by Thomas A. Droleskey
Well, it's been nearly six months since the last installment in these travelogues that seem to appeal to readers across the ecclesiastical divide was written and posted. Truth be told, of course, there has not been a whole lot of time to write up another travelogue. As each episode is written with a view to providing our dear daughter with a permanent record of our travels if our adventures fade from her truly excellent memory with the passage of time, I am taking time at this point to write up the current installment, which will cover a period from Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2007, to the present (unless, that is, I tire before getting to the present and must divide this into two parts).
The Only Path to Heaven: The Cross
Penance is something that each of us must recognize is the path to our salvation. It is a great mercy shown to us by God Himself to permit us to suffer in this passing, mortal vale of tears. None of us knows how much our sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death. None of us knows how much sorrow we caused Our Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to endure as she stood kept her Divine Son company during that same Passion and Death and had to walk away from the tomb to spend forty hours in prayerful vigil before He appeared to her after His Resurrection from Easter Sunday before He appeared to anyone else. We must embrace penance, therefore, as the path to Heaven. Although the Church gives us two seasons of formal penance, Advent and Lent, the latter being more severe and demanding in its exterior practices as we prepare for the annual commemoration of the Paschal Triduum of Our Lord, she wants her children to embrace voluntary penances as a means of showing forth our love for God and our sorrow for our sins and those of the whole world.
Holy Mother Church teaches us that there is a debt to be paid for each one of our forgiven sins and for our general attachment to sin, which is why she offers us indulgenced prayers to say and acts to perform so that we can attempt (assuming all of the conditions for gaining an indulgence are met, including being completely detached from one's sins) to pay back part or all of what we owe for our sins. Those of us who are totally consecrated to Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary (either by the formula or Saint Louis de Montfort or the formula of Father Maximilian Mary Kolbe, a militant foe of all forms of naturalism and great defender of the City of Mary Immaculate, which is why he was placed in the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Nazis) surrender the merit we earn through our indulgenced prayers and acts and other good works, giving all to Our Lady so that she may dispose of such merit as she sees fit for the honor and glory of the Blessed Trinity and for the good of souls.
As we grow older, you see, we are supposed to learn a few lessons. One of the lessons we are supposed to learn is to accept each cross that comes our way with perfect equanimity, understanding that each cross, no matter how small or big, has been fitted for us perfectly by the very hand of God Himself from all eternity. To view the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith means to realize that everything happens to us is permitted within the very Providence of God, Who means us to prosper unto eternity from all of the events in our daily lives. There is nothing that any of us can suffer in this life that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death. Who are we to complain about this or that cross when the King of Love on Calvary, He Who was guilty of nothing, suffered the greatest injustice that has ever been committed in the history of the world?
Indeed, even the very situation that faces us in Holy Mother Church at present in this age of general apostasy and betrayal is within the very Providence of God, Who has known that Catholics who were once friendly with each other would be estranged and would cast more stones at each other than they would His enemies who control the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Do we pray for those who castigate and scorn us? Do we forgive them? Do we will their good, that is, for them to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church so that they can go home to Heaven? Do we wish to be reunited with them for all eternity in Heaven ourselves if there can not be a happy reconciliation here in the Church Militant on the face of this earth? Do we make sacrifices for them? Do we have true Masses offered by true bishops or priests for their intentions? God wants us to use these times of apostasy and betrayal not only to know about and to oppose the apostasies and the apostates but to pray for all Catholics of good will who are trying to do their best in these difficult times to serve God as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. We must realize that this time of apostasy and betrayal has occurred within the Providence of God and that one of the things that we are required to do is to use the time given to us to pray for others to see things clearly just as others have prayed for us!
None of us is any better than anyone else. Each of us must struggle betwen sin and grace on a daily basis. We must keep this in mind when we pray for others, recognizing that it is indeed a frightful thing to come to a recognition of the full dimensions of what has happened, that one does not come to the conclusion that the men who have posed as "pontiffs" in the past forty-nine years lightly or without a good deal of prayer and direction from true bishops and priests who were given the graces by Our Lady to recognize the truth for what it is and to respond accordingly. Far more important, therefore, than any of our words we can write or say or arguments that we can make over and over and over and over and over again is to just accept a life of prayer and penance and mortification and humiliation and misunderstanding as a means by which we can be so purified that our prayers for Holy Mother Church and for our fellow Catholics may be freed of any self-righteous indignation or other manifestations of a prideful belief in our "superiority" to others. The true path to help other Catholics to see the full extent of the problems we face is to suffer for them as we endeavor to pay back the debt of our own many sins. The true path to genuine Charity for Holy Mother Church and for the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood is the Cross.
