Even More Strange Things

“The Upside Down is an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human world. It contains the same locations and infrastructure as the human world, but it is much darker, colder and obscured by an omnipresent fog…. [a] dimension that is a dark reflection, or echo, of our world. It is a place of decay and death, a plane out of phase, a place of monsters. It is right next to you and you do not even see it.” … “Nope. No parallels under here.” (Hilary White)

>> Hilary White: Two religions; one Church? – the infiltration of the Modernist Anti-Christ (Nov. 2017)

>>  REPORTING on the UnChurch: One Peter Five

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~ BINKS IS just about to finish ‘Stranger Things‘ on Netflix, Season 1. Must say, I love it.. and it’s hard not to binge-watch it.

No major spoilers ensue below. Promise.

Like ‘The Matrix‘, the hit-show Stranger Things employs that familiar & human sense of displacement, weirdness, that there is an Unseen all around us which sometimes breaks in upon us in our ‘ordinary’ lives. That there is more going on than meets the eye.

In the popular Netflix series, which overflows with references to 80’s pop-culture, there is literally an evil copy parallel dimension called ‘The Upside Down‘, where people can be trapped, and eaten by a monster. The dimensional doorways can appear anywhere and everywhere: the wall of a house, a tree trunk, the basement of a top-secret government lab.

What both ‘The Matrix‘ and ‘Stranger Things‘ lack to make them universal is a spiritual universe above and inter-penetrating the visible ‘ordinary’ universe.. and a clear sense of God & His guiding providence. Sadly, religion plays almost no part in the show, or the lives of the characters.

What ‘Meant’ Means

By comparison, the writer J.R.R. Tolkien repeatedly mentions providence without explicating that it is of the Valar (archangels) and Eru (God). The wizard Gandalf’s own long mission in Middle Earth was a sending from the Blessed Land to fight evil, help the free peoples via suffering and pity, and– ultimately– to defeat Sauron, the dark successor to Morgoth (a fallen Valar, the Satan-figure).

In that Lord Of The Rings scene– which Peter Jackson moves from Frodo’s kitchen to the Mines Of Moria– we read:

Frodo: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times; but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”

That ‘meant’ bears a world of significance. Consider.

‘Meant’ is God’s providence, in the world, in events, ‘coincidences’, and via people. The Bible proclaims: “All things work together for good to them that love God.” [Rom. 8:28] Note: NOT ‘all things will be pleasant, easy, and straightforward’.

Remember: Christians serve a Crucified and Risen King, who still bears His (now glorious) scars. No easy path there: take up your cross. Follow, die.

Living Our Double Sight

And there’s another sense of “the unseen dimension”, our own actual “Upside Down”, which tempers our anger and enlightens our struggles. As Saint Paul teaches the Christians of Ephesus, and us:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” [Eph.  6:12]

Any battle with sin, darkness, heresy– in the church and the world, and in our own hearts, is a combination of many forces, many invisible, or acting through us or other people in a greater & darker pattern than the simply human (as bad as we can be).

Exorcists are still busy in 2018. Possessed people still exist– some in politics, and in the Church itself. Even some clergy may be thus.

The Disorientation Is Real

In the current pontificate of Francis, there is unprecedented darkness, division, dishonesty, confusion and discouragement afoot. Papal hyper-loyalists rally ’round the revolutionary throne, throwing accusations at critics and radical (deep-rooted) Catholics who demand the whole witness of the Church to be heard, respected, lived, taught.

Sometimes, it feels as if an UnChurch from some evil parallel dimension like ‘The Upside Down‘ has invaded our reality, and is seeking to proclaim itself as the real, true, and only thing to serve. There is a spiritual war afoot: each of us can play a double part, on earth as in heaven, for good or bad. The darkness is not simply the opposition themselves, nor we only the bright good ones– for humility and reality’s sake, we admit there are brighter and darker forces in conflict within what we see, and in each soul.

Via 1 Peter 5, Steve Skojec.

Holy loyalty and faithfulness and restraint are good: but we do not honour the Church or her current leadership via our blind obedience, nor forgetting Whom She really belongs to, and Whose Voice she is supposed to obey. His will is not simply to be identified with the novel dictates of people who seem bound to another message, an unKingdom, a utopia of exalted man making himself into a God, his desires and feelings the measure of all truth and goodness. OUR kingdom come, OUR will be done: and yet, even in this, a greater darkness can be felt, seeping through, pushing, ruining, distorting the Church, but also the fever dreams of utopia, too.

Some Christian Basics

That evil unholy being is not some exact counterpart to God, but a created and fallen Enemy, and likewise all the fallen angels and powers under his control. Alone, we cannot defeat such darkness, for we are but mortal and finite and compromised with darkness ourselves. From such, Christ came to deliver us.

Ancient Paganism sought to placate the dark powers; to deflect the ill will of spirits, gods, sprites, and malicious beings of every sort. Animal and human sacrifice was the trading of precious life for benefits, or being left alone.

