My friend Kathy is in palliative care with cancer. She is the Blog-Queen of Canada, a brave freedom-fighter and author, and now she’s in the battle of her life. Read more & give via:
When you’re a baby-Christian, verses like the one of Jesus on the cross crying out in Aramaic “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” can really unsettle you. “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But how can the man Jesus, one person with God’s Incarnate Son, be forsaken by… Himself?!
Here’s The Thing
Maybe Jesus isn’t divine?
Maybe he was divine before he was made incarnate by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and then again after He rose again?
What is that about, verse, anyway?
OK, let’s back up. Way up.
After His crucifixion, death, and resurrection, the risen Jesus speaks with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus:
“Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” [Luke 24:44]
That is, the teaching of Jesus is that He is the true subject and the fulfillment of the whole of Israel’s history, her longing in the Prophets, and her Scriptures and holy writings. Even the ancient hymns called Psalms are prophetic, pointing to Him; they are His prayer-book, revealing the inner life & meaning of His mission, death, and resurrection.
So when we find out that “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” is a quotation from the Psalms (22), it helps to understand that Psalm verse– spoken from the cross– is a window into the mind & heart of the dying King Jesus, Saviour of humanity.
The sufferings are real, even down to Jesus feeling that He is somehow cut off, forsaken, in the darkness with no obvious light. Although He is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world: yet that black avalanche of everything in us that cuts us off from God and one another falls on Him.
After the sorrowful verses, this Psalm is a great dawning glow of hope, faith, and trust in the Lord shines through Psalm 22. After the suffering comes joy. After death is hope. God hears the cry of His Son, the suffering servant (read Isaiah 53), and does not abandon or reject Him, or us as found in Him.
Feelings Are Not Facts
So Jesus felt cut off from God, yet quotes the Psalm to say what His crucifixion & death means, to preach from the Cross, to share with us what it is like to feel far from God.
But feelings are not facts. Jesus was still the man divine, the only-begotten Son incarnate in the man Jesus Christ, one person & two natures. The Word made flesh. God in a man like us.
In some crisis we might say “It’s totally hopeless! We’re doomed!” even as our help is about to arrive, unexpectedly, out of the blue, at the very last minute, or otherwise in time to save & help us. In that case, how truly accurate were our feelings, versus the facts? Feelings must follow facts, else we get lost in a swamp of ever-shifting mirages.
Therefore, to wrongly imagine that “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” somehow means that Jesus isn’t God (or some other complicated bad idea) shows an ignorance of Jesus, who He was, what he lived & taught, and how the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures & holy writings were ultimately about Him.
There is no deep where God is not, be the night never so dark. There is no fear or sorrow or sense of abandonment which Jesus our High Priest has not taken into Himself, and burnt up in the fire of infinite love in the offering of Himself to atone for our sins, once and for all.
And beyond that forsakenness, even beyond what seems to earthly a final ending of death, Jesus has conquered sin, and death, and hell, and shared with us the eternal & holy life of God, that we might rejoice in Him who is the Lord of the living and the dead, who went on a head to prepare a place for us, that where He is, we might be also, and that as He is in God the Father, we may be in God the Son, sharing the eternal life & Joy of the blessed Trinity in all the saints, in the unity of God the Holy Spirit, forever in heaven.
~ I DEEPLY & TRULY HATE ugly architecture. In a recent video by Amazing Polly in which she discusses a range of topics, about 1/2 way through, she talks about the death of beauty and the kind of architecture inflicted on people by modernist architects. Watch her video first.
A building can inform, delight, ennoble, send a message about goodness, beauty, and truth. Even simply functional buildings can have a touch of whimsy, detail, and design that makes if more than functional. Deliberately ugly, functionalist, offensive modern architecture is meant to desolate the eye, the heart, the mind, and keep us trapped in the here and now, oppressed and oppressing, surrounded by the excretions of our betters.
