Hope!

 Behold, the time is coming, nay, has already come, when you are to be scattered, each of you taking his own path, and to leave me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.  I have said this to you, so that in me you may find peace. In the world, you will only find tribulation; but take courage, I have overcome the world. John 16:32-33

Make your children see this one ....

... and it is good to see with your spouse too.  Make Way for Tomorrow

We borrowed it from the library the other day, and (in my Dad's words) it is "a drippy movie"-that is no one will have dry eyes after this one.

The review to which I linked says of marriage:

Our lives appear to us as a story: a story that we tell ourselves about our past, act out in the present and script for ourselves into the future. To share one’s life with someone, then, is to embark on a daring creative venture in shared storytelling. To marry is to say: Let us make of our two lives one story, a story that I will tell to you and you will tell to me. Telling and retelling that story — reminiscing about shared experiences, especially the happy or funny ones — is one of the secrets of happy couples ...

Another one to read ....

Pope Francis Needs Distributism

Oremus pro invicem!

Truth and Reality - GONE!

“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Justice Anthony Kennedy (Casey decision – also quoted in Lawrence decision, and certainly alluded to in the DOMA decision)

“What is Truth?” – Pontius Pilot

The new standard of Justice Kennedy is the old standard of Pontius Pilot, who, if you recall, crucified our Lord!

This is why we are now to call men who think they are women, women? same-sex couples who think they are married, married? white people who think they are African American, black? people who can’t decide what they are, they, or zir, or hir, or non-binary or …..?

If I think I am President of the United States, do I get to be the President? (And do other people have to accept my concept of my own reality?)

If I think I am the husband of the woman down the street, do I get to be her husband? (ditto here.) Note to wife: I have no desire to be anyone’s husband but yours!

If I identify myself as a horse, does that make me a horse, and does it require others to treat me like a horse? (Do I really want to be treated like a horse?)

Where is mankind (er, humankind, er they-kind) heading? Can’t everyone see this is just so much nonsense? A child (before the re-education that is now taking place) would certainly see this as nonsense.

Wikipedia (that standard of all fact!) gives the definition of gender identity as: a person's private sense and subjective experience of their own gender. This is generally described as one's private sense of being a man or a woman, consisting primarily of the acceptance of membership into a category of people: male or female.

What????

One dictionary defines identity as: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

Another defines identity as: a) sameness of essential or generic character in different instances. b) sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing.

Get that: “the objective reality of a thing. – not someone’s own perspective of a thing.

Of course, standby for a change in definitions based upon the new reality of no reality.

Am I forseeing a time that the only fact or reality will be the prison cell for those who actually reject the nonsense and hold on to truth?

Oremus pro invicem! (Really!)

The Father's Vocation

Every Saturday night when we do Night Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, we read:

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)

It occurred to me that this is surely a prescription for the vocation of father. First, there is the universal call to holiness: Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.

 

Then there is the call of the father on how to raise his children: Drill them into your children.

 

Then the father as spiritual head of the family: Speak of them at home ...

 

And finally, the father as the domestic church's face to the world: and abroad ...

 

Of course there is nothing here specific about a father's vocation as husband, but we can go to St. Paul for that ....

Oremus pro invicem!

Work

Work done:

Work to do:

(I think my brother and family are coming at the end of this week - maybe they can help!)

Oremus pro invicem!

Garden

We got a late start this year because of my work schedule and 4-5 weeks without a drop of rain. The chickens kept eating my corn so I found a new place to plant. But the lack of rain means we may get little if any. However, finally okra, cantaloupe, zucchini, and pumpkins are up, but way behind (except the pumpkins which are right on time.)

We are however getting green beans.

And I found the first Roma Tomatoes on our vines.

God is always good!

Oremus pro invicem!

read it!

how-to-identify-a-healthy-culture

We try to do some of this in our own humble way. - Oremus pro invicem!

My dad would have been 95 today had he not passed in 1999. I can't believe it has been 16 years. I still miss him. Here he is with my mother (still going strong) back in the late 50's.

 

May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

 

 

Oremus pro invicem!

Prep for the hog roast/graduation

Here some pictures from last nights' hog roast prep. Matthew graduates today. He is headed for Holy Trinity Seminary and University of Dallas for the diocese of Charleston. In order, we have Matthew dispatching the hog and then Connor and Thomas who wanted to pose with it. Oremus pro invicem!

I was in New England picking up my son after he completed his sophomore year at Northeast Catholic College two weekends ago. My youngest daughter made the trip with me. She hadn't been north in 8 years, and, I discovered, had some misconceptions about the Northeast. For example, she didn't think there were ANY rural areas-just congestion and city. We both found the rural East coast very beautiful. Sometimes it makes me long for the region of my youth.

