Saint Joachim, the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God and the Mediatrix of All Graces, knew the contempt that would be visited upon His Divine Grandson, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, sent himself into voluntary exile after he was denounced by a priest of the Old Dispensation for not producing a child after twenty years of marriage to his wife, our good Saint Anne.

It was during his exile that Saint Joachim was visited by an angel, who reminded him of the fact that Abraham's wife, Sarah, did not conceive a child until she was ninety years old, telling him that his wife, Saint Anne, would conceive a daughter named Mary, who would be the Mother of God. Saint Joachim and Saint Anne brought their daughter to the Temple when she was three years old, giving their long-awaited child back to the good God Who had given them to her so that she could be the Mother of their own Saviour, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This should teach us to do everything possible to foster vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated religious life among our children, so that we can give them back to God so as to yield a spiritual bounty of souls in His service, especially in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

As noted yesterday, the Kindle version of  G.I.R.M Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship. The paperback version has encountered a technical problem requiring revisions of its back cover, which means that its actual publication will be delayed until Tuesday afternoon after changes are made and uploaded (it takes about twenty hours for paperback books to go through the online "review" process). A formal announcement about both versions will be posted at that time. . 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us!

Saint Roch, pray for us.

As noted in the introduction to my revised and expanded commentary on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Taking Her Rightful Place in Heaven, the Kindle version of  G.I.R.M Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship. The paperback version should be available late tonight. A formal announcement about both versions will be posted at that time.

For the moment, however, I have taken the time to format three sermons for this feast day that were written and delivered by Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., around one hundred forty years ago here in the United States of America. 

A republished reflection on the Feast of Saint Joachim will be posted tomorrow, and I will also feature a very short article from 2010 on the mess that has always been "American boots on the ground" in Afghanistan. The 2010 article pretty much summarizes the situation in a country that no foreign empire, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, could ever conquer or reshape into its own image.

Our Lady, Queen Assumed into Heaven, pray for us.

Today is the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Commemoration of the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost She who was conceived without stain of Original Sin and who committed no Actual Sins in her life did not have to have her body undergo the corruption of the grave, although she truly died and was buried after her death.

Separated physically from her Divine Son after His Ascension into Heaven on Ascension Thursday, although she received Him in Holy Communion, Our Lady was Assumed body and soul into Heaven to plead for us with her Divine Son as the Queen of Heaven and of Earth, the Queen to whom every man must pledge his heart's oblation, the Queen whom every nation must honor publicly with Rosary Processions.

 Our Lady wants us to be in Heaven with her for all eternity. She wants our bodies to rise up incorrupt and glorious from the grave on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and Dead so that our bodies can be reunited with our souls for all eternity in the glory of Heaven.

We need to ask her to help us make such perfect reparation for our sins in this passing, mortal vale of tears that we will pay the debt of what we our for our sins now rather than in the fires of Purgatory. We need to ask her to help us to be serious about seeking sanctity as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

What are we waiting for?

A blessed Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you all.

Our Lady, Queen Assumed into Heaven, pray for us.

Finally, G.I.R.M. Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship is now available for sale in its Kindle format: G.I.R.M Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship. The paperback version should be available late tonight. A formal announcement about both versions will be posted at that time.. An original article should appear by the end of this week.

This is a republished reflection on the life of Saint Clare of Assisi that was published oringinally five years ago. The reflection speaks to the timeless virtues of detachment from the world, self-denial, modesty and a total embrace of holy poverty for love of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.

This reflection emphasizes Saint Clare’s rejection of worldliness and worldly pleasures. No matter what our own sins and failings with respect to worldliness might be now and have been in the past, Saint Clare’s life and holy example inspires us to quit the world once and for all and to prepare for the world to come by storing up treasures in Heaven that do not rust or fade away, and that no thief can take away from us.

Finally, I have received news from a reader that Dr. Paul Byrne will speak this coming Sunday, August 15, 2021, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, at Saint Voldymyr the Great Ukarinian Catholic Church, 4 Cottage Place, Utica, New York 13502. Dr. Byrne himself has informed me that the talk is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. but that he might be delayed for a short time until Mass at Saint Thomas More Chapel in Utica has been completed. 

