Memories from early childhood ballet performances. This piece was referred to as “The Snowflake Ballet”, but it is formally titled “Barcarolle” from Les Contes d’Hoffman by Offenbach.
First the instrumental orchestral version, then with voices – a duet of a soprano and a mezzo soprano.
Enjoy!
The PedoClowns are in a BLIND PANIC, y’all.
Read this, and let your laughter be the laughter of confidence. This movie is going to backfire BIGLY.
These demon faggots think we’re going to try to hide this. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. This is a gift. And yes, they’re all so lacking in self-awareness or any sort of tactical vision that they don’t even see their own glorious embarrassment.
Can you imagine Trad Catholics appearing on No Agenda, Tucker and Rogan and just shredding this with laughter AND catechizing at the same time?
I can. I can see it happening easily. 😁
The key is to get good people who aren’t batpoop crazy and are good communicators front and center. Easier said than done, but still very doable. Let’s goooooooo!!
Del Amitri is a Scottish band that had a moment of one-hit-wonderfullness in ‘95 with “Roll To Me”. Just a great, catchy, optimistic, toe-tapping, clean song.
Perfect for packing and moving daze! Enjoy!
Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!
I look forward to posting this every year – it’s so beautiful, and from such a surprising source.
Welp, I’m a Believer
For the next week I’ll be moving to a new, bigger, better place just a few blocks away, but still, all my junk has to be moved. It’s so close that I’m not even using movers. I’m doing it on foot using a pull-cart, and in a few loads in friends’ SUVs. Man, not owning furniture is really wonderful, if you can rent a furnished place, which I’m blessed to be able to do. The biggest blessing of this new place is that it’s for the same rent rate, which I can’t hardly believe, considering the upgrade. The decision to move was a complete no-brainer.
Daily meme posts will continue uninterrupted over at BarnhardtMemes.com , but there will be no Podcast this week, and blogposts might be a bit sparse. We’ll see how efficient I am at packing and dragging. 💪🏻
Here are two songs about moving and home, Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On” and Sam Cooke (with Lou Rawls singing harmony) on “Bring It On Home”. Enjoy!
Today is the Feast of Saint Ambrose of Milan, the great Doctor of the Church, died ARSH 397.
Below are a few choice quotations. All good, certainly, but having the hallmark dish at every American potluck dinner for the past 70 years named after you cannot be understated as an achievement. I mean, Cool-hhhWhip AND marshmallows? Canned mandarin oranges and pineapple? Shredded sweetened coconut? MARASCHINO CHERRIES?
Happy Feast.
Saint Ambrose, pray for us.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking about Christ.
Our own evil inclinations are far more dangerous than any external enemies.
As in paradise, God walks in the Holy Scriptures, seeking man.
Love is like a shadow, one can only catch it by falling into it.
In some causes silence is dangerous.
When we find ouselves in some grave danger we must not lose courage but firmly trust in God, for where there is the greatest danger, there is also the greatest help from Him who wants to be called our ‘Help’ in times of peace and in times of tribulation.
Remember, then, that you received a spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear. Keep safe what you received. God the Father sealed you, Christ the Lord strengthened you and sent the Spirit into your hearts as the pledge of what is to come.
True repentance is to cease from sin.
Law is twofold — natural and written. The natural law is in the heart, the written law on tables. All men are under the natural law.
The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims, ‘This is My Body.’ Before the blessing of the heavenly words something of another character is spoken of; after consecration it is designated ‘Body’. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it is spoken of as something else; after the consecration it is spoken of as ‘Blood’. And you say, ‘Amen’, that is, ‘It is true.’ What the mouth speaks, let the mind within confess; what the tongue utters, let the heart feel.
To be content, to find true love, is what essentially drives us all, but if found, would it be recognized?
Blessed, plainly, is that life which is not valued at the estimation of outsiders, but is known, as judge of itself, by its own inner feelings. It needs no popular opinions as its reward in any way; nor has it any fear of punishments. Thus the less it strives for glory, the more it rises above it. For to those who seek for glory, that reward in the shape of present things is but a shadow of future ones, and is a hindrance to eternal life, as it is written in the Scriptures: ‘Truly I say to you, they have received their reward’
It was not by dialectic that it pleased God to save His people.