The Incarnation changed all that. Jesus is become the Lord of the living and the dead. The suffering King Jesus lays bare the plans and pride and shining schemes of Lucifer; He bore in himself our sin, and has already won the victory over sin, and death, and Hell.. yet the long wrapping up of the battle will seem almost like defeat, as the faithful must abide darkness in the world, the Church, the human heart, and in malicious spiritual forces.

But, but– What To DO?

Read the headlines; pray; comfort one another; love the sacraments; repent. Read the Bible & the Church Fathers, and the saints. Read solid blogs and books. Same as it ever was, and there’s no greener grass elsewhere. Cheer up! It will very likely get much worse.

Stay faithful, for God is faithful, and will not abandon us, or leave us weak and comfortless and enslaved to the machinations of the Enemy and his minions, nor to our own sins, negligences, and ignorances. These bizarre times WILL be sorted by God, and by his judgment & mercy, and by better Church leaders and theologians in decades and centuries to come. +

So saith:

Teh Binks

“Lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
[St. Matthew 28:20]

A Mason, A Flower, And A Pope

Or, The Poinsettia Christmas Flower.. The Very Dark Side

>>> Let’s Change the Name Of the Poinsettia Flower to Dolorosa Flower

>>> Mexican Revolution directed by a cabal of radical freemasons/ American exploiters

>>> A Masonic Account– Joel Roberts Poinsett: The Man Behind The Flower, By Brother Edward N. Thompson

>>> QUAS PRIMAS (On the Feast of Christ the King), Pope Pius XI, Encyclical promulgated on 11 December 1925

>>> The Pope, the Laity, and Christ the King Sunday; and Viva Cristo Rey! Remembering Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. on his Feast Day

>>>  Wiki: Joel Roberts Poinsett

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~ BINKS JUST LOVES him some Poinsettias.. in all their 100+ varieties of colour and look. I loved to have the church loaded with them where & when possible. It was only later I learned the dark history of the man behind popularizing the Mexican plant we display at Christmastime.

The remarkable Joel Roberts Poinsett was a son of Charleston, South Carolina. As a young man, he learned many languages, law, and military affairs, then travelled widely through Europe, and South America. Later, he became the first United States ‘Minister’ (diplomatic spy) to Mexico in 1822-3, appointed by President John Quincy Adams.

The diplomat loved the Mexican plant “flor de la nochebuena“, or Christmas Eve flower, or Catarina. It was later named after him, after he introduced it to the United States in 1829– at a flower show in a Masonic Lodge.

Utopians At Work

For the remarkable Poinsett was also a Master Mason, and a Past Master of Recovery Lodge #31, Greenville, and Solomon’s Lodge, Charleston. His widespread interference on behalf of American interests in Mexico and South America tended in an anti-Catholic and U.S. democratic direction, and he was an expert in exploiting divisions within the newly independent Mexico, so to benefit American politics and aspirations, and his Freemasonic notions.

He helped quickly spread several forms of freemasonry to Mexico, then used the Mexican lodges to political ends… as he did wherever he went in the New World, against the forces of “aristocracy” and the Catholic Church.

Poinsett was rightly accused of fomenting revolution in Mexico, and he was expelled in 1829. He went back to begin a life in internal American politics.

He Helped Start The Fire…

Public execution of a priest in Mexico, 1927.

Radical Mexican Freemasons ruled Mexico, and so Poinsett’s interventions twisted Mexican politics and religion for the next 120 years. Masons presided over many bloody persecutions of Mexican Catholics from 1815 through to the 1940s, including the famous ‘War of The Cristeros‘ in the 1920s. Countless persecuted Catholic martyrs suffered or died because of Poinsett’s Masonic new world religion.

In the early 20th century, the Freemasons were on the march, and militant secularism was the next great thing: no more kings or priests, just one great fellowship of humanity.  Revolutionary France, Italy, Mexico, the new USSR, and soon Hitler’s Germany would all part of the same movement. “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad” as the ancient saying has it.

A Word From Heaven

It was partly in response to the cruel realities & predations of socialist Freemasonry in Mexico and around the Western world that in 1925 Pope Pius XI instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King, and issued the Encyclical ‘QUAS PRIMAS’.

“At the end of the encyclical, he declared that he expected three ‘blessings’ to flow from the celebration of the feast: first, that ‘men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state’; second, that ‘Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ’; and third, that ‘The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal.'”

Pope Pius XI

Long before the CIA existed, or ever gunboat diplomacy and banana republics were made, the remarkable Joel Poinsett was the very model of a scheming, opportunistic, imperialistic ‘Monroe Doctrine‘ Masonic utopian busybody. Likewise at home he presided over the explusion of many Native tribes from their homelands– including the infamous Cherokee “Trail of Tears”– as a Congressman and Minister of War under President Martin Van Buren.

The Infection Spreads

Cardinal Rampolla, nearly Pope

Sadly, the Church herself is often effected by the fads and power-seeking conspiracy-loving ways of the fallen world– it was only by a last-minute intervention that Cardinal Rampolla, possibly of the the Masonic Ordo Templi Orientalis, was not elected in 1903 instead of Pope St. Pius X. Later Masonic-insider revelations in the 1970s indicate that many leading Roman Catholic prelates, cardinals, and ecclesiastical movers and shakers were likely members of Masonic lodges, despite the Catholic restriction on such things. Such men included many of the architects of the radical Vatican II event.

