This is a republished reflection on the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, which is also the Commemoration of the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost.

Today's great feast, coming as it does six months, one day prior to Christmas Day, is only one of three in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church that commemorates a physical birth (or Nativity). Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Nativity in Bethlehem in celebrated on Christmas Day, December 25. Our Lady Nativity is celebrated on September 8. And Our Lord's Precursor, the son of Saint Elizabeth, Saint John the Baptist, is privileged to have his own Nativity celebrated this very day. This is a tremendous feast day in the life of the Catholic Church. 

Saint John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, prepared the way for the coming of Our Lord prior to the assumption of His Public Ministry. Freed from Original Sin in the womb of his mother, Saint Elizabeth, who was Saint Anne's cousin, at the moment of Our Lady's Visitation, Saint John the Baptist preached fearlessly to convert sinners from their sinful ways and to prepare them to accept his Cousin, God Incarnate, as their Redeemer. He also knew that he had to decrease in stature in the world as Our Lord increased following His symbolic baptism in the Jordan River, during which, of course, God the Father sent a dove, symbolizing God the Holy Ghost, spoke to tell us in no uncertain terms, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3: 17), a proclamation that would God the Father repeated at Our Lord's Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 5).

Saint John the Baptist fearlessly proclaimed the truth. He lost his head for doing so. In like manner, of course, we must proclaim the truth, doing so out of fidelity to Our Lord as He has revealed Himself to His true Church, and in true Charity for the eternal good of others, recognizing at all times that we are but weak vessels of clay, full of faults and failings, who must make much reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins.

It is not easy to speak truth to those in power. Saint John the Baptist knew this.

Those in power, such as King Herod the Tetrarch, who was married illicitly to his brother's wife even though his brother was still very much alive, frequently believe themselves to be beyond criticism and that each of their decisions are binding upon the consciences of all others, a power that Our Lord has given exclusively to true popes, who can indeed bind our consciences.

Those in civil power, however, tend to think of themselves as demigods whose musings on this or that subject carry great significance. No matter who the President of the United States of America is, for example, it is invariably the case that some sort variation of one false, naturalistic presupposition after another is supposed to be accepted by the populace as the foundation for the common good domestically and for peace internationally. These "demigods" can't possibly be wrong, of course. They believe that their shallow words and empty and sometimes contradictory statements are received from on high (actually, their words and actions come from below!) and anyone who dares to dissent from them is suspect of being a "domestic terrorist."

Finally, yes, we arrived back from a two-week sojourn late Friday evening. Work is progressing on the next original article while I resume work on book projects and other matters. Thank you for your patience during the hiatus, which involved a whole lot of driving to and from my high school class's fiftieth anniversary reunion on Long Island on Friday, June 14, 2019, and Saturday, June 15, 2019. 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Today's republished article, which was written nine years ago now and revised again last year, attempts to draw comparisons between Saint Basil the Great's battles with the Arians and our own battles with the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and their apologists. I had forgotten, prior to re-reading the article, just how many little nuggets from Dom Prosper Gueranger's The Liturgical Year are contained in its text.

Here is one just nugget:

"Peace is just what Basil desired as much as anybody; but the peace for which he would give his life could be only that true peace left to the Church by our Lord. What he so vigorously exacted on the grounds of faith proceeded solely from his very love of peace. And therefore, as he himself tells us, he absolutely refused to enter into communion with those narrow-minded men who dread nothing so much as a clear, precise expression of dogma; in his eyes their captious formulas and ungraspable shiftings were but the action of hypocrites, in whose company he would scorn to approach God's altar. As to those miserably misled, 'Let the faith of our fathers be proposed to them with all tenderness and charity; if they will assent thereunto, let us receive them into our midst; in other cases, let us dwell with ourselves alone, regardless of numbers; and let us keep aloof from equivocating souls, who are not possessed of that simplicity without guile, indispensably required in the early days of the Gospel from all who would approach to the the faith. The believers, so it is written, had but one heart and one soul. Let those, therefore, who would reproach us for not desiring pacification, mark well who are the real authors of the disturbance and so not point the question of reconciliation on our side any more.'"(Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.) 