The Accursed Winds of the Great Plains in South Dakota
As you might recall from reading
It's Still Better This Than Purgatory (or Worse!), part 4 nearly six months ago now, both of the windshields on the motor home cracked in the late night hours of Whit-Tuesday, May 29, 2007. It was an incredible scene. I felt as though we were under demonic attack. This forced me to pull off of Interstate 94 (the same highway, albeit in Illinois, where our engine died on Thursday, April 19, 2007) just east of Mitchell, South Dakota, which was about forty miles west of where some bird, probably thrown by a demon (!), smashed into our motor home's left (driver's side) windshield on Wednesday, October 4, 2006, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi (see: It's Still Better This than Purgatory (or Worse!), part 1). I had to find a KOA Kampground near Mitchell, South Dakota, in the early, early morning hours of Whit-Tuesday before making arrangements with our insurance company later that morning to send our replacement windshields, a process that I knew would take the better part of a week. As we did not want to be without daily Mass, we packed up and left the motor home, headquartering ourselves at the La Quinta Inn in Omaha, Nebraska, so that we could assist at Holy Mass at Mary Immaculate Church there.
We left Omaha in our Trail Blazer on Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2007, to drive the 250 miles back to Mitchell, South Dakota, to be reunited with our motor home. The stay at the hotel in Omaha was the last time that we were out of the motor home until we flew to the Cincinnati, Ohio, area on October 5, 2007, so that I could give a talk on Rosary Sunday at Saint Gertrude the Great Church in West Chester, Ohio. (The Rosary And Naturalism). The drive to Mitchell was interrupted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so that we could take Lucy Mary Norma to the Great Plains Zoo, adding yet another zoo to our national collection.
The Great Plains Zoo, photographs of which were featured in A Pictorial Essay, part 4, was mercifully free of Tartars that day as there had been one of those Midwestern torrential downpours before we arrived at around 1:30 p.m., Central Daylight Saving Time, on Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2007. The Great Plains Zoo was also bereft of something called animals. There were vast expanses of nothing in parts of the zoo. Oh, we enjoyed the time out of the car and it was good to get some exercise, which is something that I used to get on a daily basis in my single days, which is how I kept very thin in those years I put my mind to cooperating with Our Lady's graces not to be a human double for Porky Pig, a likeness I am trying to divest myself of at the present time (but may take the better part of a year to effect, God willing that I have that long, of course). However, the Great Plains Zoo is not on our "top ten" list of zoos. (What would those be? 1) Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska; 2) Saint Louis Zoo, Saint Louis Missouri; 3) Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa, Florida; 4) Space Farms Zoo and Museum, Beemerville, New Jersey; 5) Indianapolis Zoo, Indianapolis, Indiana; 6) Columbus Zoo, Columbus, Ohio; 7) Cleveland Zoo, Cleveland, Ohio; 8) Beardsley Zoo, Bridgeport, Connecticut; 9) San Antonio Zoo, San Antonio, Texas; 10) Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Sorry, Cincinnati Zoo fans. There's too much "biodiversity" propaganda there, thank you.)
We had to miss Holy Mass on the transferred Feast of the Queenship of Mary in order to take our motor home into the glass shop in Mitchell, South, Dakota, for the installation of the new windshields. The process would take between two and three hours, we were told, meaning that we would have to find some way to spend our time in Mitchell before we were able to get on the road again. We were not going to take a tour of the George and Eleanor McGovern Library and Center for Public Service, thank you. This meant that would be forced, against our better judgments, mind you, to visit the "world famous" Corn Palace in Mitchell.
Before we could do that, however, we found a place to eat breakfast. The food was acceptable. The "music" was atrocious. Atrocious. I complained about the diabolical noise to the owner, a woman who appeared to be in her seventies, who had no problem at all with the "music." Neither did any of the other septuagenarian regulars who frequented the place. Very few people follow the Good Shepherd as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church. However, most people will follow all manner of false shepherds (ecclesiastical, civil, political, cultural) without a word of protest and will accept everything that these false shepherds give them. The world must descend to the depths of depravity when it is not guided by the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted entirely and exclusively to the Catholic Church and when men do not have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace to ward off evil in their own lives. This is all the more difficult for men to do in our own age as even most believing Catholics have been deprived of Sanctifying Grace as a result of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and the changes in the conciliar rites of episcopal consecration and priestly ordination.
