Clive Staples Lewis, ARSH 1948

“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things— praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

The same idea applies to the Second Coming of Our Lord. If we knew for a fact that He were returning in glory tomorrow, what would we do today? We would do whatever our duties and stations in life would otherwise be. If that notion is somehow troubling, then perhaps one should, by definition, modify and improve one’s quotidian life. What exactly is it about your life or your normal activities that you would NOT want the Lord to find you doing when He returns, or when you return to Him…?

Dear Ann,

Could you please explain the Trinity?

Signed,
Unreasonably High Expectations

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Dear Unreasonably High Expectations,

No.

No one can. It is a mystery. And I find this consoling. Frankly, the fact that the Church says straight-out that there are certain things about God Almighty which are simply unable to be comprehended by human beings is a testament to the legitimacy of the Church as a teaching authority. Never trust any human being or group of human beings who claim to “know everything”. Anyone who claims to know everything or have all of the answers is, by definition, a liar right out of the chute, because only God knows everything.   

There are several huge mysteries of faith: the Trinity (one God in Three Divine Persons), the Incarnation (Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the aforementioned Triune Godhead, being both fully God and fully man) and the Eucharist (bread and wine being transubstantiated into the physical substance of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ).

How can God be One in Being, but Father, Son and Holy Ghost? I dunno. It’s a mystery. But we know that it IS.

How can Jesus be both fully God and fully Man? I dunno. It’s a mystery. But we know that it IS.

How can something that was bread a few minutes ago, and still looks like bread, and still smells and tastes like bread actually be the Substance of God? And how did that change occur? I dunno. It’s a mystery. But we know that it IS.

Regarding the Trinity, here is what we do know and can articulate. The primary point and revelation of God in the Old Testament is the reality that there is not a “pantheon” of many gods, but that there is, in fact, only ONE God. If you had to pin down what the point of the Old Testament is – that’s it in a very, very oversimplified simple nutshell. GOD IS ONE.

The Torah, or the first five books of the Old Testament, were written by Moses. The entire point of Moses’ life was to bear witness to the fact that there is only ONE GOD. There was absolutely no ambiguity about this. None. But, if we look at literally the FIRST CHAPTER of the book of Genesis, we see something amazing. Verse 26:

“And He said: Let Us make man to Our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.”

(Et ait: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram….)

Moses spent most of his adult life in interface with (I refuse to use the word “encounter” anymore. It has been rendered utterly trite by those who speak in Modernist, post-Conciliar Bergoglian gibber-babble) and witnessing to The ONE TRUE GOD. And yet Moses can’t get more than a couple hundred words into his written record and he is using PLURAL PRONOUNS – “Us” and “Our” – when quoting the ONE TRUE GOD. SURELY Moses, of all people, wouldn’t make the sloppy mistake of using plural pronouns. SURELY someone around Moses, and for the centuries upon centuries afterward, would say, “Hey! You’ve got plural pronouns here! Shouldn’t we fix that? Afterall, it completely undercuts the whole “GOD IS ONE” thing we are trying to communicate here.”

Nope. Not only did Moses write it that way, but it STAYED that way for all of these centuries. I find Genesis 1:26 to be one of the most compelling proofs of the Divine Inspiration of scripture and of the proactive work of the Holy Ghost in not only revealing truth, but also protecting and maintaining that deposit of revealed truth. Think of all of those centuries before Our Lord’s Incarnation when the Jews COULD have singularized those two little pronouns/verb conjugations – and no one ever did.

One of the most important points about the Triune Godhead is this: God is RELATIONAL to Himself.

Priest’s view from the High Altar of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini in Rome. Shamelessly lifted from Fr. Z.

God is Love – and what is Perfect Love? Perfect Love is the complete giving of one’s self, and Perfect Love is the act of fully RECEIVING and then returning love. Soooo . . . if God is NOT relational to Himself, how could He have existed as Perfect Existential Love “before” the creation of the universe? Whom was He loving? Was He sitting around pondering Himself? How does inward-turned singular “naval gazing” constitute a GIFT of self? What love was He receiving? How could God receive love if He was the only thing that existed and weren’t RELATIONAL to Himself from all eternity and beyond?

