Much More Than Meets The Eye
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Much is being made, and very rightly so, about the blasphemous nature of an advertisement that was devised by pagans at an advertising firm that was approved by the pagans who run the marketing division of Hyundai Motor Company, which has its word headquarters in Seoul, Republic of South Korea, that made a mockery of Catholic belief in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament by showing a group of people, allegedly Catholics, receiving slices of pizza as though they were receiving what purports be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service: with their hands, although on their knees. The advertisement also showed a soccer ball being carried reverentially with a crown of thorns on top of it:
Korean carmaker Hyundai has pulled a World Cup-themed TV ad after an outcry from Catholic advocates who called the spot sacrilegious and offensive. The 30-second ad, which aired during the the England-USA soccer match on Saturday, features a church in Argentina that apparently worships soccer -- and more specifically soccer legend Diego Maradona.
The ad spot depicts a church service with religiously charged imagery, including a soccer ball with a crown of thorns and worshipers kneeling as they receive pizza for communion.
"All over the world, soccer is almost a religion," intones the spot's narrarator, actor Jeff Bridges, "but for the members of one church in Argentina, it actually is."
Fake Church, Real Offense
Clearly designed to be humorous, the spot, called "Wedding," missed the mark -- widely -- outraging Catholic advocates and bloggers. "Believe it or not, in honor of the World Cup, Hyundai has managed to produce a commercial that many of the world's 1 billion Catholics will find offensive," wrote Tim Drake, a senior writer with the National Catholic Register.
"It's one thing to gently poke fun at extreme devotion to sports," Deacon Greg Kandra wrote on Beliefnet.com. "It's another to satirize Holy Mass by ridiculing its symbols, sacramentals and gestures."
Hyundai said the ad was based on an actual church in Rosario, Argentina, called Iglesia Maradoniana, which is dedicated to retired soccer star Diego Maradona. A 2002 BBC article said the house of "worship" was called the "Hand of God" Temple, after Maradona's infamous 1986 goal against England.
Hyundai said it meant no offense but rather intended to humorously connect the "passion of soccer fans with owner loyalty."
Viral Marketing a "Calculated Risk"
But John Barker, President of Barker/DZP, a New York-based ad agency, says he doesn't buy Hyundai's claim. "I think it's a stretch if the marketer says no offense was intended," Barker tells DailyFinance. "That's probably not intellectually honest."
"There's no way Hyundai couldn't predict a scandal of sorts," Barker says. "It's a calculated risk based on the value of viral media. Controversy is one of the elements that drives video-sharing in social media, and humor is another. So it stands to reason that controversial humor is a good way to ensure viral value."
On Monday, Hyundai apologized for the ad and said it had been taken off the air. "We got enough of an outcry that we think we missed the mark," a Hyundai spokesman tells DailyFinance. "So we're going to do the right thing and pull it down."
In a statement, the company said: "The unexpected response created by the ad, which combined both soccer and religious motifs to speak to the passion of international soccer fans, prompted us to take a more critical and informed look at the spot. Though unintentional, we now see it was insensitive. We appreciate this feedback and sincerely apologize to those we've offended."
"Deeply Anti-Christian and Anti-Catholic"?
Drake, of the National Catholic Register, called the Hyundai ad part of a larger anti-Catholic trend in the advertising world.
"Make no mistake," he wrote. "There is a deeply anti-Christian and anti-Catholic philosophy that has infiltrated Madison Avenue. It's apparent in much of the atheistic programming and the commercials being produced. Some will be provoked to say, 'Lighten up -- it's just a commercial.' Yet, if the Jewish Star of David or the Koran were being so belittled, the outrage would be tremendous." (Hyundai Pulls 'Insensitive' World Cup Ad.)
The commercial also featured a shot of a stained glass window of a soccer ball so as to signify the "sacredness" of the miserable sport (no, I don't want any letters from the peanut gallery, thank you; I've always--and I do means always--hated soccer almost as much as I hate American football and American basketball and all forms of the excuse for hand-to-hand combat known by the euphemism of ice hockey) that occupies the attention of so many people in the world today, especially as the so-called World Cup tournament is being played in various venues in the Republic of South Africa.