As one who taught at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica during the 1976-1977 academic year, I have many fond memories of my time in the "Friendly City" and I pray for scores of my former students and colleagues there every day. Indeed, my late father's late first cousin, Albert F. "Bud" Droleskey, and his wife Irene lived in New Hartford, New York, just to the south of Utica and were pioneer traditional Catholics in the area as they attended the then Father Clarence Kelly's Masses in New Hartford in the 1970s. (I argued with them on Thanksgiving Day in 1976, but I listened and remembered what they had to say a day after my twenty-fifth birthday. They were right. I was totally wrong!)

I do hope that those in the Utica-Rome area who still access this website will make it a point to listen to Dr. Byrne at Saint Voldymyr the Great Catholic Church in my former place of residence for one year forty-five years ago, Utica, New York.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Blessed Agnes of Prague, pray for us.

This is a brief reflection, written originally in 2009 and revised over the years, to honor our great Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena and also the commemoration of the feast of Saints Tiburtius and Susanna.

Although our Wonder Worker is not on the universal calendar of the Roman Rite, her cultus was confirmed by none other than Pope Saint Pius X. That's good enough for me! Jansenists and rationalists will have to find some other website to surf as this one makes no room for any skepticism about Saint Philomena and the honor and power with which she has been crowned by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This reflection includes text from a 1945 book, Wonder Worker: Saint Philomena, Virgin Martyr, which was written by Cathy Hallack and published with ecclesiastical approbation of the Archdiocese of Dublin, Ireland, in 1945, which takes note of Saint Philomena's vow of virginity, which she made at eleven years of age, and mentions the fact that Diocletian was married to Prisca from 286 A.D. to the time he resigned as Roman emperor in 305 A.D. This means that Diocletian's proposal of marriage was indeed adulterous and bigamous, analogous to that of Herod the Tetrarch himself.

It was thus very touching for us to receive Mass propers for the Wonder worker's feast from an 1898 Missal that included an entire Mass in her holy honor. This gift was sent to us by a friend of ours, one who does not agree with us concerning the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal but has not cast us out into the wilderness and down the Orwellian memory hole as lunatics These Mass propers are a tremendous treasure, one that our friend wanted us to share with true priests so that they can offer her Mass, perhaps as a votive Mass on a ferial day, in honor of our Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena. We thank our friend very much for making these propers available for those true priests who may not have had them prior to now. The link to the Mass text can be found within the body of the republished reflection: Feast of Saint Philomena Mass Propers. A Latin-English translation of these propers completed by Mr. Michael Creighton can be found by clicking here--Latin-English Mass Propers for the Feast of Saint Philomena.)

We are very devoted to Saint Philomena and pray the chaplet in her honor as a family every Saturday evening after Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. I pray her chaplet every day. 

Finally,  yes, I have finished the revising and updating of GIRM Warfare, which leaves me with the task now of reviewing the text for typographical and formatting errors prior to publication. The text has been substantially revised and, in more than a few places, rewritten to reflect the simple fact that, as Dom Prosper Gueranger explained in his reflection on the Feast of Pope Saint Clement I, November 23, that no one can oppose a true pope without "opposing God Himself."

Indeed, Pope Saint Pius X, who raised the Confraternity of Saint Philomena to an Archconfraternity, told Italian priests in allocution given in 1912 that no one could claim to be holy while dissenting from the pope:  

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: “Love the Pope!” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)

"Whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope."

How ironic it is that those within the Society of Saint Pius X (and the groups or priests who have splintered off from it while maintaining the false, Gallican "resist while recognize" position) and others in the "resit while recognize" movement claim that the conciliar "popes" have been true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter while dissenting vocally--and very publicly so--from their teaching and disciplinary decisions.

Saint Philomena wants us to be holy, and no one who is holy can dissent from a true pope no matter how many times they protest that they can and not matter how many decades it has been that oneself or one's group has taken a position that is based on a false ecclesiology that has done, if possible, more harm to the authentic Catholic teaching on the papacy than that done by the conciliar revolutionaries themselves.

We are very devoted to Saint Philomena and pray the chaplet in her honor as a family every Saturday evening after Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. I pray her chaplet every day. 

Our Lady of the Universal Living Rosary Association, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, pray for us.

