benign essential tumor

Flowers Teach

Flowers Teach on June 23, 2012

If flowers speak (cf. EC 255), then they can also teach: the value of time, the justice of God, the harmony of grace and nature.

For instance, if God exists and he is not unjust by making a soul’s whole eternity depend upon its choices made during one brief life, even lasting 90 years, then it stands to reason both that every moment of that life counts, and that in every moment (even if not always with the same force) God is appealing to us to join him for eternity. That is why it makes sense that he should be talking through the flowers and through every other gift of his creation, because what soul alive can truthfully say that it has nothing and nobody to love? Even the most rabid “atheist” has, say, his dog or his cigarettes. And Who designed dogs and tobacco plants, and kept them reproducing down to our own day?

So just before he dies the “atheist” may still claim that he at least was never spoken to by God, but in the instant after he dies he will grasp in a flash that for every moment of his waking life God has been appealing to him through some creature or other around him. “Am I now unjust,” God might ask him, “if I condemn you for every remaining moment of my life, when for every moment of your life you have been refusing me? Have what you have chosen. Depart from me into . . .” (Mt. XXV, 41).

Conversely, take a soul that has profited by every moment of its life to love the great and good God behind all the good things it has enjoyed, and that has even recognized the permission of his Providence behind all the bad things it has not enjoyed. Then who needs to be recognized, or famous, who needs to appear in the media, or to fill drawers of vacation photographs, in order to give meaning to his life? Small wonder that in past ages talented souls could bury their talents in a cloister or monastery in order to devote them wholly to the loving of God. For indeed every moment of our time is of measureless value, because upon every moment hangs for good or ill a measureless eternity.

Moreover, that flowers speak can help us to make sense of another well-known problem: how can non-Catholic souls be condemned for not having the Catholic faith when Catholic missionaries never reached them? Whatever mystery is here may at least partly be solved, humanly speaking, if one recalls that it is the selfsame God who creates flowers and instituted the Catholic Church. Thus if God’s Providence never allowed for Catholic truth to reach the ears of a given soul, nevertheless that soul will not be able to plead that it knew nothing of the true God, and it can be judged on what it did know, for instance the beauty of cloudscapes, of sunrises and sunsets. Did it, beholding them, say with the pagan Job (Job XIX, 25), “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” or did it say, “Well, yes, that’s nice, but now let me visit my neighbour’s wife . . .”?

In fact a number of complaints that men have today against their Creator arise even with Catholics, because many Catholics are, like everybody else today, more or less cut off from Nature by their urban or suburban lives, and their “spirituality” becomes correspondingly artificial. “Woe to anybody who has never loved an animal,” somebody has said. Children are close to God. Watch how naturally children love animals.

Great and good God, grant us to see you where you are, deep down everything and everybody, at every moment.

Kyrie eleison.

Tenth Anniversary

Tenth Anniversary on October 1, 2011

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 came and went on September 11, three weeks ago. Apparently in the US media there was such a downpour of sentimentality for the occasion as to make the recent torrential rains on the eastern seaboard look like a light shower. However, before it becomes “anti-semitic” even to raise the question, let us with an American commentator of indisputable intelligence and integrity ask just what was the reality of that event.

The commentator is Dr Paul Craig Roberts who announced several months ago his retirement from writing. He was discouraged by the lack of readers interested in the truth. Fortunately his retirement did not last long. He is a truth-teller, and there are too few of them around. “In America Respect for Truth is Dead” is the title of his Sept. 12 article, published on infowars.com. As he suggests, the loss of truth is the real drama, both of 9/11 and of the ten years succeeding, not only in the USA, but in fact all over the world.

Dr Roberts has himself a scientific background, and as such he says he was wholly persuaded by the scientific evidence presented in a Sept. 8–11 meeting held in Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, on the 9/11 events. In the four days of hearings, distinguished scientists, scholars, architects and engineers presented the fruit of their research into the 9/11 events (their findings may still be accessible at http://​www.​ustream.​tv/​channel/​thetorontohearings). Dr Roberts writes that their researches “proved that the WTC7 building was a standard controlled demolition and that incendiaries and explosives brought down the Twin Towers. There is no doubt whatsoever about this. Anyone who declares the contrary has no scientific basis on which to stand. Those who believe in the official story believe in a miracle that defies the laws of physics.”

Dr Roberts quotes a few of the many scientific proofs presented in Canada, for instance the recent discovery of nano-thermite in the dust produced by the fall of the Towers, but he writes that “the revelation of malevolence is so powerful that most readers will find it a challenge to their emotional and mental strength.” Government propaganda and the “Presstitute media” have such a grip on minds that most people seriously believe that only “conspiracy kooks” challenge the government’s story. Facts, science and evidence no longer count for anything (somebody I know has run into that!). Dr Roberts quotes a Chicago and Harvard law professor even proposing that all fact-based doubters of government propaganda should be shut down!

