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The universe is not rich enough to buy the vote of an honest man.
Have confidence in the compassion of our Creator. Reflect well on what you are now doing, and keep before you the things you have done. Lift up your eyes to the overflowing compassion of heaven, and while He waits for you, draw near in tears to our merciful Judge. Having before your mind that He is a Just Judge, do not take your sins lightly; and having also in mind that He is compassionate, do not despair. The God-Man gives man confidence before God.
Ignorance is a dangerous and spiritual poison, which all men ought warily to shun.
The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.
We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of action.
Whoever wishes to hold the fortress of contemplation must first of all train in the camp of action.
The greatness of contemplation can be given to none but those who love.
If we are, in fact, now occupied in good deeds, we should not attribute the strength with which we are doing them to ourselves. We must not count on ourselves, because even if we know what kind of person we are today, we do not know what we will be tomorrow.
Text:
Rachel Maria Mastrogiacomo
3h • ©
In humility and littleness, I ask that you pray for me. Pray most of all for the purification of Holy Mother Church. In roughly 48 hours, the Roman Catholic Cardinal who was criminally complicit in covering up my ritual rape will be installed as the Archbishop of Washington. After Holy Mass today, I will be packing my suitcase and heading to Washington D.C. together with my advocate Janet E. Smith. With the support of several heavy hitters, including General Michael Flynn and Liz Yore, I have released an open letter (see comments) to President and Mrs. Trump, Vice President and Mrs. Vance, and all 150 Catholic U.S. Senators and Representatives. I am appalled that faithful Catholics have to depend upon the government to take measures to reform our Church. However I love Jesus Christ and His Bride enough to cry out on behalf of the vulnerable and plead with those in positions of power to expose the organized crime ring that has infiltrated our heirarchy. Viva Christo Rey.
This lady is 💯 switched-on. She gets it.
You don’t abandon the Church because infiltrators have invaded. You FIGHT.
If a woman who was raped by a priest in a satanic ritual can comprehend this truth, what excuse does anyone else have to abandon the Mystical Body and Bride of Christ, outside of which there is no salvation?
Hi Ann,
You are a million percent correct in your assertions about Dolan. He used to be my boss, and I had frequent dealings with him as I wrote and continue to write for [REDACTED].
He does not believe in the tenets of the Faith. He is bombastic, boisterous, and, at the same time, a bully. All he cares about is fitting in with the celebrity sect. In the years I worked with him, I never felt he believed in anything but himself. Early on, there was talk of him becoming a pope, and if that happens, he will be just as bad or perhaps worse than what we have falsely occupying the chair presently.
Keep up the great work!
M
Don’t worry- Dolan has zero chance of being elected Vatican dog catcher, much less Pope.
Peak fake, peak gay:
Overshadowing Shoulders (The Most Holy Trinity, detail, Guido Reni)
Today is the First Sunday of Lent, and the following verse from Psalm 90 appears three separate times; first in the Tract, then as the Offertory verse, and finally as the Communion verse.
Read the medical description of death by crucifixion below, and then ponder the words, “The Lord will overshadow thee with His shoulders.”
[This is a paraphrase of a summary of an ARSH 1965 article on crucifixion by Dr. C. Truman Davis entitled, “The Anatomical And Physiological Details Of Death By Crucifixion”, originally published in Arizona Medicine. Since it is widely reproduced on the internet, I have taken the liberty of cleaning up a few things, and correcting scripture citations. Additions of my prose are in brackets. –AB ’25]
Crucifixion is the most painful death ever invented by man and is where we get our term “excruciating.” It was reserved primarily for the most vicious of male criminals. Our Lord refused the anesthetic wine which was offered to Him by the Roman soldiers in keeping with His promise recorded in Matthew 26: 29, “And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father.” Our Lord was stripped naked [This is very important. The depictions of Our Lord with His loincloth intact on the Cross are for the sake of modesty, particularly for women and children. He was naked. The humiliation of being hung naked with no way of covering one’s self was in integral part of the humiliation of crucifixion. Our Blessed Lord spared Himself nothing – the agony of His Passion was maximal.] and His clothing divided by the Roman guards. This was in fulfillment of Psalm 21:19, “They parted My garments amongst them; and upon My vesture they cast lots.” The Crucifixion of Jesus guaranteed a horrific, slow, painful death.
Having been nailed the Cross, Our Lord now had an impossible anatomical position to maintain. Jesus’ knees were flexed at about 45 degrees, and He was forced to bear His weight with the muscles of His thigh, which is not an anatomical position which is possible to maintain for more than a few minutes without severe cramp in the muscles of the thigh and calf. Our Lord’s weight was borne on His feet, with nails driven through them. As the strength of the muscles of Our Blessed Lord’s lower limbs tired, the weight of His body had to be transferred to His wrists, His arms, and His shoulders. Within a few minutes of being placed on the Cross, Our Lord’s shoulders were dislocated. Minutes later His elbows and wrists became dislocated. The result of these upper limb dislocations was that His arms were 9 inches longer than normal, as clearly shown on the Shroud of Turin. In addition, prophecy was thus fulfilled in Psalm 21:15, “I am poured out like water; and all my bones are scattered.”
