For your “Just Too Cool” file, a reminder of a beautiful detail from the Resurrection: the significance of the “napkin” that wrapped Our Lord’s head in the tomb.

Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin that had been about His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place.
John 20: 6-7

Over the transom came an explanation that a reader heard in a homily:

It was Jewish custom in the relation between master and slave that the dinner table was prepared with a cloth that was to be used as a napkin of sorts, sitting by the other utensils. After dinner, if the master was finished with his meal he would wipe his hands and face, and then crumble up the cloth and leave it near the plate. This was the signal to the slave that the master was finished and had left the dining area.  If however, he folded the cloth and left it a bit farther away from the plate, it indicated he would be returning to finish his meal.

We see this today in table etiquette, particularly when eating in a fancier restaurant.  If one gets up mid-meal, the convention is to either fold the napkin and leave it beside the plate, or to leave it upon the cushion of the seat.  This signals the waitstaff that the guest will be returning, and in more elegant restaurants, if the napkin is left on the chair, the waitstaff will re-fold and place the napkin on the table awaiting the return of the guest, or replace the napkin entirely.  When one gets up to leave, the napkin is left crumpled on the table.

This neat folding of the “napkin” indicating the Return of the Master is echoed in the Mass, of course, when the priest replaces the folded Corporal into the burse.  

Interestingly, the Pall (the small starched square of linen which covers the Chalice) represents the stone that sealed the tomb.

Breakfast of champions, right here. A glorious pick-me-up, and for those who might have had gin after the Vigil, a bit of the hair of the dog. (I did not – I had bubbly 🍾🥂)

And yes, we heard ALL. TWELVE. PROPHECIES. last night. It was… glorious.

Happy Easter! Christ is truly risen!!!!!!

The Cimabue:

Juice of a red grapefruit or blood orange, freshly squeezed

Stout Splash of Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Top with any bubbly white or rosé: Prosecco, Franciacorta (Italian Champagne) or Champagne

And here’s the non-negotiable kicker:

Finish with SALT, preferably freshly ground.

The salt gives it not only incredible flavor, but needful electrolytes.

Remember, this is called the “Cimabue” (CHEE-ma-BOO-ay).

I have served it in Champagne coupes, martini glasses and large flutes. Even a large format red glass with a stem would work well. And don’t forget the SALT!!!

Antipope Bergoglio declared Thursday at the Chrism Mass he polluted with his presence that “nostalgia for times past” is a “sin against the Holy Spirit.”

And since the Antipope and very possibly False Prophet Forerunner of the Antichrist is the poster child for error, inversion and lies, let us engage in some nostalgia. I give you the skyline of Manhattan, Easter, ARSH 1958. The three crosses of Calvary.

If New York survives, hopefully we can live to see the day when things like this are done again.

He was scourged until skinned, severely enough to kill any other man, then marched several kilometers carrying a huge piece of wood, then crucified while already in shock, and then hung asphyxiating for three hours, in your place, out of completely gratuitous love for you, personally.

How about, just for today, not eating? Out of penance, and respect for Our dying Lord and Savior. Just drink water. Zero food. I promise you won’t die. Jesus died. But you won’t, because not eating for 24 hours isn’t exactly being scourged and crucified.

The traditional fasting discipline for Good Friday (and Ash Wednesday) is a total Fast from food, that is for able-bodied adults to eat absolutely nothing. Nothing.

Tenebrae is the liturgical highlight of my year, and every year something new jumps off the page at me. This year for Tenebrae of Good Friday morning (anticipated Thursday night) it was the Responsory after the Third Lesson of the First Nocturn.

I had planted thee a noble vineyard;

* How then art thou turned into a degenerate plant, which willest that Barabbas should be released unto thee, and that I should be crucified.

℣. I fenced thee, and gathered out the stones from thee, and built a tower in the midst of the land.

