The Importance of Exposing Children to Sacred Art

Our children are growing up in a world that no longer appreciates true beauty. When they are finally exposed to true beauty through the various mediums of fine art, they are unable to process and critique it. And instead of appreciating it, it all seems to them to be – quite frankly – boring.

Many studies have shown the intellectual benefits of stimulating a child’s brain through the fine arts, whereas constant exposure to the simplistic and base entertainments inhibits their growth. This in itself is something parents should be concerned about. But now consider what a constant diet of ‘junk art’ must do to their souls... Read entire article here.

Pope Francis: Satiating The World's Desire To Feel Love

I have to admit that I get very uncomfortable when people get googely-eyed over Pope Francis and praise him excessively, as if he were the first good Pope in history. Don't get me wrong - I love Pope Francis...but I also love Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II. I have great affection for many popes who have gone before us. These vicars of Christ have the weight of the world on their shoulders but have managed to remain extraordinarily holy, wise, disciplined, and humble. The world will never fully realize the struggles of the papacy, with all of its challenges, anxieties, and responsibilities. Maybe I read too much into things, but it sometimes seems as though people's obsession with Pope Francis is an indirect negative critique of previous popes. But this article reminded me that in a world literally starved for authentic love, Pope Francis makes it tangible for us.

From Little Catholic Bubble:

Pope Francis burst into our comfortable neatness and encouraged us to "make a mess" -- by leaving our books and debates and pristine doctrines for a time and going out into the streets and byways to meet our fellow human beings exactly where they are.

The world "likes" this pope, not for the doctrine and morality he teaches and preaches (which is no different from what came before), not because of ordered thought and careful words, but because he seems to care and listen and love. He seems relatable and real, and more like a loving grandpa in the neighborhood than a Supreme Pontiff on a throne.

But let me stop right here, lest anyone misunderstand: It's not that his predecessors did not love and care for and ache for every soul on the planet! Oh, how it boils my blood when people misunderstand the mystical, saintly JPII who embraced all mankind, or when they malign the shy and kindly Benedict, a quiet and gentle introvert. It's simply that Francis moves the world in a different way, and I think it's that he makes people feel something first, before he makes them think something.

For so many reasons, the soul of modern man is desperate to feel, and feel profoundly.

Read entire article here.

Against Black History Month by Charles C. W. Cooke

The question here is not so much whether blacks have disproportionately suffered historically — they have — or whether we still feel the legacy of that — we do — as it is whether the correct response to that suffering is to segregate black history into a separate branch of the curriculum or a single month on the school-year calendar. On most indicators — income, employment, education, incarceration, homeownership, etc. — black Americans still do worse than white Americans. But the notion that Black History Month must remain in force because there are still racial problems in America is a non sequitur. If there is still too little “black history” taught in America’s schools — or if “black history” is being taught incorrectly — then we should change the curriculum. If black Americans remain unfairly in the shadows, then the solution is to bring them out, not to sort and concentrate them by color.
Click here for full article.

Persecuted Church in Pakistan

Says Archbishop Saldanha, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, “Haroon’s story illustrates a new trend that underlines the difficulties and pressures of living in a land where extremism is growing and there is little tolerance for people who are non-Muslims.” To demonstrate just how real the threat is, 500 Christians recently received anonymous letters warning of violence if conversion to Islam was not completed within 10 days. In addition, Christian girls are being abducted, forced into marriages with Muslim boys and told to convert or else. “We Christians are citizens, just like everyone else, and wish to have the same rights,” adds Archbishop Saldanha.

Click here for full story.

Please consider supporting Aid to The Church in Need in their mission to help the faithful overcome religious persecution around the world.

Your Tax Dollars Encouraging Teens To Be Promiscuous

Tax Payer Funded Planned Parenthood Tells Teenagers, 'It's Great to be a Slut.'