Again, these are the questions that any thinking person slams up against fairly early in any genuine conversion or reversion experience, and yes, we all SHOULD be asking these questions because we cannot love that which we have not first apprehended with our intellects. And, the more we intellectually apprehend something, the more we can then love it. The asking of questions – whether they be concerning the natural world, other people, or God Himself – is, at its root, an act of love. Remember that the next time you’re in the company of a three year old: “Why? Why? Why?” Beware the man who asks no questions, for that is a man bereft of love.

How could God receive love if He was the only thing that existed before the creation of rational intellects – angels and men? Because God is, in Himself, able to relate to Himself. Christ revealed to us that God is Three Divine Persons, all distinct but yet completely One in Being. Got your head around that? No, of course not. We can’t FULLY grasp that existential reality any more than we can grasp and explicitly describe what a fifth dimension would look like. But Christ did give us names for the Three Persons in Matthew 28:19 so that we could relate to the Trinity. Those names are: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The words “Father and Son” are not a perfect analogue because the Father did not exist before the Son, as in the human case. The Three Divine Persons of the Trinity are co-eternal. The best partial-analogy of this is fire. When a match is struck, the flame, the light from the flame and the heat from the flame all coexist concurrently. The flame does not pre-exist the light and the heat, nor does the heat pre-exist the light or the flame. We can grasp this, but what is impossible for the human mind to grasp on this mortal coil (and beyond, too, because finite beings can never fully grasp the Infinite) is the eternity of God. No one can explain that. No one can explain or fully comprehend eternity. Only the Eternal can fully comprehend the Eternal. All we can do is name it, and then get on with living, singing His praises.

So, God the Father gives Himself fully to God the Son. God the Son then fully receives that love, and then returns it to God the Father fully. This infinite back-and-forth of love is so existentially perfect that it yields a Third, which Jesus taught us to call “The Holy Ghost”.

(**Fascinating addition: It has been explained to me by philosophers that ONLY GOD is capable of the “total gift of self” that is the cornerstone of John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”. The reason why “Theology of the Body” is deeply problematic and slides almost instantly into personalist phenomenology (the philosophical school that JPII subscribed to, which denies that objects exist outside of human consciousness of them, and thus that the mind of man is the supreme arbiter of existence… or some absolute nonsense like that.  Yeah.  Pray for his soul, because his canonization, done by Antipope Bergoglio, will be walked back when this situation resolves) is because it is built on the false premise that a human man can “give himself completely” to his wife, and that the woman can receive “the total gift of self” from her husband and then return it as a “total gift of herself” to him.  WRONG.  A man contributing his DNA, and a woman contributing her DNA is not even remotely close to “a total gift of self”, nor is any unitive joy of the conjugal act even close to “total gift of self”.  No, make no mistake, only THE MOST HOLY TRINITY can do that.  Not even St. Joseph and Our Lady Ever Virgin, as much as they loved each other and were united in this world, ever got anywhere close to “total gift of self” because it simply is not possible for human beings to do this.  We cannot “fall through each others’ souls” or anything even remotely close to that.  

We can love, and must love, but we cannot delude ourselves into believing that “we are like God” and are able to “make a total gift of self”, and we certainly can’t delude ourselves into thinking, as many, many TOB followers do, that the marital sex act IS THE TOTAL GIFT OF SELF.  It is not, PERIOD. This is common sense. But guys, lots of these TOB people actually think this, and use it as justification for sins of the highest gravity, including sacrilegious fornication and even sodomy between spouses. Believe me, after the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, there will be NO MORE “Theology of the Body” on this planet.  So, I would advise going ahead and trashing everything you own that is TOB-based, in anticipation of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart!

Long story short, TOB places “the unitive good of the spouses” on an equal plane as the procreation and rearing of children, instead of having procreation alone at the top, with the unitive benefits to the spouses as a secondary, subordinated priority.  This mis-ordering combined with personalism, has led as direct logical corollaries to the winking acceptance by the infiltrators of The Church of divorce, contraception, abortion, sodomy, transsexualism and whatever damn filthy perversion is next, which we all know is pedophilia.)

The big human metaphor to all of this is human procreation.

A man loves his wife and gives his DNA to her. The wife loves her husband and thus receives his DNA and offers her own DNA in return. The gifts of DNA then becomes a third person (with the essential involvement of The Holy Ghost, the Lird and Giver of Life- Dóminum et vivificántem).  But this is obviously only an analogy – it is useful and important, but not an equivalence. Not even close.

Thus, the Triune Godhead is the foundational reality, and human marriage and procreation is the DERIVATIVE, which points back in analogical form to the underlying and infinitely greater reality of the Trinity.