After Our Lord’s wrists, elbows, and shoulders were dislocated, the weight of His body on his upper limbs caused traction forces on the Pectoralis Major muscles of His chest wall. These traction forces caused His rib cage to be pulled upwards and outwards, in a most unnatural state. His chest wall was permanently in a position of maximal respiratory inspiration. In order to exhale, Jesus had to push down on the nails in His feet to raise His body, and allow His rib cage to move downwards and inwards to expire air from His lungs. His lungs were in a resting position of constant maximum inspiration. Crucifixion is a medical catastrophe. The problem was that Our Blessed Lord could not easily push down on the nails in His feet because the muscles of His legs, bent at 45 degrees, were extremely fatigued, in severe cramp, and in an anatomically compromised position.
Despite what is shown in all Hollywood movies about the Crucifixion, the victim was extremely active. A crucified victim was physiologically forced to move up and down the cross, a distance of about 12 inches, in order to breathe. The process of respiration caused excruciating pain, mixed with the absolute terror of asphyxiation. As the six hours of the Crucifixion wore on, Our Lord was less and less able to bear His weight on His legs, as His thigh and calf muscles became increasingly exhausted. [And bear in mind that He had already been scourged until most of His skin was gone, was thus in deep shock, and was then made to march approximately two kilometers while carrying His own Cross. While fully human, Our Lord’s strength during His Passion was unfathomable.]
There was increasing dislocation of His wrists, elbows and shoulders, and further elevation of His chest wall, making His breathing more and more difficult. Within minutes of crucifixion Our Lord became severely dyspnoeic (short of breath). His movements up and down the Cross to breathe caused excruciating pain in His wrists, His feet, and His dislocated elbows and shoulders. The movements became less frequent as Our Blessed Lord became increasingly exhausted, but the terror of imminent death by asphyxiation forced Him to continue in His efforts to breathe [because His suffering had to be maximal – He had to give us absolutely all of His love].
Our Sweet Lord’s lower limb muscles developed excruciating cramping from the effort of pushing down on His legs, to raise His body, so that He could exhale, in their anatomically compromised position. The pain from His two shattered median nerves in His wrists exploded with every movement. Our Lord was covered in His Precious Blood and sweat. The blood was a result of the Scourging that nearly killed Him, and the sweat as a result of His violent efforts to expire air from His lungs.
Throughout all this He was completely naked, and the leaders of the Jews, the Romans, the crowds, and the bad thief crucified beside Him were jeering, swearing and laughing at Him. In addition, Our Lord’s own Blessed Mother was watching this, united to His suffering.
Physiologically, Our Lord’s body was undergoing a series of catastrophic and terminal events. Because Jesus could not maintain adequate ventilation of His lungs, He was now in a state of hypoventilation (inadequate ventilation). His blood oxygen level began to fall, and He developed Hypoxia (low blood oxygen). In addition, because of His restricted respiratory movements, His blood carbon dioxide (CO2) level began to rise, a condition known as Hypercapnia. This rising CO2 level stimulated His heart to beat faster in order to increase the delivery of oxygen, and the removal of CO2. The Respiratory Center in Our Lord’s brain sent urgent messages to his lungs to breathe faster, and Our Lord began to pant. Jesus’ physiological reflexes demanded that He take deeper breaths, and He involuntarily moved up and down the Cross much faster, despite the excruciating pain.
The agonizing movements spontaneously started several times a minute, to the delight of the crowd who jeered Him, the Roman soldiers, and the Sanhedrin. However, due to the nailing of Our Precious Lord to the Cross and His increasing exhaustion, He was unable to provide more oxygen to His oxygen-starved body. The twin forces of Hypoxia (too little oxygen) and Hypercapnia (too much CO2) caused His heart to beat faster and faster, and Our Lord developed Tachycardia. His Sacred Heart beat faster and faster, and His pulse rate was probably about 220 beats/ minute, the maximum normally sustainable. Jesus had drunk nothing for 15 hours, since 6 pm the previous evening.