...Let’s see how encouraging teens to be promiscuous plays out for Planned Parenthood:

- Millions of taxpayer dollars in PP bank accounts

- PP executives in top 1.5 percent of household incomes nationwide
- Kids brainwashed by “sex positive” messages
- Kids become sexually active at very young ages
- Their health is ravaged by STDs (more money for PP)
- Out of wedlock pregnancies result
- Planned Parenthood goes in for the kill—abortion—generating much, much more money
- Repeat the scenario over and over
- Planned Parenthood gets filthy rich
- Kids corrupted by Planned Parenthood
- Wedge driven between parents and children
- Kids’ souls stolen by sexual promiscuity
- Their health ravaged by STDs
- Hearts deadened by multiple hook-ups and resultant heartbreak
- Kids depressed and suicidal
- They engage in drug and alcohol abuse
- Children/grandchildren killed inside Planned Parenthood facilities without the knowledge or permission of adult family members
- America stands on the precipice of depopulation and financial collapse due to lack of younger workers to support an aging population

Now let’s see how this plays out for families:

- Families have no money because the government gave it to Planned Parenthood
- Kids corrupted by Planned Parenthood
- Wedge driven between parents and children
- Kids’ souls stolen by sexual promiscuity
- Their health ravaged by STDs
- Hearts deadened by multiple hook-ups and resultant heartbreak
- Kids depressed and suicidal
- They engage in drug and alcohol abuse
- Children/grandchildren killed inside Planned Parenthood facilities without the knowledge or permission of adult family members
- America stands on the precipice of depopulation and financial collapse due to lack of younger workers to support an aging population

Full story here: Tax Payer Funded Planned Parenthood Tells Teenagers, 'It's Great to be a Slut.'

Avoiding The Cross Is The Essence Of The Demonic

"Avoiding the cross is the essence of the demonic." - Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen  

Why, in our modern world, is there a refusal to accept the Cross?  Why do so many Christians accept the Trinity or the Resurrection of Christ, and yet balk at His Cross?  They know that His Death and His Blood are what saved us from sin; yet they accuse Catholics of placing too much emphasis on the Cross because we display crucifixes in our churches, homes, and schools, and because we say that the Mass is the same Sacrifice as the Sacrifice of the Cross.  Why does Western Civilization embrace "Christ without the Cross"?  Why does our modern world try to turn Christ "into a 'Communist Commissar' who promises nothing but bread"?  Why does our modern world want "the Christ without the Cross . . . a weak, effeminate Christ unable to save us from sin"? Why, even as Catholics, do we shrink from viewing the Mass as a Sacrifice and want instead to speak of it as a sacred "meal"?  Why do we turn away from the Crucifix, why do we replace the Crucifix with the strange figure of the Risen Christ bursting forth, not from the tomb, but from the cross? 

What does it mean that our modern world only wants Christ as long as they don't have to have His Cross, too?  What kind of Christ is this that the world wants?  In The Priest Is Not His Own, Sheen explains what Christ is reduced to when the world accepts Him but refuses to accept His Cross:    

None of those are the true identity of Christ; He is our Savior, our Redeemer from sin, Who came to earth to suffer--on the Cross--in atonement for our sins.  The Cross is the instrument on which Christ won salvation for us through an excruciatingly painful death, and showed the height of His Love in His Sacrifice for us.  This is why we refuse to accept the Cross: we're uncomfortable with that for which it stands.  Just as a heart is a symbol of love, so too, the Cross, at its most basic level, is a symbol of pain and suffering, as Sheen explains in The Eternal Galilean:    

This problem of pain has a symbol, and the symbol is the cross.  But why is the cross typical of the problem of suffering?  Because it is made up of two bars, one horizontal and the other vertical.  The horizontal bar is the bar of death, for death is prone, prostrate, flat.  The vertical bar is the bar of life, for all life is erect, upright.  The crossing of one bar with the other signifies the contradiction of life and death, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, pleasure and pain, our will and God’s will.  The only way a cross can ever be made is by laying the bar of joy against the bar of sorrow; or, to put it another way, our will is the horizontal bar, God’s will is the vertical bar; as soon as we place our desires and our wills against God’s desires and God’s will, we form a cross. Thus the cross is the symbol of pain and suffering.   

And what would Christ be without the Cross?  Another teacher like Buddha or Lao-tzu; a sociologist spreading whipped cream on socially disapproved behavior; a psycho-analyst reducing guilt to a complex and banishing sin as a "hangover" from savagery; a preacher too polite to mention hell or divorce; a reformer for whom all discipline is masochistic and who proclaims self-restraint and moderation as unnatural and in conflict with the biological urge to self-expression.