Glory To The Newborn King!

All of this ugly history is not the Poinsettia’s fault. The plant is the plant.

The humble Flor de la nochebuena is one of God’s lovely creations, and despite Mr. Poinsett & Co.’s own best efforts, it has become a much-loved Christian and seasonal symbol of the birth of Christ the King, helping churches everywhere celebrate with beauty and colour the nativity of the newborn King, God incarnate, Man Divine, God with us, our true saviour, judge, friend, ruler, and salvation.

After more than 200 years of well-meaning but futile utopian scheming & blood-letting, God is still God, Man is still Man, fallen and lost and needing the imparted life of heaven through Jesus, The Lord. Each of us still has to decide who is our ultimate king: Christ, or some idol of humanity.

“Glory to the new-born king!”

So saith,

The Binks

———————————————————————————————————————————

HARK! the Herald Angels sing:
Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on Earth, and Mercy mild,
God and Sinners reconcil’d.
Joyful all ye Nations rise,
Join the Triumphs of the Skies;
Nature rise and worship him,
Who is born at Bethlehem.

Hark! The herald-angels sing:
“Glory to the new-born king!”

Christ, by highest heaven adored
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb:
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel.

Hark! The herald-angels sing:
“Glory to the new-born king!”

Hail the Heav’n-born Prince of Peace
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and Life around he brings,
Ris’n with Healing in his Wings.
Mild he lays his Glory by,
Born that Men no more may die;
Born to raise the Sons of Earth,
Born to give them second Birth.

Hark! The herald-angels sing:
“Glory to the new-born king!”

Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in us thy heav’nly Home;
Rise the Woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent’s Head.
Adam’s Likeness now efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place;
Second Adam from above,
Work it in us by thy Love.

Hark! The herald-angels sing:
“Glory to the new-born king!” +

~ Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, et al. 

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… On The Feast of Stephen

 

 

>> Catholic Activity: Story of St. Wenceslaus

>> New Advent: St. Stephen, First Martyr

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~ THIS IS THE DAY, and the story, of two inspired young men connected by faith and death.

This day, after the celebration of the Joyful Nativity, we count the cost of God’s coming amongst us as one of us: St. Stephen’s Day (sometimes called Boxing Day in English-inspired lands). Faith costs: possibly everything.

Less than two months after the Crucifixion, outside one of Jerusalem’s gates, an angry mob stones to death a young Christian man– who fearlessly preached to the very people & religious leaders who had condemned Jesus to the Cross. Away with him! The dying even forgave his murderers as he died. Looking on was a persecutor of the young Church– one Saul of Tarsus, who would later himself convert and become St. Paul, Evangelist to the Gentile world.

St. Stephen was the first of so many to witness unto Christ Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem become Risen King by their life unto blood, called martyrs. Holy Innocent’s Day, also following Christmas, reminds us of the slain babes of Bethlehem, by the wrathful King Herod.

St. Stephen’s Gate, Jerusalem, where the martyr was slain.

 

Meanwhile, In Bohemia..

Long centuries later, Wenceslaus (or Vaclav) I, Duke of Bohemia (from 921-935) would likewise serve Christ as a martyr. His grandmother had passed onto him the faith before she was murdered; yet many nobles and the establishment powers of Bohemia preferred the old ways of sacrifice, exploitation, murder of each other, and cruel selfishness. Vicious political intrigue was a sport for such leaders.

Why should anyone care for peasants? Why the gentler ways of the new god, Jesus? Why waste money on busy-body missionaries, and teaching the people, and building churches? Why let the exiled Christian clergy back into Bohemia? Why did the Duke live like a humble man of peace, and not a warlike, powerful, and wealthy noble? Away with him.

Before long, young Duke Wenceslaus (in his latter 20s) was slain on the steps of a church by his own treacherous brother, Boleslaw. And yet the Church and the ordinary people remembered their young duke’s Christ-like love and witness, his service and aspiration for a better way for his own lands, and for the world– and so do we unto this day. The holy Duke is the patron saint of the Czech Republic, and his relics are honoured in St. Wenceslas’ Chapel in St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague (below).

Though a Duke, Wenceslaus became a inspirational figure for the Middle Ages of the “Rex Justus“, the godly and Christlike Christian king, using his powers for good, to teach & help & raise up all his people, to rule by law and love, a princely ruler whose power comes from vigour and deep piety.

The saintly friends of God Stephanus and Wenceslaus remind us that young people in general and young men in particular deeply need faithful, knightly, courageous, life-inspiring examples and opportunities to serve as fathers, heroes, leaders, helpers, world-changers, God-servers. If we do not allow this– or squander it– then the church and the world are ill-served, and young lives are wasted in idleness or violence or base pursuits, and not in bold witness unto the Babe of Bethlehem, and King of all nations and People, Jesus Christ.

