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?

Also available for reading on this feast day are: Three Sermons for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J. 

Well, at least there are no more indictments to be handed down against former President Donald John Trump. The latest set of indictments will be the subject of the next original commentary on this site before I return to the subject of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

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

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

Among the news that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has made recently is that a conference on “man-made climate change” is going to take place in three months in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the scene of his apostate “Document on Human Fraternity” on February 4, 2019. Abu Dhabi was chosen because it is supposedly a “neutral” location.

Well, we cannot be “neutral” about the Catholic Faith nor can we be “neutral” about the junk science presented as fact by the climate change ideologues who are Marxists dressed up in green clothing to depopulate the earth and subject those who survive the purge of the zenith of God’s handiwork to a slavery that will make of them mere creatures of the elitist class to be exploited until their “usefulness” has expired.

This is a long commentary, which is why it took me longer than I had expected to complete. I will offer a shorter commentary on Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s recent trip to Portugal for “World Youth Day” in a few days, although I plan on writing at least two other commentaries before then.

Anyone out there willing to make a non-tax-deductible financial gift in support of this work?

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Eusebius, pray for us.

This is a republished reflection on the life of Saint Clare of Assisi that was published oringinally seven 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. 

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. 

Pope Saint Pius X, who raised the Confraternity of Saint Philomena to an Archconfraternity, told Italian priests in an 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 "resist 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. 

The next original commentary should appear by tomorrow, the Feast of Saint Clare of Assisi.

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. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence Martyr, pray for us.

A republished reflection about Saint John Mary Vianney was posted earlier today, Tuesday, August 9, 2023, although I will discuss the little-known fact of the Cure of Ars’s recantation of his initial refusal to accept the apparition and the message of Our Lady of La Salette at some point in the near future, perhaps even in the next original commentary that I will start writing later today.

For the moment, however, I find it necessary to reply to the irrationality and ignorance of those Catholics who believe everything that Donald John Trump or his surrogates contend is so.

In this regard, therefore, this political scientist with an earned doctorate in the field who taught American National Government and Politics at the college/university level for over thirty years is reprising factual information about the process of electing the President and Vice President of the United States of America, including the fact that state legislatures, which are given the constitutional authority to choose the method of electing their states’ presidential electors, have chosen the method of popular elections for the choosing of said electors, and that there is no constitutional or statutory basis for a vice president of the United States of America to send a state’s certified electoral vote back to a state legislature for “reconsideration.” This has never happened. The authorization to do this does not exist in the provisions of either the Constitution or the pertinent Congressional enactments pertaining to presidential elections.

As some people are incapable of making proper distinctions, it is important to note that to state this is not to endorse anything about the Catholic apostate turned “evangelical” Protestant neoconservative war hawk and friend of the natural security state named Michael Richard Pence, who himself was one of Anthony Fauci’s chief enablers and who never met a pharmaceutical product that he did not endorse unqualifiedly, including the killer “vaccines.”

To state that Pence had no authority to reject certified slates of electors is not to endorse Pence in any way other than to state he had no authority to do what then President Donald John Trump wanted done and, had he done so, the action would have been overturned unanimously by the Supreme Court of the United States of America and, not so unimportantly, have been the cause of widespread civil unrest, if not bloodshed, fueled by the same kind of “community organizers” who destroyed government property during what were called the “George Floyd” riots in the summer of 2020 with the full-throated support of the anti-Catholic, rabidly pro-death bigoted ignoramus named Kamala Harris.

The place to have litigated the claims of election fraud was on the floor of the Congress of the United States of America as the electoral votes were counted by the Vice President of the United States of America acting in his capacity as the President of the Senate before a joint meeting of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Such a litigation was made impossible by what happened on January 6, 2021.

Donald John Trump committed no criminal acts in the two months leading up to January 6, 2021, but he did exercise poor judgment and listened to cartoon figures who were incapable of seeing the prudence in raising the issue of electoral fraud before organizing to defeat such fraud four years later without giving the sort of ammunition that Soviet-style political hacks armed with the power of subpoenas and the ability to convene grand juries are using against him at this time.