This is why marriage, the marital act and procreation are so utterly sacred – even though they are only an analogy, and thus so destructive when perverted, sadly in these dark days with the consent and even cooperation of the very shepherds who should be laying down their lives to protect the sacrosanctity of marriage and sexuality. It’s enough to make one suspect that almost all of them by now are actually wolves….

So there are a few points to ponder today, the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. And remember, if you’re troubled by the fact that you don’t fully understand the nature of God, just remember that a God that our pea-brains could fully comprehend would be… no God at all. The fact that God is infinite and inexhaustible in the depths of His goodness, beauty, justice, mercy and LOVE is the ultimate consolation and incentive to hope.

As always, I hope this helps.

Dom Reginald-Marie Garrigou-Lagrange. Most assuredly NOT a mediocre man.

“The truly mediocre man admirers everything a little and nothing with warmth… He considers every affirmation insolent, because every affirmation excludes the contradictory proposition. But if you are slightly friendly and slightly hostile to all things, he will consider you wise and reserved. The mediocre man says there is good and evil in all things, and that we must not be absolute in our judgements. 

If you strongly affirm the truth, the mediocre man will say that you have too much confidence in yourself.

The mediocre man regrets that the Christian religion has dogmas. He would like it to teach ethics, and if you tell him that its code of morals comes from its dogmas as the consequence comes from the principle, he will answer that you exaggerate…If the word ‘exaggeration’ did not exist, the mediocre man would invent it.

The mediocre man appears habitually modest. He can not be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre.

The humble man scorns all lies, even where glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth…If the naturally mediocre man becomes seriously Christian, he ceases absolutely to be mediocre…

The man who loves is never mediocre.”

Reginald-Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
The Three Ages of the Interior Life : Prelude of Eternal Life Volume. 1

Today’s Gospel is the healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends.  We all know the story, but have you ever really stopped and thought about it?  Have you thought about the persistence and masculine initiative on display here?  Can you imagine strapping your paralyzed friend to a board, CUTTING A HOLE IN SOMEONE’S ROOF, and then lowering your buddy down through the hole you just cut with ropes, because, by golly, we have GOT to get him into the presence of Jesus?  Oh, to have been a fly on that wall.

“Um, Lord, there is someone on the roof.”
“It’s cool.  Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, they seem to be cutting a hole now.”
“It’s all good.  Cool out.  Everything’s fine.”
“There is now a six by three foot hole in the roof.”
“So there is.”
(awkward silence as paralyzed dude strapped to a board slowly descends into the room)
“Hi.  Sorry about this, but there was no other way in, and I’m paralyzed, and you’re God, and I REALLY need you to help me.  Please.”

That’s faith.  Not just by the paralyzed dude, but also by his boys that executed this bold and excellent plan.  The verse in Mark 2 says, “And when Jesus had seen their faith…”  THEIR faith.  Plural.  Not just the paralyzed dude, but also the paralyzed dude’s BOYS.  It’s good to have boys.  Boys with saws and plenty of rope.  And persistent faith.  Our Lord likes that.

“Your sins are forgiven.  That’s the important part, but just to show you that I AM God and I do indeed have the power to forgive sins, get up, take your bed, and go on home now.”
(paralyzed dude gets up, whereupon his boys on the roof exchange high-fives)
“YAY!!!!!”

Yay, indeed.  Well done, Boys.

St. Peter Canisius:

“As the Sacred Scripture says, the Sodomites were wicked and exceedingly sinful. Saint Peter and Saint Paul condemn this nefarious and depraved sin. In fact, the Scripture denounces this enormous indecency thus: ‘The scandal of Sodomites and Gomorrhans has multiplied and their sins have become grave beyond measure.’ So the angels said to just Lot, who totally abhorred the depravity of the Sodomites: ‘Let us leave this city….’ Holy Scripture does not fail to mention the causes that led the Sodomites, and can also lead others, to this most grievous sin. In fact, in Ezechiel we read: ‘Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and the poor. And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me; and I took them away as thou hast seen’ (Ezech. 16: 49-50).

Those unashamed of violating divine and natural law are slaves of this never sufficiently execrated depravity.”