The famous hymn about Duke Wenceslaus was a lovely bit of Victoriana (much despised by hymn-snobs) based on an older legend: a reminder of the kind of man the Duke was, the people and service he loved, and the kind of people we should be, in loving our neighbour. +

The skull of St. Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia

 

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know’st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither.”
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather

“Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing.

~ John Mason Neale, 1853, the Hymn based on his ‘Legend of St. Wencelaus‘

 

 

Hugs In Heaven?

OK– FWIW, I’m over the Omar Khadr thing for now, except to ask for prayers. Why? Because I want to embrace him in heaven.

WHAAAAT?!

> Pray that the Holy Spirit hover over him, give him no restful sleep, until he seek the Lord Jesus.

> Pray that like so many other Muslim converts, he receive a vision of the risen Jesus, and so seek baptism and conversion.

> Pray blessings on his head. Pray that he hears & believes the Good News.

> Pray that we have a spirit of forgiveness for our Islamist enemies, and a love for them great enough to seek their salvation from sin and death and hell and their demonic false religion.

Let’s ask God to make Omar Khadr a saint, as were so many other converts in the history of the Christian Church.

So saith

Binks

Titanicalism

IT STILL SITS as the second highest grossing movie ever: James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic, by James Cameron. $2,186,772,302.00 and change. Not a great flick, but a good one. Personally, I’m just as impressed by the fact of James Cameron’s one-man submarine trip down 7 miles to the bottom of the Marianas Trench…

Sailing, Sailing

Our world is the Titanic: and what you think is going on in life or the life of the world depends very much on what part of the voyage you focus on. I explain.

For some, we’re on a journey in a mighty vessel to the new world, just over the horizon. Full speed ahead! What could possibly go wrong? Look.. all the best people are here, and agree with us! Moar caviar!

Not long after, the speeding unsinkable shears off countless cold-brittle rivets on an iceberg. The designers had not imagined such a thing, nor prepared for it. As the bow settles, water will keep moving backwards over the watertight bulkheads, until.. doom.

Me, I’m a “life is bow-settling” guy. Death– the water– is creeping up surely and unavoidably. Order is breaking down, people are scrambling for lifeboats, and while some are going full-panic or full-denial, others are trying to abide by their duty, and to help as much as possible, as the Great Ship Utopia begins to founder in earnest into the icy North Atlantic.

Utopia, Right Ahead!

For many modern day Utopians– this-worldly salvation true-believers– it is in human reach and wisdom to make heaven on earth. Human beings are basically good, and just need enough browbeating, herd-mentality, and extra rules, and we will make a perfect world out of our super-duper selves.

Bizarrely, the very hubris of the modernist movement that built the Titanic and infected politics, and has also infected the Catholic Church. The clueless notion that the 1960s Church would “Listen to the World”, that we needed no redemption just a little buffing, and all would progress together in a la-la-land journey of common purpose and happy thoughts.. the Denial-As-Faith it took place in an actual sinking-Titanic world.

Consider– at the same time as sin and sacrifice and salvation were being thrown overboard, and a mind-boggling naiveté about human goodness and perfectibility was put on the altar, let us remember that the 20th century was the century of blood; of genocides; of industrial slaughter, of two catastrophic world wars with hundreds of millions dead, injured, made refugee.. plus, with technology abroad to have a third and very final War.

Even as the faux-clever theologians and happy-thinking bishops were trying to remake the faith into something unChristian and unrecognizable, the ovens of Auschwitz were not 20 years cold; Soviet Gulags and Chinese death-camps were brimming over; that World War Three had nearly begun a couple years before over Cuba; that despite the rush of technology and Western prosperity, that fallen human nature had not actually changed, and that we needed the Cross of Christ and His risen life more than ever.

Even the ancient pagans knew better: “Those whom the gods would destroy” they warned “they first drive mad.” Denial is a sweet addiction: but reality is always best.

Living In Dreams

Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever….

As if it were 1905, and a perfect world was just ahead, out went the old religion, the Latin, the rosaries, the relics, the art and architecture: come now the felt banners and camping songs, the puppets & clowns, the moralistic therapeutic deist sermons (with a dash of revolution), of a new and sinless humanity feeling its oats in experiment and innovation and… “Iceberg, right ahead!!”

Mortality? Still with us. Human failing, cruelty, blindness, and evil? Check. Our limitations, blindness, and failed good intentions? Yup. Hurting one another, deliberately and just because? Pretty much. Violence, false belief, unspeakable deeds, a foolish naivete? Mass murder? Warfare? Always & everywhere.

Prisoners at Jiangbei prison, Hubei province, in 1998. Look! Free transplants, slave-labour, and neatening up the political process all in one!

Only, for all these abiding and tragic realities of our bent human nature, progressive religion has no answers, having treated as flotsam and jetsam the faith of our fathers, the wisdom of 20 Christians centuries and 15 Hebrew centuries before that; the riches of Roman Law and Greek philosophy and theatre; and all the good things of Western Civilization. Yard sale.. we have shiny new plastic things!

