This is Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, current head of the U.S. Bishops Conference.

That is, I believe, what is called a “French Manicure”.

Absolutely Sickening.

No civilian has need nor should EVER have access to this!!

The Second Amendment has NOTHING to do with this!!! 😉

The man who fired a semi-automatic weapon inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego on Saturday froze, dropped his gun and sprinted to his car when he saw Oscar Stewart come barreling toward him, yelling so loud the priest at a neighboring church could hear.

“Get down!” Stewart yelled, according to his wife and others who were at the scene. “You m**********r! I’m going to kill you!”

Others who were there later told him it sounded like four or five people were shouting. He thinks maybe an angel was standing behind him and speaking through his voice. When the shooter ran, he immediately gave chase.

Stewart, 51, told The Daily Caller on Sunday he doesn’t remember any conscious thought from the moment he heard the gun shots until it was all over — he just acted on instinct to stop the shooter and prevent him from leaving so he couldn’t hurt more people somewhere else. The Iraq combat veteran said his military training kicked in.

“I knew I had to be within five feet of this guy so his rifle couldn’t get to me,” Stewart said. “So I ran immediately toward him, and I yelled as loud as I could. And he was scared. I scared the hell out of him.”

Read the whole story.

In light of Heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.

-St. Theresa of Avila

I was especially struck by today’s epistle at Mass. This is St. Peter himself speaking to the very people who had clamored and agitated for Christ’s death. But listen to the calm, patient, charitable terms that Peter, quickened and vivified by the Holy Ghost, frames it in to the “men of Israel, and you who fear God”:

Lesson from the Acts of Apostles

Acts 3:13-15; 3:17-19

In that time, Peter opened his mouth and said: Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus, whom you indeed delivered up and denied before the face of Pilate, when he judged he should be released. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you. But the author of life you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And now, brethren, I know that you did it through ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God before had shewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Be penitent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.

If St. Peter could recognize the error and ignorance of the very people who called out for Christ’s Blood, and exhorted them in charity to conversion, then we must recognize the same dynamic at work today with regards to the Bergoglian Antipapacy, empathize, but exhort and encourage through our witness.

It’s a remarkable passage, giving one plenty to think about. Call out the error, empathize with the ones in error, help correct the error through “opening the mouth”, that is explaining and witnessing.

Just putting it in the latest, trendy terms of understatement.

Look at the Angel.  He just slays me with his eye contact.  When you see this in person (it is in the Art Institute of Chicago), the effect is ten times stronger.

And now, as has become tradition, what has become quite possibly my single favorite piece of music ever, Bortniansky’s Cherubic Hymn Number Seven.

Apparently, thanks to Frank Walker over at Canon212.com, a good guy and indisputably the hardest worker (and pretty much without financial compensation) in the so-called “Trad Catholic Internet”, there is the misconception, thanks to an offhand remark I made in Episode #080 of the Barnhardt Podcast, that I want to be the queen of France.  No, no.  After consultation, I have settled my aspirations on being “Grand Duchess of Etruscany and Latium”.  France already has a king – Louis XX, Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou.  His Queen consort is a Venezuelan (how appropriate), Maria Margarita Vargas Santaella.  The Dauphin is their son Louis.

Given that the Medici are extinct, and that all sane people agree that Rome should be administered, from a distance, by a Catholic with German blood, and thus with organizational skills, I would take the title, if offered.  And once per week, at my daily Court Mass (Roman Rite) which would be live-streamed, Bortniansky’s Cherubic Hymn Number Seven would be sung during the Offertory by the finest choir ever assembled (almost certainly Estonian).  And any there present that did not weep copious, pious tears would be flagellated with over-cooked tagliatelle, which they would then be forced to eat.  Without sauce.  Only a little bit of olive oil.  And maybe a bit of pecorino.  We are not a monster, after all.

Now returning to the serious from the land of hearty satire, here is Bortniansky’s Cherubic Hymn Number Seven, with English translation of the lyrics included in the video.

All we that in mystery
Holy Cherubim portray
As the life-creating Trinity
With thrice-holy hymn we adore and praise.
Come, let us cast off all earthly care
And forget every vain employ.

For the King of All comes in triumph
By unseen hosts of angels brought
To us that bid Him welcome.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

And a blessed, blessed Easter to all.  Christ is truly risen!  Alleluia!!!

Here is an Estonian choir performance:

And here is the SOVIET Academic Choir version.  Yes, even the Soviets were insistent upon maintaining this choral tradition.  Stop and think about that relative to our situation today.

Sicut dixit.

As He said.

If God Almighty says something, take it to the bank. This is why the Fruit of the First Glorious Mystery of the Rosary, the Resurrection, is FAITH.

If He said it, it is guaranteed. Every time. No exceptions. No expiration dates.

If the Resurrection doesn’t drive that point home, I reckon nothing ever will.

Resurrexit. Sicut dixit.

As He said.

Alleluia!

In peace in the selfsame I will sleep, and I will rest:

In pace in idipsum dormiam, et requiescam;

For Thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope.

Quoniam tu, Domine, singulariter in spe constituisti me.