-St. Peter Canisius, Summa Doctrina Christianae, III a/b, p. 455

Note what St. Peter Canisius says here quoting Ezechiel: that the CAUSES that LED to this most grievous sin (sexual perversion) are, in a nutshell, a lack or absence of Charity.  Sexual perversion is a DERIVATIVE PATHOLOGY. It doesn’t “just happen”.  You have to have the self-purgation of love from the soul FIRST.  Then the sexual perversion follows.  This is why there is no such thing as a “psycho-spiritually healthy” sex pervert.  Sexual perversion in any form is, by definition, a monstrosity. Yes, MONSTROSITY.  This is why there is no such thing as a “benign” sodomite.  Because of the antecedent pathology of lovelessness (aka Diabolical Narcissism), ALL SODOMITES, BOTH MALE AND FEMALE, ARE A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to others, but most especially children.

And, this quote from St. Peter Canisius should probably be framed and hanging in every home:

“Better that only a few Catholics should be left, staunch and sincere in their religion, than that they should, remaining many, desire as it were, to be in collusion with the Church’s enemies and in conformity with the open foes of our faith.”

Wear white, say “baaa” every once in a while, and they’ll not only jump into your mouth, they’ll demand that all of the others do too – because “it’s what the Good Shepherd wants us to do….”

Gospel of Tuesday in the Octave of Pentecost:

At that time, Jesus said to the Pharisees, Amen, amen, I say to you, he who enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is shepherd of the sheep. To this man the gatekeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them forth. And when he has let out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. But a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. This parable Jesus spike to them, but they did not understand what He was saying to them. Again, therefore, Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All whoever have come are thieves and robbers; but the sheep have not heard them. I am the door. If anyone enter by Me he shall be safe, and shall go in and out, and shall find pastures. The thief comes only to steal, and slay, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.

John 10: 1-10

So, the easiest way for me to explain this is just to post the Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Synodality” here, and you read it.

Remember: Antipope Bergoglio was an open book test. Now Satan and the Freemasons are batting clean-up. For this one, you gotta attend the lectures and do the reading. Do NOT let the conscious, coordinated attack on the human attention span get you. Just buckle down and READ. You’ll see why I’m posting this. Look for the one mention of the laity. One. Spoiler: they have no right to be there and their opinions mean nothing.

The Catholic Church is a HIERARCHY established by Christ Jesus Himself. Democracy is an obviously satanic construct designed to give power to the worst and basest impulses of fallen man.

Freemasonry seeks to destroy the Catholic Church on Earth by DEMOCRATIZING, that is, FAUX-SYNODALIZING it. The gambit is so obvious, it’s sad that it has to be explained.

Death to democracy. Death to “the synodal church”. Give me a secular monarch, and GIVE ME A POPE – the Monarch of monarchs.

—-Ann Barnhardt, Monday in the Octave of Pentecost ARSH 2025.

SYNOD

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14388a.htm

(Greek synodos, an assembly).

A general term for ecclesiastical gatherings under hierarchical authority, for the discussion and decision of matters relating to faith, morals, or discipline. It corresponds to the Latin word concilium. The word synodus appears probably for the first time in the so-called “Apostolic canons”, while the word concilium was employed in the same meaning by Tertullianmore than a century earlier. Synod and council are, therefore, synonymous terms.

When the bishops of the whole world are congregated under the presidency of the pope, the synod is denominated ecumenical or general. It is only to such an assembly that it is lawful to apply the term sancta synodus (see GENERAL COUNCILS). If the bishops of an ecclesiastical province meet under the headship of their metropolitan, the council is termed provincial. When the hierarchs of all the provinces of a nation assemble, the synod is called national, or, under certain circumstances, plenary. The regulations governing provincial and plenary council are practically the same. In addition to those mentioned, there are other synods that are more difficult of classification, as synods of the East or the West, the synodoi endemousai of Constantinople, and the mixed councils of ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries who assembled together to make regulations for both spiritual and civil matters.

