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A Great Turning Point in the Chosen (Spoiler Alert)

Posted: December 26, 2022 by datechguy in catholic
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Yesterday the third episode of the third season of the Chosen premiered in a live stream. It is a significant episode for a few reasons.

  1. It is an all Jesus episode without any of the disciples.
  2. It introduces Lazarus along with his sisters Martha and Mary.
  3. It has a flashback with a young Jesus and Joseph

All of these things make the episode interesting but the biggest thing is that it is an adaptation of Luke Chapter 4 verses 16-30 which says:

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom 8 into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them,

“Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” He said to them,

“Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Luke 4:16-30

Note that last paragraph. They were preparing to execute Jesus for his words and that’s what were were seeing in the episode. The men of the town were preparing to kill him. Even more important in the episode, one of the two men charged by the Rabbi to hurl Jesus off the brow of the hill is a character from season 1. Rafi, the father of the bride at Cana where Jesus preforms his first public miracle. Even though he knows that there is something miraclious going on with Jesus, even though Jesus saved him from incredible embarrassment at his daughter’s wedding he is still unwilling to speak up and defend him.

It’s an important reminder, it’s not all about the nice soft comfortable fuzzy things, Mary with her demons banished, Simon Peter with his debts cleared. Matthew reformed and reconciled, Simon Z with his brother healed and abandoning the way of the sword.

We are invited to follow Christ and are offered great rewards but many people skip over an important bit:

Jesus said,

“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and (the) last will be first.”

Mark 10:29-31 Emphasis mine

We are entering an age where the persecution and the othering of Christians by society will be the normal, an age where merely praying silently can get you arrested in England. It’s good that people remember this and it’s important that the chosen remind us the cost of discipleship.

But it’s also necessary for a crowd funded project like the chosen to inspire people to kick in the money for the next season. They have paid for 3 episodes for season 4, 5 episodes costing 15 million remain. With tonight’s livestream they have moved the needle from 3% of episode 4 paid for to 5%.. It remains to be seen if the message of the costs of the faith are enough to inspire the funds to keep the ball rolling.

Progress Report

Posted: December 25, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

How it started

April 9th 1988

How it’s Going

Dec 24th 2021

The Three Dangers of the Frank Pavone Case Danger #3 The Idolatry of the Masses

Posted: December 24, 2022 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine
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Click here for Danger 1: The errors of the Church

Click here for Danger 2: The Sin of Pride

I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you.

I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to  Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Kephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

St. Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians 1:10-13

If there is one thing that you will note if you read the old Testament is that the children of Israel are constantly falling back into a state of idolatry from household Gods to Solomon giving sacrifices to his wife’s Gods to the various high places. No matter how much God asserts himself in doing things for them and saving them when they cry out, Israel again falls back into idolitry.

This is of course not purely a religious state of man but something that crosses all of those lines. All one has to do is look at our culture of sports and celerity and you can see that we constantly erect idols to worship and follow. Just take a look at the Taylor Swift ticket insanity if you don’t believe me.

And of course we see this in various megachurches from our protestant brothers whereby a “bishop” will make an idol of themselves and obtain wealth power and influence.

The real danger of all of these things is that the idol becomes more important that the God to be worshiped. This is in fact one of the great advantages of the Catholic system and hierarchy as it provides a check not just to personalities within the church getting too big for their britches but for any cause to supersede the cause of Christ and salvation which should be the primary goal of any and all in the Church. Lewis warned of this in the Screwtape letters:

Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience.

CS Lewis The Screwtape Letters #XXIII

I have already heard reports of outraged people saying they are going to other denominations due to this case and as I’ve already noted Frank Pavone has, to his credit already urged people not to go down that road.

Even so there are some who might be holding off again due to idolatry, again following the idol to those folks I’d like to remind them of what I wrote at the very start:

there are priests who have some background because when he was still Fr. Frank Pavone they were aware of the history between himself and the Bishops over him. His willingness to defy edicts from Bishops would not tend to grab sympathy from people who like him have taken a vow of obedience to such authority nor might the final result be a surprise to them.

And if there is one priest who knows the background of all of this it’s Fr. Stephen Imbarado the protest Priest. A tireless foe of Abortion who led the Eucharistic Procession here in Fitchburg before the Planned Parenthood in Fitchburg that our local and state press completely ignored but less that two years later, they were gone. (My videos of those events are all over Rumble) He recently put out a post on facebook on the subject. I’m having trouble embedding the video but you can see it via the link below

https://www.facebook.com/FrStephenImb/videos/910187783693495/

If you are even slightly considering dodging the church and the sacraments over this I urge you to watch this video and I urge you alto to take the warning that the folks at Church Militant gave of those who will use this events both to promote schism and to obtain your email for fundraising purposes.

This event is a tool that the enemy will try to use against your soul and let me remind you the enemy that I’m referring to is not the curia in Rome or the left or even Planned Parenthood, it is the only real enemy the Devil whose primary goal is to separate you from Christ and the Church for the purpose of obtaining your soul. He will use any tool toward this end and while I suspect he has a great hatred for Frank Pavone for all he’s done over the decades for the cause of life he will happily hold him up as an idol before you to saying: “See how horrible he is being treated by the church. How can you follow a church like that?”