The commentators quoted above have it entirely correct: Hyundai intended to outrage viewers so as to prompt people to talk about it, thereby causing them to mention the "Hyundai" brand name repeatedly, something that is one of the most essential psychological tools of marketing which is why the use of catchy advertising jingles that were popular fifty years ago still rattle around in the heads now and again of those enough who were alive then. (Although I have never--no, not once, not ever--consumed beer in my entire life as I despise the taste of alcohol, I do remember such things Schaefer Beer jingle, which was the beverage du jour of my late parents three hundred sixty-five days a year until they left New York for Texas in February of 1973, and the Rheingold Beer jingle that was so prominently featured during the first eleven seasons of New York Mets' telecasts and broadcasts, 1962-1972 inclusive.) There is no doubt that the intention of both the advertising firm and of Hyundai was to cause outrage so as to generate interest in the "Hyundai" brand name. There is no doubt about this at all.
Sick, twisted minds that are filled with loathing and contempt for Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church that He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, have to really use every bit of their diabolical ingenuity to dream up horrors such as that which was brought to life the automobile advertisement for the so-called World Cup (yawn) tournament (yawn again) that is now underway and will end at some point, I suppose, later this decade (I won't know about--nor will I care about--the results until the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead). These men and women are to be pitied. We must pray for them. We must pray for for the sick, twisted minds at Hyundai Motor Company's American division who approved the blasphemous advertisement for airing and for the sick, twisted minds at the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) who accepted the advertisement for airing on its American satellite feed. We must make reparation for these offenses, especially in this month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we give unto this Heart of all hearts the oblation of our love and true sorrow for our sins, offered to It through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
There is more to this matter than meets the eye, however. Much more. Permit me just a brief moment or two to explain.
While it is indeed outrageous that advertisements such as the one produced for the American division of a South Korean-based automobile manufacturer can be produced and air with such utter impunity, these advertisements, as horrible and blasphemously offensive to God as they are, represent the living, breathing diabolical anti-Incarnational spirit of Modernity upon which most every civil state in the Western world is founded. A world founded on a practical indifference to or hatred for the fact of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, at the Annunciation has to degenerate into the moral sewer in which we find ourselves at this time. Men must descend back to paganism and barbarism when they do not have belief in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church and when they do not have belief in, access to and cooperation with the Sanctifying Grace that He won for them by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood ont he wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.
Many of those who founded this nation had a deep and profound hatred of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, His Holy Cross, the Catholic Faith, and Our Lady. Consider once again, especially for newcomers to this site, the following quotations of the men who are "revered" by so many for providing us with the very pluralistic nation that "tolerates" all manner of evils under cover of the civil law, including blasphemes against Our Lord and Our Lady and the Holy Faith in every aspect of the communications media today:
"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away {with} all this artificial scaffolding…" (11 April, 1823, John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester J. Cappon, II, 594).
Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821)
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted in 200 Years of Disbelief, by James Hauck)
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."—-James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance," addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December, 1813.)
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Roger Weigthman, June 24, 1826, ten days before Jefferson's death; see also Not A Mention of Christ the King for a fairly comprehensive discussion of how assiduous most of our presidents have been in refusing to make public mention of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, most of the time than their public remarks.)
The only difference between the American revolutionaries and the social revolutionaries in Europe is that the Americans were more careful to limit their mockery of Our Lord to private speech and correspondence. They needed to win over the tiny minority of Catholics to their ways of pluralism in the hope that they would, over the course of time, came to "burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition" had bound them for so long. They kept their mockery to their circle of fellow anti-Catholic intellectuals and political shakers and movers. The European revolutionaries had to uproot the Cross of Christ the King had been planted deep in the hearts of the people once proudly Catholic Europe, and thus it is that they were open and violent in seeking to do away with everything with Him and His Holy Church.