Instead of flocking to Marian shrines, however, loads of people in this country flock to such places as the Corn Place, which is full of nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Unless, that is, you consider pencil sketchings of the late Tennessee Ernie Ford and Jim Nabors to be something worth seeing. We do not. I mean, we were stuck in Mitchell, South Dakota, a place where there is no offering of the true Mass whatsoever. We did not want to be there. We accepted this as penance for our sins. Fine. All well and good. What boggled our minds is that there were busloads of people who made it a point to visit the Corn Palace. The only thing that was really of interest there was the fact that a photograph from 1910 showed men dressed in suits and ties and women dress recognizably in feminine attire, putting the lie to the myth that "things" were done "differently" in "The West." The residual effects of Catholicism in the world were still visible as early as the early Twentieth Century:
See:
A Pictorial Essay, part 4
We walked across the street to the Enchanted World Doll Museum, which was rather interesting, I must admit, as the photographs contained in A Pictorial Essay, part 4 reveal. We found it incredible that some of the dolls had the monetary "value" that they did. We also found it incredible that people would spend their entire lives collecting and trading dolls! Sure, I collected baseball cards until I was fourteen years of age. I also collected stamps for a time as a child. You are supposed to grow of these things as you grow older. Gee, I was struck by a part of the sub-culture that I did not realize existed: the collecting and trading and displaying (at regional and national "shows") of collections of dolls. Pray Rosaries, people. The time is short. Pray Rosaries.
While walking out of the Enchanted World Doll Museum I noticed that customers could save two dollars per admission if they showed their American Automobile Association card. I asked the owner if I could get that discount as we walked out. "No!" was his curt reply. You snooze, you lose. That is is, if you don't see the sign on the way into the museum it's just too bad. Thank you, John Calvin and Adam Smith, which is what I said out loud as we walked out of the Enchanted World Doll Museum.
Our tour of the "world famous" Mitchell Corn Palace and the Enchanted World Doll Museum left us with about an hour to spare before we could reclaim our motor home from the glass shop. We drove around Mitchell for a bit before we let Lucy play at a playground in a park for about thirty minutes. It was then time to reclaim the motor home and to give the proprietor of the glass shop a check to our insurance company in the amount of $500, which is the deductible amount that we owed for the new windshields and their installations. Goodbye, money. All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!
It was around noon on the transferred Feast of the Queenship of Mary, Monday, June 4, 2007, that I was able to take the motor home out of the glass shop's garage and then swing across the street to fill up the motor home's ever ravenous gasoline tank, which holds eighty-two gallons of gasoline, and to hook up the Trail Blazer to the motor home. Our goal was to get to the Chicago area so that we could assist at Holy Mass with the humble, self-effacing giant of the Catholic Faith, Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.D. It is nothing less than a tragedy that many men who think themselves to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood and who are acting outside of the conciliar structures while recognizing the "legitimacy" of Joseph Ratzinger as a Successor of Saint Peter do not avail themselves of the wisdom and knowledge of this humble priest of God. Father Stepanich eviscerates all sophisms with a laser-sharp understanding of Catholic doctrine. Those who think that they "know it all" and that they do not need the guidance of anyone else other than themselves and the self-reinforcing circle of friends that they keep unto themselves ought to pay Father Stepanich a visit in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
We left the gasoline station and proceeded on the way to Interstate 94, which would take us to Interstate 29 in Sioux Falls for our trip down to Omaha, Nebraska, where we could get to Mass on the Feast of Saint Boniface, June 5, and the Feast of Saint Norbert, June 6, at Mary Immaculate Church. We had gone an aggregate of twenty-seven miles from the glass shop when the driver's side window cracked. "Oh, no!" I said to Sharon and Lucy. "Not again?" Each of us laughed and we said together, "All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!" "We are never, under any circumstances," I announced to my family, returning to this Masonic state ever again." (We've already crossed Texas off of our list of states because of all of the things that have happened to our motor home there over the years. Not that anyone down there, save for a few good and generous souls without whose help we would not be able to pay bills, especially in very critical circumstances, that is, those circumstances when the lack of donations from you utter cheapskates and freeloaders out there places us in really tough times, humanly speaking, wants us to visit Texas, including my own blood relatives who live there.)