Anyhow, here’s my comment, following her statement that Canada never had a period of attractive architecture:
I dare to disagree with you, Amazing Polly. Canada had a period of beautiful buildings, circa 1800-1900+. The work of Maritimer William Critchlow Harris, the Ottawa Parliament builders, the Italianate homes , and many of our older pre-20th century church buildings. In some places (here and there in Toronto, more so in smaller & midsized communities) this heritage of lovely banks, public buildings, homes, and churches still exists, though some need TLC & renovation back to their more original design.
Sadly, as you say, brutalist & alien-invasion clever architecture has ruined many bigger communities & downtown cores, and too many architects still seem concerned with making a statement than following any line of truth, beauty & goodness, or even blending their building with the surroundings.
Here in my little town, the local RCMP have moved from a small and not unattractive brick building to a shiny metal, steel, and ominous structure, which is a statement of surveillance and domination, which doesn’t fit the town or setting, and was obviously designed by somebody with skill but little talent.
~ YOU KNOW those deliriously happy people in commercials and photos?– we’re supposed to be like that. Just– super-DUPER happy. Happy with the new tech-toys, happy with travelling and gathering random experiences, happy with the semi-anonymous exchange of bodily fluids, happy watching the same movie and listening to the same song, each only slightly varied from the other ones. Such very fun!
Except.. life. The world. Politics. Our longing hearts, seeking a kingdom of true peace, and inner peace. And in our world, restless Progressivism must “progress”, which means interfering with everything & everyone in sight.
“People don’t like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think. Don’t run, don’t walk. We’re in their homes and in their heads and we haven’t the right. We’re meddlesome.”
Most of all, the meddlers don’t like a taste of their own medicine. The Euro & American establishments both got a huge dose of meddlesome & uppity peasants with the U.S. Fall election of one Donald John Trump in 2016, and the Brexit vote earlier that same Summer.
Big Meddle got a royally bloody nose. And then their planet-sized snit ensued.
Elites: “This is going to hurt you peasants a lot more than you hurt us.”
The Snit Ensues: Details
Looking back at 2016, Team Meddle knows one thing: internets helped bad thing happen: must part-muzzle peasants! In 2015-2016, YouTube, Twitter, Google Search, Drudge, FaceBook were all used by the peasants as levers of public awareness, circumventing the lapdog media, and the political establishments feeding the elite narrative.
Must fix! So now it’s Big Backlash by Big Meddle, with shadow-banning, leftwards algorithms, demonetized videos and YouTube Channels, Twitter deletions and bans, FaceBook Jail & nanny-messaging. This is all to one end: to stop the anti-Meddle meddling by the revolting peasants. Social Media weaponized against non-compliant political-cultural-religious users.
Our digital self is a big thing for many Western people: imagine being all but banned, being digitally unpersonned, silenced, unable to get alternative news quickly, and not being able to discuss it with others? A genuine debility, in some respects.
It gets worse for the meddlers in 2018– the peasants not only spoke up several years ago, they keep speaking up, and even when some get banned, shadow-banned, de-monetized, and slapped down, they and their peasant allies still keep fighting back and speaking out! What’s a Big Meddle authoritarian to do?
The Other SoHappier 2018…
You see, just now President Hillary the globalist mafiosa is entering her second year, with her Canada-style gun rules coming into force and her FBI poodles covering her tracks, and the bodies quietly piling up; and a nearly de-blooded Islamicized United Kingdom is laying prone before the unelected autocrats in Brussels, surrendering every freedom, distinctive, and historical authority over itself to Big Meddle, and imported trouble. Same as it ever was, before 2016. Nigel Farage is merely a bad memory.
Just as planned pre-2013, the one-world progressive Pope is working closely with globalist schemer George Soros, President Hillary and the EUcrats towards a one-world government, more social control, more disruptive weaponized “immigration”, and a gentler Chinese-style control of the internet and all social media. And a suitable one-world religion to match.
In the 2018 that should have been, the internet is still an issue, but as long as a few grumblers don’t actually write letters, protest, speak to their elected representatives and get organized, they are pesky, but harmless: one mosquito at a time. SLAP! People vanish from Twitter and YouTube and FaceBook, and nobody wonders why.