The moral, political legal, commercial, cultural and economic sewer that has become the Western world today is pluralism's distinctive contribution to "modernity." One of the supreme ironies of the present moment is that this pluralism that is so responsible for helping to culturally erode the influence of Catholicism in the world and as its exponents place pressure upon ordinary Catholics to conform to its tenets of "coexistence" and "diversity" has been exalted by lords of conciliarism, starting with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Pluralism has been hailed by Ratzinger/Benedict as a "benefit" to "modern man," a means of "religions" working together to fight the influence of irreligion in the world. Irreligion is the result of pluralism, which itself is the result of the mutilpication of false sects that arose one by one--and then by the thousands--as a result of the Protestant Revolutions. How can those who belong to sects responsible for the prevalence of irreligion in the world today "fight" irreligion? It boggles one's little mind.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, whose mind was warped sixty years ago by the professors of the "new theology" in Regensburg, Germany, cannot accept this, which is why he does not see that practical atheism is the one and only result of pluralism and that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. The apostasy of the present moment is such that most Catholics in the world would rather believe in Ratzinger/Benedict's illogic, which reaffirms pluralism as the fruit of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolution and institutionalized by the complex, multifaceted and inter-related forces of Judeo-Masonry, than in these following clear, unmistakably Catholic words of our true popes that warned us so prophetically of where the world was headed as a result of its rejection of Catholicism and the Social Reign of Christ the King:
This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)
To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; 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.)
Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.
By separating fraternity from Christian charity thus understood, Democracy, far from being a progress, would mean a disastrous step backwards for civilization. If, as We desire with all Our heart, the highest possible peak of well being for society and its members is to be attained through fraternity or, as it is also called, universal solidarity, all minds must be united in the knowledge of Truth, all wills united in morality, and all hearts in the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. But this union is attainable only by Catholic charity, and that is why Catholic charity alone can lead the people in the march of progress towards the ideal civilization. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1832.)
And here it seems opportune to expound and to refute a certain false opinion, on which this whole question, as well as that complex movement by which non-Catholics seek to bring about the union of the Christian churches depends. For authors who favor this view are accustomed, times almost without number, to bring forward these words of Christ: "That they all may be one.... And there shall be one fold and one shepherd," with this signification however: that Christ Jesus merely expressed a desire and prayer, which still lacks its fulfillment. For they are of the opinion that the unity of faith and government, which is a note of the one true Church of Christ, has hardly up to the present time existed, and does not to-day exist. They consider that this unity may indeed be desired and that it may even be one day attained through the instrumentality of wills directed to a common end, but that meanwhile it can only be regarded as mere ideal. They add that the Church in itself, or of its nature, is divided into sections; that is to say, that it is made up of several churches or distinct communities, which still remain separate, and although having certain articles of doctrine in common, nevertheless disagree concerning the remainder; that these all enjoy the same rights; and that the Church was one and unique from, at the most, the apostolic age until the first Ecumenical Councils. Controversies therefore, they say, and longstanding differences of opinion which keep asunder till the present day the members of the Christian family, must be entirely put aside, and from the remaining doctrines a common form of faith drawn up and proposed for belief, and in the profession of which all may not only know but feel that they are brothers. The manifold churches or communities, if united in some kind of universal federation, would then be in a position to oppose strongly and with success the progress of irreligion. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
How can those who believe in "religious liberty" seek to curb the "liberty" of those such as the people who produced the Hyundai advertisement who believe in irreligion as it would be a violation of the consciences of those who do not believe in the Catholic Faith to require them to respect and to treat with reverence religious symbols that they hold in contempt? Oh, yes, some might contend that one can try to do so by appealing to a sense of "coexistence," that we must have due regard for the public symbols and places of worship of those who hold different beliefs than we possess. Such a position has nothing to do with the Catholic Faith and hearkens back to the practical religious indifferentism of the ancient Romans
Alas, this is the exactly how the minions of the Roman caesars governed the peoples they conquered. The pagans of ancient Rome had great "tolerance" for a "diversity" of religious beliefs as long as due reverence was paid and incense offered to the Roman gods. The Catholics of the Roman Empire, although they were good citizens and obeyed all just laws--and some did their military service for the emperor with valor, refused to offer incense to false gods. Over thirteen million were martyred as a result from the time of 67 A.D. to 313 A.D. during the intermittent periods of persecution that began with Nero and ended, at least in most parts of the Roman Empire, with the Edict of Milan by the Emperor Constantine.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI may not offer incense to the false gods of various and sundry false religions. However, he has esteemed their symbols with his own priestly hands. He has called places of false worship as "sacred." He has entered in "prayer" with people who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, having written as "Cardinal" Ratzinger in 2001 that a "Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one," thus mocking, as he does with his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," God the Holy Ghost, Who inspired the sacred authors of the Books of the Old Testament to write exactly what they did as their words pointed unequivocally the the First Coming in time of Christ the Redeemer and His offering of Himself to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in atonement for our sins.