Catholicism is the one and only means of human salvation and it is the only true means of providing a just social order, admitting, of course, that the vagaries of fallen human nature are such that there will always be problems, whether great or small, as a result of the Actual Sins of Men. The extent of social problems depends upon the extent to which men attempt, despite their own weaknesses, to cooperate with the graces won for us by Our Lord during His Passion and Death and that are administered unto them by the working of God the Holy Ghost through by means of Sacramental and Actual Graces to reform their lives and to make reparation for their sins. Catholicism is not a panacea. It is, however, the necessary precondition for a just social order, whose maintenance depends upon the free will choices made by individual men and their readiness to submit themselves entirely to Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls.

The spirit of the American founding, therefore, is both Protestant and Judeo-Masonic, and it matters not how many of the founders were Freemasons as each was affected by the spirit of Masonry regardless of their membership (or lack thereof) in one of the lodges. This spirit of Judeo-Masonry is cancerous, which is why it is irrelevant for Catholic defenders of the founding principles to seek to exonerate their heroes because not all of them were Freemasons. Pope Leo XIII explained in Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884, that it is not the membership in Masonic lodges that matters. It is Freemasonry’s all pervasive spirit of religious indifferentism and naturalism that matters, and that spirit of Freemasonry infects many Catholics without their even knowing it, something that has been the case from the very beginning of this nation.

Here is what Pope Leo XIII wrote in Humanum Genus on this point:

For, from what We have above most clearly shown, that which is their ultimate purpose forces itself into view -- namely, the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas, of which the foundations and laws shall be drawn from mere naturalism.

What We have said, and are about to say, must be understood of the sect of the Freemasons taken generically, and in so far as it comprises the associations kindred to it and confederated with it, but not of the individual members of them. There may be persons amongst these, and not a few who, although not free from the guilt of having entangled themselves in such associations, yet are neither themselves partners in their criminal acts nor aware of the ultimate object which they are endeavoring to attain. In the same way, some of the affiliated societies, perhaps, by no means approve of the extreme conclusions which they would, if consistent, embrace as necessarily following from their common principles, did not their very foulness strike them with horror. Some of these, again, are led by circumstances of times and places either to aim at smaller things than the others usually attempt or than they themselves would wish to attempt. They are not, however, for this reason, to be reckoned as alien to the masonic federation; for the masonic federation is to be judged not so much by the things which it has done, or brought to completion, as by the sum of its pronounced opinions. (Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884.)

Yes, it is the sum of the "pronounced opinions" of Judeo-Masonry that matters, not any specific program or line of action, although there have been programs and lines of action (the establishment of public schools and the mandating of curricula of study, legislation liberalizing divorce, attempts at imposing laws forbidding the wearing of clerical garb in public and of the operation of parochial schools, the promotion of contraception and abortion, the rapid “normalization” of civil “marriage” for those engaged in perverse acts against nature, all other manner of licentiousness in civil law and public culture) that members of the lodges have undertaken over the course of this nation's history that were meant to be detrimental to the Faith. The Judeo-Masonic spirit convinces even believing Catholics that the social encyclical letters of our true popes don't apply to the United States of America, and that simple statements of Catholic truth, including the one below from Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, have been made "obsolete" over the course of time:

For there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.) 

Some Americanist Catholics have been so bold over the years as to assert that the Church has no business at all in pronouncing that she has universal principles for the governance of men and their nations that are binding upon the consciences of all men at all times, thus showing themselves to defect from the Faith by refusing to accept these plain words of Pope Pius XII in Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958: 

Assuming false and unjust premises, they are not afraid to take a position which would confine within a narrow scope the supreme teaching authority of the Church, claiming that there are certain questions -- such as those which concern social and economic matters -- in which Catholics may ignore the teachings and the directives of this Apostolic See.

This opinion -- it seems entirely unnecessary to demonstrate its existence -- is utterly false and full of error because, as We declared a few years ago to a special meeting of Our Venerable Brethren in the episcopacy:

"The power of the Church is in no sense limited to so-called 'strictly religious matters'; but the whole matter of the natural law, its institution, interpretation and application, in so far as the moral aspect is concerned, are within its power.

"By God's appointment the observance of the natural law concerns the way by which man must strive toward his supernatural end. The Church shows the way and is the guide and guardian of men with respect to their supernatural end."