So the next time some smirking collar tells you all is well, celebrate yourself, God is (only) love, and love is probably God, hug a warm puppy and be happy– realize he’s trying to sell you a berth on the sinking Titanic, has no answers, no salvation to pass on to you, and is not in touch with the Real, or Jesus, or God– nor the reality of life and death and sin.

ITYS,

Binks

---

 

There’s more wisdom and human feeling and recognition of sin in the following Scouting campfire song than in a modernist post-Christian hymn or sermon.

The Titanic (Husbands And Wives) Camp Song

Traditional

Oh they built the ship Titanic
To sail the ocean blue
And they thought they had a ship
That the water would never go through;
But the Lord’s Almighty hand
Said that ship would never land,
It was sad when that great ship went down.

Chorus:
It was sad. It was sad.
It was sad when the great ship went down.
(to the bottom of the…)
Husbands and wives,
Little children lost their lives
It was sad when the great ship went down.)

They were off from England
And not very far from shore
When the rich refused
To associate with the poor
So they sent them down below
Where they’d be the first to go
It was sad when that great ship went down.

Chorus

The boat was about to sink,
And the sides about to burst,
When the captain shouted, “All
Women and children first!”
Oh, the captain tried to wire,
But the wires was on fire,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus

Oh, they swung the lifeboats out
O’er the deep and ragin’ sea,
When the band struck up with,
“Nearer My God to Thee.”
Little children wept and cried,
As the waves swept o’er the side,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus

Look! A Squirrel!

~ SO THERE WAS your humble WebElf, reading (online) the Pusey translation of The Confessions of St. Augustine (Book VIII), and I came across pre-saint Augustine’s comments about how deeply moved he was by the book, The Life Of Anthony (of Egypt). Quotation below.

My brain is.. well.. not unlike a goofy hamster on caffeine, so away I went to find a copy of the said other book, and started reading that.. before having finished Confessions... which I promptly forgot to finish. Welcome to my world.

What’s not to like? A book written by a saint.. about a saint, which inspired another man to eventually become a saint. Doesn’t that insta-rate five stars.. or, perhaps, haloes?

The Book Itself

Written by St. Athanasius of Alexandria, The Life Of St. Anthony of Egypt, primary founder of Christian monasticism, is a readable, gripping, and inspiring Christian classic. St. Augustine, in his confessions, describes reading it along with his friends, and being deeply moved by it.

A youngish St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica, she of the very very patient and constant prayers for her wayward son.

None of us knows the effect of our lives, actions, words– or failures in the same– on our neighbours and times, or those to come. For St. Anthony and St. Augustine both knew that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is faithful, and sow they spiritually sowed their seed and cleared the fields of rocks in their times. Lo and behold, those earlier heroes of the faith inspired one of the great Church Fathers in his day and age to fight the battles,  the good fight of faith, in his day and age.

A reminder to abide faithful, however hard the slog or dark the times.

Cheers,

Binks, Elf of Web

---

 

14. Upon a certain day, then, Nebridius being away (why, I do not remember), lo, there came to the house to see Alypius and me, Pontitianus, a countryman of ours, in so far as he was an African, who held high office in the emperor’s court. What he wanted with us I know not, but we sat down to talk together, and it fell out that upon a table before us, used for games, he noticed a book; he took it up, opened it, and, contrary to his expectation, found it to be the Apostle Paul—for he imagined it to be one of those books which I was wearing myself out in teaching. At this he looked up at me smilingly, and expressed his delight and wonder that he had so unexpectedly found this book, and this only, before my eyes. For he was both a Christian and baptized, and often prostrated himself before You our God in the church, in constant and daily prayers.

When, then, I had told him that I bestowed much pains upon these writings, a conversation ensued on his speaking of Antony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was in high repute among Your servants, though up to that time not familiar to us. When he came to know this, he lingered on that topic, imparting to us a knowledge of this man so eminent, and marvelling at our ignorance. But we were amazed, hearing Your wonderful works most fully manifested in times so recent, and almost in our own, wrought in the true faith and the Catholic Church. We all wondered— we, that they were so great, and he, that we had never heard of them.

15. From this his conversation turned to the companies in the monasteries, and their manners so fragrant unto You, and of the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, of which we knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan full of good brethren, without the walls of the city, under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we were ignorant of it. He went on with his relation, and we listened intently and in silence.

He then related to us how on a certain afternoon, at Triers, when the emperor was taken up with seeing the Circensian games, he and three others, his comrades, went out for a walk in the gardens close to the city walls, and there, as they chanced to walk two and two, one strolled away with him, while the other two went by themselves; and these, in their rambling, came upon a certain cottage inhabited by some of Your servants, poor in spirit, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, where they found a book in which was written the life of Antony. This one of them began to read, marvel at, and be inflamed by it; and in the reading, to meditate on embracing such a life, and giving up his worldly employments to serve You….

Conf. VIII. 14-15.