A degenerate plant we are indeed. And this leads into a repost by request of the reminder about what the name “Barabbas” means…

So one of my absolute favorite, make-the-hair-on-my-arms-stand-up dynamics is when God, in His perfect and unsearchable Providence, causes even His enemies to testify, unknowingly but unmistakably, to His Godhead and His infinite love. For me, these episodes are even more compelling and convincing than levitating saints (St. Philip Neri, my direct patron, for example).

This tidbit comes from  Dr. Mazza’s Church History Course.  This is something that I feel like I SHOULD have known, but when Dr. Mazza said it, I was so shocked and overjoyed that I think there is no way I could have forgotten something so cool.

Let’s go back to Pontius Pilate’s court.  Pilate knows Our Lord is innocent and does NOT want to execute Him, but the Jews, led by the High Priest and the Sanhedrin have threatened Pilate – they have threatened his life, and almost no one today understands this. Pilate was terrified for his life and the life of his family, which Mel Gibson alluded to in “The Passion of The Christ” in the scene between Pilate and his wife, Claudia, in which Pilate expresses the pressure he is under from Rome. But even Gibson’s treatment doesn’t fully explain how deep Pilate’s fear was.

Did you know that there was a man named Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who was the head of the Praetorian Guard, and was essentially the number 2 to Tiberius Caesar? When Tiberius withdrew to the Isle of Capri in ARSH 26 (some of you may have been to Capri as tourists, apparently it is very beautiful), Sejanus was left to essentially administer the entire Roman Empire.  Sejanus, not Tiberius Caesar, APPOINTED PONTIUS PILATE the governor of Judea.  So Pilate was Sejanus’ boy, not Tiberius’.  Sejanus was executed by Tiberius in AD 31 because pretty much everyone suspected Sejanus of plotting to take over.  SO, when the Jews, led by the High Priest and Sanhedrin in Pilate’s Court yelled out to Pilate…

“If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar’s friend. For whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar.” — John 19: 12

…what they were doing was threatening Pilate’s life – they were threatening to have Pilate and his entire family “canceled” and “Arkancided” by denouncing him as not loyal to Tiberius, and rather loyal to the Sejanus faction.  “Not Caesar’s friend,” but rather “Sejanus’ friend.”  Which would have meant torture and execution for Pilate, and his family.

Isn’t. That. Interesting.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, non?

And just so we’re clear, as we heard in the Sixth Lesson of Tenebrae of Thursday night-Friday morning, St. Augustine says that Pilate, even under intense coercion of his own torture and death and that of his family is still guilty, but less so than the Jews. Yes, succumbing to coercion, even the most severe coercion, does not absolve guilt. WE MUST DO THE RIGHT, NO MATTER THE COST.

“By the very fact of doing what he did, Pilate became a sharer in their crime; but compared with them he was much less guilty.”

But Pilate was still guilty. Because “much less guilty” is still guilty. WE are called by Our Lord to “be perfect”, that is, to not succumb to coercion AT ALL. It’s not okay to fold in fear, find an easy way out, and wash your hands of the mess, being content with being merely “much less guilty.” Pontius Pilate is NOT a moral example to anyone. In fact, he is a dire warning against the temptation to succumbing to coercion.

NOW, for the amazing part.

Pilate, as we all know, NOT wanting to execute an innocent man, but desperate (and now we know exactly why) to appease the Jews led by the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, tried to appeal to the annual “release one prisoner” Jewish tradition.  And we all know the prisoner that was offered was Barabbas.  And as we all know, the Jews, led by the High Priest and the Sanhedrin cried out: “Give us Barabbas!”

STOP. Do you know what the name BARABBAS means?  I’m ashamed for not making this connection. Dr. Mazza laid this out for us:

“BAR” means “the son of” in Aramaic.  As in Peter’s original name being “Simon Bar-Jonah” – Simon the son of Jonah.  “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah!” Matthew 16: 17.  The Apostle Bartholomew is “the son of Timothy”, Bar-Timaeus.

