Archive for the ‘catholic’ Category

…And Faith in Louisiana

Posted: June 12, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions, culture, Vive L'Empereur
Tags: , ,

I Like to think I’m a faithful Catholic. I don’t miss a weekend mass, make daily mass when I wake up on time (I get home from work between 12:35-12:45 AM) regularly go to confession, host a show called “Your Prayer Intentions” on WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley/Fitchburg and even am the author of a book titled: “Hail Mary the Perfect Protestant (and catholic) Prayer”.

But this guy: Ross McKnight He’s the real thing:

McKnight is a descendent of those Arcadians who were expelled from Nova Scotia by the British during their conquering of Canada in the French and Indian Wars and made their way to Louisiana eventually becoming known as Creoles. He has not forgotten his ancestors embracing both the French Language and the deep Catholic faith that said ancestors share. He supports his family by raising animals poultry at his Farm in a manner that would make the greenest of greens blush with pride:

When you visit Backwater Farmstead, the first thing you’ll notice is the greenery. We committed a long time ago to running our animals in systems that contribute to pasture fertility, and so, at the root of it – so to speak – we’re grass farmers. When the grass is healthy, the diverse biota that the poultry munch on have a good habitat, and, believe it or not, grass itself makes up a significant portion of our birds’ diet.

And if this isn’t enough to prove his environmentally sound credentials his company Backwater Foiegras as the name implies produces this very French delicacy along with specialty poultry seasonally. French Guinea fowl, Freedom Ranger chickens, Pekin ducks, and geese and Creole Bresse chicken. their diet: pasture, corn raw milk from the family cow. No GMOs and a local breed of sheep as well who are as his site indicates: “strictly grass fed”

But Mr. McKnight is dedicated to more than supporting his wife and five kids by raising animals, he’s dedicated to his Catholic Faith. So at the beginning of the month of June, a month long dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by the Church, suggested the following antidote to the “coup of the month of June”

1. As is our tradition, enthrone the Sacred Heart in your home this month, and place your family under the protection of the furnace of Christ’s most merciful love.

2. Wear the Sacred Heart as a badge wherever you go! If you know your history, you’ll know that it was meant to be the livery of France (and was that of the Vendéens)!

3. Pray the Rosary for the conversion of souls. Pray it in French.

4. Check out my most recent journal entry on our website.

For God and the King! For God the King! Pour Dieu et Le Roi ! Pour Dieu Le Roi !

A very French Catholic post by a proud Arcadian Catholic.

Alas however some of his biggest buyers, no matter how much they might like the quality of his products and his methods of farming, can not tolerate any dissent to the march of Pride month, particularly one based firmly in faith and as the Federalist reported the responses came fast and furious.

Within a few hours of his Instagram post, several of McKnight’s customers, some of whom he had a personal relationship with, began canceling their orders. This included McKnight’s biggest clients — two high-end New Orleans restaurants that previously committed to buying from him throughout the summer.

And how did he respond? Well in the way you might expect a Faithful Catholic to respond

Since his Instagram post, nearly two-thirds of McKnight’s business has evaporated, putting him and his family in a dire financial situation. Yet when interviewed by The Federalist, McKnight expressed a baffling sense of peace and even joy. “There’s that animal need to have food and shelter and clothing — certainly,” and “I’m concerned,” said McKnight. “But I don’t know how to precisely explain myself … I’ve lost everything overnight, but the suffering is valuable,” he said. 

That last sentence could have been written by St. Faustina herself. He had this to say in his latest response on Instagram:

It would be difficult to miss the fact that we are Catholics who sincerely hold what Holy Mother Church teaches.

Subsisting upon the realities of the Faith instills certain motivations and desires, one of those well-ordered desires being to make beautiful things, hence the very existence of our foie gras farm.

Recently, we received two texts from two restaurant owners who have decided that they’ve had enough of our Catholicism based on our latest Instagram feed post and have cancelled their large, recurring orders.

One of these restaurant owners had a long-standing relationship with us.

While we’ve never required our customers to pass a litmus test before serving them, it seems our values, which come from lives lived as Louisiana Catholics, are considered unacceptable by some.

We count it a privilege to have lost much.

It is an honor to participate, through the suffering of our family, in the triumph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As I said at the start of this post I like to think I’m a faithful Catholic but I’ve never had to risk all to back it up. At my age I have few ambitions left, but as the culture continues to sink and the price of faith continues to rise in our society my ambition would be to be to match the faith of Mr. McKnight when and if the time for testing comes.

Postscript: I’m not a foiegras guy but if what he’s selling is something you might find appealing you can check it out here.

Don Surber Makes the Case for Christ Without Realizing it

Posted: June 7, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, war
Tags: , ,

The most dangerous thing in the world is an excuse.

Peter Ingemi

If you are a person who pays attention the recent stories of some Ukrainian units having historically Nazi badges is no revelation. The great Mark Felton did a video on it a while back and it was known that many Ukrainians welcomed the Nazi as liberators from the Soviets who had starved and killed them for decades.

Don Surber did an excellent piece on the subject on his substack account ( that you should subscribe to) talking about the subject. I’m not going to dive into the whole piece, although it is certainly worth your time, but for the purposes of this piece just two paragraphs and the final sentence in the second is what we’ll quote

The newspaper said, “Factions from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its insurgent army fought alongside the Nazis in what they viewed as a struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty. Members of those groups also took part in atrocities against Jewish and Polish civilians. Later in the war, though, some of the groups fought against the Nazis.”