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Different from all other councils is the diocesan synod. Other councils are assemblies of bishops who have a definitive vote in the matters under consideration, but in a diocesan synod there is only one voter and only one lawgiver, the bishop of the diocese. This article deals mainly with diocesan synods. In his book “De Synodo Dioecesana” (lib. 1, c. i) Benedict XIV thus defines a diocesan synod: “A lawful assembly convoked by the bishop, in which he gathers together the priests and clerics of his dioceseand all others who are bound to attend it, for the purpose of doing and deliberating concerning what belongs to the pastoral care.” The Council of Trent (Sess. XXIV, c. ii, “De ref.”) required that a diocesan synod be held once a year. This law is still in force, but a mild interpretation, introduced by custom, has been tacitly sanctioned by the Holy See. Usually, the date for holding the synod should be announced on the Feast of the Epiphany. A month before the opening the decree of convocation should be affixed to the cathedral doors, and it should be published on three successive Sundays in parish churches. When two dioceses are united under one bishop, the synod should be celebrated alternately in the cathedral of each such diocese. It belongs to the bishop to convoke the diocesan synod whether he be consecrated as yet or not. An archbishop, however, who has not yet received the pallium, has not the same right. Vicars-general can assemble a synod only in virtue of a special mandate of the bishop. When a diocese is vacant, the vicar capitular can and should hold a diocesan synod if a year has elapsed since the celebration of the last once. Ordinarily, the convocation of a synod should take place after the episcopal visitation of the diocese, as the bishop can then be better guided in forming his statutes. When, however, the visitation has been neglected for years, it is considered more advisable to hold the synod first. As the bishopis the only law-giver at a synod, it belongs to him to draw up the various decrees which he may wish to promulgate at its sessions. While he convokes the synod by his own authority and is not required to consult his chapter concerning the convocation or its preparatory acts, yet he must ask the counsel of his chapter or diocesanconsultors as to the decrees he desires to enact, though he is not bound to follow their advice. The bishop is exhorted, in the formation of his decrees, to hold private conferences with the prudent, learned, and pious clerics of his diocese, and then to consult his chapter on the proposed statutes thus formed (S. C. C., 26 Nov., 1689). Only in this way does the bishop deliberate with the clergy of his diocese at a synod, and though the finished decrees will receive all their authority from him, yet it is consonant with the mind of the Church that, in the formation of the statutes, the opinion of the clergy be heard and considered. Summonses to a diocesan synod should be given to the vicar-general, the members of the cathedral chapter, holders of benefices, and all others who have care of souls. If there is a custom to that effect, all the clergy of the diocese may be summoned. Regulars who have care of souls are obliged to attend a synod. Their superiors are not, however, obliged to attend, unless they personally act as parish priests or curates. The bishop has power to punish with censures all those legitimately summoned who fail to attend. Laymen may also be invited by the bishop to be present at a synod if there is a custom to that effect, but under no circumstances can they acquire a right to such summons.

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At the synod the decrees determined on by the bishop are promulgated, and a period of two months is allowed for having recourse against them to the bishop or the Holy See. All the clergy and laity of the diocese are bound by these decrees, and it is not necessary for the bishop to send his statutes to Rome for revision before publication. Exempt regulars are bound to observe diocesan decrees in all things which concern the sacred canons, the Constitutions of popes and councils, and the decrees of the Sacred Roman Congregations. The bishop may not force his clergy to buy printed copies of the diocesan statutes (S. C. C., 14 Dec., 1658). During the synod the appointment is made of synodal examiners. To the former duties of these officials has been added by the “Maxima Cura” of Pius X (20 Aug., 1910) that of being associated with the bishop in drawing up the decree for the administrative removal of parishpriests. By the same papal Constitution, parochial consultors, who are to be assessors in case of recourse against a decree of removal, are also to be chosen by the synod from among the parish priests. Synodal witnesses are likewise chosen at some synods, whose main duty it is to help in the framing of deliberative questions or to report at the following synod what has been the effect of the degrees promulgated at the last assembly, or to suggest new ones. Synodal judges are also to be chosen, though they are rarely now employed. Their office is to expedite such causes as may be committed to their judgment outside Romeby the Holy See. These judges should be at least four in number in every diocese, and their names must be forwarded to Rome as soon as selected. The subject-matter of the decrees framed at a diocesan synod should concern only the preservation of faith or discipline. Under no circumstances may such a synod define any new article of faith or decide any doctrinal point in dispute between Catholic theologians or frame statutes contrary to the common canon law of the Church.

“Bergogliovost.” 🔥

Let us pray:

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul the work of Your grace and Your love.

Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal,

the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth,

the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven,

the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation,

the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints,

the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable,

and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him.

Mark me, dear Lord with the sign of Your true disciples, and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

Such massive life decisions as getting a new phone case require prudence and knowledge. Flip-flopping is a species of failure. Measure twice, cut once, and let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Changing one’s phone case with the wind or the zeitgeist is no way to live. It’s unmanly and weak.

If I do get a new phone case, y’all will be the first to know.