The authors of disturbance today are not those of us who point out the errors and blasphemes and sacrileges of the conciliar "popes," including Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but those who are silent about and/or enable these offenses, a silence that prevails these days among so many "conservative" and "traditionally-minded" priests and presbyters in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Today, Whit Friday, is an Ember Day, a day of total abstinence from meat and a fast day that obliges all between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-nine, although those of us who are well over fifty-nine should fast out of love for God and the need to make reparation for our sins. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

As noted two days ago, new articles will be few and far between in the next thirteen days. The best that I can do for you today is offer this  slightly revised reflection for the Vigil of Penecost, which is a day of fast for those between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-nine and a day of partial abstinence for those seven years of age or older. This does not mean that those of us over the age of fifty-nine should not fast if able to do so, only that it is not morally obligatory to fast. We should keep in mind that God is most pleased with the souls who give Him more than the minimum required by Church law. We must give Him our all as the consecrated slaves of His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. 

Our Lady of the Cenacle, pray for us.

Although I had been working on a long commentary concerning Special Persecutor Robert Mueller’s parting shots at President Donald John Trump as he exited, excuse me, Snagglepuss, stage far, far left, and was felled most of the past two days by a combination of a virus and some cracked ribs (gee, cracked ribs can always get in the way of a good article, can’t they?), I did manage to notice last evening while opening my computer for the first time during the day after having to deal with major front end problems with a 2018 minivan that the Argentine Apostate was at his religiously indifferentist best during his in-flight press conference from Romania.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio said nothing new in his in-flight press conference from Romania that he has not said before about the Orthodox in particular and false ecumenism in general. However, I have interrupted my writing about Mueller (and will not resume the writing until we return from a trip back to Long Island for my high school class’s fiftieth reunion on June 14, 2019, Whit Friday and Ember Day) in order to start work on a commentary the Argentine Apostate's remarks. The next original commentary contains about as much “new” as befits dealing with the broken record that the Modernist from Buenos Aires deserves.

Oh, come to think about it, I do have another thing or two to say about why I am in no rush to complete my commentary on Deep State’s past and continued efforts to overthrow the results of the November 8, 2016, presidential election. Correction, I only have one thing to say: the effort of Deep State to oppose, thwart and to seek the ouster of President Donald John Trump has given the latter perfect cover to promote the decriminalization of sodomy globally by giving full support to “pride” events that are nothing other than diabolical mockery of the fact that this month of June is the month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

What am I talking about?

This:

As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions that LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invites all nations to join us in this effort! ("Statement by the President.)

One might notice that the "Statement by the President" listed at the White House's official website did not disclose the statement's subject matter. Talk about false opposites. You could have had this with Madame Defarge. It's all a farce. Evil gets advanced no matter who is in the White House. What a farce.

You want to wear the “MAGA” hats?

Be my guest.

Our goal should be to Make America Catholic, a goal that is incompatible with the promotion of one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's forty days' of teaching the Apostles after his glorious Resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday culminated this very day, Ascension Thursday, as He instructed the Eleven as follows before going up into Heaven from Mount Olivet at whose foot He had suffered His Agony in the Garden six weeks before as Saints Peter, James and John slumbered:

"And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing him they adored: but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matthew 28: 16-20.)

'There is no "expiration" date on this command. Indeed, the commentary in the Bishop Richard Challoner version of the Douay-Rheims Bible explains that the command is in force until Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ comes in glory on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead and that His Church could never go astray, meaning, of course, that it is impossible for the Catholic Church to give any impression at all that God is pleased with false religions such as Mohammedanism and Talmudic Judaism, which is what the conciliar "popes" have done consistently in the past fifty-nine years, having reached the point of complete absurdity now under Jorge Mario Bergoglio:

18 "All power"... See here the warrant and commission of the apostles and their successors, the bishops and pastors of Christ's church. He received from his Father all power in heaven and in earth: and in virtue of this power, he sends them (even as his Father sent him, St. John 20. 21) to teach and disciple, not one, but all nations; and instruct them in all truths: and that he may assist them effectually in the execution of this commission, he promises to be with them, not for three or four hundred years only, but all days, even to the consummation of the world. How then could the Catholic Church ever go astray; having always with her pastors, as is here promised, Christ himself, who is the way, the truth, and the life. St. John 14."