Some. So not all the Ukrainians wanted the Nazis out. The choice between Nazi occupiers and Soviet occupiers was a tough call because Stalin had starved 6 million Ukrainians a few years earlier in the Holodomor. The older I get, the more I realize how often there are no good guys.

emphasis mine

The moment I read those paragraphs I instantly thought of the admonition of Christ at the sermon on the mount:

But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Luke 6:35-38

And this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans:

Well, then, are we better off? Not entirely, for we have already brought the charge against Jews and Greeks alike that they are all under the domination of sin, as it is written: “There is no one just, not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good, (there is not) even one.

Their throats are open graves; they deceive with their tongues; the venom of asps is on their lips; their mouths are full of bitter cursing. Their feet are quick to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they know not. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 3: 9-18

Why, because of grievance.

Russia believes, (even if others don’t) that they have legit grievances against Ukraine and even legit fears (Hey if you were invaded by Napoleon & Hitler you might have some fears too).

Ukraine believes that they have legit grievances against Russia both current (the invasion) and historical (millions starved by the USSR in the 30’s etc) ones as well. The actual invasion is of course the easiest grievance to understand but it’s also the reason why Ukraine isn’t all that anxious to go to the table to negotiate.

But the reality is that this is not unique. China has grievances against Japan and the west, The west have grievances against China, all kinds of people have all kinds of grievances against everyone else and if you are willing to go back far enough in history you can find grievance. John Cleese might have been joking about how England should demand reparations for being invaded but that really illustrates the point that Surber is making if you look at history very often there are no good guys and that’s why Christ message to forgive and love your enemies is so important because by doing so you don’t hold onto grievance.

Holding onto grievance, on a personal, or family, or clan, or race, or state, or national level always leads to something horrible in the end, because you don’t allow an evil, either real or perceived, to die. And even worse if you hold tightly onto it it goes on for generations even when the people involved are long dead.

Taken to it’s final extent you end up with people taking grievance for something that didn’t happen to them wanting revenge against people who didn’t do it to them.

And believe me the grifter and the demagogues are just waiting to take advantage of that kind of hatred and grievance for the sake of their own power and wealth.

When you instead release grievance, when you love your neighbor as yourself you are being like God and like Christ who famously on the cross declared:

“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.“

Luke 23:34

To forgive and to let go is holy but even if you don’t do so for the sake of rightness, do so because of the price for not forgiving as the Lord’s Prayer the Our Father says:

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

emphasis mine

Forgiveness is the right thing, it’s also the smart thing.

June Indulgence Calendar: Update Dodgers apparently need those prayers

Posted: June 1, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
Tags:

Here is the indulgence calendar for June

indulgence-calendar-june-2023Download

Remember indulgences can only be earned for yourself or the dead so folks like the management of the Dodgers, you’ll just have to do regular prayers for them.

Here is the blank, fill in your own names version.

indulgence-calendar-blank-june-2023Download

Update: Speaking of the Dodgers and Prayers:

A quick reminder, a game vs the Angels means seeing Ohtani, the biggest draw in baseball

The Best Response to the Dodgers: Eucharistic Processions and Hostile Work Environments. Update: No @LOSDodgers posting?

Posted: May 23, 2023 by datechguy in baseball, catholic, catholic devotions, culture
Tags: , ,

The LA Dodgers had scheduled a pride night and had invited the anti-Catholic “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” a drag group that attacks the Catholic Church. After a letter from Marco Rubio noting the offence to Catholics the “sisters” were disinvited.

Gay groups whose hatred of faithful Catholics is only slightly eclipsed by the sisters threatened to pull out and the Dodgers caved like a wet blanket.

It goes without saying that if this had been a drag group that made fun of Islam the Dodgers would have run from these guys and denounced them publicly as bigots, but as it’s the Catholic Church the Dodgers are all in on hate.

What remains is what the response should be, I think it should be two fold, one spiritual and one secular.

The spiritual response that I would suggest is a Eucharistic Procession to and around Dodger Stadium, much like the one that took place in DC last week:

Over the weekend, the nation’s capitol saw a Eucharistic procession, the first of its kind organized by the Catholic Information Center (CIC), to bring “Christ’s Real Presence onto the streets of our downtown D.C. neighborhood.” 

Fr. Charles Trullols, director of the CIC, said that he was inspired by the Eucharistic processions of Pope St. John Paul II, who led processions through Rome’s streets for seven years. He continued to say that the U.S. needs God to be put back into Americans’ lives, hoping the procession would help the country, including those in the White House. 

“The CIC houses the closest tabernacle to the White House, and I have absolute faith in the many graces God will bestow onto our country when Christ’s real presence is carried through the streets of D.C. The procession will express our belief that Jesus is passing by and bestowing his love and help on all of us,” Fr. Charles Trullols said

I’m sure the Hispanic community of LA would really get into such an event, perhaps even bearing a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe the Patron of the Americas. But the real advantage is that whenever you have the Eucharist you have the body blood soul and divinity of Christ and whenever you Christ to a situation you are working toward the good.

Of course a secular response might be appropriate too and there is a very simple one that might stop this in it’s tracks.

I’m sure California has laws concerning creating a hostile work environment and I’m also sure that there are more than a few devout Catholics who work for or play for the Dodgers.

Imagine if one or more of them filed a complaint with the appropriate agencies noting that inviting a group openly hostile to their faith as official guest constitutes a hostile work environment. Imagine the lawsuit that could follow. Imagine if this is promulgated in the largely Catholic countries that the dodgers recruit from.

The Dodgers have sown, let them reap.

In fairness all of this is consistent with the warming of Christ at the last supper:

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.

Remember the word I spoke to you,  ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin.

Whoever hates me also hates my Father.

John 15:18-23

We’ll see much worse before it gets better.

Update: I just noticed that while the Dodgers put out their announcement on the twitter feed it’s not included in their spanish language twitter feed @losdodgers

I wonder why?

Older Entries
Newer Entries