And we should know what the Aramaic word “Abba” means from Our Lord’s words in the throes of His Agony in the Garden: “And He saith: Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee: remove this chalice from Me; but not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” –Mark 14: 36

“Abba” means “father”.

So the criminal Barabbas’ name literally means “Son of the Father”.

So Our Blessed Lord, standing beside Pilate on the loggia of Pilate’s palace, looked down into the packed courtyard, upon Israel, the historical proxy for mankind, led by the High Priest of the Temple, and they shouted with murderous hatred and narcissistic rage:

“GIVE US THE SON OF THE FATHER!”

And then…

“LET HIS BLOOD BE UPON US AND UPON OUR CHILDREN!”

And Our Lord, infinite power, infinite LOVE, infinite mercy, said…

Amen. So be it.

And so it was, and so it is.  And so we ARE redeemed, and so we might be saved.  

God is so powerful that His Providence causes even His most intransigent enemies to unwittingly testify to His Godhead, and His Sacrificial Love.

(And we worry about the likes of Antipope Bergoglio and his Antichurch, or the New World Order, or the Deep State in Washington…?)

This moment is made manifest at EVERY Mass, because the Mass is the bending of space-time behind a supernatural veil such that the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Our Lord’s Passion is made literally present upon the altar.  This moment in which the the entire Church cries out, “GIVE US THE SON OF THE FATHER! LET HIS BLOOD BE UPON US AND UPON OUR CHILDREN!” occurs at the elevation of the Chalice. Angels come and dip supernatural hyssop branches into the Precious Blood in the Chalice and sprinkle the world, and the Poor Souls in Purgatory, AND YOU, with Our Lord’s Blood, the Blood of the Lamb.

Now you know why I prefer to be in the front row at Mass. Maximum angelic sprinklage.  I’m only about 30% kidding.  At every elevation of the Chalice, I now say inaudibly, “Give us the Son of the Father.  Let His Blood be upon us and upon our children!”  I have said “Let His Blood…” for many years, after a conference in Denver in which the visions of St. Gaspar del Bufalo were shared.  But now I complete the moment with, “GIVE US THE SON OF THE FATHER!”

And THIS, friends, is why we GO TO MASS.  We go to Mass because Our Lord stood at the top of Pilate’s steps and fallen man (which is me) begged for Him and His Blood – not even knowing what they were actually saying or doing.  But Our Lord knew, and knew what Love demanded, and what we all need and want:  HIM.  Our Lord knew why He created mankind, and the entire universe for man, in the first place.  And Our Lord in His Providence even had the infinite Mercy to arrange for fallen man, “THE DEGENERATE PLANT”, mired in sin and consumed with hatred for Him, to testify to His Divinity and the Power and Glory of His Blood.

And Our Lord said, “Amen.” So be it.

If you aren’t teared up, you should be.

Here is Gibson’s version of the incident.  This clip is good because there are no subtitles.  Now that you know exactly what was going on, and EXACTLY what was being said and by whom, it is far more powerful without the subtitles.  And consider – Our Lady, there present in the courtyard with St. John, certainly “got” what was being said, and St. John very probably understood too.

And now, so do you. (Thanks, Dr. Mazza.)

“GIVE US THE SON OF THE FATHER!”

As always, I hope and pray this helps. Even just one person.

Here is a picture of the Palm Sunday Procession of the St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Philadelphia in ARSH 1958.

Every layman in this picture is black. St. Charles Borromeo was, at that time, in a black neighborhood. For those who know Philly, it’s at 20th and Christian on the South Side.

THIS is what black inner-city Philly was like in ARSH 1958.

The world today is so fallen, so impoverished, that if any one of us were to be transported there, for just a few hours, we would think that we had experienced a foretaste of heaven. There is nowhere left on this planet today that has 1% of the class and Christian civility that you see in this picture of inner-city Philadelphia, sixty-five years and five days ago. Look at how the people are dressed, and how the lad servers are comported. Consider how within seven years, LBJ’s Great Society was at full war against American blacks, in twelve years, it was all gone, and within fifty years… well. Some things are so foul and reprehensible that they can hardly be discussed, and the Rap/HipHop anti-culture is near the top of that list.