None among the great legions of those who denounce, and rightly so, various blasphemies committed against Our Lord and Our Lady and the Holy Faith by the irreligious lords of popular culture say a word when the false "pontiff" blasphemes God in the many ways that he has done as "Benedict XVI" in the past nearly sixty-two months and as he continues to do right up to the present time. None of the terrible blasphemies he has committed against the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity, catalogued in Apologizing to Everyone Save For God Himself, has caused any of the supposed defenders of the Faith in the realm of culture to utter a word against the man who, in contrast to the smashing of false idols by the likes of Saint Benedict and Saint Hyacinth and Saint Francis Xavier, among so many others, esteems false religions and their false places of worship and their demonic symbols in total contradiction to the teaching, history and Tradition of the Catholic Church.
These words of Pope Saint Leo the Great must be cited yet again to remind those who keep their silence about offenses that at least some of them used to rail about, privately and publicly, during the "reign" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, that have been committed by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI that have the effect in the practical order of things of communicating to Catholics and non-Catholics alike that the true God of Divine Revelation, while having founded His Catholic Church, to be sure, does not look with complete loathing and disfavor on all false religions:
But it is vain for them to adopt the name of catholic, as they do not oppose these blasphemies: they must believe them, if they can listen so patiently to such words. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, Epistle XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Leo the Great | Letters 1-59 )
Yet it is that Catholics who used to know better (and I knew some of the more prominent Catholics in public life today when they were not well known in the 1980s and how they hated ecumenism and the practices of the American "bishops" they now defend repeatedly) keep their mouths shut about offenses given to God by the false "popes" and their false "bishops," thus becoming enablers of the cultural expressions of blasphemy and of sacrilege that they oppose with all of the might of their considerable media influence. And so few people recognize today (as I did not recognize for over three decades!) that the greatest vehicle of reaffirming Catholics in the ways of the world and of blinding them to the honor and glory and majesty of God is the liturgical vessel designed to make "peace" with the world, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, which is in and of itself, in the objective order of things, a grave offense given God no matter the intentions of those who "celebrate" and "participate" in it. Falsehood is falsehood, and each and every falsehood is displeasing to God no matter how earnestly someone might believe that a given falsehood is true and efficacious for the worship of God and the sanctification and salvation of human souls.
Although I noted in Bookended From Birth to Birth nearly fourteen months ago now that I meet claims individuals having locutions or having received signs from God come to me with great skepticism, there are times when certain stories do give me pause to consider matters more prayerfully. This is what happened when I spoke to the late Father Bowes, O.C.D., on June 23, 2007, in Lawrence Massachusetts, and it is what occurred last year when a thoughtful reader of this site, Mr. Michael Reardon, a pioneer in the traditionalist movement in Virginia, related the following story that I included at the end of an article. I want to repeat Mr. Reardon's story in order to establish the context for relating yet another truly astounding set of signs that Mr. Reardon believes that he has been given to proof to his own satisfaction that the rites of the conciliar church are completely false, totally invalid:
As you know, the late, great Michael Davies believed that the Conciliar “popes” are true popes. And he seemed to have little interest in discussing the matter with others of a different persuasion, considering it a non-issue. He once wrote an article entitled, “The Pope is the Pope is the Pope and the Pope is John-Paul II.” He told me very early on in our correspondence that God did not want us to attend Masses by priests that hold the sedevacantist position. But Michael was also a great friend who never refused me anything, not from the early days in 1979 when I asked him to write articles that I could use as newspaper ads for Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Richmond, or the time in between right up to the time of his death. He spoke here three times at my request and even wrote a letter to The Catholic Virginian a few months before his death at my request. (Not published) He always immediately answered my letters and later my emails and always encouraged me as an activist in the traditional movement. He paid me the greatest compliment about a year before he died by saying he considered me “one of my two or three closest friends.” I can’t imagine Michael saying “no” to anything I might ask of him. So it occurred to me yesterday about noon to ask Michael to send me a sign confirming something that he today obviously knows: that Benedict XVI is an antipope. Even though I am convinced of that fact, confirmation of that nature would be good, if God so willed. It wasn’t necessary that I ask Michael directly. He knew my thoughts and desires in this regard, as did God, and that was sufficient. And on top of that, who was I to make such a request for such an exceptional favor? I would not directly request it but desired it, as he and God knew, and would accept it if God so willed.
