God Never Messes with Our Heads

Our Lady of Fatima pilgrim statue in Boise, 2007.
Photo by Jim Nourse.

When one breaks weeks of silence, one casts about for the best subject with which to do it.  One runs one's mind over affairs both temporal and spiritual, from the government shutdown to the Pope's Big Interviews that have caused such a ruckus.  Today the big news item in the Catholic world was the Holy Father's consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on this, the 96th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, witnessed by tens of thousands of believers and non-believers over a large area of Portugal.  To my way of thinking, this is only the third really comforting thing Pope Francis -- whom I believe can rightly be described as the Pope of our punishment -- has done so far in his reign, the first being the worldwide hour of Eucharistic adoration in June, and the second being the day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria last month.  All of his talk about Mary and about the reality of hell and the devil is good, but not surprising, since, the Pope, no matter who he is, cannot do otherwise than reaffirm authentic Catholic doctrine.

Which brings me to one theme that has underlain my thoughts in recent days: God does not mess with our heads.

In a world saturated in the despairing infidelity of modernism, in which being manipulated by government, media, Madison Avenue, each other, and even ourselves is a daily way of life for nearly all of us, it pays to remind ourselves of this.  God is Truth and Justice, and can no more deceive than He can be deceived.  The beauty and order of creation, from galactic superclusters to the inner workings of the subatomic, testify to the existence of a Creator Who is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful and all-good.  The laws of nature communicate truths about how creatures function and interact, and we try to traduce these laws at our peril.  The very best and highest authority that any proposition can have is that God revealed it.  On that basis alone, it would deserve to be believed and not doubted, even if we do not like it or cannot understand it.  

So how can we know that a proposition comes from God?  We can know it if it has the backing of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, endowed with His authority, under the headship of His Vicar, the Pope.  He gave us a clearly visible and recognizable institution to teach us all that we need to know in order to save our souls, and He has guaranteed it against error in matters of faith and morals.  No matter who the Pope is, no matter how many disconcerting things he may do -- even if he is an unabashed public sinner like Alexander Borgia, or hopelessly incompetent as an administrator, like St. Celestine V -- the Pope could not change even the tiniest particle of doctrine, even if he had all the armies that have ever existed at his back.  When it comes to the most critical business of our lives -- our eternal salvation -- God does not leave us to puzzle things out for ourselves, or pull a bait-and-switch on us.  His justice demands this.  Since He does not leave us without a lamp for our steps, He also does not leave us with any excuses for persisting in darkness.  God does not mess with our heads.

God will not mess with our heads even after we are dead.  Contrary to popular depictions of the afterlife in movies and books, there will be no confused period of wandering disembodied on the earth, no haunting by human spirits of houses or old battlefields, no mistaking hell for heaven, or heaven for hell.  In the very place where we die, we will be judged.  By the time others have figured out that we are dead, we will have already been completely undeceived about ourselves and about God, and about where we deserve to spend eternity -- and we will have already gone there.  At the end of time, all flesh will be confronted with all truth, and all obscurity and confusion will disappear.  We need not allow ourselves to be deceived by charlatans claiming to be the Second Coming.  They aren't.  The real Second Coming will leave us in no possible or impossible doubt as to its authenticity.  Some things really are that simple and straightforward.  God does not mess with our heads.

Since God does not mess with our heads, we can and should allow ourselves to derive consolation from both our Faith and its wholesome outward expressions that, in this modernist age, have been derided from within and without the Church as childish superstition.  We have allowed ourselves to become inured to believing bad news over good, but the Gospel really is good news, and is really true -- more true than anything that bears the stamp of the world, however plausible.  Beauty really is truth, and truth really is beauty: we need not be prisoners of the lie we have been conditioned to believe, that only the gray, the banal, the flat-footed and the pedestrian are real.  The forces of evil may seem to have the upper hand in our age, and in many places, but the truth is that they have already lost, and their time is short.   Jesus really is the Son of God, and really did die on the Cross to save us, and really did rise from the tomb and ascend into heaven.  He really did give us His Immaculate Mother to be our mother.  That is why we can expect good to come of the Holy Father once again consecrating the world to her Immaculate Heart.

We may deceive ourselves and each other.  We may play psychological games, and manipulate, and create frenzy and precipitate crises, one after the other, in order to control others.  The devil may also do this to us in order to lure us into hell.  But God never does any of these things.  If we find ourselves caught in these webs, God is not behind that.  Perversity and sadism are not attributes of God.  God never messes with our heads.

Autumnal Equinox

Today was the first day of Autumn.  Today we have equal periods of light and darkness -- hence the term "equinox" -- and after today, the periods of darkness will exceed in length the periods of light.

It is unfortunate that, based on no discernable mandate from the Second Vatican Council, the post-conciliar Church tried to throw out the Ember Days, penitential days that mark the changing seasons.  The purpose of the Ember Days is to thank God for His bounty in nature, and to remind us to use His gifts in moderation and assist those in need.  As I have pointed out in this space, the changes of season are freighted with spiritual significance.  The vernal equinox coincides with the Feast of the Annunciation, the beginning of the end of the winter of Satan's reign.  It also coincides with Easter, which marks the decisive defeat of Hell, and takes place on the first Sunday on or after the first full moon on or after the equinox.  The summer solstice, when the days begin to shorten, coincides with the Nativity of John the Baptist, who said that he must decrease while the Savior increased.  The winter solstice coincides with Christmas, when the Light of the World enters the world and the days begin to lengthen.   

There is no precise correspondence between the autumnal equinox and any major feast; but since the autumnal equinox does coincide with the time of harvest, my own personal speculations lead me to connect it with the harvest of souls that will take place at the End of Time.  Our business in life is to strive to come out on the right side of that harvest: to be  in with the wheat that is gathered into the barn, and not with the tares that are bundled up and go to be burned.

