Lawsuit%2012%20-%208-%2020.pdf
Saint Thomas More, pray for us.
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I was watching one of Fr Mark Goring’s little youtube presentations about 5 things to watch for in 2021.
One them is the issue of the use of fetal tissue in the development of the Covid 19 vaccine. One of the complications for Christians is the prospect of mandatory vaccination.
Turns out it is a complicated moral issue involving something called “immortalized cell lines” and evil intent.
I confess I am truly confused by this issue and I am going to have to defer to some authoritative teaching of the Church on this. I do want to take the vaccine if proven safe. Gonna delay awhile to see how this plays out with side effects etc. But I don’t want to go into something immoral with eyes wide open. Effective but immorally obtained? Yikes.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-faqs-fetal-cells-covid-19-vaccines-treatments/
I really don’t know what to think about this. I expect the Pro Life community is taking a deep dive on this issue and will opine sometime soon.
As Fr Goring advised: Something to watch for in 2021
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Strom Tracker Ed: Just the other morning at the site “The Meaning of Catholic” hosted by Timothy Flanders, he and Kennedy Hall were discussing this issue and were speaking about a talk given by Fr. Ripinger on the subject. To say the least it sounded very complicated with no simple answers.
Thankfully, there are people with both scholarly and faithful insights who are attempting to follow the magisterium and to clarify what our position should be on this. It might be worthwhile to listen to the recording of their podcast. I am sure as the time for mass vaccination begins there will me much more discussion on this.
JT
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You Tube shut down Bishop Strickland’s channel after he said he would refuse the vaccine because it was developed using fetal tissue.
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Prayers for Bishop Strickland as he expresses with holy boldness.
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https://www.patrickcoffin.media/the-coming-covid-19-vaccine/
A must watch regarding covid vaccine safety. The expert in vaccine science holds a doctorate in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stanford University and is the founder of Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute (SCPI). Dr. Deisher is this week’s honored guest on Patrick Coffin show.
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