My hope and request, then, was that sometime before the day ended yesterday that my wife, Ute, would place red flowers on our living room mantle piece, and that her doing so would be the sign and confirmation that I wished. There were no flowers there, and she had placed no flowers there for at least two months, probably longer. On each side of the mantle piece there were two vases of evergreen ferns and no other plants Even though my wife usually spends a good part of her day in her 15 ft by 30 ft vegetable garden, she was gone most of the day yesterday, returning home about 3:30 p.m. She then spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen and then until 8:30 remained inside preparing for a trip today to Winona for the priestly ordinations there.
It occurred to me that what I was asking for was perhaps, humanly speaking, impossible. Although we live on an acre of land, I was aware of no red flowers on the property. Scattered in the vegetable garden were white, yellow, orange and various shades of purple flowers. This was around noon, and I remember that my last words to myself on the subject were, “Nevertheless, if Ute puts any red flowers on the mantle piece this day, I will accept it as a sign and confirmation that Benedict is an antipope.” I then put the matter out of my mind.
At 8:30, just before dark, Ute, who accepts Benedict as a true pope, went into her vegetable garden. In a few minutes she came back in and headed directly for me in the living room. In a voice that expressed some amazement she said, “look what I found.” She then showed me a beautiful red lily. She said, “I never saw it before. It wasn’t there yesterday,” saying that she found it in the garden near the statue of the Sacred Heart. I asked her, “what are you going to do with it?,” to which she answered, “put it on the mantle.” She then placed it in water and put it on the mantle piece.
When I revealed the above account to her, she was silent. When I told her over again several times that, “this is no coincidence,” she remained silent on the matter. Of course, I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the confirmation that I was looking for and for which I thank God and Michael. A photo of the lily is below.
All good wishes!
Michael Reardon
No, this is not "prove" anything. However, I, along with Mr. Reardon, do not believe that this inspirational story is a coincidence. God does indeed answer even our unexpressed desires to know the truth about our ecclesiastical situation in this time of apostasy and betrayal.
Mr. Reardon was a bit more explicit this year as he made a specific prayer request to the late Michael Davies to confirm the invalidity of the conciliar rites of episcopal "consecration" and of priestly "ordination" in his mind, and I thank Mr. Reardon for sending me this note and granting his permission for me to include it on this site:
Dear Tom,
Tomorrow [June 16, 2010] will mark one year since I received the great favor and sign from Michael Davies, the red lily, that confirmed in my own mind what I had already believed for about two years, that Benedict XVI is an antipope. I still possess the lily. It is a dark brown now and is only about a quarter its original size. I keep it in a glass jar in my bedroom. It still holds its shape.
About two months ago, I decided to ask Michael for another favor to confirm what I had believed for some time, that both the new Episcopal and new priestly ordination Rites were invalid. Just as in the previous request, I knew I had to ask for something that was possible but very highly unlikely and something that must transpire within a brief time frame. I decided to attach my request to a visit from my daughter, Veronica.
Veronica moved back to Virginia from St. Mary’s, Kansas six years ago after graduating from St. Mary’s College and after teaching there for several years. She moved into her own apartment about a fifteen minute drive from us. During those six years she has visited us nearly every Sunday and sometimes on weekdays. When she visits she brings her leather black handbag with her and nothing else, except on our birthdays and at Christmas, when she will bring a gift.