G.K.Chesterton once famously said that when people stop believing in God, they do not believe in nothing, they will believe in anything. Gravest of all amongst the many millions of 9/11 truth-losers are the Catholics who cannot or do not want to see the evidence for 9/11 being an inside job, who cannot or do not want to see the truly religious dimensions of the worldwide triumph of such a mind-bending lie as 9/11 represents. Let such Catholics beware. It may seem a wild exaggeration to say that they risk losing the Faith, but do we not have the terrifying example of Vatican II just behind us in time? Did not in the 1960’s far too many Catholics take such a sympathetic view of the modern world as to think that their Church should be adapted to it? Was not Vatican II the result? What did it do to their Faith?

Kyrie eleison.

Wonderful, Counsellor

Wonderful, Counsellor on December 25, 2010

Christmas Day is a suitable moment to recall why we may and should rejoice in the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He and he alone can solve all the real problems of men, which go back to the very beginnings of mankind, and which are graver than ever today.

This is because all real problems of men involve sin. Any purely material disorder only becomes serious if it is in some way spiritual, for instance if a physical illness makes a man curse or bless. And anything spiritual that goes on inside me is only a disorder if it is in some way a sin. For instance Job lamented bitterly his physical afflictions, but his lamenting was not sinful. As for sin, it is a disorder or offence primarily against God, secondarily against self and only thirdly against neighbour.

Therefore all real problems of men which are not merely material problems, are problems of men having offended God. A terrible example is provided by a woman who has committed an abortion. Superficially her problem is solved. The baby is out of the way, and her life is “back to normal.” But deep down, either she hardens her heart (and joins in a world coming to hate and suppress Christmas), or she knows and admits to herself that she has done something terribly wrong. Either way something in her is more or less twisted out of true for the rest of her days, and many such women, even if they are Catholics and know by their Faith that God has forgiven them through sacramental Absolution, can still be tormented, such is the wound that that sin has inflicted on their souls. Nor is abortion the worst of sins. Sinning directly against God is graver.

Grim thoughts for Christmas Day? Yes and no. The problem of sin is grim, but the joy of knowing that it has a real solution is correspondingly great. If the poor girl goes to confession, almost every Catholic priest will do all he can to persuade her that if she is truly sorry for her sin (with a sorrow of Peter and not of Judas Iscariot), then through his absolving her she may not doubt that God has forgiven her. How many penitents then walk out of the confessional with a sense of relief and joy that nothing else can give them, because offending God was at the heart of their torment, and they know that God has forgiven them.

And where did this joy take its beginning? In the certainty that God took a human nature from a Jewish maiden, lived upon earth and gave us, amongst other sacraments, that of Penance, deriving its force from the merits of his Passion and Death, which he endured only with the help of the same maiden and mother. But how could he have died unless he had been born? It all began with his human birth from the Blessed Virgin Mary – Christmas.

So the solution of all the world’s most terrible problems of my fellow-men and myself is available. No wonder Catholics are joyful. No wonder there is a special joy available even to disbelievers at Christmastime – so long as they have not yet hardened their hearts.

Kyrie eleison.

Embattled Sisters

Embattled Sisters on May 1, 2010

Two teaching Sisters from the same girls’ school wrote to me recently, one daunted, the other hopeful. No doubt Sister Daunted is also hopeful, while Sister Hopeful is also daunted, because Catholics must close their eyes in order not to be daunted by the soft apostasy creeping up on us all, while at the same time they have to be losing their Faith if they are losing the Hope that goes with the Faith.

Sister Daunted writes, “The world’s grip on our girls is tight.” Absent from her own country for three years, when she came back she found, “The change in mentality of our girls is noticeable. We struggle to maintain principles and morality.” Mark you, this school is surrounded and supported by Catholic parents holding to Tradition, it has a constantly rising enrolment, and many parents make serious sacrifices to ensure that their girls are taught there. Yet here is a Sister telling us from the inside of a “mentality” problem also rising.

This is because our entire Western society is falling away from God, and because man, as Aristotle said, is a social and not just an individual or familial animal. Therefore a boy or girl can have good parents, a good family, even a good school, but if the society outside home and school does not share the Catholic values striven for inside, then the boys and girls, especially from adolescence, will sense its anti-Catholic thrust, and will come under more or less severe pressure to “go with the flow.” Today that pressure is severe, to the point of daunting the good Sister, because any true educator today feels like someone standing on a sea-shore and trying to stop the tide from coming in. But at least Sister has her eyes open and is not deceiving herself that the girls’ schooling solves all their problems, as the girls’ parents can be tempted to think.

However, no doubt she shares also the relative optimism of Sister Hopeful, who writes to me that when the girls put on a theatrical performance at school, people coming from the world “are amazed that the girls can memorize lines and lines, and also that the rest of the schoolchildren in the audience are listening and watching, and not playing with their cell-phones.” She goes on, “When you hear comments like that, you realize what we do somehow manage to achieve, and you can be grateful for it.”

In brief, as St Joan of Arc said, it is for us to give battle and for God to give the victory. Providence deals us all a certain hand of cards which we may not always like, but it is up to us to play it as best we can. I am reminded also of Evelyn Waugh’s dauntless answer to a woman who complained of his being so nasty despite his being a Catholic. “Madam,” he replied, “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.”