New uppity-peasant YouTube channels with ‘unacceptable’ politically incorrect content all have a terrible time trying to get started, and make no advertising money. Troublesome news-sources are all but invisible online, or very hard to find on Google, banned on Twitter, sidelined on FaceBook, or in links on other pages. With advertising revenues dropping, many outlets are forced to cut back reporting, or shut down entirely.
What Next?
The fight must continue. Alternative social media platforms are only part of an answer, since we must stay in the public square, not surrender it to the bullies. And the bullies are not totally above the law, or invulnerable, either.
Actually protesting, writing letters, speaking out, exposing the Big Agenda and educating others about it, getting involved at the local level, reading books, praying for God’s Kingdom to come, and aligning ourselves with His almighty will makes any protest or expressed concern more than just our team versus theirs, screech versus scream.
It will cost us something– perhaps everything– but the West is not founded on trusting in the strength of men, but on a trust in the Risen power of Jesus Christ– the only-begotten Son of God– to truly make all things new, in the great re-creation.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King.
This is our fight, in our day. God knows the outcome, but I know that if we sit back and self-indulgently despair, we have already lost our contribution to the battle for freedom, faith, and our own civilization in our time.
— Do you or someone you know & care for suffer from ‘The Black Dog’?
— Does that addict or drunk or sad co-worker suffer from depression? Do you?
— Do you “helpfully” offer endless free advice and ‘fixes’ because you find dealing with depression really awkward?
~ FOR MANY PEOPLE, depression is a day, a week, a season. It is left behind as an sour note in an otherwise happy life.
In our happy “we can fix everything” universe, TV and movie stories resolve every problem via heroism and happenstance and all is well again. E xcept.. people can break, and sometimes only partly tape and glue and tie themselves half-together again, enough to limp along a while longer.
What Kind Of Beast IS This?
This Black Dog is patient, vicious, and quiet: it has hunted & haunted my parents, and grandparents, and down the genetic pathways for generations. For others, life & crises and trouble starts it up fresh for them.
Yet for others– yes, of all ages– it is interwoven into the very stuff of life, perhaps as far back as memory reaches, a misty shadowed valley that never seems to come to an end, with light only breaking through now and again. The Valley of the Shadow; this vale of tears; the bleak lands where affliction dwells.
Yet even there, Christ the Lord walks and talks with his own sheep. Sometimes, he will shift us up onto his shoulders awhile. Faith can make an infinite difference in the experience & severity of depression. I’m there: so’s He.
Pilgrim Walking
All better? Nope.
There are no magic happy-cures, nor skipping through the sparkly flowers on a unicorn– but a costly cross-bearing love which both lightens your burden, and enlightens the path and things around you. Suicide– the permanent solution to temporary problems– may lurk like a vulture on the crag, but need not live on your shoulders.
The proper meds & counselling and living life the best you can any given day will help, too. The grinding miserable trudge can thus become a pilgrimage: but to where?
The shadowed vale of tears is not infinite. God is.
Just A Little Farther
There is a fair City and golden castle farther on ahead, with towers and steeples and fair pennons flying.. you know not exactly how far.. but in it is light, and peace, and no more pain or black dogs, suffering or tears, and all the former things are passed away. There are battles to fight and people to help along this path– and many needing help– on our way.
And perhaps in that City, the black dog– which can teach us so much about perseverance, tribulation, compassion and understanding– will be revealed as having golden fur, for the troubles that lead us closer to God are blessed troubles. St. Paul besought the Lord to remove his sufferings, and instead, God said “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Without such hope and faith and love– and the mercy of God & others– I would be long-dead. Will you walk beside me and the others like me, or pass us by on the other side? ~
>> BARELY SATIRE: “Look at the calendar. Do you know what year it is? It’s 2018! Say it with me: two thousand eighteen. That means it’s long past time for us to get a few important things straight, once and for all.”
~ JUST THE OTHER DAY, some ‘marchers for peace’ from Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario, Canada, protested a speech by lighting-rod author, professor and gadfly, Jordan Peterson. Inevitably, they wanted him silenced for, you know.. Reasons™. Some windows at the university were broken; virtue was signalled, the young Marxist social justice warriors felt superior, and succeeded in not learning or unlearning a single thing.