 

Oremus pro invicem!

End of School, Graduation, Work, Plans, Vacation

Mrs. Curley and I had a unique opportunity to spend the weekend at Surfside (near Myrtle Beach). Although it was the last weekend of Biker Rally Week and therefore VERY NOISY and trafficy, we had a great time on the beach, talking, playing cribbage and all that stuff. Once again going to Mass away from home is always a tricky business, but we survive. Back home I have work, and wood, and planting to do.

Stuck in traffic on the way home, we fell to technology and took a "selfie", sort of reminiscent of the photo booth we went to on our honeymoon at Cocoa Beach-although I have many more grays now.

Number 3 son, Matthew is graduating from high school (our school) this weekend. We are very proud of him. You can catch is music on YouTube. He is a talented farmer and (I think) songwriter. But as of now, these things are on hold. He will be attending University of Dallas in the Fall majoring in Philosophy (do you know what that means?-if you don't, I will tell in a future post.)

Glad the Technical College semester is over, but am teaching 2 classes in the summer semester. I am enjoying my 2 weeks off. This morning cutting and splitting wood. This afternoon, some planting (albeit late.)

 

Oremus pro invicem!

A job with the pigs

Warning-pictures below may be upsetting to some people .....

That's my Thomas with his handiwork. Friday evening we went over to help a friend slaughter their hogs. After the first was knocked unconscious, I was about to climb over the short fence to stick the pig, but my friend warned the electric fence was still on! Thomas didn't hesitate, he hopped the fence, sat right on the pig, which though knocked out was thrashing, and stuck that pig. Then he repeated it a few minutes later for the second.

We had these pigs skinned and butchered in 3 hours and 45 minutes-and that included a 30 minute dinner break. Thomas did a great job.

Oremus pro invicem!

Books, CD's, and worms (not bookworms!)

My family came back from a library sale last week with a couple items for me. One was a book The Accidental Pope by Ray Flynn (Catholic, former mayor of Boston and ex-Ambassador to the Holy See.) The other was a book on CD for my long commutes entitled The Third Secret.

 

Both books have similarities: the prominence of the apparitions at Fatima; a Vatican secretary of state who has papal aspirations and is rigid; the promise of "big" changes in the Church, and the issue of priestly celibacy plays strongly in both.

 

I haven't finished The Accidental Pope, so I don't know what "big" changes might be in store. So far it simply a good-natured, but unlikely tale. But I have finished The Third Secret and have a few things to say about it.

 

First, The Third Secret gets some information about the Church very wrong. First the author continually confuses doctrine, dogma, Tradition, and Church discipline. For example, priestly celibacy is presented repeatedly as dogma. Papal infallibility is constantly presented to go much further than reality (at one point the fictional pope remarks that anything he says is infallible.)

 

Even with these faults, the book goes along as a thriller without too much doctrinal controversy for at least the first 3/4's or even more-although towards the climax there are hints that I won't be pleased when all is said and done-what an understatement.

 

The plot is that part of the Third Secret of Fatima was stolen out of the Papal reserva by an aid of Paul VI, who is now the Vatican secretary of state. The book centers around what the secret is. Finally at the very end we find out and also discover that the 10th secret of Medjugorje is identical to the missing part of the Third Secret of Fatima. And what is this secret?

 

The missing "Third Secret" is that it is God's wish, expressed directly by the Blessed Virgin Mary (I hesitate to write this as it is so scandalous) that priestly celibacy is wrong, papal infallibility is not true, that abortion is okay and the choice only of a woman, and that homosexual marriage and relations are pleasing to God ("any kind of love is good if it makes you happy").

 

I can't believe I wasted my time with such rubbish!

*************************

Now to the worms. I was asked below how I worm my pigs. Here is the brief tale. I try to worm my pigs as naturally as possible. This consists of putting garlic powder in their food every few months unless I see a real lack of weight gain, and then I do it more often. In the fall I give them every raw pumpkin seed I am not saving for replanting. Both garlic powder and raw pumpkin seeds are great natural wormers. If I see a real problem after worming naturally, I will use some fenbendazole in the form of pellets mixed with their feed. Since starting with natural wormers a few years ago, I don't think I have chemically wormed more than once or twice.

So now you know.

Oremus pro invicem!

Really?

I got a catalog in the mail today from "The Catholic Company". I couldn't believe this:



 
The plush First Communion bear is a cuddly way to commemorate a young child's reception of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. The small bear comes with a miniature bible containing the scripture quote from John 14:6, “I am the way and truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

 

 

 

Did you get that? It could be interpreted that the BEAR is "the way, the truth and the life". Obviously, most (99.99%) seeing this won't take it this way, but either way, this is just silly!