This is a very brief reflection for this feast of Saint Lawrence the Martyr as I continue to work on the revisions and updating (and much rewriting) of GIRM Warfare.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence Martyr, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney is the patron of diocesan priests, a man who humbly recognized that he was not the brightest pupil, that he was, to use even his own description, slow in his studies. He had great difficulty learning his Latin. Other studies came hard to him as well. He did not give up. Helped by a wonderful mentor, Father Balley, who had worked as a carpenter during the French Revolution so as to hide his identity as a Catholic priest as he offered Mass in various hideaways and without any "communion" with the bishops and priests of the "constitutional church," John Mary Vianney persevered time and time and time again, praying to Saint John Francis Regis for help and guidance.

Yes, he was tempted to quit his studies, believing himself to unworthy of priestly ordination because of his lack of intellectual aptitude. Father Balley told him very pointedly, "You've decided to give in to the devil?"

That knocked some sense into our Saint, and it should knock some sense into any young man today who might have experienced some difficulties and perhaps even gross injustices in their own pursuit of the priesthood.

Never give up. We need priests, especially now in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Always close to Our Lady, Saint John Mary Vianney was brought to the point of his priestly ordination on August 13, 1815. His superiors judged that his moral qualities had overcome any academic deficiencies that would have held others back from being ordained to the priesthood, and they were vindicated in their judgment by the long and devoted service that he gave to the people of Ars.

Oh yes, sure, he tried to run away from his people on three occasions, wanting to seek the solitude of a monastery. Each time, however, he responded to the pleas of his sheep who loved their shepherd, who spent so much time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and in the confessional to hear the confessions of the thousands of people who flocked from all over the world to the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus applied to their souls through his priestly ministry, and returned home to Ars.

Saint John Mary Vianney, who knew failure in his studies for the priesthood, was a firm supporter of the "patron of failures," Pauline Jaricot, the foundress of Society of the Propagation of the Faith and the Universal Living Rosary Association, and zealously devoted to the cause of our great wonder worker, Saint Philomena.

Saint John Mary Vianney spent himself tirelessly in behalf of the flock that was entrusted to his pastoral care. We need to invoke his intercession so that our own true bishops and priests will be fortified by his example as they seek to serve faithful Catholics, the scattering and wandering sheep of this time of apostasy and betrayal, unto eternity.

Finally, today, Monday, August 9, 2021, should be the day I wrap up the long and tedious work of revising and updating GIRM Warfare. The rewrite is ninety-four percent completed, although I am going review the text and add two appendices once that review has been concluded. If the rest of the work goes without additional computer problems, therefore, it is my hope to have a new article for this site by the end of next week and, obviously, I will announce the revised (and perhaps retitled) GIRM Warfare as soon as it is availble for purchase, which could be as early as a week fromnow.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, the Cure of Ars, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us. 

Saint Romanus, pray for us.

Today is the great Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Mount Thabor in the presence of the Apostles Peter, James and John and in the company of Moses and Elias. God the Father repeated the proclamation that He had made as His Co-Equal Son made Flesh in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb was baptized by His cousin, Saint John the Baptist in the Jordan River prior to the assumption of His Public Ministry, "This is My beloved Son, hear yet Him."

Our Lord was transfigured in the glory that He shared with the God the Father and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven in order to show forth His Sacred Divinity to Saints Peter, the first Pope, Saint James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem and the first of the Apostles to be martyred, and Saint James's brother, Saint John, the beloved Apostle and the Apostle of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, to help console them during the events of His Passion and Death. It is our goal to be transfigured in glory for all eternity in Heaven.

The only path to the heavenly Mount Thabor, however, is by climbing atop Mount Calvary every day of our lives, willingly bearing our crosses in reparation for our sins and those of the world as we offer whatever merit we gain for the patient and joyful endurance of these crosses to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Indeed, our climb to Heaven by ascending first to Mount Calvary is signified every day a true bishop or a true priest completes the prayers at the foot of the altar and ascends the three steps (mystically symbolic of the Thee Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity and of the three stages of the interior life) to the altar itself.

If we desire to be transfigured in all glory in Heaven we must, therefore, be willing to be shamed and humiliated by the the ignominy associated with the Holy Cross. The glories of Heaven are worth such temporary shame and humiliation and ignominy, are they not?

May Our Lady, who awaits us in the heavenly Mount Thabor and intercedes for us from there, help us to ascend to Mount Calvary every day in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass so that we can keep her company at the foot of the Cross every day our lives as a a preparation for spending all eternity in the glories of Heaven with her and Saint Joseph and all of the angels and the saints.