The F-word

Binks-Dad: Smart, weird, punny, a prankster, a genius, a contrarian to herd-think, a helper, and teacher.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! — This morning whilst walking Wee Wallace The Wonder-Poodle (one cat, no dogs, no birds to startle), I prayed for my own father, and my father in-law; my grandfathers and great-grand-fathers, and forefathers before that, giving thanks for them, and praying that they were resting in peace. I’m also a Dad, of twin young men.

THE Father– self-naming in revelation– is the source of all things, and Fatherhood, the Trinity itself, all creation, all living creatures; and all human fatherhood is a shadow and pointer to that original archetype.

St. Paul writes to the Ephesians:

“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, For whom all fatherhood in heaven and in earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

These are the True, the Real things.. to align with them is like a compass pointing North, a bird homing for nest or breeding ground or Winter home; to try and unmake or remake God’s Fatherhood in our own image and likeness is madness, destruction, and a huge part of our current crisis in marriage, youth, and society.

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As I did the drive-through at Tim’s this AM, I asked the window-girl (whom I tease constantly in a fatherly way) what she was up to for Father’s Day. She said ruefully: “My Dad’s in Digby.” That said it all. Whatever the cause, some fathers go rogue, yet their kids still need and crave fathering and fatherly love and guiding. Some Dads are not very noble or dadly; and modern family & divorce law torture fathers in particular, making it even harder to be faithful if a marriage goes awry. As always, the kids go wanting, and suffer most.

Via

Our clever bossy people talk of countless gender-identities and social constructs and #BanFathersDay, and are too earthly-minded to grasp that they are dealing with heavenly and eternal mysteries, great things which cannot be bent or broken by human will or evil or madness, only half-forgotten, in ways which leave broken lives and hearts amidst our ruins. Or, that those great mysteries are dealing with them. You cannot break or bend God, or his truth, only yourself.

Pray this day as well for those called to spiritual fatherhood as clergy or monks: by God’s name and grace, they can be conduits of grace to make whole what nature and life may have scarred or left wanting. Pray for their courage, leadership, and adherence to the truth in love, for we are in the midst of near-apocalyptic battles in Church and society, and the very foundations themselves are shaken.

There is a war afoot, and men and fathers and fatherly men of all kinds must set down their effing smartphones: there’s work to be done.  Learn up & pass it on, love and defend the truth, follow God, and set to fixing & saving All The Things.  It’s what we’re supposed to do: show up, and Get ‘Er Done, and not sit around waiting for approval, thanks, or the enemies of the good just to become good, somehow. The kids are watching, and waiting.

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Don’t wait until too late to appreciate and tell your Dad & grandfathers and fatherly people how grateful you are. Now.

Sniff. I love you, and I miss you, Dad, Grampa George, and Grandpa Bill, and all my forefathers. You all helped make me who I am as a person, a man, and a father. Thank you– and God bless and keep you.

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen. ~

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Battle Ready, Cool, and Durable

~ ITEM: “I looked at this “masculine and muscular” military rosary, and said to myself, “The men need to have these!!”

~ ITEM: RUGGED ROSARIES® = The spiritual strength, durability, and reliability of the Holy Rosary PLUS the proven strength, durability, and reliability of paracord.

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~ WORD HAS IT that many persons of a popistical sort have no end of problems with their cool prayer-tool: the rosary. Knotted up in tangles; spontaneously breaking into a pocket full of beads and broken wire; just wearing out.. and for Catholic men, having, well, rather girly-looking jewelery in hand.

Well, no more!

Witness two new products for the prayer-warrior in these troublous times: the military paracord rosary, and the World war reproduction rosary (seen at top)! That’s right, actual military parachute cord, able to support up to 550 pounds of weight, and ever-useful in survival, fishing, and emergency situations to tourniquets and the like; and metal bead on chain rosaries given to U.S. Catholic soldiers in two world wars, meant to survive just about anything and everything.. actual military service, travel, hiking, construction sites, rough handling, small children, and more.

For the manly Catholic men out there, both give the lie to the old saying that “rosaries are for old women”, and that they must look like tacky Victorian costume jewelry, fit for a dowager. The para-cord ones are especially suitable for military personnel, and can survive a great deal of rough accidental usage; they can hang off your belt, in your car, off your ruck-sack, or (OK, ladies, you can have one too) in your purse.

Listen TO MC Hammer!

Why? We got to pray, as noted cultural philosopher and performer of musical tunes MC Hammer has noted in one of his songs. As the chaos rises, as the persecution of Christians (especially Catholics) grows under secular regimes, and Jihadi attacks, as out souls thirst for the living God, we need the power, peace, and comfort.. as St. Paul commanded.. “Pray Without Ceasing”. Part of why our civilization is so sick? We’ve ceased to water it, ourselves, or our neighbor and various problems with patient, persistent, and powerful prayer.

Surely Binks has sold his soul for this one? Nope. The WebElf gets no Vatican kickbacks, bribes, inducement, incentive, pay-off, graft, sweeteners, sop, backhander, enticement, hush money, payola, allurement, or corrupting gift for praising up this gear, nor do I own either (yet). I just surf the web, and come across interesting answers to age-old problems, get enthused, and start talking about it online. Squee!!