I had to get on the phone to our insurance company and to make arrangements for a replacement windshield to be sent to a glass shop in Sharonville, Ohio, which is near Saint Gertrude the Great Church. No, another deductible did not have to be paid. The replacement windshield was covered by a warranty. Indeed, the driver's side windshield pane that was cracked on the morning of Whit-Tuesday along the passenger's side windshield pane was itself a waranteed replacement for the windshield that was installed in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Tuesday, October 10, 2006, which leads me to ask myself as I write this why we had to pay a $500 deductible on Monday, June 4, 2007. Hmmm. I have to look into this real soon. Anyhow, we made arrangements with the insurance company to get a replacement for the replacement, also making arrangements with the glass company in Sharonville, Ohio, to install the replacement for the replacement on Friday, June 8, 2007. We just prayed that the new crack would spark more cracks and produce a major disaster that would keep us from getting to West Chester in time for Corpus Christi, recognizing that if such a disaster did happen that it would be in the Providence of God and that we would have to give it all back to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.
Back to Omaha, Setting the Stage for Future Adventures
We decided to change our plans, telephoning Father Stepanich to let him know that we would not be going to his Mass the next day after all. No, we just needed to regroup after the unexpected cracking of the replacement windshield, deciding to go to Omaha, Nebraska, so that we could get to Holy Mass on the Feast of Saint Boniface, June 5, and the Feast of Saint Norbert, June 6, at Mary Immaculate Church. My initial thought was to attempt to situate ourselves in a campground reasonably near Mary Immaculate Church. The one that was nearest, which was located in a public park, was filled with thoroughly unsavory characters. I just did not think that that it was a safe or a good environment for Lucy (or for us!). Very, very tried, I decided that we would have to drive the thirty miles to the KOA Kampground in Gretna, Nebraska, arriving there around 4:30 p.m., Central Daylight Saving Time, on Monday, June 4, 2007, the transferred Feast of the Queenship of Mary.
It was while we were driving around that dump, that pit of a public park campground in Omaha, Nebraska, on Monday, June 4, 2007, that I telephoned Tag Motors in Medford, Long Island, New York, to request that a new water tank for the motor home be ordered. Our fresh water tank, which supplies us with water when we are parked and do not operate off of "city water" that bypasses the tank, had been perforated very badly in Lafayette, Louisiana, in March of 2007 as the motor home was driven, both by me and by two different mechanics, up and down a roadway that was being re-graded by the City of Lafayette. Someone else's motor home lost a bumper and an exhaust muffler as it was being test-driven on that roadway. That Masonic repair shop in Lafayette is still costing us money. All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls. In any event, I was told that it should be a week to ten days before the water tank got in, which would suit our purposes well as we would be back in the greater New York City/Long Island/Connecticut area for a few weeks. A week to ten days turned into two months, by which time we were in hot, humid, sweltering, intolerably indecent and immodest Florida (get the idea we really didn't like Florida and have also crossed that state off of our travel list?) Stay tuned. Future installments will provide you with a follow-up on this particular problem.
Back to the main flow of events here, we got a refill of liquefied propane gas after checking into the KOA Kampground in Gretna, Nebraska, late in the afternoon of Monday, June 4, 2007, before going to the space that was assigned to us. That turned out to be the last propane fill-up we would need until Monday, November 5, 2007, the longest time we have ever gone without refilling our propane tank. The fact that we would in sweltering, hot, humid, miserable Florida, a state whose climatological conditions breed rampant and incessant, year-round displays of immodesty (no, you won't find us advertising for Florida anytime before the conversion of this country to become the Catholic States of America), for nine weeks in August and September had something to do with the conservation of liquefied propane gas. It appears as though we will have to have our propane tank filled rather regularly during the winter here in the northeast. Such is the price we are willing to pay to to return to Connecticut for Lucy's schooling.
I was able to visit with His Excellency Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas for a bit after Holy Mass on the Feast of Saint Boniface, Tuesday, June 5, 2007. His Excellency had just returned from Mount Saint Michael's in Spokane, Washington, the day before. He was very tired, having traveled long hours and having had to deal with the unpleasant situation that had developed at Mount Saint Michael's, about which enough has been written. Bishop Pivarunas is an exemplary shepherd of souls. We are so privileged to know His Excellency and to have many many of his priests in the past two years now. We very much enjoy our visits to Mary Immaculate Church in Omaha, Nebraska. The rest of that day was spent back at the campground as I wrote and Sharon did laundry at the campground's laundromat, assisted by her dedicated laundry assistant, Lucy Mary Norma Droleskey.