This truth had already been wisely explained by Our Predecessor St. Pius X in his Encyclical Letter Singulari quadam of September 24, 1912, in which he made this statement: "All actions of a Christian man so far as they are morally either good or bad -- that is, so far as they agree with or are contrary to the natural and divine law -- fall under the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church." (Pope Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958.) 

Pope Pius XII was condemning the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association's (the rump "church" created by the Red Chinese government that was more or less recognized in ade facto manner by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's letter to Chinese Catholics in 2007 that was reiterated in 2009; see Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology) rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church in matters of social and economic matters. His condemnation applies just as much to anyone else, including Americanist Catholics, who reject the Social Reign of Christ the King and the authority of the Catholic Church to enunciate the moral principles that must guide governance and economics. No naturalist philosophy or program takes place of the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church that He Himself created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, for its infallible explication and eternal safekeeping.

Thank you.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Martyr, pray for us.

Saint Romanus, 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.Sai

Our of the Rosary for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us. 

Saint Romanus, pray for us.

As I have noted several times in the past since this website went live online on February 20, 2004, the work on this website is a continuation of an eponymous printed journal that was in print between September of 1996 and February of 2004. It has ever been the case that the commentaries on matters of civil politics and government published in the printed journal and posted on this website in its various formats have been aimed at focusing on root causes and of helping readers to rise above the agitations of the moment in order to see all things through the eyes of the true Faith.

This commentary on the latest indictment brough by “One Set of Rules for All” Jack Smith against former President Donald John Trump is no exception.

We have not been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to any political figure, and this website does not exist to curry favor with anyone who believes that any political figure, including Trump, can “save” a nation whose self-destruction is but the consequence of the false premises of its founding.

Please continue to pray for the repose of the immortal soul of Mrs. Barbara A. Burgess, about whom I wrote at the close of yesterday's introduction to my republished reflection on the Feast of the Transfiguraiton of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Cajetan, pray for us.

Saint Donatus, 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.

Please pray for the soul of Mrs. Barbara Burgess, who was a long-suffering yet joyful champion of the Catholic Faith and a faithful defender of the innocent preborn, Indeed, she convinced many women to save their children from being killed by baby butchers.

Mrs. Burgess loved Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Most Blessed Mother with a purity and unalloyed devotedness that inspired many others to follow her simple yet profound surrender to God's Holy Providence in all things. She also had a tender devotion to Saint John the Evangelist and always told medical doctors who inquired about the identity of her primary care physician the following:

"I have five doctors: Saint Luke, Saints Cosmas and Damian, Saint Pantaleon, and Saint Apollonia."

Several priests of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen were good enough to offer Holy Mass for Mrs. Burgess and her family at their home in Warwick, Rhode Island, once a month. Father Benedict Hughes, CMRI, did this faithfully for many years prior to the stationing of Father Robert Letourneau as the pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Salem, New Hampshire. Father Letourneau diligently attended to the care of Mrs, Burgess's immortal soul whenever she was stricken with one or more physical afflictions or injuries, including in the days prior to her death on August 2, 2023.

Together with two other Catholic ladies, Mrs. Barbara Burgess met with the late Bishop Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., in his office at Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut, in early 2007, and it was from that point forward that the three ladies were unyielding in their commitment to the truth about the state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Mrs. Burgess kept in contact with His Excellency even after he had moved to Michigan in 2011 and had spoken with him on the phone just a few months before his death at the age of eighty-eight in 2015. Perhaps it should be noted as well that Mrs. Burgess, who had very limited financial means, truly gave the widow's mite to support traditional Catholic bishops and priests. 

A Requiem Mass will be offered for Mrs. Barbara Burgess, who was born on April 14, 1933, and died on August 2, 2023, on Monday, August 7, 2023. Details can be found here: Barbara Burgess Obituary,

Finally, Mrs. Burgess, whom I first met in the 1990s when speaking in Rhode Island during my years of association as a writer and associate editor of The Wanderer, convinced us to have a devotion to the late Father Leo Franklin McNamara, about whom I wrote the following commentary ten years ago: Better Than Realtors And Ebay. A reference to Mrs. Burgess appears at the beginning of this commentary, and we have maintained our devotion to Father McNamara to this day thanks to her introducing him to us.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. 

May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

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.

I am still working on the next original commentary.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us.