Archive for the ‘catholic’ Category

Three Great Signs of a Healthy Parish: Sign 1 Crossed Arms at Communion

Posted: November 23, 2020 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine
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Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.“

John 4:10

There are many blessings that come from attending Mass and the pleasures are amplified when there are so many signs of a parish that is strong and healthy in plain view. In between other subjects I’ll be touching on some of these things this week.

The first sign is something that might not be obvious even to a catholic but leaped out at me yesterday.

Due to COVID restrictions have the pews in the church are unused (closed off with police tape) so when DaWife and I arrived we ended up sitting in the very front pew of the church (something she absolutely hates). A pew that is a tad unusual and different than most, it’s used as a handicapped friendly area. A pew which had been in front of it was removed to fit self propelled and standard wheelchairs so the kneeler is a full yard in front of where you sit.

This had significance today because due to a commitment yesterday I was not in town for confession so when it was time for communion I went up with crossed arms and instead received from the priest, host held in his hand, the following blessing:

May the blessing of almighty God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain with you all day long.

One can choose to remain in a pew of course but doing this not only gives the benefit of a blessing but also demonstrates respect for the Holy Eucharist for as St. Paul tells us:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

1 Cor 11:23-29

Because I did not receive myself instead of kneeling I sat and watched those who went up to receive. In the front row I had a very good view of everyone particularly because of the COVID restrictions that allow only a single file.

Quite a few people bowed or keeled before receiving (not to give homage to the priest but to Christ who they acknowledged as present in the Eucharist) but there were quite a few, in fact rather a lot who like me came forward with crossed arms getting the same blessing as me.

Many of course where children who had not received their 1st communion but almost as many were adults young and old, who for whatever reason either missing confession or breaking the one hour fast before receiving or whatever other reason understood they were not properly disposed for the Eucharist.

I was impressed, that act, particularly by the young because it would be SO easy to remain in the pew, instead each made a public act acknowledging

  1. The reality and significance of the Eucharist
  2. The necessity of being in a proper state to receive Christ in the Eucharist
  3. Their current state of being unworthy, for whatever reason to receive it

These things reflect

  1. The acknowledgement of Christ in the Eucharist
  2. The holiness of God and the respect he deserves
  3. The conscious of sin and the need to repent of it
  4. The value of the blessing of the Lord

A parish full of people who see these things is a parish well catechized and a well catechized parish is a healthy one.

(Oh and the Priest found time to give me confession after mass but more on that later this week.)

The Election Novena for America

Posted: October 26, 2020 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, elections
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A good idea from the USCCB site:

Bearing in mind our nation’s challenges and the need for wise, moral, civic leadership, the USCCB is offering an electronic Election Novena to help Catholics form their consciences as they prepare for the upcoming election.

For nine consecutive days, Monday, October 26 through Tuesday, November 3, participants will be encouraged to pray one Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be for the day’s intention. A closing prayer for elected leaders will be offered on day 10, Wednesday, November 4. On this page, you can find the daily intentions, signup to receive the novena intentions daily by email, and download graphics for each day’s intention for use on social media. 

I love when Catholic Bishops act like Catholics:

Here is the Day 1 Monday Prayer intention:

As we prepare for the national & local elections, in the midst of a global pandemic, may our political engagement be guided by our Catholic Faith.

Under the Fedora: Amy Without Objection, Democrats watching the Ark, Pope Adopts the Sullivan Rule, A Monty Python Irony, Mel’s all in for Biden and Biden’s Kick me sign

Posted: October 23, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, catholic, comedy, culture, elections, entertainment, News/opinion, politics
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Democrats decided to play one last stunt with the Amy Coney Barrett nomination replacing themselves with cardboard cutouts for what became a unanimous vote to send Amy Coney Barrett to the full senate with a positive recommendation.