Kyrie eleison.

Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s Disease on March 6, 2010

People choosing to observe that kind of thing had noticed that a hand of Bishop Williamson trembles, so for years a rumour had been circulating that he suffered from Parkinson’s Disease. Recently the rumour was given another run for its money. An examination being called for, two weeks ago a London neurologist duly observed, amongst other symptoms, that the muscles of the two arms show no marked difference, and that the trembling occurs when the arm is active and not, as in Parkinson’s Disease, when it is inactive. The neurologist duly ruled out Parkinson’s and pronounced that the symptoms are rather of Benign Essential Tremor. (In other words a trembling hand proves that the Bishop has a Malady of Trembling. Ah, how re-assuring are all the syllables of medical diagnoses!)

However, let nobody be disappointed at this news. Let them take their pick from a rich variety of ways of not having to take the Bishop seriously. Some of them actually come from enemies!-

He is a Rosicrucian (member of a pernicious secret society, as is proved by his episcopal arms which show the Rose of England on a Cross).

He has always had strange ideas (like, 9/11 was an “inside job”).

He is like uranium, difficult to have in one’s possession, but difficult also to leave by the roadside (that last bit is nice!).

He gets ideas into his head, becomes fixated on them, and exaggerates (like, he believes what he says).

He is a Fabian Socialist (pernicious ideological left-winger from England).

He is an artist and not a scholar (well, at least the “not a scholar” bit is true).

He talks in public, on serious questions of truth or falsehood, “nonsense.”

The less he talks, the better off is the Society of St Pius X (oh dear, talking is his trade!).

He is an idealist (follower of Immanuel Kant – well, blow me down with a feather!).

He is growing old, and soon he will be 70 (that one is true! – In exactly two days’ time).

He is a badly converted Anglican (also true – he greatly needs to convert).

He is a live grenade, just waiting to explode, but it is difficult to throw him away (oh, come now! – with just a little extra effort?).

It all puts me in mind of an episode from the life of Frederick the Great, 18th century King of Prussia. High in a tree of a town he was visiting in his kingdom was a portrait of him in caricature. When he noticed it, the courtiers accompanying him were horror-struck – how would the King react? “Bring it down lower so that everyone can see it,” said the King.

Kyrie eleison.

Unique Delinquency – III

Unique Delinquency – III on December 5, 2009

For a Catholic sacrament to be validly administered, the Minister must have the Intention “to do what the Church does” (EC 124). That Intention requires that he have a minimally correct idea of what the Church is and does (EC 125). It remains now to be shown that Vatican II undermined that Intention by corrupting that idea, and in such a way as it can never before have been corrupted in all Church history.

This is because Vatican II was the officialization, or rendering official within the Catholic Church, of the anti-Catholic humanism going back at least to the Renaissance in the1400’s. For centuries after, the Catholic churchmen adoring the true God had stoutly resisted the modern world’s substitute adoration of man, but as that world over 500 years grew only more pagan, the churchmen finally gave up resisting in the 1960’s, and with Vatican II they set about following the modern world instead of leading it. There had always been in the Church followers of the world, but never before had that following been made official in the Universal Church!

However, the Council Fathers would not and could not give up the old religion altogether, partly because they still believed in it, partly because they had to keep up appearances. That is why the Council documents are characterized by their ambiguity, mixing the religion of God in the place of God with the religion of man in the place of God. This ambiguity means that both conservative Catholics can appeal to the letter in the Council texts to maintain that Vatican II does not exclude the old religion, and progressive Catholics can appeal to the spirit in the same texts to maintain that the Council was promoting the new religion – and here both conservatives and progressives are right! Thus the old religion was still present in Vatican II, but the skids had been put under it, and it has been disappearing ever since.

A similar ambiguity afflicts the sacramental Rites re-written in the spirit of the Council which paid outward respect to the religion of God but inwardly was embracing the religion of man. The old religion can still be there because the sacramental Forms (words essential for validity) are as a rule not automatically invalid, but at the same time all of the Rites surrounding these Forms are sliding towards the new religion. So, given the soft but fierce pressure of the modern world to put man in the place of God, and given that all sacramental Ministers have our poor old human nature which under pressure easily prefers the easy way, then these new Rites are tailor-made to undermine eventually the Ministers’ sacramental Intention and therewith the sacraments’ validity.

Catholics, avoid the new Rites, but keep the balance of truth. Say neither that these Rites are automatically invalid, nor, because they can be valid, that they are harmless. Even if they are valid, they undermine the Faith. As for the clergy that use them, say neither that they have lost the Faith if they use the new Rites, nor that they are harmless if they do use them. These Ministers may well still have the Faith, but they risk harming you if they use Rites designed to undermine your Faith. Seek out the old Rites, and the clergy that use them. By so doing you will help to save the honour of God, His true religion, and numbers of souls lost without that religion.

Kyrie eleison.