What Are You Waiting For?

So drop a line to Fr. Richard Heilman and ask about his awesome 1916 Military Combat Rosary and mini prayer-manuals; or over to the paracord people of Cordbands.com’s Rugged Rosaries®, for their wide & interesting line of paracorded holy gear, and other stuffs. They have a lot of different products, scattered over several pages, so check out the entire site if you’re interested.

P.S. Teh Binks loves the ‘Memento Mori’ Skulls Rosary, as seen below.

So Saith,

Teh Binks

There Are Days….

Lyrics

~ ITEM: How the spoon theory helps those suffering chronic pain and fatigue, by
Emily Band

N.B.: Please read the very helpful comment below by Pete B.

~ YOU KNOW PEOPLE who live with chronic pain, and some of them you don’t even suspect of it. We can look fine; sound fine; but behind the tight smile and the subtle tension in our body lies the reality.

I have been in some form of chronic or recurrent pain & various diseases since I was a teen. It’s gotten worse since then.

Another Life

Any of us get little bruises, cuts, headache, a broken bone, minor surgery, sore throats and the like. We then have a swift return to our normal largely pain-free life. We forget what the pain was even like, glad to be well again.

That’s not the life of someone with chronic pain, disabling, or disease– whatever the cause. Pain is the norm, relief the occasional thing.

Sometimes, it keeps you awake at night, trying to find a position where the break-through pain does not ruin whatever sleep you can manage (chronic pain can push away deep, restorative, dream-sleep).

Often, it blights an entire day if you don’t manage to distract yourself with video or audio or busy-work, and the sweet embrace of pain-management. It ranges from aches and throbs, stings and stiffness (think the morning after a really hard exercise day) all the way to– well– pondering suicide to just make it stop. And no, I’d never make a nurse or doctor or clinic co-guilty with my self-murder.

Meaning Well

Loved ones try to sympathize, understand, help us– but after a while, it gets exhausting for them, too. Just Get Better! Man Up! Rub Some Dirt On It! Is It Really That Bad? Get Over Yourself! Might this be a cure? Oh, What Now?!

Or, with the vultures hovering about in the euthanasiac movement: Surely Death Is Better Than This! It’s the very voice of Satan, promising false peace.. for a moment. “Did God really say….?“

Be Vewwy Vewwy Quwiet

People in chronic disabling pain get used to keeping secrets, forcing smiles, not wanting to bother or burden others, keeping everything to themselves– it’s like a double-punishment sundae with a cactus on top: (1) the pain, (2) then the feeling bad for being in pain, and (3) the stress and depression and anxiety and disappointment of a pain-filled life, then– (4) keeping most of it to yourself, and not wanting to be a bother.

Sometimes, it’s just easier not to say anything much.

Blessed Distractions

If it were not for my wife, reading, prayers, my dear dog Dr. Wee Wallace, some blogging and some online friends, and video/ movies/ computer games, my life would be immeasurably more unpleasant than it is. I have blessings.

It’s one of the reasons I object to Social Justice Warriors trying to rewrite, forbid, whitewash and fiddle with pop culture, literature, the gaming world, and whatever else they can toxify with ideology. Or the euthanasiac death-merchants, selling damnation and suicide in one fell swoop.

As I’ve remarked before, for me that’s a lot like asking how much poop I’d like in my soup. None please, and Go The Eff Away, Thank you very much.

Take It Up

Until I die, apparently I have some suffering to do. Some offering up of prayer, pain, joy, peace, all of it, until all my sins are burnt away, and I am refined in the furnace of eternal love.

This is my cross and burden, to bear with love. This is the cross burning into my flesh, crucifying me to My Saviour, and Him to me.

This is my cross and calling, and I will not shrug it off, or run away, nor seek to set it down until He tells me that it’s time to do so. ~

 

Easter: The Re-Creation

Or, “But But But… That’s Unpossible!”

~ ITEM: NASA captures a huge pulse of energy coming out of a black hole; Mysterious Object That Came Out of a Black Hole Has Just Been Measured

~ ITEM: Black Hole Has Major Flare – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

~ ITEM: Fulfilled Prophecies about Jesus’ Death & Resurrection – See more info here; also,  Google search.. “prophecies of the resurrection in the old testament”; see also Prophecies of the Resurrection

~ ITEM: Silent Saturday: a tomb, a seal, a guard

~ ITEM: What happened on Easter Sunday?

~ ITEM: The Edicule of the Tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be restored for the first time in 200 years.

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~ IN 2007, CANADIAN astronomers in Binky’s home town were astonished when something apparently came OUT of a black hole. Yup. Escaped.

According to all the postulated ideas of physics, models of what black holes are and how they are supposed to work– as collapsed super-dense star-cores operating like giant cosmic vacuums sucking up everything nearby (including stars, and even light itself)–  this new observation just makes no sense.

Now, all the rules and assumptions and theories have to be reworked. Once again, reality and what is smashes through our ideas of the universe and what should be.

Kinder, Gentler Black Holes?