We got back on the road after Holy Mass on the Feast of Saint Norbert, June 6, 2007, intending to drive all the way to Olive Branch Campground in Oregonia, Ohio, a distance of about 770 miles. The trip proceeded uneventfully. The newly cracked, newly installed replacement windshield did not crack again. We made pretty decent time as we crossed through Iowa on Interstate 80, a route with which I am so familiar in the Hawkeye State (as well as from coast-to-coast, from five miles west of the George Washington Bridge to just west of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, yes, every single mile of that has been traversed by us over the years), and into what Lucy calls "the disssssssasssssssta" state, Illinois, called that because of its flat terrain in its central part and the lack of humor exhibited by most, although not all (I know some of you read this site!), of my students at Illinois State University during my two separate teaching stints there (1977-1979 and 1986-1987). Indeed, we passed through Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, around 6:00 p.m., Central Daylight Saving Time, on June 6, 2007, just a little over thirty years and two weeks after I had first visited the area to find a residence to live after having been granted a faculty position there in a telephone interview in March of 1977 (while I was teaching at Mohawk Valley Cheapo Community College, where the pay was so low professors had to pay the college for teaching there).
Nothing Happens by Accident
Upon getting into Indiana, however, I became very, very tired, deciding to find a campground at which to stop overnight before continuing on the following morning, Thursday, June 7, 2007, to get to Saint Gertrude the Great Church for Mass on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Everything happens in God's Holy Providence. We were meant to stop at the campground that we did. The owner of the campground was a woman who had fallen away from the practice of the Catholic Faith decades before and had become a bitterly anti-Catholic adherent of some sort of Protestant sect. The fireworks began in earnest when she lit into me after learning that I was an advocate of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen upon asking me what I did that took my family around the nation in our motor home. The assault was truly from Hell. It was relentless. Simple logic meant nothing to the woman. She had no answer when I told her that everyone in Christendom had to be wrong for nearly fifteen centuries for Martin Luther and his successors to be correct. There was no let up in the fury.
The woman said that the local conciliar priest told her that there was no need for her to come back to the Catholic Church, that everyone goes to Heaven. Gee, where did he get that idea from? Is the forthcoming Ratzinger "encyclical" letter, "Saved by Hope," going to "canonize" the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar's "universal salvation" heresy at long last? We'll know later this week. I explained to her that that man did not know the Catholic Faith was, most likely, not even a priest but an apostate who had fallen prey to the very Protestant errors into which she herself had fallen. An attempt to plant a few seeds was made. Sharon, my wonderful dispenser of Our Lady's Green Scapulars, gave the woman a Green Scapular, which was not refused, thankfully.
It was dusk when we arrived at the campground. It was pitch dark black (all right, all right, an oxymoron) by the time we set out for our campsite for the night. Although I still see well enough at night to drive on highways, I do not see well at night any longer under pitch dark circumstances. It was difficult for me to find our campsite. I, who have been reading maps since I was five years old (Lucy does so now at five years, eight months old), could not decipher the campground map, winding up taking a campground road that kind of dead-ended on a cliff. Not good. Not good at all? An attempt to maneuver my way out of the situation resulted in the motor home "eating" a stop sign.
Bye, bye, camground stop sign. Yes, I replaced the thing. It wasn't too badly damaged. And I did identify myself.
Backing up was impossible, yes, even if I had detached the car. It was dark. Our rear-view monitor has been out of commission for two years now, ever since a well-meaning man sought to repair our slides at the KOA Kampground in San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday, September 7, 2005, managing only to take out fuses that have caused the motor home's dashboard air conditioner and heater never to work again, producing extremely cold conditions in the winter and extremely, indeed, almost unbearably hot conditions in the summer (where temperatures in the driver's part of the motor home have exceeded 115 degrees Fahrenheit on occasion). Talk about penance. Oh, yes, I know. I deserve every bit of the penance I get. I know. I know. Believe me, I know. Oh, back to the story here. Yes, the story.
Well, I assayed my options. I could not back up. I would wind up going over the cliff in an uncontrolled rollover if I tried. There was only one, and it was rather risky: to take the motor home, Trail Blazer and all, down a steep embankment to our site. No, the motor home is not a four-wheel drive vehicle. It has no center of gravity, being nothing other than a moulded piece of plastic and fiberglass on an Ford truck chassis. The hollow nature of the interior of the motor home makes it susceptive to "roll overs," which is one of the few things that has never happened to us (and we hope and pray never will happen to us). This is particularly the case when we lose our "sway bars," as happens almost every three months. They just sort of drop off the motor home as we are driving. It appears to be the case that we are without both sway bars, which are positioned on either side of the motor home in the rear, at the present time, Monday, November 26, 2007 (the Feast of Saint Sylvester the Abbot and the Commemorations of Saint Peter of Alexandria and Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, as well as the Feast of Blessed James, a Dominican bishop who is on the Dominican calendar, which is what is observed at Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut). We prayed very hard that nothing would happen to us as we ventured down the embankment in the motor home. It was sure exciting. However, nothing did happen to us.