Prayer for Those Who Have Committed Suicide

Almighty God, Our Heavenly Father, we understand that Thy fifth commandment, “Thou shalt do no murder,” includes self murder. But in Thy divine mercy, we beg Thy forgiveness especially for (name), who have been so confounded by the pressures of this life that they felt there was no way they could continue. Grant, we beseech Thee, that they be forgiven their terrible sin and accepted into Thy divine providence, and that they may come to understand Thy ways and Thy nature. We ask this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

When I was in high school, the brother of one of my classmates committed suicide.  I did not know him personally, but I did know that he had been having problems for a long time.  His tragic death haunted me for a long time.  I pondered what could make someone seek such an irreversible solution to his problems.  I thought about his friends and family blaming themselves, replaying over and over again in their minds all their dealings with him, and what they could possibly have done differently, or said differently, or not done or said, so that he would not have taken himself away from them forever.  I hoped, and still hope, that his will and reason were so impaired and overwhelmed as to mitigate or even remove his guilt.  I hope this any time I hear about someone taking his own life.

Years later, I had someone tell me he was planning on killing himself at some indefinite point in the future.  All I could think to do was to tell him that there is a hell, and if he murdered himself, he would go there, and that, once there, there would be no escape or reprieve for him, ever.  I do not know whether that was the right thing to say.  But I felt convinced that he needed to be convinced that suicide is indeed murder, and that eternal damnation was a possible and very real outcome.  I suspect there are many people to whom this has never occurred, for no other reason than that nobody has ever told it to them.  There is hardly anyone, even in the pulpits, willing to gainsay our materialistic culture that celebrates death as the solution to everything from depression to unwanted pregnancies to terminal illness.  We are given the impression that our lives and our bodies are mere chattels to save or spend as we please, and that there is neither punishment nor reward after this life.

But there is a Final Judgment.  There is a Heaven.  And there is a Hell.  

Thanks to Marge Fenelon for publishing this prayer.  Pray to Mary, Untier of Knots, to intercede for those contemplating suicide.

Thou Art a Priest Forever

Fr. Scott Carroll, probably as a seminarian.  Source.

The Holy Mass and the Sacrifice of Calvary are one and the same.  At Mass, we are really at the foot of the Cross.  What the priest does at Mass is really done by Christ; and what Christ does is also really done by the priest.  Christ offers Himself; the priest offers himself.  The priest and the victim are one.  This identity of the priest and victim is shown in the traditional Mass, where each article of the priest's vestments is a symbol of the Passion, and the chalice is also clothed in vestments to match those of the priest.  The priesthood is about self-sacrifice.

Sometimes God is pleased physically to accept this sacrifice.

Deacon Scott Carroll, aged 45, was a seminarian for the Diocese of Toledo and was to have been ordained to the priesthood on June 22nd.  But the deacon had been battling cancer for some time, and during the week of May 6th, it became clear that the disease had taken a grave turn.  Confronted with these circumstances, Bishop Leonard Blair rose to the occasion.  To fulfill the desire of this son of his, and to ensure that he would not die without the indelible character of Holy Orders on his soul, Bishop Blair ordained Scott Carroll to the priesthood at his parents' home on Wednesday, May 8th, and assigned him as associate pastor of his home parish of St. Joseph in Maumee, Ohio.  

Now Father Carroll, failing in body, could unite his sufferings to Christ's on the cross in a new and greater way.  On Friday, May 10th, the new priest, alter Christus, offered Mass -- Christ offering Himself, Father Carroll offering himself.  He fell asleep after it was over, and opened his eyes on eternity.

How great is the goodness of God, to implant in this man the desire to be His priest; to sustain him in his sufferings; to bring him through cancer to the end of his priestly studies -- and then, in the last hours of his life, to lavish him with graces to strengthen him at the moment of death and increase his glory in heaven!  If He wills, God can give us everything in an instant.  Nor should we be surprised if it should turn out that Father Carroll was a man of constant and fervent prayer.  That his last acts on earth should be the reception of Holy Orders and the offering of Holy Mass was surely a reward for perseverance in prayer not only for himself but also for the consolation of his family and friends, who were privileged to be shown such evident proofs of God's love and mercy.

We should pray for the family and friends of Father Carroll, newly bereaved, and also for his soul, in case he still has some Purgatory time to serve -- it is a very bad habit we have fallen into of instantly canonizing the dear departed, and leaving them without the assistance of our intercession.  

Yet it seems more likely that it is Father Carroll, a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, who is busy doing from heaven the work he intended to do on earth, interceding for his family and friends, and for us.

Source.

Four Conversions

Raising of Lazarus, 15th century Russian icon.  The raising of Lazarus, dead four days, stinking and bound up in burial bands, symbolizes the raising of a soul dead in sin to the life of grace.

"...I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me."  Exodus 33:19

Some miracles of mercy that have not quite passed out of living memory:

For Mary's Inheritance, A Parricide and a Blasphemer

On December 19, 1942, 19-year-old Claude Newman of Bovina, Mississippi lay in wait for his grandmother's estranged, abusive husband, Sid Cook at Cook's home.  When Cook entered, Claude shot him to death, took his money and fled.  He was eventually caught, tried and convicted, and sentenced to die in Mississippi's electric chair.  

One night, while awaiting execution, Claude noticed what he thought was a trinket hanging around the neck of another prisoner in his cell block.  When Claude asked him what it was, the other prisoner became angry and embarrassed and threw it on the ground at Claude's feet.  Claude picked it up and looked it over.  It was a Miraculous Medal.  Unable to read or write, and almost totally ignorant about the Christian faith, he did not understand what the medal was or know whose image it bore.  Nevertheless, he felt attracted by it, and decided to put it on.   

It would not be long before Claude's ignorance would begin to be cured.  He was startled out of his sleep by a touch on his wrist, and saw a woman of surpassing beauty standing there.  He was frightened and confused, but she said to him: "If you would like me to be your Mother, and you would like to be my child, send for a priest of the Catholic Church."  Then she vanished, and Claude screamed for a Catholic priest.