One night about two months ago my wife mentioned that “there is something I want to ask Veronica,” and then quickly added, “Oh, she’s coming over tomorrow. I will ask her then.” With this knowledge of Veronica’s visit the next day and having absolutely no reason to believe that she would bring anything with her other than her handbag, I later that night asked Michael for the following sign to confirm by belief in regard to the invalidity of the new Rites: If the new Episcopal ordination rite were invalid, I request that Veronica bring with her an object that is red, that is, predominately of that color. I requested that if the new Episcopal ordination rite were valid that she would bring with her something blue. I also requested that if the new priestly ordination Rite were valid when administered by a bishop who had been consecrated a bishop in the traditional Rite that she would bring with her something yellow. And I requested that if the new priestly ordination Rite were invalid in itself, regardless of who administered it, that she would bring something green. I told Michael that I was not concerned about what the objects were or what they were made of, but my only concern was the color. I also acknowledged that I was totally unworthy of such a favor and that if the request were displeasing to God, that Michael should consider it withdrawn.
When Veronica arrived the next day, a weekday,, I saw that as she exited her car that she was carrying objects in her arms. So I held the door open for her as she entered the house. In one arm she was carrying a large bright red cookbook. Other than two small photos of food and some white print on the front cover, the book was entirely red, front, back & side, similar to the red on your website. In her other arm she was carrying a large jar of green pickles. She and her mother than used a recipe from the cookbook, with my wife providing other ingredients, to make a food dish. It was something that Veronica had eaten at a friend’s house and was interested in learning to make herself. This was the first time in those six years that Veronica has used our kitchen to prepare any food, with or without her mother’s assistance.
The odds of these two incidents combined, the red lily and now this, being a coincidence would be out of sight, and I would not insult Michael, and certainly not Our Lord, by even suggesting that it could be. I am simply grateful and humbled for favors that I do not deserve. It is almost as if Michael has never left and we are continuing our decades-long correspondence.
For now,
Michael
I don't think that this is a coincidence. You may draw whatever conclusions you want. The doctrinal and canonical principles have been explored by those trained in the fields of dogmatic theology and canon law. A sign such as this, although not "proving" anything to those who do not want to accept the truth of our situation, must, however, give a honest person pause for reflection, perhaps to prompt him to investigate the principles that Mr. Reardon believes were confirmed by his specific request to the late Michael Davies.
I, for one, am simply very grateful to the merciful designs of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the loving protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for our being led out of the false church with its false doctrines and false practices and false bishops and false priests and false liturgical rites. It's not been an easy time of it the past four years. However, saving our souls is not supposed to be easy. It is hard work, and there is going to be all manner of difficulty and rejection and misunderstanding and even infighting with others on important matters of justice and truth to be encountered with gratitude to the Divine Redeemer Whose mercy is such that He permits us to pay back what we owe Him here in this life as the clients of the Immaculate Heart of Mary if we simply persevere until the end.
In the end, of course, it is truth that matters. Nothing else. And the truth is simple: the Catholic Church is not responsible for the heresies and apostasies and errors and novelties and blasphemies and sacrileges of what is actually her counterfeit ape, the conciliar church filled with false clergymen and liturgical rites that are offensive to God and have the power to save no one. While we must pray for those who do not see or accept this as of yet, accepting whatever estrangements that have occurred as coming from the hand of God as we discharge our duties of Charity in prayer of praying for a good reconciliation on the Last Day, if not before, we must also stand fast in behalf of the truth no matter how much it will cost us in this life once we have discovered it, which is precisely what a man thought himself to be a "priest" on the conciliar church, Michael Oswalt, did fifteen and one-half months ago when he left his parish and wound up studying at Mount Saint Michael's Church in Spokane, Washington, for his conditional ordination in a year or two from now (see
Embracing The Faith No Matter the Consequences).
The Good Shepherd has work for us do in His vineyard. We should be grateful to Him that He has placed us in the midst of the current difficulties as these difficulties present us with a means of giving Him honor and glory and praise through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, enfolding ourselves through that Immaculate Heart into the merciful designs of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, understanding that these twin, matchless Hearts of love beat as one. Let us make sure always to pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John 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.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