 

Oremus pro invicem!

New pigs!

Woke up yesterday morning to find that Sam had farrowed her litter. It looks like 8, which is a low for her, but not to worry. We aren't a high production operation! They are big, almost equal the length of the 3-week old pigs of Betsy's litter. Here is the first picture-better ones should come later. (some are under that hay.)

 

 

A comment below about what I am (economically/politically) is too long to answer in a comment box, so I give below a brief (and incomplete) outline. Here goes (most of this has been posted here at sometime in the last 10+ years) ....

I guess you could call me a Distributist, however the name is misleading to some-thinking that it is some kind of socialism, which if most definitely isn’t. Distributism condemns both socialism and unfettered capitalism, in that both big government and big business are ultimately bad for families, local communities, and traditional values, and argues for an economic structure based on the widespread ownership of wealth via strong local economies.

If you ever have a chance to read Catholicism Protestantism and Capitalism by Anmintore Fanfani you may come away with the idea (as I did) that Capitalism has to eventually become Socialism in the final analysis, as the Government has to eventually highly regulate everything to protect the interests of big business. The regulations become so burdensome that the government is the only entity which has the resources to support such a regulated structure. Thus the government has to begin consolidating industries under itself. (Eventually this too will collapse under its own weight.) This is trending in America today-slowly but surely. 

In America we value the ownership of private property. This has become to mean that we own our own home. But few of us really do, as many have found out in recent years (and with property taxes and inheritance taxes, even if you “own” your home, really you are leasing it from the government). 

Ownership of private property also should mean that we own the means to production. The goal should be that as many as possible of the citizens should be owners of property-real property, that is, the means of production: ownership in land, in buildings and equipment, in farms, factories, mines, in commercial enterprises, and in machinery. Workers themselves (Note Well, NOT a socialist or communist government “in the name of workers”)  should own the means of production instead being the tools of production.

Our economic system has come to a point where workers are merely tools for greater profit, to be acquired or discarded as the quarterly numbers dictate. Workers have a dignity which is not respected by too many corporations. Corporations must remember that they exist not just for profits but to provide fulfilling work and wages for their workers.

Increasingly big companies simply use their employees as commodities (even professionals) to be used up and tossed out. Workers often don’t have dignity and respect. Large companies often squeeze and squeeze the benefits and continually do more with less workers. Some of these large companies (effectively subsidized by government policies) only offer part time work so they don’t even have to give benefits.

Politically, I believe in subsidiarity; that is governance should be done at the most local level possible. The role of the government should be in service of man, or if you will, in service of the family. Increasingly central control, whether it be in business, education, or government, robs man of freedom and self-determination. Government in recent years acts more in the service of commerce than in the service of man.

Both major parties favor entitlements: Democrats for the poor; Republicans for the rich in the form of tax breaks and corporate deals and subsidies (think agriculture and roads)-the latter which enrich the owners of the means to production. Government handouts insult the dignity of man, at both ends of the spectrum. 

So we need a system which encourages family unity and encourages the widest distribution of the means of production. These are complementary goals. 

Much more to flesh out, but this is a starting point.

Oremus pro invicem!

Reading ....

Tractatus de Societate by Nathan Freeman.

Quotes to come .....

Update: Just to clarify, the title is in Latin, but the book is in English!

Oremus pro invicem!

Roads in SC

So everyone agrees that the roads in SC are in a state of major disrepair. Governor Nikki Haley proposes that we raise money for the roads by raising the gasoline tax (Of course no one will notice because gas prices are so low!). But Governor Haley insists that any tax increase is offset by a tax cut of the income tax.

Two questions for the Governor:

1. Doesn't it mean we already have $$$ for roads if you are offsetting taxes?

2. Doesn't a raise in the gas tax affect everyone equally, but cutting the income tax help everyone EXCEPT the working poor, who drive to work, but pay little in income tax?

Just asking ......

Oremus pro invicem! 

Those boys!

This morning I had a lot to prepare for class and I had a car with a broken upper radiator hose and needing a new thermostat.

 

I started working on it, but was frustrated that this car with 243K miles on it had never had its thermostat replaced, and thus the original thermostat was staked in.

 

With much to do, I called my boys to finish taking out the hose and then grinding off the stakes.

 

When this was done, I went back out and guided them in replacing the thermostat; they did the hose.

I am proud of them. What responsible and skilled young men I have.

Oremus pro invicem!