Under the Committee rules you have to have at least two senators of the minority party to have a quorum allowing a vote but alas to have a quorum call you have to have at least one senator suggesting the absence of a quorum and that would have required at least one of them to abstain from their exercise in performance art.

I swear the left is entirely made up of failed wanna be actors.

Watching how this election process has turned out reminds me of the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark with Trump & his supporters as Noah. For a solid year the left / media have spent their time pointing and laughing at him and now as election day comes closer and closer the rain has started to fall and they are getting more and more nervious.

Election day will be like them watching the ark float away while they seek higher ground.

Speaking of the Bible and scripture The Pope latest actions of this week reminded of this quote:

He said to his disciples, “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur.

It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

Luke 17:1-2

Andrew Sullivan’s plan of working to redefine sin rather than struggling to overcome it has found a buyer in Rome. No word yet if he is going to apply this same standard to other mortal sins like having a mistress or other things.

As a Catholic I never realized how spoiled I was by a lifetime of Saintly Popes until Francis came along.

The real irony in watching Facebook determine this Monty Python Joke by the Babylon Bee

is an incitement to violence is that the Monty Python Crew was always fighting censorship from their TV show to the Life of Brian and even in their final performance when Eric Idle wrote a special skit to replace a censored scene on TV which made fun of said censorship.

Of course given that Eric Idle and John Cleese are both steadfastly against this president perhaps they don’t see this censorship of a joke hitting Trump opponents problematic.

(I’m not aware of any public position by Michael Palin or Terry Gilliam nor has any mystic produced a comment from beyond the grave from Terry Jones or Graham Chapman so I can’t comment on what they might think).

Update: After I wrote this post Facebook reversed itself claiming it was an automated system what done it:

I guess it all depends on what the word “manual” means.

Speaking of Comic genius Mel Brooks has in his 94th year decided to come out with a video endorsing Joe Biden and hitting Donald Trump before the election hitting him over COVID.

What I find really ironic and in fact comical is the timing Brooks investment of political capital. Not only is it unlikely to change any minds but at this point the battle is already lost. (and if he didn’t know it before the debate he likely knows it now. It’s sort of like jumping on a horse to join the Charge of the Light Brigade or Picket’s charge just at the moment when it’s clear they have failed. You’d think a comic genius would recognize when something is a joke.

Of course in fairness to Mel he’s likely deep in the Hollywood bubble and at his age he likely past the point of having to worry about offending the customers.

Although I’m wondering if this is a crazy as a fox move to make the left decide not to censor his movies after he’s gone to keep the Royalties coming for his son.

I was going to finish with Mel but I just watched the Debate and I can’t believe what I saw. Joe Biden could have just put a “kick me” sign on this rear and be done with it. What kind of idiot denies he ever opposed fracking and suggests that Trump put on his web site if he did?

Ignoring all else, nobody that stupid should be leading the US.

Big Media and Big Tech, the left-wing parents who adopted us, believe they know what is best for you

Posted: October 20, 2020 by John Ruberry in abortion, culture, elections, elections, entertainment, media, News/opinion, politics
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Bea Arthur as “Maude.”

By John Ruberry

I was raised by parents who kept a close eye on what my brothers and sisters and I watched on television. As we only had two TV sets, that was a very easy task for them as my folks didn’t socialize outside our home much. Until the early 1970s it was especially easy for them as television fare for the medium’s first 25 years was mostly G-rated fare. Otis Campbell’s drunkeness on the Andy Griffith Show was as bad as it got in the 1960s, although interestingly, the character was rarely shown consuming alcohol. 

So in 1972 when Bea Arthur’s eponymous character in Maude, in a two-episode storyline became pregnant–she pondered an abortion and then went through with it–my parents made sure that our televisions were tuned to a different station those nights.

Abortion was not only very controversial in 1972, it was illegal in most states, although Arthur’s character lived in New York, where it was not. At that time I didn’t even know what abortion was.