We ask for what reason our Lord was unwilling to state the time of His coming (cf. Mk. 13:31-32). If we ask it, we shall not find it is owing to ignorance, but to wisdom. For it was not to our advantage to know; in order that we being ignorant of the actual moments of judgment to come, might ever be as it were on guard, and set on the watch-tower of virtue, and so avoid the habits of sin; lest the day of the Lord should come upon us in the midst of our wickedness.
Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas, and I’d like to take the opportunity to revisit a concept that always gets me a lot of grief when I bring it up, but I am absolutely determined in this: PLEASE DON’T LIE TO CHILDREN ABOUT SANTA CLAUS.
Or, put more simply, PLEASE DON’T LIE TO YOUR CHILDREN, PERIOD.
Think about it: Christmas is THE most important holiday of the year for children. For most children, receiving presents is THE top feature of Christmas, and the Nativity of Our Lord is secondary, and I’m not attacking anyone in this – it is very natural. In the mind of a Christian child Christmas is “I get presents (primary) because the Magi gave Baby Jesus presents (secondary).”
So, the entire holiday celebrating the birth of Christ revolves around gift giving and receiving for children. Now, do we really think it is a good idea to completely tie up in this a massive lie that the child’s presents were miraculously delivered by St. Nicholas? Let’s take the most important Christian holiday in the mind of a child and turn it into one giant exercise in deception… BY THE CHILD’S OWN PARENTS?
Folks, the Eighth Commandment exists for a reason. When people are lied to, and the lies are discovered, as the lie of “Santa bringing gifts” is as a veritable rite of passage for children, this causes the person in question to be scandalized into LOSING FAITH. Being lied to leads to a loss of faith. In this case, the loss of faith comes between the child and the parents/adults. What a HORRIBLE thing. I cannot understand why any parent would ever do ANYTHING that would cause their children to lose faith and trust in them. How is that anything other than completely awful? Why would anyone NOT shudder at the thought of driving ANY wedge between themselves and their children?
In this case, the damage can clearly be extremely grave. A child looks at Santa and Christmas and thinks, “Well, if Santa was a lie, then Jesus is probably a lie too. They’re just waiting to tell me until I’m older, or that I’ll figure out that Jesus is just a story too.” And for children being raised Catholic, obviously this would also be projected by the child onto the Eucharist. “Oh, that’s just a story, like Santa Claus bringing presents. The bread and wine isn’t ACTUALLY Jesus. That’s just something they tell kids, like Santa bringing presents.”
So what do I think parents should do? Tell your children all about St. Nicholas and all of his miracles. By all means, decorate your house with St. Nicholas. Just don’t tell the children boldfaced lies about the source of their presents under the tree on Christmas morning. It isn’t difficult. JUST. DON’T. LIE.
What about talking to children about horrific things like sexual perversion, rape and abortion? Do we need to traumatize children by telling them everything about these and other terrifying sins? Of course not. But we should be honest. For example, if a six year old asks about one of these crimes, one could say:
“I can’t tell you exactly what that means right now, because it is very scary and might give you nightmares – it is scary to adults and gives us nightmares sometimes. Someday I will tell you, but not yet, because I don’t want you to worry. These are things that adults have to worry about, not children of your age. But I will explain it to you, probably when you are thirteen or fourteen. But not now.”
JUST. BE. HONEST.
PLEASE. DON’T. LIE.
Even to children. Especially your own children. Ever. Breaking a Commandment isn’t “cute”. Tying the practice of Christianity to outright deception in the mind of a child BY HIS OWN PARENTS is NOT COOL.
I’m pretty sure St. Nicholas would agree with me on this one, and I would imagine that he is less than thrilled with what the post-Christian consumerist west has done with his name and likeness.
As a bonus, here is a WAAAAAAAY back pre-SuperNerd Podcast I recorded in December of ARSH 2013 wherein I discuss exactly this. The Santa Claus topic begins at the 28:55 mark. The embed below SHOULD be cued up.
As always, I hope this helps.
St. Nicholas of Myra, pray for us!
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!
(Repost by request. This piece was originally written in February ARSH 2017, and has aged like fine wine. I have updated it to reflect Pope Benedict’s death and the needless vacancy of the Petrine See these 705 days and counting. As always, I hope this helps. –AB ’24)
People are losing their faith.