Finally, I am able to report that I have completed seventy-five percent of the work of revising, updating, and, where necessary, rewriting GIRM Warfare, which was published originally in 2004 after having been serialized in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos between the end of 2000 and the summer of 2003. It is my expectation to finish the work over this coming weekend barring any new problems such as occurred last week into early this week with the computer, although I will need some time to review the text and to prepare for publication. Thus, I hope to return to the writing of commentaries in about two weeks, although everything that is happening now—and I do mean everything that is happening now—is simply a variation of themes I have addressed repeatedly in hundreds upon hundreds of articles on this website.

A blessed Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Peter, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint James the Greater, pray for us.

Pope Saint Sixtus, Saints Felicissimus and Agapitus, pray for us.

Today is the Feast of Saint Dominic de Guzman, who had such great zeal for souls from his earliest days in seminary. As is well known, it was a conversation with an innkeeper in the Albigensian stronghold of Toulouse, France, changed the whole direction of his priesthood as he sought to win back souls from the darkness of an early forerunner of Calvinism, Albigensianism.

Our Lady, sent by her Divine Son out of the ineffable Mercy that He has in His Most Sacred Heart, which was formed out of her own Immaculate Heart, to bring back the lost sheep (and not to beat up on the sheep when their souls are sorely distressed) out of the new form of Manicheaism that had arisen in southern France, gave Saint Dominic her Most Holy Rosary to the be the weapon to crush the Albigensian heresy. Saint Dominic de Guzman used the weapon of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary very well and taught others how to do so.

Every Catholic, of course, owes a great deal to Saint Dominic, who walked between southern France and Rome several times during his life--and who accompanied two of the first Dominicans, Saints Hyacinth and his brother, Saint Ceslaus, on the first leg of their trip in Italy back to Krakow before he, Saint Dominic, had to turn back.

Pasted below is information sent to me by Dr. Paul Byrne about a program that will run today at noon, Eastern Daylight Savings Time, concerning the gene therapy posion shot. Thank you.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us.

Urgent Press Advisory  

STOP THE SHOT

International Leaders Disclose New Medical Data On Vaccine Risks

AND OTHER Presenters

Mark Harrington with Whistleblower:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cufiMaRq7gs

"COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal" with Nancy Valko, RN, and Dr Paul Byrne, MD,  from Radio Maria USA's  "The Quest for a Culture of Life in America"--->>>  Nancy Valko 20210803

Today is the Feast of the great Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the Patron of Moral Theologians. It was over eleven years ago now that I recorded each of the Sunday sermons of Saint Alphonsus for the "Save Thy Souls" section of Traditional Catholic Sermons.org. It was a very sobering experience as I recognized that Saint Alphonsus was speaking directly to me, condemning my sins and my tepidity.

Ouch.

He certainly gave me what for, and I am grateful that he did so.

This particular reflection was enlarged last year to include three complete sermons composed by Saint Alphonsus de Ligouori. Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists), was particularly emphatic in teaching us that we must avoid sins of human respect. That is, we can show no partiality or favoritism to those in power if they are doing things that put the temporal or, more important, the eternal welfare into jeopardy.

This applies to the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who blasphemes God on a regular basis and considers it his duty in the name of "mercy" to enable hardened, unrepentant sinners in their lives that are leading to them eternal perdition, and to most of his "bishops," men who believe that the sheep are their enemies and that they can stonewall and intimidate the sheep into remaining silent about real and documented abuses of power and real and documented violations of the integrity of the Holy Faith:

"And when there is question of the divine honour, we should not be frightened by the dignity of the man who offends God; let us say to him openly: This is sinful; it cannot be done. Let us imitate the Baptist, who reproved King Herod for living his brother's wife and said to him: 'It is not lawful for thee to have her'--Matt., xiv. 4. Men indeed shall regard us as fools, and turn us into derision; but, on the day of judgment they shall acknowledge that they have been foolish, and we have shall have the glory of being numbered among the saints. They shall say: 'These are they whom we had some time in derision. . . . . We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints'--Wis., v. 3, 4, 5. (Sixth Sunday After Easter: On Human Respect.)

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Pope Saint Stephen I, pray for us.