There was even a little incitement to murder & arson. ‘Lock em in and burn it down!’ yelled some of these “tolerant peace-loving” students. Yeah, that’s how I deal with discussions. Incitement & threats. Fire & kill.
The title of the terrible, horrible, very bad speech? “The Rising Tide of Compelled Speech in Canada.” Lifesite reports:
“Peterson posted several clips of the protest on Twitter, telling a follower that the speaking engagement was “absolutely surreal.”
“The mob neglected to bring torches and pitchforks, but the sentiment was there: ‘Lock them in and burn it down,’” he wrote.”
The End Is Past Nigh
Coming over for tea.. and staying for dinner.
In Mel Gibson’s excellent movie Apocalypto (2006), neither the protagonists– captured slaves– or the bad guys– the forest-wrecking temple-building heart-ripper-outers know that it’s the end of their world. They go about their business.. then, in the penultimate scene, we see the European sailing ships coming closer to the shore.
Whatever was before is not gonna be that way very much longer. The future isn’t what it used to be. “Burn all down! Fresh start!” is the new cry for revolution, devolution, and The Big Satanic Lie that we can make a new world by sincerity, effort, and all built of our own fallen selves. “Ye shall be as gods”.
Read, Learn, Weep
Miss H. White.
That’s the wisdom I draw from Hilary White’s latest essay cri de cœur “BECOMING AS GODS: The Murder of Desdemona by Othello, Abortion and Communion in the Hand“.
Just go read the whole thing, and as yourself the question from Mel’s movie: If our world was ending, would we know it?
The thing I like about Hilary’s essay is the big picture– taking little signs and symptoms and showing how the whole structure of the West is in danger, from within and without. Nihilism is nopt a passive force: it’s rather like a poison gas leaking into everything, dissolving the core, and leaving only fragile appearances of what was, ready to fall.
Sadly, the same radicalism has captured most Western Churches: disruption, discontinuity, ugly new utopian content. Hilary nails this perfectly.
What If It’s Here?
Acadia U. Nice view. shame about the silencing.
What if your own kids & grandkids– poisoned by socially & politically radical teachers, cultural influences, and college– were the new barbarians inside the gates? How could you tell?
Right now at Acadia University, in elm-shaded picturesque Wolfville Nova Scotia, is the fresh front in the war on civilization by “outraged” students and their enabling professoriate. Professor Rick Mehta is under fire for– teaching things. Things contrary to the progressive/ Marxist meta-narrative of victimhoods, oppressors, and the politics of personal destruction for any who don’t toe the party line.
Honestly, I’d rather just binge on NetFlix and hide while the walls come tumbling down on this city that I love: but dear people and good and true and beautiful things are at risk, and even the current enemies of those things might be saved from their madness and hate and self-righteousness.
A Sign of Hope?
Despair and doom-binging can be self-indulgent and blind to the possibilities even within apparent overwhelming darkness. After all, St. Paul & Christ’s Apostles faced and entire Empire founded on naked power, Emperor-worship, and pagan confusions. “Redeeming the time, for the days are evil“, says the Apostle to the Gentiles [Eph. 5:16].
One tiny point of brightness: I recently read on a YouTube video a comment by a college-aged kid who said that countless numbers of his friends & fellow students were binge-watching Jordan Peterson and other such content, because they were tired of the one-note lock-step radicalism of their professors. Truth finds a way.
That is, behind the deceptive ivy-facade, and behind the radicalism within, social media was in fact enabling young people to learn to see all sides of various questions, to hear actually diverse points of view, and to — horror of horrors- learn to think, reason, argue & debate. That they have to have a hidden remedial education within a $5-$10K institutional mis-education– while parroting their professors– is a picture of the horror-circus we have let develop in our society.
We will need such young people and all such folks to rebuild things on the ruins of what was. The end IS past nigh.
Do Your Duty
Look BEHIND the facades….