Could it be that these monstrous whirlpools of cosmic doom called black holes might also be, somehow, giant engines of creation? That’s a comfort, since there’s also thought to be a ginormous black hole eating away at the star-crowded heart of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Black holes may giveth, as well as the more obvious aspects of black holes taketh-ing away.

Another Mighty Mystery 

An event changing everything, forever– just like the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Easter is more than a day, it’s a whole church season. It’s more than a past event, it’s an omnipresent engine of recreation, new birth, the operating principle of the spiritual universe, the underlying power: Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead on Sunday, April 5th, A.D. 33. It’s not just a past-dead-written-in-a-book moment, it’s a present and powerful principle of the transformation of all things.

For Christ is risen from the dead: He lives in and through his church & people, and his new creation a-borning. In Him, all of creation is groaning and awaiting the remaking of all things into a new heaven and a new earth.

Christ arose, transformed and shining with eternal life— and as he is, we shall be. Jesus was first seen by Mary Magdalen, then by 10 apostles; He appeared on the road to the town of Emmaus to two disciples, walking and talking with them. Later he was seen, the Bible said, by above 500 Christians at once. He preached, comforted, and taught, preparing his apostles for their work, following after His promised departure into heaven, and He & the Father sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost-Day. BOOM.

The Risen Jesus on the Road To Emmaus

The Heavenly Ground Zero

Where is the tomb of Jesus? St. Helena the Mother of the Emperor Constantine toured the Holy Land in A.D. 326, and founded several churches on various holy sites remembered by the local Christians down the years as the original places where events connected with Jesus took place. Some may be uncertain, but one is not– the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The Tomb of Jesus has survived burial by the pagan Romans; excavation by the Byzantine Christians with the erection of a glorious basilica and rotunda; the AD 614 invasion by the Persians (destruction of the basilica), then waves of Jihad; next  a near-total demolition in AD 1009 ordered by Fatimite Khalif al-Hakim, the Caliph of Egypt (one of the indirect causes of the Crusades); then a rebuilding by the Crusaders, then further earthquakes, fire, and the like. The current building and tomb sure doesn’t look like it originally did– but it’s been through a lot over almost twenty centuries.

Basilica & Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre, c. AD 335, Romano-Byzantine city of Jerusalem.

The original Tomb was uncovered by the Byzantines, and cut away from the small hill it was cut into. That small building was surrounded by a beautiful rotunda, after which the Dome of the Rock was directly copied from the Rotunda (see ‘Finders, Keepers‘) by a later Muslim ruler over Jerusalem, for fear that the overwhelming beauty of the Christian building would draw Muslims to be converted (or in some cases, to return) to Christianity.

Edicule (centre), Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

That rotunda was deliberately demolished, and the very tomb itself beaten with hammers and burnt with fire until only part of the funerary-bed and a low wall remained. The crusaders built a small building around what was left, called ‘The Edicule‘. The remaining original stone of the surviving Tomb of Christ is covered and faced with medieval marble, to protect it.

Inside the Tomb Of Jesus.

Some Protestants are piously and deeply enamoured of a more ‘original’-looking site designated in the 1860s by a British army colonel, called ‘Gordon’s Tomb‘, but it is of the wrong date, and location. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, shrines and chambers and icons, just doesn’t feel right. Plus, it’s full of Catholics, and exotic Orthodox Christians.

How do we know that the Church of The Holy Sepulchre really is on the right place where Christ was buried and rose again? It’s simple, really. Some other surrounding tombs: and because these tombs are pointed mostly the wrong way. What-now?

First Century Jewish-Christian Burial Shafts, Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.

More specifically, there are many small early 1st century Jewish-Christian tombs near the Tomb of Jesus. They are not oriented according to proper Jewish custom, West to East, the heavenly East the direction from which the Messiah is supposed to come. From their various encircling locations, these ancient tombs all point, like compass needles seeking True North, towards the central Tomb. This is where it all happened.

Says one writer:

“These burial shafts (kokhim) date to the time of Christ’s death and thus attest to some kind of burial ground in the area. Bolen writes, ‘Combined with the evidence from tradition, this church is most likely the true location of the Christ’s death and burial.'”

That is– no need to point East, awaiting Him who is to Come: He has come, he has lived, was crucified and died, and risen again from this very place. This is the new centre of the world, where all things began to be made new; the spot where heaven begins, where new life broke forth from the broken tomb, where angels sat atop the great door-stone and declared “Why do you seek the living amongst the dead? He is not here, he is risen, just as he said.”

This, then is truly the very place and supernatural heart of the great explosion of love that is the new creation– the hub of the world, as it used to be depicted on ancient Christian maps. Like creation, the Resurrection is both a moment, and an ongoing life-giving divine energy and re-creative process, of the Father indwelling the Son, and the Son indwelling us, and we indwelling him. God is making all things new: a new creation.

By comparison, the unlimited and eternal energy, living power, and unfolding consequences of that first Easter make even a super-massive black hole look like a pop-gun. ~

Dome Over The Tomb Of Jesus

So saith,

The Binks