The next morning, Fr. Robert O'Leary was called to visit Claude.  Claude told him his incredible story, and then, along with the four other men in his cell block, asked for instruction in the Catholic faith.  The other prisoners helped Claude with his studies, because he was illiterate; his story attracted some religious sisters to the jail, and led to religious instruction for more prisoners.  Soon it became clear that among Claude's instructors in the Faith was Our Lady herself, who continued to visit him and teach him, in advance of his catechism lessons, doctrines that he could not have learned on his own.  Fr. O'Leary became convinced that Our Lady was indeed visiting Claude when she reminded him, through Claude, of a secret vow he had made to her while he was lying in a ditch in Holland in 1940, and which she was still waiting for him to keep.  

One particular prisoner at the jail was not among those who joined Claude in taking religious instructions.  His name was James Hughs, and he was also a convicted murderer awaiting execution.  "This man was the filthiest, most immoral person I had ever come across," said Fr. O'Leary.  "His hatred for God and for everything spiritual defied description."  He had been brought up Catholic, but now absolutely refused the ministrations of a priest.  And he hated Claude with a fierce intensity.  But God had not yet given up on James Hughs.

Finally, the catechism lessons were complete, and Claude Newman received the Sacrament of Baptism on January 16, 1944.  He was scheduled to be executed at five minutes past midnight on January 20, 1944.  Fifteen minutes before he was scheduled to die, he was granted a two-week reprieve by the governor.  Claude was completely heartbroken.  "What have I done wrong these past weeks," he cried, "that God would refuse me my going home?"  Fr. O'Leary suggested to Claude that he offer up every moment of his separation from his heavenly Mother for the conversion of James Hughs.  Claude agreed to this and made the offering with the priest's assistance.  

Claude's separation from his heavenly Mother finally ended on February 4, 1944, when Mississippi's executioner sent a fatal current of electricity through his body.  To the wonder of those present, he had gone to his death like a bridegroom to his wedding, and took his seat on the electric chair as though it were a throne of gladness.

This scene of rejoicing seemed unlikely to be repeated when, three months later, James Hughs was scheduled to meet his end.  He persisted in his hatred of God up until the date set for his execution, and could not be persuaded to so much as kneel down and say an Our Father.  Fr. O'Leary was present at this execution as he had been at Claude Newman's, since state law required a clergyman to witness executions; but he had hidden himself from sight, because Hughs had threatened to blaspheme God if he caught sight of a clergyman.  When he was strapped into the chair and asked if he had any last words, Hughs began to blaspheme anyway.  Then suddenly, he stopped.  He fixed his gaze on a corner of the room, his face the picture of horror, and screamed in terror.  He begged for a priest.  Fr. O'Leary emerged from his hiding place, the room was cleared, and Hughs made his last confession.

When the witnesses were readmitted into the execution chamber, the sheriff asked Hughs what had made him change his mind about seeing a priest.  Hughs said that Claude, the black man whom he had hated so much, was, at that moment, standing over in the corner with the Blessed Mother standing behind him, a hand on each of his shoulders.  "And Claude said to me, 'I offered my death in union with Christ on the Cross for your salvation. She has obtained for you this gift of seeing your place in Hell if you do not repent.' I have been shown my place in Hell, and that's why I screamed."  Hughs then went peacefully to his execution, freed from sin and fortified by the Last Sacraments.

Out of the Blue: Public Enemy No. 1

"Dutch" Schultz, notorious mobster, bootlegger, extortionist and racketeer, was born Arthur Flegenheim in 1901 to German Jewish immigrants.  His mother tried to raise him up in the Jewish faith, but before the age of 20 he was already seriously involved in organized crime.  During the Prohibition era, he made a fortune from the sale and distribution of illegal liquor; after prohibition, he continued to prosper in the numbers racket and extortion.  

The Dutchman was known for his brutality and his ruthlessness; nor was he above turning his own hand to murder.  On one occasion, at a meeting with another gangster and with his lawyer, who was then defending him on tax evasion charges, Schultz accused the other gangster of skimming $70,000 off their extortion racket.  An alcohol-fueled argument ensued, during which the other man admitted to skimming $20,000, to which he considered himself entitled.  Schultz pulled out his pistol, stuck it in the man's mouth, and pulled the trigger.  "It was as simple and undramatic as that," said the lawyer, Dixie Davis -- "just one quick motion of the hand. Dutch Schultz did that murder just as casually as if he were picking his teeth."  Schultz then apologized to the lawyer for having killed someone in front of him.

Dutch Schultz finally went too far even for the other mobsters when he tried to order the assassination of Thomas Dewey, the U.S. Attorney who was prosecuting him for tax evasion.  He had gone to the Mafia Commission for permission to take out Dewey, who was hurting his criminal enterprises; but, fearing the law enforcement backlash that would result from such a hit, the Commission turned him down.  When Schultz failed to accept this decision gracefully, the Commission put out a contract on him in order to prevent a hit on Dewey.  

And so it was that on October 23, 1935, the Dutchman, along with three other mobsters, was gunned down at the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey.  Schultz did not die immediately, but dragged himself back to his table and asked for an ambulance.  He was transported to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery.  

Schultz is said to have previously investigated the claims of the Catholic faith during one of his tax evasion trials.  He is said to have decided to convert, motivated by the belief that Jesus Christ had kept him out of prison, and also by a desire to ingratiate himself to Italian mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano.  Whatever the case may have been, Schultz, who only hours earlier had been engaged in planning crimes -- perhaps even the murder of a U.S. Attorney -- summoned a Catholic priest, apparently out of the blue, and expressed his desire to die a Catholic.  He received the Sacrament of Baptism and the last rites from Fr. Cornelius McInerney and died in the bosom of the Church on the evening of October 24, 1935 at the age of 34.  He is buried at Gate of Heaven Catholic cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

The Commandant of Auschwitz

Without a doubt, this is the most offensive of all these conversion stories, from a human point of view.  Human pusillanimity tempts us to think that here, God's Mercy clashes with His Justice.  All of these stories are about men who were destroyers of life; but this story is about a destroyer of peoples, a man with the blood of millions on his conscience, who murdered on an industrial scale.  And it begins with the kindness of jailers and the ringing of monastery bells.

