Jesus and Mary Dispel the Darkness

God has not abandoned us. Wherever our Lady goes, she brings her Son. She brings hope and light to her children, who are threatened by the Culture of Death. The following quote is from Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pro-life Movement, a wonderful pocket-size booklet by Father Frank Pavone.

During this dark period of their history, the Aztecs received a message of hope. After the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the presence of the image among them, some nine million people converted to Christ, and human sacrifice was abolished. A key theological dynamic here is that our Lady turned the Aztecs' world view of despair to one of hope, from a conviction that the gods were against them to a conviction that God was so much for them that he became one of them.

Father Frank Pavone, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pro-life Movement (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2006) 9-10.

A Letter to Fr. Luis and the Blog

Fr. Luis,

Your brother is right. We have contraception and abortion on one end and euthanasia on the other end. God will intervene in due time, like he has in the past, when his children become very sinful. As you know, God will not fail us in our time of need.

What I do not understand is why anyone wants to destroy life, especially politicians as these lives are future votes. What is their motivation or agenda? Is it to control world population? The secular world is trying to take over, but for what purpose. Do they ever think about their eternal life?

Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to name a few should be excommunicated from the Church by Pope Benedict XVI. That would send a strong message around the world to cafeteria Catholics in positions of power. Then maybe they would think about their eternal lives. How can a person be a Catholic and believe in the 10 commandments, yet financially support legislation that murders unborn children? I believe we are going the way of the Roman Empire.

As you know the Church has been under attack from day one and continues to be under attack, even from people within our faith which is very sad and from fellow Christians and Jews. Vatican II did some great things, but people took liberties with the intent of Vatican II and went way beyond what the Council anticipated. We fight this everyday in our Parish.

All I know to do is pray, pray, pray, pray, vote for the right people, spread the Gospel and live life as a good Catholic.

Thank God for Pope Benedict XVI. I pray that he continues to speak the Truth. It may not be what people want to hear all the time, but Truth is imprinted on our hearts by God. We should all recognize the Truth when we hear it. Many people shut it out and use their free will.

God Bless You,
Glenn

Glenn R. Breed
Ranchester,Wyoming
82839

Benedict lives!

In the third book of Tolkien's trilogy, The Return of the King, Gandalf and the Captains of the West are making strategy for the fight against Mordor. Gandalf and company and the good people of Middle-earth are in the gravest peril imaginable. I suggest that our current real days are not unlike to these days in Tolkien's tale of Middle-earth. Thinking about it, our faces could become very grave.

'Follow what may, great deeds are not lessened in worth,' said Legolas. 'Great deed was the riding of the Paths of the Dead, and great it shall remain, though none be left in Gondor to sing of it in the days that are to come.'
'And that may well befall,' said Gimli. 'For the faces of Aragorn and Gandalf are grave'

Like Tolkien's Fellowship and like all the realm of Gondor, we are in serious and critical times, times serious enough to make our faces grave. The current "economic crisis" is nothing compared with the current moral crisis: the perils faced by the Church (the real Fellowship), the sacredness of human life, and the family. For the Church is imperiled by man's rejection of Christ and the Holy Gospel, the sacredness of human life by legalized abortion, and the family by contraception.
As the culture becomes more and more anti-Christian, it seems that the Fellowship must necessarily go underground--something like the Dark Ages. Yet this may actually be hopeful. Certain members of the Church's hierarchy, Pope Benedict and Bishop Martino for example, are courageously standing up to the Culture of Death, and giving the flock sound teachings as well. Furthermore, homeschooling--like St. Benedict's monasteries of old--is flourishing among Christians as a way to preserve Christian culture and the souls of our children. Certainly, it's no coincidence that right now the name of the Supreme Pontiff is "Benedict XVI"!
Post Script: Maybe "going underground" seems a little hobbit-like, as if we have to live in hobbit holes or something. Yet perhaps hobbit-holes are not so bad after all. Hobbits do tend to be rather supportive and friendly, "don't you know!", as ol' Mr. Bilbo used to say.

What could be worse?

I used to think that the proposed "Freedom of Choice Act" was the worst piece of legislation ever to be proposed to that august body, the Congress of the United States of America. Now, I see that I was wrong. For today, on a physical bulletin board, I saw poster saying that F.O.C.A. has an evil twin sister--and it's even worse! F.O.C.A. widens the legal access to abortion so that it would be virtually unrestricted; very, very, easy to obtain legally. This other bill would go farther: It would fund contraception and do several other nasty things. Contraception is even worse than abortion. Abortion -- bad enough -- strikes out at life; however, contraception strikes at the very basis of the family. Without openness to love and life, there is no family. Furthermore, without the family, there is no Church, no nation, nothing--society as we know it would cease to exist. Contraception strikes at Divine Providence and the natural law in "the meanest" possible way. The Devil must be estatic with malicious glee. It is very dark. The hour is late indeed!
(To view this blog "in all its glory", simply type mordorhascome.blogspot.com in the URL.)