The Catholic Church can never go astray. She is infallible. She does not give us any "new ecclesiology" or "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to deconstruct the meaning of dogmatic truth, thus attacking the essence of the nature of God Himself, or false ecumenism. Her pastors do not esteem the symbols and values and places of false religions and they do not engage in "inter-religious" "prayer" services. Her pastors do not teach that false religions have a "right" from God to propagate their false beliefs publicly and they do not praise those false beliefs for being "able" to "contribute" to the building of a "better" world. Pastors of the Catholic Church insist always and at all times that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order with no equivocation, uncertainty, ambiguity or obscurity of any kind. As Pope Pius XI noted in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, there is need to "strain" to "find" Catholicism in the pronouncements made by Holy Mother Church:

"For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. " (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

How has the integrity of the doctrine of the First Commandment been stamped on "minds of the faithful" by the words and deeds of the conciliar "popes"?

Christ the King has taken His throne in Heaven. We must ascend with Him in our thoughts and prayers at all times as we refuse to have our minds and hearts poisoned by the words and the deeds of the false shepherds of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who dare to blaspheme God so regularly and so openly and/or who refuse to open their mouths in defense of the honor and majesty and glory of God when He is so blasphemed and offended.

As the angel made clear to the Eleven as they looked into the sky as Our Lord disappeared from their sight on this day, there is work for us to do:

"They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? But he said to them: It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power: But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. " Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is nigh Jerusalem, within a sabbath day's journey. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Jude the brother of James. All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." (Acts 1: 6-14.)

Yes, we can't stand around all day long looking into the sky. There is work for us to do before Our Lord comes for us at the moment of our own Particular Judgments, which can come at any hour and on any day, and at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead. 

The work that we have to do is to sanctify and to save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church, work that requires us to be attentive to the graces that were won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood and the flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. And to cooperate with the graces that Our Lady sends we must be fortified in prayer, which is one of the reasons that we must keep most assiduously the first Novena in the history of the Church, the Novena to God the Holy Ghost. Our Lady was separated from her Divine Son when He Ascended to Heaven. She was united to Him, however, by means of her reception of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Communion. She was united to the Apostles and the others who prayed in the same Upper Room where He had instituted the Holy Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. She is united to us. She is our Blessed Mother. We need to ask her for all the graces that we need to save and to sanctify our souls as we eschew worldliness, which is the theme of today's substantially revised article, and as we refuse to participate in the fraud of a false religion, conciliarism, that is replete with daily outrages given to her Divine Son, starting with the outrage that is the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service, and as we make much reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Today is also the sixtieth anniversary of my First Holy Communion at Saint Aloysius Church in Great Neck, New York, on Saturday, May 30, 1959. I remember and treasure the day very well. Please pray for my fellow First Communicants, living and deceased, and for the priests and religious, living and deceased, assigned to Saint Aloysius Church and School at that time. Thank you.

A new article, Double-Minded Jorge Knows Every Trick in the Modernist Book, was published early on Wednesday, May 29, 2019, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdelene de Pazzi and the commemorations of the Vigil of the Ascension of Our Lord and of the Rogation Day on which the Lesser Litanies were prayed. 

Finally, I will have a few words to say about the smarmy creature who dwells in the the deepest part of the Deep State's swamp, Rober Mueller, in a few days, who has made it clear that he follows Soviet-style "justice": "You show me the man, I'll show you the crime." The coup is on, and it is rolling at breakneck speed down the impeachment road.

A blessed Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

[Saints whose feasts are not commemorated today because they are impeded]:

Pope Saint Felix I, pray for us.

Saint Ferdinand III, King of Leon and Castille, pray for us,

Saint Joan of Arc, Apostle of Christ the King, pray for us.