They are losing their faith because a man who is not the pope is masquerading as the pope, people are calling him the pope, and he is an agent of evil, enacting a satanic, Freemasonic, sodomitical agenda, and tearing the Church apart before their eyes.
They are losing their faith because they are being asked, and now even browbeaten into violating the Law of Non-contradiction, namely that they must be in unity and submission to a specific man, Jorge Bergoglio, as a condition of unity to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, while Bergoglio himself is an open apostate, demanding apostasy and schism to be in union with him; that Bergoglio is simultaneously the standard of unity AND vector of schism, that Bergoglio is simultaneously a thing AND its ontological negation.
As if this categorical irrationality weren’t enough, the drum is now being beaten that if one does NOT accept that the Petrine Promise is either void and has been all along OR that Our Blessed Lord reneged on the Petrine Promise nearly twelve years ago, then YOU are a “faithless” person. That’s right: believe obvious lies, violate the Law of Non-contradiction, and believe that Christ is a faithless liar who puts people in Catch-22 positions… to prove what a good, faithful Catholic you are.
And nevermind the man who wore white, called himself and was called by others “Holy Father, Pope Benedict”, who lived in the Vatican, gave “my Apostolic blessing”, and clearly stated that he was only renouncing the “active governance” of the Church while remaining inside the “enclosure of St. Peter”, in his “novel” attempted partial resignation in order to “fundamentally transform the papacy into a collegial, synodal, shared ministry.”
And especially ignore the fact that the Roman Curia is being exposed daily as a den of Freemasonry, sodomy, money laundering, and murderous violence.
Nevermind the Good Shepherd Discourse. Follow the wolves with voices of Satan himself… to prove what a good, faithful person you are. You can’t lose! God will reward you!
Nevermind the Gospel, wherein Our Lord warns that false prophets – that is, IMPOSTORS – will lead astray, if possible, even the Elect.
Nah. Prove how strong your faith is by… being led astray, because there will be no consequences for allowing yourself to be deceived! Jesus will love you all the more… for believing that Jesus Himself is a faithless hireling who lies and feeds His sheep to the wolves for sport. That’s right. If you confess Christ to be an oath-breaking, capricious liar and lover of lawless chaos, and it is the College of Cardinals that are “infallible” with the capacity to sanate and ratify not just illegal, invalid conclaves, but also illegal, invalid papal resignations, then you will totally SAIL through your particular judgment. You betcha. Makes perfect sense.
</sarcasm>
I get emails and I know other bloggers get these same emails, because I have seen them address them. Badly. Well, here is an amalgamated sample of the things I hear. And below is a FIRM ANSWER. Not some idiotic nonsense and effeminate bleatings and mewlings about, “Well, don’t bother your pretty little head about “Pope Francis”, just focus on the other good popes! Adopt a pope! Read all about Leo XIII and pay no attention to “Pope Francis” while he drives your children, grandchildren, friends and enemies into hell. Just look away and pretend it isn’t happening!”
Isn’t the pope supposed to be supernaturally protected from ever doing even a fraction of the satanic, evil things this man is doing on a near-daily basis? Didn’t Jesus say that Peter was the Rock upon which He would build His Church? Didn’t Jesus say that he had prayed specifically for Peter and that this prayer extended forward to ALL of the popes? Is it all just a lie? Is the Church a lie? Is the papacy a lie? Is Jesus a lie? Is God a lie?
We pray and pray and pray for “Pope Francis”, and yet it just keeps getting worse! Tell me why I shouldn’t lose my faith!
Of course God hears our prayers. Every one of them. He even hears the groaning of our souls that we aren’t even consciously aware of, or able to articulate in words. The problem is with us, and in this case, what we are praying for.
“Caitlyn” Jenner is a man named BRUCE Jenner. So we have a problem right off the bat. There is no such person as “Caitlyn Jenner.” Yes, God knows that when someone says “Caitlyn” Jenner they are referring to Bruce Jenner, but in calling Bruce Jenner by his drag queen name, it is clear right off the bat that the person in question praying the prayer has a completely disordered connection to objective reality, and in this case, sexual morality.
THEN, when a person asks God to “make Caitlyn Jenner the prettiest woman in the world”, because the petition is not only asking God to ratify, support and magnify public mortal sin and scandal, but is primordially detached from OBJECTIVE REALITY, namely that Bruce Jenner is A MAN, NOT A WOMAN, well, what do you think God does with such petitions? How do such clearly immoral petitions, detached from reality, square or jibe with God’s Perfect Holiness, His Perfect Justice, or His being the Author and Sustainer of Reality Itself?