Rudolf Höss was born in 1900 in Baden-Baden to parents who gave him a strict -- perhaps even straitjacketed -- Catholic upbringing.  When he was a teenager, he became convinced that his priest had violated the Sacramental seal by repeating to his father something he had accused himself of in confession; he soon stopped going to confession altogether and ultimately fell away from the Faith.  After serving with distinction in World War I, he became involved in political extremism and found his way into the Nazi party in 1922.  He joined the ranks of the SS at the invitation of Heinrich Himmler and was assigned, first to Dachau, then to Sachsenhausen, and finally was appointed commandant at Auschwitz in April of 1940.  There he lived in a villa with his wife and children and presided over the implementation of the Final Solution, of which Auschwitz was chosen as the locus.  Through study and experimentation, and sustained by his fanatical devotion to the Nazi ideology, Höss turned his camp into a powerhouse of genocide, dealing out death at the rate of thousands of human beings per hour.  By the time he was replaced as commandant in December of 1943, he had presided over the deaths of about 3 million people.  Between May and July of 1944, Höss returned to the camp and added to this grim total by supervising the liquidation of nearly half a million Hungarian Jews.

Höss evaded capture for nearly a year after Germany's defeat, until he was finally taken by British troops.  He testified at the Nuremberg trials, and was turned over to the Polish government to be tried by its Supreme National Tribunal.  On April 2, 1947, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.  He waived his right to appeal for clemency.

While in the custody of the Poles, Höss had been treated with kindness and decency, expressions of living faith that filled him with deep shame.  Then, while he waited in solitary confinement for the carrying out of his sentence, the finger of God on Höss' forehead: the sound of bells ringing from the local Carmelite monastery.  There is power in the ringing of bells, blessed and baptized and consecrated to the service of Catholic worship; it is no wonder the world in our day has declared war on church bells.  How hell is despoiled by the ringing of Church bells.  Rudolf Höss, the Monster of Auschwitz, the Commandant of Death, guilty of the blood of millions, awaiting his own death, heard Church bells, and called for a Catholic priest.

At first Höss' request was not heeded, so he repeated it in writing.  A priest was finally found who could speak German: Fr. Wladislaw Lohn, S.J., the Jesuit Provincial of Cracow.  Twenty-seven of his priests had suffered in Auschwitz; twelve had died.  Fr. Lohn is said to have approached the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy at the very convent in which St. Faustina lived to ask them for their prayers before undertaking his delicate and difficult mission to the great tormentor of Poland and of his own Jesuit brethren.  

Fr. Lohn met with Rudolf Höss on April 10, 1947 and spent several hours with him.  At the end of this lengthy interview, Höss repented of his apostasy, made a formal profession of faith, made his confession and received absolution.  The next day, Fr. Lohn returned and gave Höss Holy Communion, which he received on his knees, weeping.  On April 12th, Höss sent the following statement to the state prosecutor:

My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done.

On April 16, 1947, Rudolf Höss was taken to Auschwitz and hanged by the neck from a gallows specially erected there for the purpose.  He died for his unspeakable crimes, having been first snatched from the jaws of hell, all because of the kindness of his jailers and the ringing of church bells.  

How great and unfathomable are the mercies of God.

Edwarda O'Bara: Confounding the Wise and the Strong

But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27.

Edwarda O'Bara had dreams of becoming a pediatrician.  But in 1970, the year she turned 17, Edwarda took a course that neither she nor her family could have anticipated.  After being rushed to the hospital during an illness, she slipped into a diabetic coma.  She would never come out of that coma, but she would live another 42 years, finally passing away at home on November 21, 2012 at the age of 59.

Judging by the world's standards, Edwarda's was a wasted life, unworthy of being allowed to continue.  But fortunately for her, and for an ungrateful world, Edwarda belonged to a family of devout Catholics who never ceased caring for her up until the moment of her natural death, despite mounting debts and other trials.  Before losing consciousness, Edwarda made her mother, Kaye, promise never to leave her side; Kaye kept that promise until 2008, when she died at the age of 80.

Why was this fortunate for the world?  Because those who suffer in Christ draw down countless blessings and graces from heaven.  It is precisely for this reason that St. Faustina said that it was an unfortunate convent that had no sick sisters.  The same can be said for any family or society that does not have or care for sick and suffering members.  To repudiate these crosses is to despise grace; and to despise grace is to incite God's wrath.  That is what our aborting, contracepting, euthanizing society is doing right now.  It is putting us on the greased skids to hell.

The magnitude of our folly is shown by the lives that Edwarda touched.  Many who are active in the world fail to produce anything like the fruits that she produced merely by lying helpless in bed.  Her mother's steadfast, sacrificial love was an inspiration to many who came in from all over the world to visit the daughter who was the object of such love.  Her sister, Colleen, who gave up her career in order to care for her after their mother died, sums up what Edwarda herself accomplished.  "She taught me so much," said Colleen, "and I'm talking about now, after she was in the coma. She taught me so much about unconditional love that I couldn't say I had it before. She taught me about patience, that I didn't have before. I learned so much from taking care of my sister. It's like I grew up overnight."  Imagine how much poorer and worse off our already pathetic world would be if Edwarda O'Bara's family had followed the "wisdom" of the culture of death.

The O'Bara family is asking for help to pay for Edwarda's funeral, which will take place on Wednesday.  They probably also have an Everest of medical bills to pay.  Donations can be sent to the Edwarda O'Bara Fund, P.O. Box 693482, Miami FL 33269.

UPDATE: More on Edwarda O'Bara's extraordinary story.