Excerpt from the Theological Librarian's post on "The World's Response to the Cross."

It Takes A Certain Kind Of People, Living Indispensable Virtues, To Make The Market And Democracy Work

'Missing greatness,' it turns out, is not just a function of who’s in charge. It’s a result of democratic citizens’ not paying attention. Or worse, it’s the result of citizens’ suffering such severe ideological glaucoma that they cannot see what is in front of them.  

And even if our cultural slide into a cheerful Gomorrah is not, as my second correspondent suggested, 'irrevocable,' the effects of the culture of the imperial autonomous (and government-subsidized) Self on our politics must be reckoned with, as Republicans, conservatives, and all those who felt a real emptiness settling upon them at 11 p.m. EST on Tuesday night think through the economic reconstruction, the restoration of fiscal sanity, and the exercise of global responsibility that must be part of a post-Obama America, now unhappily deferred until at least January 2017....  

It takes a certain kind of people, living certain indispensable virtues, to make the market and democracy work so that justice, prosperity, and human flourishing are the net results of freedom. That elementary truth — recognized by the Founders, ignored by the newly reelected administration, and avoided by libertarians and Republican campaign consultants — has to be at the center of the conversation about the American future, and about playing good defense during the next four challenging years.

- George Weigel

Click here for full article.

Post-Election Thoughts

"It is going to be very difficult for us to win elections in a nation that is so dependent on government. This victory was not secured last night. This victory was secured in the 1930s when Franklin Roosevelt passed Social Security... 

The United States of America is passing away...the world is passing away. Jesus Christ is still on the throne, despite who is in the White House. We cannot lose heart, especially as pro-lifers, as Christians. 

Continue to run the good race knowing that your cause is just. Only through prayer will this country be transformed." 

- Rushad Thomas

Massive Voter Fraud Reported in South Florida

At this same polling station, certain other individuals, whose signatures failed to match the voter data, were asked for address information. If the voter responded with either erroneous address information or didn't know their address, the poll worker then, according to Mrs. Sori, turned the computer screen towards the person in order to verify the address in question, which is also clearly against voter laws in Florida.

In other instances Mrs. Sori witnessed individuals, whom she had recognized earlier, coming in for a second round of voting later that same day in addition to busloads of individuals being transported in from other areas of Broward County. In one particular instance, Sori interfered with the repeat voter by confronting the polling site manager. The individual then admitted that he had voted earlier that day and was sent on his way. The problem was only exacerbated by the fact that Mrs. Sori and her follow poll watcher witnessed these instances of voter fraud repeatedly throughout the following three days of early voting in Florida.

- Barry Secrest Reporting @ The Examiner.

Massive Voter Fraud Reported in South Florida: click here for full story 

On Christians Who Refuse To Join A Party

If one more person reminds me that God does not have a political party I think I am going to scream. 

I think it goes without saying that showing more loyalty to a political party than to God is unacceptable. 

Almighty God has placed us in a Democratic Republic with a two party system. Getting involved in politics and choosing a side is transforming the culture. The more we pretend that we are above the system and above politics, the farther we get from actual transformation. The reason we have a sub-par nominee in the Republican Party is because too many Christians sit on the fence and declare that their allegiance is to God and not a party. 

With all due respect, OF COURSE your allegiance is to God and not a party. Membership in a party does not in any way detract from your loyalty to God. Last time I checked, when you register to vote you don't sign a document saying you will never disagree with or question that party's platform or practices. Membership in a party gives you the ability to have a voice in the party. 

Option #1: Disconnect from the political atmosphere by declaring you are a member of "God's party" while the two real-life, actually existing parties go toe to toe in the culture war (very convenient...).

Option #2: Analyze both parties and determine which one is more in line with God's will. Which one advocates the breaking of the 10 Commandments? Which one is more supportive of the family unit (the building block of society)? Which one rejects the very God you claim loyalty to? Which one supports grave moral evil? Which one alludes to the disbelief in objective Truth? (Notice that which one your great uncle John always voted for is not one of the criteria).