Nearly five decades later, Big Tech and Big Media are trying to control what I see on my computer and portable devices. And because broadcast and cable news often takes its lead from what they view as “elite” media, their decisions effect what I see on my TV.

Our “betters” in the media, working for CNN, MSNBC, as well as onetime somewhat fair but left-leaning print outlets such as the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, are attempting to limit what information we consume. And in control of the metaphoric off switch is Big Tech, led by Twitter and Facebook. 

Stories that are harmful to the reputation to President Donald Trump blare across the media, such as reports on Trump’s tax returns. The New York Times did not publish those returns, but it reported on them. The Old Gray Lady won’t say how it got them, but assuming reports on the returns are accurate, who ever gained access to them and gave them to the Times broke the law. The stories on Trump’s tax returns, where it was reported that he paid as little as $750 in federal taxes, were reported pretty much everywhere by the media, and posted, reposted, Tweeted, and re-Tweeted on Facebook and Twitter.

“Kids, kids, come to the living room! You need to see this news story on TV!” 

Contrast Trump’s taxes to reports from the New York Post about the emails it accessed from a laptop that once belonged to Joe Biden’s troublesome son, Hunter. Because Hunter dropped of the computer at a repair shop and never bothered to pick it up, that computer became property of the shop’s owner. Emails found on that computer confirm accusations that Hunter used that Biden name to for influence peddling. Illegal? Maybe not. Sleazy? For sure. And the shop owner did not break the law.

And the media, with the exception of Fox News and other conservative news sources such as Breitbart, ignored or minimized coverage of Hunter Biden’s emails. Last week a Democratic Party shill masquerading as an ABC journalist, former Bill Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos, didn’t ask Biden about the New York Post revelations. Yeah, I get it, the format was a town hall, but ABC chose the participants and it knew what questions they would ask. Contrast Biden’s friendly treatment to the grilling Trump received from Savannah Guthrie at the NBC town hall the same night. Guthrie is married to Michael Feldman, the traveling chief of staff for Al Gore in the 2000 election. Guthrie brought up Trump’s tax returns, among other things. 

That’s bad but what is worse is that Twitter and Facebook for a while blocked the posting and sharing of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden email revelations. And it wasn’t yokels like me who suffered the indignity. Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, saw her Twitter account briefly suspended for Tweeting the Post’s Hunter story. The twisted explanation from Big Tech is that the Hunter Biden’s emails were hacked–they weren’t–and that the story was unverified. Remember, the NY Times never actually published Trump’s federal tax returns, which may have been hacked. But the Post did show images of some of Hunter’s emails. Even the New York Post’s Twitter account was suspended for a short time on the day it published the Hunter story.

“Kids…turn off that TV and go to your room!” 

Of course these media and tech big shots are our “betters.” Jeffrey Toobin, a CNN analyst and New Yorker writer, a product of Harvard University, is one of them. But yesterday Toobin was suspended by CNN and the New Yorker after exposing himself and more–click here for the X-rated details–during a Zoom call simulating election night scenarios. Toobin is a scumbag. He had an extramarital affair with Casey Greenfield, the daughter of journalist Jeff Greenfield. Okay, I know, Trump has been unfaithful while married too. But Greenfield bore his child, which Toobin only acknowledged after a DNA test, and only then began paying child support. And while pregnant Toobin offered to pay for her abortion.

American media can do much better than Toobin and his fellow “betters.” I will write another entry on the sad state of the media after the election.  

But right now we’re headed to Chinese government-style control of the media by the left.

A free press and free association are two things that French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville saw as two key safeguards in his landmark 19th-century work, Democracy in America. 

But Big Tech and Big Media, as well as the increasingly far-left Democratic Party, are trying to minimize both. 

We live in a perilous time.

UPDATE 7:30pm EDT: Correction, the New York Post Twitter account was “not suspended for a short time” as I wrote earlier. There are no new Twitter entries from @nypost since October 14. If the account has been suspended it clearly has been locked out. This is censorship.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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