Now, God is omnipotent and can certainly do whatever He wants, but He is also RATIONAL, and thus is always internally consistent. Scripture POUNDS on this truth of God being IMMUTABLE – that is, UNCHANGING. His IMMUTABLE WILL is intimately tied up with His RATIONALITY. That is why we can trust Him, His Promises, and His Law.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
I think the Bruce Jenner example makes the concept easier to understand, but it maps precisely to asking God to make “Pope Francis” a good Pope. First, “Pope Francis” IS NOT THE POPE AND NEVER HAS BEEN, so how can God make an Antipope, and in this case a non-Catholic man, a “good pope”? This defies the Law of Non-contradiction.
In the case of the Bruce Jenner example above, beauty is a good thing, in fact, beauty is an attribute of God Himself. For women to be authentically beautiful is certainly an intrinsically good thing. HOWEVER, in the case of Bruce Jenner, the “beauty” being asked for is a false, inauthentic, inverted beauty, tied directly to a lie. It is actually a scandalous monstrosity for a man to ape the beauty of women, so even though beauty qua beauty is good, to twist beauty into a satanic mockery of beauty is pure evil.
This concept is called corruptio optimi pessima, that is, corruption of the best thing is the worst kind of corruption. And make no mistake, the Papacy is a VERY GOOD THING. It is a priceless gift from the Divine Bridegroom to His Holy and Spotless Bride, the Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
Such is the case with Antipope Bergoglio. We all want a good Pope, but asking for that attribute in the context of an ANTIPOPE is simply irrational. Bergoglio IS NOT the pope, so what, exactly do you expect God to do with your petition that he be “a good pope”? Once again, here we are right back at the Law of Non-contradiction.
What we all should be praying for is that ANTIPOPE Bergoglio be removed, and that Bergoglio repent of what he has done, that he REVERT TO CATHOLICISM, that he die in a state of grace in the fullness of time, and that Bergoglio someday achieve the Beatific Vision.
Now there’s a petition completely in accord with reality that God can work with. And the odds don’t matter. Remember Lepanto. What matters most is whether or not what we are asking God for is in line with Reality and His Perfect Will and Justice.
Now, after reading this, can not every single one of you look back upon your lives and see numerous instances in which your prayers, in retrospect, turned out to be based on a false premise, or asking God to bring about, strengthen or maintain something that was sinful? I know I can. “What I want” is not by virtue of itself a valid petition that God can or will answer. The key with prayer – MATURE PRAYER – is the discerning of the specific petition in and of itself. Does it make sense? Is it rooted in Reality and Truth? Is it perfectly Just? Is it in accord with God’s Will?
This is why prayers for “Pope Francis” to be “a good pope” are not only not doing any good, but are actually causing people to lose their faith. All false premises, eventually, after enough logical corollaries, lead straight to hell, straight to the feet of satan, “the father of lies”. This Antipope Bergoglio thing is going to get MUCH worse. I think the odds are high that he is the False Prophet Forerunner of the Antichrist, and that he is instrumental in setting up a OneWorldReligion tied directly to the NewWorldOrder (DeepState/U.N/Soros/Gates, etc.). He is going to split the Church and institute a new “liturgy”, which, it seems probable, will be the “abomination of desolation”. People who cling to the false premise that this man is the Vicar of Jesus Christ on Earth will, it seems to me, either lose their faith if they haven’t already, or go completely bonkers, because there is only so much irrationality and internal contradiction that the human psyche can bear before it snaps.
Oh, and do not, under any circumstances, stop going to Mass, even if priests sneeringly mock and try to goad you into such. Go to Mass, and if/when “Francis” is erroneously commemorated at the Te Igitur in the Canon of the Mass, beg Our Lord to give YOU any temporal punishment the MIGHT be due the priest, if it will help. Imitate Our Sweet Lord, as He was being nailed to the Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Imitate Our Blessed Lord in the Garden: “Give it to me, because they’re worth it.”
Never leave the foot of the Cross. Never leave the side of the Blessed Mother.
Neither is now, neither ever was, and neither ever will be.