Does the party which is most in line with God's will have to be 100% perfect? No. And perhaps the reason it is not more in line with God's will is because Christians are sitting on their hands waiting for a perfect option to be handed to them when it is their duty to be the salt and light they are so anxiously awaiting.

Prayer - A Plan for Beginners

1. Minimum requirements of prayer

The two most important daily prayers are the daily Rosary and the Morning Offering. These should be consistent in your daily prayer life. Never let go of these two exercises. 

Rosary

It is hard to imagine anyone not committed to a morning offering and a daily rosary.

Say the rosary every day.

Morning Offering

If we do not start every day in prayer we will be in effect destining our day to selfishness.

If you have a Smartphone, download an app called "Streaks." Everyday that you say your morning offering and pray your Rosary, tap the calendar day to check the day off, this way you will see your consistency and it will give you motivation to carry on even when you do not feel like it. If you do not have a Smartphone simply use a real calendar and X off days that you have accomplished your morning offering and Rosary.

2. The Three Hail Mary's Devotion

Once you are faithful to these two crucial exercises you can begin to add additional prayers to your day. A most powerful devotion is the Three Hail Mary's. This is most effective especially in the area of attaining purity and protection from all mortal sin. Special graces are given to souls who practice the Three Hail Mary's.

Say three Hail Mary's in the morning and three at night with the invocation: "Mary my mother, preserve me from mortal sin this day/night." Do not forget this little invocation. 

3. Moving forward

Once you are faithful in the above tasks, add these spiritual exercises to your routine. Do not simply remain in your current spiritual state, always be moving forward:

• Spend a few minutes kneeling in silence each day in front of a Crucifix, image of Christ or ideally, in front of Jesus Himself in the Blessed Sacrament to seek His will.

• Begin the practice of mental prayer. For more information on how to enter into mental prayer please click here.

Do not over complicate this process and do not take on too much at once. Begin with the morning offering and Rosary and then build upon that. Pray to Our Lady to teach you how to pray and to give you the discipline necessary to develop and maintain a fruitful and deep prayer life. The Holy Spirit will begin to invite you to deeper levels of prayer. Once you are faithful to the concrete necessities (morning offering, daily Rosary, Three Hail Mary's devotion, mental prayer, silent adoration) then you will be able to hear and answer the call to contemplation. 

Take peace and invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, your Guardian Angel, Our Lady, St. Joseph, and your patrons. Hold fast to your exercises, and be patient with yourself: remember that you cannot learn to run before you learn to walk.

Turning Students Into Saints With St. John Bosco

We cannot make kids love Jesus in the Eucharist. Only God can do that. Pope Paul VI said that people are going to listen to a witness more than they are going to listen to a teacher. The only reason they will listen to their teacher is if their teacher is a witness.

If someone were to sit in a class and say "we believe that this is really, truly, and substantially the Body and Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ - under the form and the matter of bread and wine..." that's good - we need to teach them that - but that is not going to change their hearts and it is not going to change their lives.

A witness is somebody who challenges those individuals to go and see and test it out for themselves. Our Lord is not going to say "Oh, the kids came to see Me and they're really open right now, I'm not going to speak to their heart, I'm going to let them walk away saying 'He's not really here.'"  That's not going to happen. People shouldn't believe what we say. People who believed in Jesus had some type of experience with Him. What we need to be witnesses first and foremost of, is daring them to [seek that] encounter. Constantly asking them:

• "Well, why don't you try it?"
• "You try everything else, why not try this?"
• " Wouldn't it make a huge difference if God was really there?"
• "I mean...if God was really there...wow. That would really change a lot of things."

And then allowing them to see that what we are teaching, we believe, by the way we act.

There are going to be consequences to this. There are going to be consequences for living our Faith. And the consequences are going to be very positive. 

If we look at our children, especially in the middle school age: they are coming from broken families, they're coming from schools where it is very rough and very tough...there's fighting and there is bad language all around them. They are not going to read the [religious] text books for the most part. 

They are coming from situations where God isn't even important and [we] don't even know why their parents decided to put them in CCD. Maybe they wanted the evening off or something. 

