Monthly Archives: December 2018

“THE FAMILY – A MAN AND A WOMAN WHO COME TOGETHER TO RAISE CHILDREN AND START A LITTLE INDEPENDENT SOCIETY IS BECOMING THE ENEMY OF THE STATE.”

DE MATTEI: MARTYRS AND VIOLATORS OF THE CONFESSIONAL SEAL

ON CHANGING THE ITALIAN TEXT OF THE “OUR FATHER”. WHEREIN FR. Z RANTS.

FR. RUTLER: IT IS CLOSE TO BLASPHEMY TO INVOKE THE HOLY FAMILY AS ANTINOMIAN REFUGEES

THAT BENEDICT XVI CLAIMED ONE OF THE REASONS HE RESIGNED WAS BECAUSE HE DIDN’T FEEL UP TO ATTENDING WORLD YOUTH DAY IS PART OF THE REASON WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE A BIT PUT OFF BY THE WHOLE THING.

WHO IS THE BISHOP IN WHITE?

SOCIAL JUSTICE FRANCISTOPIA: THE RED ARMBANDS ARE WATCHING YOU. EVERYWHERE.

GANG OF NINE FRANCISCARDINAL O’MALLEY:  FRANCIS’ ENEMIES LIST ENFORCER

PROPAGANDA: A YEAR OF FRANCIS HUGGING AND KISSING THINGS AND PEOPLE AND THROWING BIRDS UP IN THE AIR

IN VITRO FOR GENDER:  THE ANTI-LIFE PRACTICE YOU DON’T HEAR PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT

2019:  THE ABUSE CRISIS WILL MOVE EVEN CLOSER TO FRANCIS HIMSELF

MUHAMMAD THE PARACLETE WITH A MOLE ON HIS BACK

HOLY BALTIMORE, WHERE THE ARCHDIOCESAN APPEAL ISN’T, AND CREEPY MUSIC CREATES ‘UNITY’ WITH THE PERVCHURCH

COLOMBIAN BISHOP RIGOBERTO CORREDOR BERMUDEZ:  NOT NECESSARILY A ‘BERGOGLIAN BULLY BOY’

ONTARIO FRANCISMASS:  THE ‘ANGELS OF THE RESURRECTION’ SHOW THEIR LEGS

ONCE I ONLY THANKED SANTA CLAUS FOR A FEW DOLLS AND CRACKERS. NOW, I THANK HIM FOR STARS AND STREET FACES, AND WINE AND THE GREAT SEA.

NON-PRIEST GREG BURKE OUT AS MISERABLE FRANCISVATICAN SPOX

IT’S NOT ‘CONSUMERISM’ IF YOU HAVE TOO MANY GOODS, SEE?  IT’S WHEN YOUR GOODS DON’T ADVANCE A ‘DEEP FILIAL COMMUNION,’ OK?

REQUIESCAT IN PACE: SISTER WENDY BECKETT

THE BENEDICT-FRANCIS CO-PAPACY IDEA.  IT SEEMS LIKE THEY REALLY MEAN IT

“THE WOLF WILL LIVE WITH THE LAMB, THE LEOPARD WILL LIE DOWN WITH THE GOAT, THE CALF AND THE LION AND THE YEARLING TOGETHER; AND A LITTLE CHILD WILL LEAD THEM”

SAY GOODBYE TO CEMETERIES AND HELLO TO COMPOSTING HUMAN BEINGS

HAPPINESS IS NOT NOTICING THE GOVERNMENT IS SHUTDOWN

AMONG THE THINGS I NOTICED WHEN I HOLIDAYED ANNUALLY IN IRELAND WAS THE SIGHT OF PEOPLE WITH DOWN’S SYNDROME

HAPPY FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

“I PRAY FOR YOU AND YOUR WIFE.” – FRANCIS GREETS LEONARDO BOFF

PRO-DEATH FRANCISCATHOLIC NANCY PELOSI ON ‘BORDER CHILDREN’: ‘MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE ALL CHILDREN OF GOD ARE TREATED WITH COMPASSION AND DECENCY’

SHOULD ANY ORTHODOX CARDINALS BE LOOKING FOR SOME IDEAS FOR A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION….HOW ABOUT A FORMAL CORRECTION OF POPE FRANCIS?

GERMANY: MUSLIM MIGRANT PAINTS “ISLAMIC SLOGANS” ON CHURCH, CHRISTMAS SERVICES HELD UNDER HEAVY SECURITY

CANADIAN FR. JEROME LAVIGNE UNDER FIRE FOR CRITICIZING LGBT FLAG

Christians in the Indian state of Kerala are about 20% of the population. An amateur film recorded there shows some workers struggling with a power shovel to rescue a baby elephant from a ditch. I do not know if they were Christians, Hindus, Muslims or a mix, but they succeeded. The happy juvenile dashed back to its herd, and as the adult elephants formed a line to depart, they raised their trunks in salute to the rescuers. That was one example of their enigmatic sensibility. That they have long memories is no myth: they can remember watering holes from years back; they can communicate by subsonic rumbles along the ground faster than sound can travel through air; they have rituals for mourning their dead; and they peacefully spend sixteen hours a day eating, which is more than the average New Yorker.

Every creature has gifts that science is gradually discovering, such as the almost mathematically improbable migratory habits of penguins and the telescopic vision of hawks. These are prodigies of God’s extravagant love. The Christ Child arranged to be born in a makeshift menagerie rather than in a hotel where pets might not have been allowed. This Child “. . . is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature . . .  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15, 17). Animals at least could provide some body warmth, which in that fragile first moment of the Child’s exposed human nature was more important than any rhetoric, and more practical than the lofty song of angels.

It may not be too fanciful to think that, as a donkey can live up to forty years, God’s providence might have arranged for a donkey in that stable to be the one that the Child grown into manhood rode into Jerusalem. At least it was some donkey, that with its hellish bray and flapping ears looked like the “devil’s walking parody” as Chesterton said, but equipped for that final triumph with “a shout about my ears, / And palms before my feet.” In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm II entered Jerusalem on a white horse. In 1917 General Allenby pointedly entered on foot. A scraggly donkey was the most royal beast, for the rarest jewel of rulers is humility. “See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

Perhaps at Christ’s coming, with their sensory gifts we cannot yet fully understand, the animals in the stable knew more about the Holy Child than humans realize. In that first Christmas moment, they were able to do what only saints in heaven can do, for they gazed upon the face of God.

   “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

 

Fr. George William Rutler, 12.29.18