Never before in postdiluvian human history has so much been lost so fast.

The weekend before His Passion, Jesus went and stayed with His friend Lazarus (whom He had raised from the dead) and Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary. Mary brought out a very expensive flask of ointment for the dead and applied it to Jesus’ feet with her hair. The whole house was filled with the sweet smell of that ointment. And guess who gets all mouthy about this? Yep. Judas Iscariot – who already was planning to sell out Jesus, and had been planning on cashing in on Him since the miracle of the loaves and fishes a few days earlier. Specifically, when Our Lord told the people that they must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, and kept repeating it over and over and over again to be sure that everyone understood that He meant it literally, Judas (with urging from satan) decided that Our Lord was nuts and started planning to betray Him and profit from it. That whole episode is in John chapter 6. Read it.

Back to Lazarus’ house in John 12. Judas gets all holier-than-thou and complains that the flask of ointment could have been sold for 300 pence and “given to the poor”. Does this not sound like the godless Marxist liberals of today who are so quick to tell everyone else what they should be doing with their money and assets, all in the name of the poor, of course?

(Cough)

Then, an absolutely delightful verse – verse 6:

“Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things therein.”

Um, hello? The Holy Ghost is talking to us. Are we listening? That verse should make the hair on your arms stand up. Is this not a PERFECT mapping to our contemporary situation?

You have a “disciple” who doesn’t really believe in Jesus or what He says – he just pretends to because he thinks he can gain power and wealth by associating with Jesus for now. He’s just working the “Jesus angle”. But everything he is doing behind the scenes is working in direct opposition to Our Lord. Now, this “disciple” starts trying to appear pious and devout by pontificating that all wealth and resources should, by definition, be redistributed to “the poor”. But in truth, he is just a thief.

(Cough cough)

Now here is the key passage from Jesus Himself:

“Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of My burial. For the poor you have always with you; but Me you have not always.”

First of all, Our Lord says, “Let her alone.” (Sinite illam.)

Judas has appointed himself the arbiter of wealth and asset distribution and has decided that Mary’s flask of ointment (or the cash value thereof) should have gone to “the poor”. And Our Lord says, “Let her alone.”

It is hers to do with as she (and her family) sees fit, and they have seen fit to use it to anoint their beloved Jesus.

Judas, sit down and shut your proto-Marxist piehole. THWAP!

(Cough cough cough)

In the next phrase, Our Lord explains economics in eight words (FIVE in Latin):
“For the poor you have always with you.”
(Pauperes enim semper habetis vobiscum.)

What does He mean? Does He mean, “Bah, forget the poor! Live it up!”

Absolutely not. What He is explaining is that in all morally sane societies, wealth will always exist within a SPECTRUM.

Let’s compare a “poor” person in the U.S. to a “poor” person in Bangladesh. A poor person in Bangladesh lives in the gutter without so much as a cardboard shelter to sleep under. They are sick from malnutrition and starvation. They probably dress in rags, and certainly do not own a pair of shoes. Bathing only occurs when they can immerse themselves in a river, which is opaque with sewage. They own nothing except the rags that they wear. Every day is a struggle to get a bit of clean water and enough food to merely survive. That’s a poor person in Bangladesh.

What constitutes a “poor” person in the former U.S.? A poor person in the former U.S. does not have cable. A poor person in the U.S. might not have a laptop, ONLY a smartphone. A poor person in the U.S. receives food stamps, medicaid and a welfare check. A poor person in the U.S. is probably significantly OVERweight, and smokes cigarettes. A poor person in the U.S. drives a car that is so old that it came with a factory in dash CD player. A poor person in the U.S. lives either in a trailer or a HUD apartment complex. A poor person in the U.S. almost certainly DOES have a smart phone with high speed internet connectivity.