Investigate your local schools and colleges. Do due diligence before sending your kid off to school, imagining it still is like it was 30 or 50 years ago. Withhold donations and gifts and let them know what you think. And of your kindness, say a prayer and send a word to Acadia on behalf of Professor Rick Mehta. And don’t forget the petition.
Queens grad? Let them know what you think about the recent semi-riot. Because some students used their free speech to oppose free speech.
Navigating the Acadia website was like wandering through a picturesque maze, with not a single human being to be seen. In five minutes, I didn’t see the actual name of anyone, let alone Heather Hemming’s. I phoned the switchboard, hoping to speak to someone who could give me Ms Hemming’s email address: the hours are 8:30-4:30, Monday to Friday, so no luck. So, here I am at the general email address.
I also thought of contacting Acadia’s Office of Safety and Security as I believe that Professor Mehta’s safety and security are under siege—the topic of this message.
I have been an educator for 45 years. In that time, I have noticed a serious deterioration in both the maturity and behaviour of a critical mass of students. At the same time, I have noticed a standing down of the administrators, whose first line of defense now seems to be to appease the miscreant. This solves the problem of having to deal with an even more angry, entitled student and, often, that student’s belligerent parent(s). It’s nice for the three parties just mentioned—and hell for teachers, not to mention society at large.
I have twice been physically assaulted as well as suspended, minus due process, on the say-so of well known, student bullies. In all cases, the students were coddled and catered to: there were no negative consequences for them, but plenty for me. Who do you think felt really unsafe? As a colleague says, “Our schools are safe, all right—for the bullies.”
I attended excellent public schools in Toronto in the 50s and 60s: the adults were in charge. There were clear boundaries and not only were we safe, we felt safe! Academics were rigorous—a far cry from the curricula today—and we were held to account. We were not taught to be offended : the very idea of micro-aggressions and triggers didn’t enter our minds.
We were treated respectfully, which meant that we were held to high academic and behavioural standards. We could actually fail a grade. We could actually be suspended. Teaching our children that they have a right not to be offended is, in my opinion, a form of child abuse. This fiction renders young people very vulnerable to their own capricious and often tempestuous emotions. How is allowing vindictive and often misguided emotion to be the standard by which a university makes crucial decisions helpful to anyone?
Professor Mehta sounds like a man after my own heart. If the fairy tales being propagated at places like Acadia weren’t so outlandish, Professor Mehta’s ideas would seem to be just what they are: fairly mainstream. Why are his rights the only ones being disregarded? Why is his integrity considered expendable? Why is it OK to offend him?
Ms Hemmings, in attempting to censor, shame and bully Professor Mehta, Acadia seems willing to put itself in the same position as Wilfrid Laurier, which, deservedly, became a laughing stock. It seems that you’re unable to discern the gigantic double standard under which you appear to be operating. Acadia seems to have everything backwards: in order to enforce tolerance, you are intolerant. In order to appease the immature appetites of a group of coddled adult toddler students, it seems that Acadia is willing to sacrifice not only the integrity of a hard working, accountable academic, but his very livelihood. Shame on you.
How about if Acadia were to come to its senses and follow the example of the University of Chicago, re its expectations of its students? How about if Acadia were to actually treat its students not like spoiled brats, but like adults?
“Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own,” the letter said.
How about if universities stopped being Potemkin Villages of Tolerance and became, in fact, safe spaces for all of their faculty and students? Now, wouldn’t that be a novelty?
I have just sent the following letter in support of Dr. Mehta:
Dear Dr. Hemming,
My family and I have been some-time residents of Nova Scotia since 2003, and have always been moved by the friendliness of your people and, in general, their practical common sense and peaceful ways. Therefore I am stunned to read about what is being done to Professor Rick Mehta, at your university.
I have skin in this game, as they say. I have been a professor of literature for more than thirty years, introducing students to a range of works spanning four thousand years and more than a dozen cultures, written in a broad variety of languages, ten of which I read. So I can see where Dr. Mehta is coming from.