November 23: Bl. Miguel Pro, S.J. (Re-Post)

Here is a comparatively rare event in the history of the Church: a camera is witness to a martyrdom. The whole affair was orchestrated in 1927 by a fierce enemy of the Church whose savage blows only served to strengthen and glorify both her and the individual victims of his wrath.

A sketch of Bl. Miguel Pro's life brings to mind the story of his spiritual forbears, the martyr-priests in post-Reformation England. Like them, he lived at a time when his nation's leaders turned against the Church. The young Jesuit novice went into exile during the Mexican revolution; like many seminarians during the English persecution, Miguel Pro had to study for the priesthood abroad; he was ordained in Belgium on August 31, 1925. Like his English forbears, Fr. Pro conducted his ministry on the sly, and frequently in disguise.

Fr. Pro was known not only for his devotion and prayerfulness, but also for his wit, his playfulness and his good cheer, especially in the face of a distressing stomach ailment. He was much loved; however, he was eventually betrayed to the authorities and ultimately condemned to death on a trumped-up charge of attempting to assassinate the vice-president.

On the day of Fr. Pro's execution by firing squad, the fiercely anti-Catholic president Plutarcho Calles brought the press out to photograph the event, secure in the belief that he would thereby prove that impending death reduced Catholics to sniveling cowards. In the first photograph above, we see Fr. Pro praying, the picture of serenity in the face of the violent death from which he is only moments away. The next photograph shows Fr. Pro confronting the firing squad, sans blindfold, his arms raised in the form of the cross, with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other. Fr. Pro forgave his executioners; and as they took aim, he shouted his last words, "¡Viva Cristo Rey! (Long live Christ the King!)." The firing squad was so shaken by his courage that it succeeded only in wounding him; in the final photograph, a soldier dispatches the fallen priest at point-blank range.

Naturally, these photographs had the opposite effect to that intended; Plutarcho Calles ended up confiscating and outlawing them. And Calles obviously did not succeed in entirely destroying the camera's witness to Fr. Pro's courage, since they survive down to the present day.

Chaplet of Bl. Miguel Pro

Blessed Miguel, before your death, you told your friend to ask you for favors when you were in Heaven. I beg you to intercede for me and in union with Our Lady and all the angels and saints, to ask Our Lord to grant my petition, provided that it be God's Will. [Mention the request.]

We honor and adore the triune God. Glory be...

We ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. Come Holy Spirit...

We pray as Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father...
We venerate with love the Virgin Mary. Hail Mary...
All you angels, bless you the Lord forever.
Saint Joseph, Saint [name of your patron], and all the saints, pray for us.

Blessed Miguel, high spirited youth, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, loving son and brother, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, patient novice, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, exile from your homeland, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, prayerful religious, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, sick and suffering, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, defender of workers, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, courageous priest in hiding, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, prisoner in jail, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, forgiver of persecutors, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Blessed Miguel, holy martyr, pray for us. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!

More on the Travesty of "Brain Death"

Nicholas Coke was born in 2009 without higher brain functions.  This is because all he had was his brain stem.  He was not expected to survive more than a few hours.  Indeed Nicholas did die -- two years and 11 months later.  Today, the Solemnity of All Saints, Nicholas Coke breathed his last.  

Nicholas defies the culture of death.  Having no brain, was he not "brain dead"?  Shouldn't he have been aborted?  Shouldn't his organs have been harvested for the sake of "worthier" children?  Yet his heart beat on its own; he breathed on his own; he could take nourishment and medication; he could respond to treatment; he moved; he grew; he smiled.  Persons who are dead can do none of these things, with or without machines, to which Nicholas was never hooked up.  Nicholas could neither see nor hear, but he gave signs of awareness that he was being held.  Clearly, the child had a soul, and was therefore very much alive, even though his faculties were severely impaired.  He had a soul, with all the gifts of the soul, dormant though they were in his frail body, even though he literally had no brain.  That is not supposed to be possible -- yet there he was!  Thank God Nicholas was born into a family that cherished his life.  He was surrounded by love, and touched hearts in his turn.

Nicholas Coke is not only a testament to love and life, but also a rebuke and a warning.  He is a rebuke to the arrogance of a society that purports to redefine death for the sake of convenience.  He is a warning that we have made ourselves the enemies of what God holds dear, and that sooner or later we will have Him to reckon with.

A Homily on Brain Death

A bracing homily from a website full of bracing homilies reminds us sharply of the atheism and materialism that pervade the medical profession.  Is "brain death" consistent with the Catholic understanding of death?  If not, how should that influence our thinking on the subject of unpaired vital organ transplants?

And Then That Was It

The wife of the accused in a local murder trial has taken the stand.  Her husband is accused of killing her boss.  The wife testified that she and the boss, a married man with several small children, had been having an affair for several months, and -- the detail that haunts -- had had sex right before going to the parking lot where he met his death.

So, almost the very last thing this man ever did on this earth was to commit adultery.  

And then that was it.  

His life was over.  Done.  Finished.  No time for regrets. No time for apologies.  No time to turn over a new leaf.  No time to see the error of his ways.  No time to beg forgiveness.  No time to make it up to the family he betrayed.  No time for deathbed repentance.  No time to wish he had more time.  

No time whatsoever.  Only death, and judgment.  What lay beyond that, only God knows.

We know not the day nor the hour.

O time despised during life! you will be ardently desired by worldlings at the hour of death.  They will then wish for another year, another month, another day; but they will not obtain it: they will then be told that time shall be no longer.  How much would they then pay for another week, or another day, to settle the accounts of their conscience?  To obtain a single hour, they would, says St. Laurence Justinian, give all their wealth and worldly possessions.  But this hour shall not be given.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, Preparation for Death

"Consent" to One's Own Homicide?

We have previously talked in this space about the ethics of organ donation, and what the Church teaches about it.  We also talked about how the Church's teaching in this, as in so much else, is ignored, and questioned whether there can be such a thing as a moral vital organ transplant.  Item: vital organs are useless for transplant after the donor's death; and some unpaired vital organs, like the heart, cannot be taken without killing the donor.