So, what they are going to have to see is light. And it is going to be easy for them to see light because they are in darkness...

Our witnessing is not so much, "yeah...this is what we believe and it's worth living" but it is also "It is worth giving everything to. It is worth throwing down your life."

There are four main things that we should be witnesses of:

1. Christ is really present in the Eucharist. That He is really God and that He is really a person and we need to make regular visits to Him. (Our goal is to make our students saints. We only have an hour [or so] to do that...how are we going to do that? That is God's responsibility. We just do the best we can and God will work with that. He will.)
2. The Sacrament of Confession...Satan has managed to desecrate all of the Sacraments with false teachings and half truths, so that most people - especially young people - go to the Sacrament of Confession and commit sacrilegious Confessions. So, their Confession doesn't help sanctify them - it further damns them. Because in order for your Confession to be valid, you have to list the kind and the number. So, what exactly did you commit? "I looked at pornography four times and committed masturbation four times." They have to be specific. A lot of times, young people will say things like "uhhh...I did some bad stuff....with my girlfriend...and uhhh...you know...I lied to my mom..." and they will leave one or two things out. Like "Oh, I told him the majority, I told him the gist." But that is not a valid Confession. That is a sacrilegious Confession. Instead of getting any of your sins forgiven, now you've piled on more sins for mistreating the Holy Sacrament that can have everything erased. It's like you're not really sorry. When you are really sorry you say what it is you are sorry for "I'm sorry I backed into your car," "I am sorry I called you a name..." You are specific when you are sorry about something. And then you promise not to do it again.  A lot of our Confessions are sacrilegious. 
3. Authentic Marian devotion. DAILY ROSARY. The Rosary is a mini-Bible. If they do it correctly and are meditating on the life of Jesus...wow. 15 minutes a day thinking about Jesus's life. That would be a dream come true if a kid did that every single day. It would change his life. We have to be praying it ourselves. Mary will help convert their hearts.
4. Follow the Pope. 

 -- transcribed from this video by Gabriel Castillo:

Desecration Of The Eucharist & Sacrilegious Communions

It is a bedrock Catholic truth, taught by the Church since the time of the Apostles, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

The Council of Trent defined dogmatically that Our Lord Jesus Christ is present in every part of the Blessed Sacrament. The Council taught infallibly: 

“If anyone denieth that, in the venerable Sacrament of the Eucharist, the whole Christ is contained under each species, and under every part of each species, when separated; let him be anathema.” 

This means that Our Lord is present even in the smallest particle of the Host, and in the smallest particle that may fall to the ground. Thus the reverence that we owe to the Blessed Sacrament demands that we take every precaution that no particle of the Host — not even the smallest — is left open for desecration in any way...

This reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, and even for the smallest particles, was incorporated into the traditional Mass — the Old Latin Mass — which contained strict rubrics on this point: 

1. From the moment the priest pronounces the words of the Consecration over the Sacred Host, the priest keeps his forefinger and thumb together on each hand. Whether he elevates the chalice, or turns the pages of the missal, or opens the tabernacle, his thumb and his forefinger on each hand are closed. The thumb and forefinger touch nothing but the Sacred Host 
2. During Holy Communion, the altar boy holds the paten under the chin of those receiving Communion, so that the slightest particle does not fall to the ground. This paten is cleaned into the chalice afterwards 
3. After Holy Communion is distributed, the priest scrapes the corporal (the small linen cloth on the altar) with the paten, and cleans it into the chalice so that if the slightest particle is left, it is collected and consumed by the priest 
4. Then, the priest washes his thumb and forefinger over the chalice with water and wine, and this water and wine is reverently consumed to insure that the smallest particle of the Sacred Host is not susceptible to desecration.

...what happens with Communion in the hand? 

The Host is placed in the hand, which is not consecrated. The communicant picks It up with his own fingers, which are not consecrated. The sacred particles fall to the ground, are stepped upon and desecrated. -- J. Vennari

We can see with our human reason that when receiving Holy Communion in the hand, particles are left stuck to the hand and after the communicant makes the sign of the cross are then brushed onto the floor. The communicants behind them do the same and then step on the particles that are brushed onto the floor in front of them. 