I pulled into the site, attempting to hook up our electrical, water and sewer connections in the dark. We had put on quite show for the "locals," however, most of whom were permanent, year-round residents of the campground, as we went down that embankment. All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!
Well, as I promised at the beginning of this installment of the travelogue, fatigue will dictate where I stop this narrative. This is where I going to stop this narrative, which will be resumed tomorrow, Tuesday, November 27, 2007, the Feast of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. Another installment will be posted at some point tomorrow. I did, however, want to get the current installment written before I "hit the hay" following an extremely busy few days of dealing with our motor home's water tank problems and of providing Lucy with a few excursions in the five days that she has off from school, including today, Monday, November 26, 2007. Lucy even got to meet Brigid the Cow up in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, today, which was a treat for her. Who is Brigid the Cow? Be patient. Several more installments to go.
Once again, everything that happens to us happens within God's Holy Providence. We can accept the crosses of daily living with a true love of the Blessed Trinity and total equanimity as we offer these crosses o the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary or we can live in fruitless anger and frustration. Oh, a bit of humor is a good thing to poke fun at oneself and his inability frequently to accept each cross with such equanimity. When all is said and done, however, we must be grateful for every moment that God gives us to do penance for our own sins and for the sins of the whole world, making sure that our practice of penance is undergirded by the twin foundations of the interior life: Eucharistic piety and deep devotion to the Mother of God, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary, placing our total confidence in the Immaculate Heart of Mary in these times of apostasy and betrayal
Remember this: God has willed each of us to live in these particular times. This means that He has particular work to do that no one else but us can do. Rather than rue the moment we should roll up our sleeves and do what we can to plant a few seeds in the souls of those whom His Holy Providence places in our lives. And, as noted before, one of the best ways to do this is to embrace the cross and love each and every single cross that is given to us. This is the path to true joy here and it is the path to an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise if we persevere until our dying breaths in states of Sanctifying Grace.
As people who are enrolled in the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and who wear a blessed Miraculous Medal, which was struck as a result of Our Lady's request made of Saint Catherine Laboure, may we never tire of carrying the cross as we pray for the day when all hearts, consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, will exclaim:
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us now and the hour of our deaths. Amen.
All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Luke the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us.
Saint Peter of Alexandria, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us
Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.
Saint Felicitas, pray for us.
Saint Sylvester the Abbot, pray for us.
Saint Catherine Laboure, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint Gregory the Wonderworker, pray for us.
Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.
Saint Josaphat, pray for us.
Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.
Saint Didacus, pray for us.
Pope Saint Martin I, pray for us.
Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.
Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us.
Saints Vitalis and Agricola, pray for us.
Saint Hilarion, pray for us.
Saint John Cantius, pray for us.
Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.
Saint Hedwig, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.
Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.
Saint John Leonard, pray for us.
Saint Dionysisus (Denis), Rusticus and Eleutherius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Placidus and Companions, pray for us.
Saint Bruno, pray for us.
Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.
Saint Jerome, pray for us.
Saint Remigius, pray for us.
Saint Clotilde, pray for us.
Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.
Pope Saint Linus, pray for us.
Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.
Saint Raymond Pennafort, pray for us.
Saint Raymond Nonnatus, pray for us.
Saint Thecla, pray for us.
Saint Matthew, pray for us.
Saint Eustachius and Family, pray for us.
Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.
Saint Januarius, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.
Saint Giles, pray for us.
Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.
Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.
Saint Nicomedes, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.
Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.
Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.
Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint John Eudes, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.
Saint Agapitus, pray for us.
Saint Helena, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.
Saints Monica, pray for us.
Saint Jude, pray for us.
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.
Saint Scholastica, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.
Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.
Saint Turibius, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Sebastian, pray for us.
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Saint Genevieve, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.
Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.
Blessed Humbeline, pray for us.
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.
Francisco Marto, pray for us.
Jacinta Marto, pray for us.
Juan Diego, pray for us.
Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.
Father Frederick Faber, pray for us.
The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888
O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.
Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.
Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
Response: As we have hoped in Thee.
Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.
Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.
Verse: Let us pray. O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls.
Response: Amen.