Our Lord had endured a scourging which nearly killed Him. He was bleeding from all over His body following the Scourging, the crown of thorns, the nails in His wrists and feet, and the lacerations following His beatings and falls. Jesus was already extremely dehydrated, and His blood pressure fell alarmingly. His blood pressure was probably about 80/50. He was in First Degree Shock, with Hypovolaemia (low blood volume), Tachycardia (excessively fast Heart Rate), Tachypnoea (excessively fast Respiratory Rate), and Hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating). Sometime after noon Our Lord’s Sacred Heart probably began to physically fail. Jesus’ lungs probably began to fill up with Pulmonary Oedema. This only served to exacerbate His breathing, which was already severely compromised. Jesus was in Heart Failure and Respiratory Failure. Jesus said, “I thirst” [partly] because His body was crying out for fluids [but also because He was thirsting for souls – both to love them and to be loved by them]. Our Lord was in desperate need of an intravenous infusion of blood and plasma. He could not breathe properly and was slowly suffocating to death. At this stage Our Lord probably developed a Haemopericardium: plasma and blood gathered in the space around His Sacred Heart, called the Pericardium. This fluid around His Sacred Heart caused Cardiac Tamponade (fluid around His Sacred Heart, which prevented it from beating properly). Because of the increasing physiological demands on Jesus’ Sacred Heart, and the advanced state of Haemopericardium, He may have eventually sustained Cardiac Rupture. His Sacred Heart may have literally burst [before being pierced by the lance of Longinus]. Heart failure was probably the [ultimate physical] cause of His death, [while our sins are the true cause of His suffering and death].
When the Romans wanted to expedite death they would simply break the legs of the victim, causing the victim to suffocate in a matter of minutes. This was called Crucifragrum. At three o’clock in the afternoon Our Lord said, “It is consummated.” At that moment, He gave up His Spirit, and He died. When the soldiers came to Our Lord to break His legs, He was already dead. Not a bone of His Body was broken, in fulfillment of the prophecy in Exodus 12: 46. Our Precious Lord thus died on the Cross after six hours of the most excruciating and terrifying torture ever invented, after enduring torture in the twelve hours prior to His crucifixion which, by itself, would have been sufficient to kill any other man.
In this episode, Art and Ann discuss how unctuous charlatans like Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York seem to float to the top like manure in a cesspool. We then list the foods we find most penitential (if Art ever comes over to Ann’s house for dinner, Ann is serving beet and kidney bean salad), and finally take a deep dive into the latest Washington-Vatican parallel, the double invalidity and nullity of the Biden Anti-presidency. Is Antipope Bergoglio’s corpse signing documents with Biden’s auto-pen? Only Cardinal Tucho Fagnandez knows for sure!
As I Have Been Screeching for Years, Timothy Dolan is an Unmitigated Jackass
Realizing how blind people are to fakers and scam artists: The Social Catfish YouTube Channel An absolutely fascinating deep-dive into the effects of narcissism and loneliness.
Could a Bombshell Discovery Render All of Biden’s Presidential Actions ‘Null and Void’?
Jackass Cardinal Dolan calls Lent “Catholic Ramadan”
Feedback: the email address for the podcast is [email protected].
The Infant Jesus of Prague handles Ann’s financial stuff. Click image for details. [If you have a recurring donation set up and need to cancel for any reason – don’t hesitate to do so!]
The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.
He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
To pretend angels do not exist because they are invisible is to believe we never sleep because we don’t see ourselves sleeping.
Better to illuminate than merely to shine.
Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.
If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
To restore man, who had been laid low by sin, to the heights of divine glory, the Word of the eternal Father, though containing all things within His immensity, willed to become small. This He did not by putting aside His greatness but by taking to Himself our littleness.
Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.
Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
The things we love tell us who we are.
In the life of the body a man is sometimes sick, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. Even so in the spiritual life a man is sick on account of sin. For that reason he needs medicine so that he may be restored to health; and this grace is bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance.
Without doubt one is allowed to resist against the unjust aggressor to one’s life, one’s goods or one’s physical integrity; sometimes, even ’til the aggressor’s death… In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one’s life or one’s goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good act, which is the right of the victim.
To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer.
The Church has ever proved indestructible. Her persecutors have failed to destroy her; in fact, it was during times of persecution that the Church grew more and more; while the persecutors themselves, and those whom the Church would destroy, are the very ones who came to nothing. . . .Again, errors have assailed her; but in fact, the greater the number of errors that have arisen, the more has the truth been made manifest. . . . Nor has the Church failed before the assaults of demons: for she is like a tower of refuge to all who fight against the Devil.
If someone knows from experience that daily Communion increases fervor without lessening reverence, then let him go every day. But if someone finds that reverence is lessened and devotion not much increased, then let him sometimes abstain, so as to draw near afterwards with better dispositions.
The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.
Bergoglio is not now nor ever has been the Pope, of that you CAN be sure! 😇
Update addendum from a reader:
“But also always check for selective data windowing on the X-axis, intended to mislead about overall trend information (clearly done here by only looking at more recent data). -J.”