That’s the danger and the game being played on you, don’t fall for it.

Under the Fedora Thoughts: Hey Elon What about Robert Stacy McCain? Business returns to as Usual, Lauren Boebert nails it, What a difference One pick makes, My Popular Day

Posted: December 23, 2022 by datechguy in congress, in Ukraine, nfl, personal, Sports, tech, twitter, under the fedora, war
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A lot of accounts have been restored in to twitter over the last several months under Elon Musk from Donald Trump to Project Veritas to the Gateway Pundit and I cheer the return of these accounts and for a semblance of free speech for conservatives to come back. I must say frankly that I’m getting sick of waiting for the folks at twitter to restore the account of Robert Stacy McCain.

He was one of the first conservatives to be targeted by the twitter cancel crowd because like Libs of Tictok he dared to quote feminists directly using their own words against him to make his point.

I keep seeing these other worthy folks come back but there still remains no sign of Stacy’s @rsmccain account being restored. He had over 80K followers when he was tossed and as a writer no longer connected with major media the loss of such an account had I suspect a real effect on his reach and potential income which was the entire point of kicking him off.

I understand Elon Musk is a busy man but I urge him to take a few minutes out of his schedule and end this injustice against a reporter with thirty years of print media experience behind him and #freestacy

It’s the right thing to do.

A lot of GOP voters are rightly upset about the omnibus spending bill that just passed and the number of GOP senators who voted for this goody package for the left to make it happen.

While it outrages us it should not surprise us as I’m sure this bill contained a bunch of goodie packages for these individual senators and/or their states and/or contributors.

Unfortunately this has been the norm in congress for a very long time, it was the removal of earmarks that was a change from the routine and the people who paid a lot of money to get these folks elected expect to get their dough.

And if it means funding a bunch of stuff that helps the left in their culture war against the country, what do their care as long as they get their cut?

Lauren Boebert’s statement on Ukrainian president after his speech to congress was spot on.

She correctly acknowledged that Zelenskey is doing all he can to save his country from the Russians but also noted that it is our duty to make sure the billions we are sending to him to defend his country actually go toward that goal.

I don’t blame Zelenskey one bit, Ukraine was a land of graft and grift before the Russian invasion and if I was in charge of Ukraine and the US offered me dough but the big guy & his pals wanted their 10% or more I’d not care if thousands of grifters got their share as long as I got kept getting the dough and weapons that I needed to save my country from the Russian hoards. That’s got to be his primary goal.

But it damn well should the goal of a representative of the United States to make sure that the taxpayer dollars of Americans that are being spent to save Ukraine isn’t all about making the rich and connected richer and even if my own rep doesn’t care about it it’s nice that SOMEBODY in congress does.

We got out of work a couple of hours early yesterday so I had a chance to watch the 2nd half of the Jets Jaguars game which pitted Trevor Lawrence the 1st pick overall in the 2021 NFL draft starting for Jacksonville against Zach Wilson the 2nd overall pick in the NFL draft starting for the Jets. In two Seasons Lawrence has taken a bad team and put them within a game of their division lead and a game and a half away from the final wildcard spot this season.

Meanwhile Wilson in a year marred by injury got himself pulled shortly after the start of the 2nd half after taking a Jets team that had a lot of promise nowhere. It makes the 2nd time this season that Wilson has been sat down for poor performance but subsequent injuries to his replacements pressed him back into service.

This goes to show you how thin the line is between success and failure is in the NFL. Both of these two young men excelled in college and have physical tools to make the NFL, tools that 99.99% of the population don’t come near to. Yet one of them has the stuff to make it in this league and one did not. Meanwhile in San Francisco the # 3 pick in that draft Trey Lance is recoding from injury while Brock Purdy the 262nd and final pick in this years NFL draft Mr Irrelevant is about to lead his team to a playoff bearth.

Until the iron comes out of the forge you don’t know where it’s been.

Finally as I did last year at work I came in wearing a full Santa Suit for the final work day before Christmas. Given I have both a real stomach and a real Santa beard (that I will shave shortly after Christmas to the delight of my wife) which causes little kids to gasp when I walk into restaurants this time of year it’s very effective.

I could practically not punch in as about half of the woman (and a few men) punching out for 1st shift wanted a picture and my first hour on the job while I was in theory trying to pick orders was in fact spent taking pictures with groups of very attractive women, many dressed for the season, who all wanted a picture with Santa Claus.

It’s slightly ironic, As I’m one of only 4 white English speaking white Americans on my shift and with very few exceptions old enough to be the father or grandfather of just about everyone in the place it often makes for a lonely & silent work day (the “silent” bit will shock folks who know me) since I have few conversations during the day and can’t understand the conversations around me in Spanish, Portuguese (Cape Verde) , Creole or French (Haitians you know) everyone knows who I am and says hello but I’m generally left alone

But one day a year, for just a few hours when I come in and during the Christmas party I become the most popular person in the place.

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