He and his family have been, in their lives and in profoundly personal ways, the victims of ugly prejudices, some of them arising from a clash of cultures, the British and the Indian, and then the Canadian and the Indian. And yet he has the grace, and it seems the courage, not merely to condemn the British, and then your own people the Canadian, for pure evil. He has tried to understand both peoples and to evaluate them with equity, and because of that — because, apparently, he does NOT HATE his erstwhile overlords with sufficient passion — you are now doing to him exactly what you accuse the overlords of having done.
In other words, YOU are playing the part of a colonial master, coming down hard against a mild-mannered and gentle man, for daring not to be your intellectual puppet.
That is disgraceful in its own right. At a university, supposedly a place where young people are to be taught to pursue the truth, it is inexcusable.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Michael Esolen Fellow, Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts
Panel Discussion on Free Speech at Universities (Acadia University; May 3, 2017)
~ AS MY FATHER used to say, ancient civilizations were invaded from outside by barbarians: modern societies are more efficient– we make our own barbarians, inside the gates.
This is an actionable moment for any concerned Canadian, Nova Scotia, Acadia Grad, academic, or just concerned person. It’s also a time to press the media to tell an accurate story, unlike the Canadian Press hack-job reprinted in the recent Chronically Horrid, which mostly quotes an associate professor from New Brunswick as the “expert”.
~ 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.'”
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!” +
~ I AM AN ONLINE FRIEND of Donna’s and am excited to see launch of her new project– Livia Magazine. How do we live well in the midst of our times? How do we redeem our days and years to live and be fully and joyfully alive?
In this first article I’ve seen, Donna herself speaks up on a very current matter to her, to modern women and families, and a modern suffering-averse society tending more and more to ugly eugenics, and erasing the blessings of having children with special needs–
Wow.. smart, interesting, unflinching, thoughtful discussion about a serious question posed by life in a child-indifferent and disability-hating society– what lives are worth living? How shall we bear our burdens as parents, friends, or supporters of special needs people, as an affirmation of life? Where will we find the blessing in life as it is actually lived?
“We at Livia believe in the innate worth of every single human being as a unique person.
We believe that the key to a good life lies in discovering our potential as a unique person, and through that, developing a health sense of self-worth.
And we believe that society is strongest when the people within it are able to harness their true potential to the benefit of themselves, their families, their friends and their communities.
Our mission at Livia is to help young women embrace their womanhood and realise their potential. We do this by encouraging them to:
engage with the wider world around them: its culture, its history and its people.
think for themselves, to develop their own opinions, and to critically assess new ideas and concepts.
be the best them they can be, by trying out new activities and finding out what it is that they are gifted at.
Broadly centre-right in our political positioning, our voice is generally informative, but also witty, light, interesting, lively. We embrace and promote Livia values of self-reliance, entrepreneurship, curiosity, civic-mindedness and, of course, femininity.
Crucially, we feel that in these divisive times a commitment to emphasising the ties that bind us is essential. At Livia we are determined to maintain a positive outlook in our editorial output.”
Sounds pretty good, huh? Binks thinks so. As most of you know, I calls ’em like I sees ’em– if this was crap, I’d say so, friends or not. I think Livia Magazine is the beginning of something really good.
So please support this project with your stories, your hits and reading and sharing and pondering. Pass on the articles to people who might need to read them, and gain a better perspective on all the topics Donna puts out there. Seek to live well, and to encourage others to do likewise.
Just as planned pre-2013, the one-world progressive Pope is working closely with globalist schemer George Soros, President Hillary and the EUcrats towards a one-world government, more social control, more disruptive weaponized “immigration”, and a gentler Chinese-style control of the internet and all social media. And a suitable one-world religion to match.
And perhaps in that City, the black dog– which can teach us so much about perseverance, tribulation, compassion and understanding– will be revealed as having golden fur, for the troubles that lead us closer to God are blessed troubles. St. Paul besought the Lord to remove his sufferings, and instead, God said “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
![Christ the King stained glass [Wide]](https://steynian.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/christ-the-king-stained-glass-wide.jpg)
“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.'”
A Swift Sunrise 