If a communicant chooses to receive on the tongue out of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, they are still walking behind those who are receiving on the hand, and therefore stepping on the particles which contain Jesus Christ whole and entire. This is widespread, weekly - often daily desecration by the parish community. Even though most of them have good intentions and have no idea they are desecrating the Eucharist, this is what is happening.

St. Teresa of Avila tells us that desecration of the Eucharist and/or receiving a sacrilegious Communion can result in a complete loss of the theological virtue of faith. Also, it can result in diabolical possession. This is not only happening with lay people but with the clergy.  

When people hear what St. Teresa of Avila said about diabolical possession, desecration of the Eucharist, and receiving sacrilegious Communions, they think "well that's not going to happen, that's not possible." 

It's not like when you receive Communion unworthily the devil is going to come out drooling all over the place. That's not the case. Signs of spiritual infestation are not [drooling and convulsing] - those are rare circumstances. 

The real signs are: 

1. hardening of heart
2. denial of the truth 
3. resistance to the truths of our faith

Where do we see these? Everywhere! -- Gabriel Castillo

We have an obligation to encourage our parish community to carefully examine their hands for particles if they insist on receiving Communion in the hand. We cannot say they cannot receive in the hand, because the bishops have allowed this, but we must point out that desecration is occurring and therefore the faith of the parish community is at stake.

The hardening of heart, denial of truth, and resistance to the truths of the faith can already be seen in the phenomenon of cafeteria Catholicism and rejection of Divine teaching revealed to us by God.

Undeniably, there is a prevalent spirit of "picking and choosing" infallible teaching and dogma. I believe that this is a direct result of desecration of the Eucharist.

Your Light Found My Bottle In The Night; Gave Me Second Life. You Found Me Once And For All; I Laid It Down In The Sinking Ground

You woke the morning up
Running off my darkest night
The longest fight I've seen
Here goes a chance I know
Cashing in on all my chips
Let all my ships come fly

These days, a little bit longer than the last
And all of His ways, a little bit stronger than the past
And Your light, found my bottle in the night
Gave me second life, kept me in this fight

And I won't back down
I won't turn around and around
And I won't back down
Doesn't matter what comes crashing down
I'm still gonna stand on solid ground

You found me once and for all
I laid it down in the sinking ground
The hopeless undertow
Singing out the gentle sound
Rattling through my smoking screens
My broken dreams last night

These days, a little bit longer than the last
And all of Your ways, a little bit stronger than the past
And all of Your light, found my bottle in the night
Kept me in this fight and gave me second life

And I won't back down
And I won't turn around and around
And I won't back down
Doesn't matter what comes crashing down
I'm still gonna stand my solid ground 

Hallelujah ripped through my veins
I heard the hammer drop
My blood in the rain
Hallelujah came like a train
When all is lost
All is left to gain

I won't back down

And I won't turn around and around 

And I won't back down

Doesn't matter what comes crashing down

I'm still going to stand my solid

Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

Questions To Ask An Obama Supporter

Here are some questions to ask an Obama supporter.


Are you for the largest tax increase in world history?
Do you want gas prices to be akin to the ones you see in Europe?
Do you believe that America should be more like Europe, instead of America?
Do you think an Ivy League Professor or a proven CEO can create more jobs?
Do you believe that we have classes in America, like the rich and poor, or that we are all just Americans?
We both know the government spends money like a kid in a candy store and that is it is irresponsible. That being said, How do you feel that Obama is biggest government spender in Us history?
Do you like more money taken out of your paycheck and given to the government?
Do you think the bowing to a Saudi dictator who slaughters his people in the streets shows leadership?
Do you think that sending a US ambassador to the Hirmoshima bombing commemoration, to apologize for the US bombing Japan with nukes, which was to prevent a land invasion of Japan which would of cost many American and Japanese lives, do you think that shows leadership?
Do you think that allowing the Muslim Brotherhood who have links to Al Qadea, to take power in Egypt and then congratulating their government on winning the elections, does that show leadership?
And then the one that always stumps them. Name three things Obama did to help the economy, that actually helped the economy.

Have fun! - Justen Charters