Understand that on a percentage level, these two descriptions are equivalent. A “poor” person in the U.S. has a standard of living that would be considered luxurious in Bangladesh and other impoverished countries. The notions of “wealth” and “poverty”, by logical and mathematical definition, exist within a SPECTRUM. And no matter what we do, that spectrum will always, always exist. That is what Our Lord is saying. There will always be a top-end, and there will always be a bottom-end.

In some nations (like Bangladesh), that spectrum is very broad and reaches very far down into poverty, indeed. There are billionaires in Bangladesh, and there are people starving in the gutters in rags. In the former U.S., we certainly have a wealth spectrum, but the low end is much higher and the spectrum is much narrower. We have many billionaires, but our lower-end is nowhere NEAR as low as Bangladesh’s.

The point is, no matter how much you bring up the bottom-end, there will ALWAYS, by mathematical definition, BE a bottom-end. If the bottom-end were a $100,000 per year household income and a $300,000 home in today’s dollars, then a household with a $100,000 income and a $300,000 home would be considered “poor”, called “poor”, and Marxists would tell those “poor” that they were being “oppressed” and “deserved” and were “entitled to” a $500,000 annual household income and an $800,000 home. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

(Cough cough cough cough)

Someone is always going to have more money and assets than somebody else. It is impossible to have a free society wherein every person has exactly the same level of wealth. Someone has to be the business OWNER, and someone has to be the EMPLOYEE. Someone has to be the wage PAYER and someone has to be the wage EARNER. If everyone in a culture were economically equal at all times, there would be zero employment because no one would work for anyone except themselves. You can’t have a company with 1000 CEOs. Conversely, you can’t have a company that is nothing but entry-level laborers. Someone has to be responsible. Someone has to sign the paychecks. Someone has to determine the course of the business. Someone has to risk their assets and wealth to start-up the company in the first place. And, at the other end, someone has to scrub the toilets.

The only way to get true, complete equality of wealth would be to KILL EVERYBODY.

Stupid Rabbits. Stop obsessing about the baby killing. My friend and consultant Prof. John Schellnhuber says there are 6.5 BILLION too many of you…. Go get your booster!

Since we know from Our Lord that there will always be a wealth spectrum, it is obviously disordered to eliminate said spectrum and collapse it down to a single point of “economic equality”. To do that would collapse the society itself and result is chaos and poverty for ALL. (Ahem, MARXISM, TYRANNICAL OLIGARCHY, VENEZUELA, cough, cough.)

The ideal is a healthy wealth spectrum that is always moving higher through growth and moral technological advancements and innovations, is open-ended on the top side, but has an intrinsic morality such that the top-end of the wealth spectrum always makes certain that the bottom end advances apace and that the spectrum maintains its proportional width – or even narrows a bit. This is achieved through personal charity AND through a moral, lawful, CHRISTIAN society that allows for movement both up AND down the spectrum. Yes, up AND DOWN.

The top-end cooperates with the bottom end to enable upward mobility for those who work hard, and are innovative. Conversely, if someone on the top-end does not work hard or is dishonest in his dealings, he can and will fail and slide back down the spectrum.

This freedom of movement within the spectrum – both up AND down – is essential. Trapping people on the low-end (ahem, cough, WELFARE STATE, CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY, FREEMASONIC-BERGOGLIAN ANTIPAPACY, cough) is equally as immoral as the disgusting oligarchical upper-classes who think themselves immune from morality, the rule of law or personal responsibility (ahem, cough, SOROS, PALO ALTO, AND ENTIRE POLITICAL CLASS, cough, cough).

So, there you go. Economics as explained by our Blessed Lord in five little words while He was hanging out at His friends’ house having supper the weekend before He suffered and died to redeem mankind. And proof that Judas Iscariot was the intellectual father of Marxism and of scumbag thieving politicians in general.

I hope this helps.

Have a blessed Holy Week!