Now comes another item from Staten Island, New York: after being fired as a transplant coordinator for the non-profit New York Donor Network, nurse practitioner Patrick McMahon claims, in an action for wrongful termination, alleges that the Network isn't even waiting for donors to fit the criteria-du-jour of brain death before pressuring hospitals to call a death on a potential organ donor.  McMahon alleges in his lawsuit that the Network pressured medical staff to declare patients brain dead; hounded the patients' families to consent to donation before brain death was declared; and that transplant procedures were initiated on patients notwithstanding that they showed signs of life.  He cites, among others, a case from November of last year, when he claims to have seen a transplant team administer a muscle paralyzing agent to a donor during a full organ harvest, because the woman was moving and jerking while they cut into her chest.  McMahon says that the procedure went forward in the face of his vehement objections.  In another case, McMahon says that the Network browbeat a doctor for refusing to declare a 19-year-old patient brain dead.  In two other cases, he says that patients had donor paperwork processed even though one showed brain activity in neurological tests, and the other showed responses in pain-stimuli tests.  McMahon claims that he was fired from his job days after approaching the Network's CEO with his concerns.

The Network, on the other hand, says that McMahon's allegations are baseless and insulting, denies that it plays any role in declarations of brain death, and cites its 35-year record of saving lives.

But the following questions are worth considering:

-- Does not the concept of "brain death" date back only to the immediate aftermath of the first successful heart transplant in 1967?

-- Are there not multiple definitions of "brain death"? 

-- Since death is the moment the soul leaves the body, how is it of any avail to administer life-preserving treatment to a corpse whose soul has departed?

-- Does not society increasingly consider many human beings to be more valuable dead than alive, especially before birth and near death?

-- Is it not true that society holds more and more that the ends justify the means, and that it is permissible to do evil in order to achieve good?

-- Is it in fact the removal of vital organs that proximately causes the death of the donor?  (Nota bene: you cannot lawfully consent to your own homicide, under either the natural law or the civil law.) 

-- Is the medical profession imbued with the true Spirit of Christianity, or with the grim spirit of materialism and utilitarianism?

-- If the answer to that last question is the latter, do I want to commit myself, in a helpless condition, to the hands of such a profession by consenting in advance to the harvesting of my organs?

The Catholic has a duty to seek the answer to temporal questions in the light of eternity.  

Even if he doesn't like the answer.

UPDATE: Further details on McMahon's lawsuit.

Happy Equinox!

At 08:49 MDT (just under an hour ago, as this post goes up), the Sun crossed the celestial equator heading north.  It's autumn!  Today there will be more or less equal periods of daylight and darkness, and from then on, the hours of night will exceed the hours of daylight.

The first days of the other three seasons carry spiritual significance.  The Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) coincides with the Vernal Equinox, marking the end of the winter of Satan's dominion over man.  The Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24) coincides with the Summer Solstice, when the days begin to grow shorter -- the decrease of John the Baptist, while Christ increases.  Thus, Christmas (December 25) coincides with the Winter Solstice, when the days begin to lengthen.

What about the Autumnal Equinox?  There are no cataclysmic events commemorated at this time (though the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy does fall on the 24th).  But autumn is the season of harvest, so perhaps -- and this is only my speculation -- the Autumnal Equinox stands for the end of time, when the harvest of souls is consummated.  Perhaps this is an opportune moment for each one of us to consider whether we are ready for that unknown yet inevitable moment when we are to be harvested.  

There Is a Hell

One blog I check out regularly, because of its educational value, is Charleston Thug Life.  The owners of this blog started it as a way of exposing the criminal element in the Charleston, South Carolina area by means of their own Facebook postings.  For those who live in the Lowcountry, CTL is a rich source of information on the criminal records of persons who feature prominently in front-page crime stories; for those who don't, it is still a valuable primer on subjects such as gang life, street slang and the illegal drug trade.  CTL has recently expanded its mission to include covering the problem of contraband in prisons, and in particular, publicizing the Facebook pages of inmates with cell phones.

Charleston Thug Life also has value as a manual on how not to live.  There, on the Facebook pages of gangbangers, all seven of the deadly sins are on parade.  The bangers love to post pictures of their guns; gigantic wads of cash from slinging dope; the dope itself; themselves, lazing around, or with their babymamas, or posing in their bathroom mirrors, showing off their teeth bling or their tats, flipping the bird and throwing gang signs, and -- worst of all -- their little kids doing all of the above.  Contrary to the claims of race hustlers that gangbanging is a legitimate response of minorities to oppression by whites, the bangers of whatever race are motivated simply by greed for money (a common slogan: "M.O.E.", Money Over Everything), love of violence, lust for sex, power and pleasure, disdain for work and hatred of authority.  

The Christian faith tells us that all of the foregoing are paving stones on the broad, smooth path to perdition.  Yet, if their Facebook pages are any indication, the bangers are often imbued by a certitude of eternal bliss in the next life, both for themselves and for their brothers in thughood.  They prattle about praying, and spew greeting-card platitudes about overcoming adversity -- the adversity that they brought upon themselves by doing exactly as they please, no matter whom it hurts, but which they blame on the "crackers" that put them behind bars.  Even the ones who have been found guilty of rape, murder and kidnapping think they have God's approval.  And when their fellow bangers stop bullets in the pursuit of M.O.E., they are now "in a better place," "getting their rest."


Really?  This is an issue we have explored previously in this space, and it's worth going over again.  If you lead a life of dissipation, sling dope out of your taxpayer-subsidized Section 8 house, impregnate women you're not married to, cruise around town looking for trouble, smoke blunts and play video games all day, and teach your toddlers to throw gang signs, are you fulfilling God's will for your life?  And if your very last act on this earth is sticking up a gas station, or doing a home-invasion robbery, or gunning for rival gang members, or firing on police officers during a high-speed chase, is it really a better place you're headed for?  Would heaven really be heaven if you made it there as is?


Bulletin: every single one of us is going to die someday.  Every single one of us is going to appear before the highest tribunal of all, whose judgment is final and from which there is no appeal.  If we have been faithful to God and tried to serve Him and please Him in this life, and avoid the things that displease Him, we will go to heaven; if not, we will go to hell.  There is a hell, and damnation is forever and irremediable.  If you lead the thug lifestyle, you are on the one-way express train for hell.  The bling and the new car and the expensive athletic shoes will pass to new owners and do you no sort of good whatever.


So get off the train now, while you still can.  Go to confession, and turn your life around.  You will die as you have lived.

A Solemn Moment Draws Near

Source.

This is the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise.  On November 18, 2011, Paul Ezra Rhoades was put to death here for two of three murders he committed in 1987.  Rhoades' execution was the first in Idaho in nearly 20 years.  Now, nearly eight months later, preparations are being finalized for another execution.    

In July of 1984, Danette Elg was found dead in her home in Blackfoot, Idaho.  The floor of her bedroom was covered with the water from her waterbed, where she lay with numerous stab wounds and her sex organs cut out.  She had been dead for several days.  The following year, Richard Albert Leavitt was convicted of first-degree murder in her death.  On May 21, 2012, Seventh District Judge Jon Shindurling issued the death warrant.  On June 5th, the Comission of Pardons and Parole denied Leavitt's request for a commutation hearing.  This afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay.  The execution is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Mountain Time tomorrow.  Leavitt continues to maintain his innocence.

Richard Leavitt is about to stand in judgment before his God, Whose Only Begotten Son died to open heaven to even the worst sinners.  We will all face the moment Leavitt faces, and we must all prepare for it.  Pray for him in his final hours, that God will give him the grace to die in His friendship.  

UPDATE: The execution proceeded, and Richard Leavitt was pronounced dead at 10:25 a.m.

Mrs. Kathleen Schuck, O.P., RIP

Mrs. Kathleen Schuck, O.P., in 2007.

Kathleen Schuck and her husband Jim were charter members of the Chapter of Lay Dominicans of Bl. Margaret of Castello, Boise, Idaho, Western Province of the Holy Name of Jesus, being among that first group to make their perpetual professions on the Vigil of the Assumption, 2004.  Jim died less than a year later and was the second member to be buried in the chapter cemetery in Homedale.  Determined to make merely temporary their separation after decades of married life, Kathleen had her own name inscribed on his headstone, and prepared for the day -- seven years minus 20 days thence -- when she would rejoin him.

But this was not a gloomy or dour preparation, as the photo above attests.  That was what Kathleen looked like most of the time, even after losing her hair and much of her strength to chemotherapy.  A master wood carver and maker of musical instruments -- particularly the mountain dulcimer -- Kathleen kept herself busy with her artistic pursuits; carving; teaching; traveling; her activities at her local parish and with the Dominicans, whom she served as our prioress, all of which she kept up until just days ago.  And praying, which she never stopped doing: she had rosaries all over her house, next to any chair she might settle in.  She greatly desired that everyone pray: her last phone call to me was a request that I find some good quality parts and make 100 rosaries for the Dominican mission in Mexicali.

Before I knew Kathleen, she had fought a battle with breast cancer, from which she emerged, not unscarred, but still strong and robust.  Then, a few years ago, came the pain in her shoulder that could not be accounted for as an injury: the cancer was back, this time in her bones.  She beat back this new assault forcefully, and kept up her activity as much as she could.  The Cross of Remembrance Memorial Garden for the unborn dead, slowly but surely taking shape in Homedale, became her life's work.  But although Kathleen enjoyed stretches of relative vigor, both the cancer and the side effects of its treatment gradually gained ground.  By Thanksgiving, her hair -- which had never had more than a touch of gray, even though she was past 70 -- was gone.  For some months before her death, she was on oxygen, and had to cut short her appearances at chapter and council meetings because of her fatigue.  Her last appearance at a chapter meeting was in April, where she announced that for the first time, the doctors had given her a timetable for survival: twelve weeks to twelve months.  To our sorrow, their low estimate has turned out to be off by about five weeks, proving once again that the practice of medicine is called "practice" for a reason.

And so today is Kathleen's birthday in eternity.  In a little while this date will be memorialized on the headstone that already bears her name, and under which her mortal remains will be laid to rest alongside those of her beloved Jim, with whom, we trust, she was reunited this morning at 9 o'clock, together with her mother and father, her siblings, Bl. Margaret of Castello -- whose relic she had at her bedside when she died -- St. Dominic, Our Lady, and all the saints and angels, before the throne of the Trinity, Whose light she sought faithfully always to live in and reflect to others.  

In matters of liturgy, Kathleen and I disagreed: she was for many years involved in the Charismatic Renewal and did not care for Mass in the Extraordinary Form, although she did tolerate it on those rare occasions when we could have it, if only for the sake of affectionately indulging the younger, traditionally-minded members of the chapter.  I trust she will not mind my smiling a little at the thought of her newly-made discovery that, in fact, it really is Gregorian chant that most closely resembles the song of the angels before the Throne of the Most High.  I trust too that, even though she was not a fan of Latin, she will not mind my saying for her, from the heart:

Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.  

How to Suffer

This little boy -- shown here a couple of months before his death at the age of 12 -- was never well a day in his life. 

This is an illustration of the profits that can be reaped by means of suffering united to the Cross.  It is far from the picture of squalid, abject meaninglessness the culture of death paints in order to justify murder.  It is just such lives as this that the culture of death, mired in atheism and materialism, says are not worth living.  It is the Garvan Byrnes, who light the way to the world to come, that are targeted for extermination.  


If we go on snuffing out these lights, how can we imagine we will escape retribution?

Divine Mercy Sunday and Lifeboats

My daughter, tell the whole world about My Inconceivable Mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender Mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My Mercy.

Diary of St. Faustina

On April 15, 1912, the Divine Mercy reached even the doomed passengers of the "unsinkable" Titanic.  The ship failed to carry the necessary number of lifeboats, but God fitted her out with three lifeboats, each of which could carry to eternal life everyone who approached them: Fr. Joseph Benedikt Peruschitz, O.S.B., a German Benedictine on his way to work at a new monastic school in Minnesota; Fr. Juozas Montvila, a young Lithuanian priest on his way to take over a parish in America (the location is in dispute); and Fr. Thomas Byles, an English priest on his way to officiate at his brother's wedding in New York.  All of these priests refused seats on lifeboats, preferring to help the other passengers to safety, hear confessions, grant absolution, and prepare those who were to die to meet God.  When last seen, Fr. Byles was leading the doomed passengers in the Rosary.  How fitting that the last Masses these martyrs of charity celebrated was the Mass for Low Sunday -- what would later become today's Feast of Divine Mercy.

A religious on board the Titanic escaped via lifeboat -- the lifeboat of obedience.  Br. Francis Browne, S.J., boarded the ship at Southampton for Cobh, Ireland.  He fell in with some wealthy passengers who offered to pay his way to America.  When he wired his provincial for permission to continue on to the States, he received the terse reply: "Get off that ship."  Because he obeyed, Br. Browne was not aboard the Titanic during its fatal collision with the iceberg in the north Atlantic.  He went on to be ordained into the priesthood, and served as a military chaplain with Fr. Willie Doyle, S.J., the saintly Trench Priest of World War I, extending the Divine Mercy even into the hell of No Man's Land.  Fr. Browne died in 1960; to the end of his days he carried in his wallet the wireless message that had saved his life through religious obedience.

Look for God's Mercy in every situation.  Every situation.  It really is there.

Remember Pearl Harbor

This post goes up seventy years to the minute after the Japanese began their attack on Pearl Harbor.  This 70th anniversary is the last one to be marked by the Pearl Harbor Survivors' Association: due to the extreme old age, infirmity and immobility of its dwindling membership (approximately 175, mostly in their 90s), the Association is officially disbanding this month.  Only about 125 survivors are expected to attend this year's commemoration at the scene of the pivotal and defining moment of their young lives.

A Japanese camera captured that moment on the morning of December 7, 1941.  The images of Japanese planes, tiny yet unmistakable, can be seen passing over Ford Island.  The U.S.S. West Virginia and U.S.S. Oklahoma, on the far side of the island, have just sustained torpedo hits. 

One of the iconic images of the Pearl Harbor attack: the U.S.S. Arizona burns.  The explosion of the Arizona's forward magazines claimed 1,177 of the 2,403 American lives lost at Pearl Harbor.  The crew of the nearby U.S.S. Tennessee attempts to fend off burning oil with fire hoses.  

The first two chaplains to die in World War II -- one Protestant minister, one Catholic priest -- died at Pearl Harbor.  Protestant chaplain of the Arizona, Capt. Thomas Leroy Kirkpatrick, sprang to action in sick bay as soon as the attacks commenced.  Sick bay was so near to the forward magazines that he was killed almost instantly in the great explosion while ministering to the wounded.  Chaplain Kirkpatrick still lies with his crewmates in their sunken ship at the bottom of the harbor.

Chaplain Kirkpatrick's clock was recovered from the wreck of the Arizona, the hands frozen at the moment the forward magazines exploded.  

The U.S.S. Oklahoma, capsized and burning.  429 men perished aboard the Oklahoma.

The total number of the Oklahoma's dead would have reached 441 if it were not for Fr. Aloysius Schmitt, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Acting Chaplain.

On December 7, 1941, the young priest from St. Lucas, Iowa, had only been ordained for six years, appointed a chaplain for two and a half years, and had celebrated his 32nd birthday only three days earlier.  Did he have any suspicion that that was to be his last birthday, and indeed almost his last day on earth?  Yet although death came to Fr. Schmitt suddenly, it did not find him unprepared, nor even without Viaticum: when the Japanese attack began, he had just finished celebrating Mass.  

When disaster struck, Fr. Schmitt went to sick bay to minister to the wounded and dying. Mission Capodanno gives the following moving account of what happened next:

When the Oklahoma was struck and water poured into her hold, the ship began to list and roll over. Many men were trapped. Schmitt found his way -- with other crew members -- to a compartment where only a small porthole provided enough space to escape.

Chaplain Schmitt helped other men, one by one, to crawl to safety. When it became his turn, the chaplain tried to get through the small opening. As he struggled to exit through the porthole, he became aware that others had come into the compartment from which he was trying to escape. As he realized that the water was rising rapidly and that escape would soon be impossible, he insisted on being pushed back through the hole so that he could help others who could get through the opening more easily. Accounts from eyewitnesses that have been published in the Arizona Memorial newsletter relate that the men protested, saying that he would never get out alive, but he insisted, "Please let go of me, and may God bless you all."

Fr. Schmitt, martyr of charity, was posthumously awarded the Navy/Marine Corps Medal for his selfless bravery, which saved the lives of twelve crewmen who otherwise would have been trapped in the sinking ship.

Remember Pearl Harbor, soon to pass from living memory.  Remember and do not forget.

If You Like Getting Goosebumps...

...you'll love William Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus.

Here is a link to the score.

Ave verum corpus,
natum de Maria Virgine,
vere passum, immolatum
in cruce pro homine,
cuius latus perforatum
fluxit aqua et sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum
in mortis examine.
O Iesu dulcis,
O Iesu pie,
O Iesu, fili Mariae.
Miserere mei. Amen.

Hail, true Body, truly born
Of the Virgin Mary mild
Truly offered, wracked and torn,
On the Cross for all defiled,
From Whose love pierced, sacred side
Flowed Thy true Blood's saving tide:
Be a foretaste sweet to me
In my death's great agony.
O my loving, Gentle One,
Sweetest Jesus,
Mary's Son. Amen.