Bailie Honored in Berkeley

Congratulations are in order for our friend, mentor, and all round good fellow, Gil Bailie, who was recently inducted into the College of Fellows of the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley, California. Already earning a Doctor of Jurisprudence, from what I understand, does not mean one gets to call oneself "Dr. So and so." So we may now refer to Gil freely as "Dr. Bailie" - and high time, too. Bravo!

The Mass'keteers hope that the Dominican establishment made sure that Gil (a) has his own [numbered] parking space, (b) arm chair by the fire in the Fellows' Lounge, and (c) key to the sauna and weight room.

Primitive Sacred and Oil on the Water

Mark Steyn lets fly with King Barack the Verbose.

One of the most salient and fascinating features of René Girard's mimetic theory is that it dispels the common - and wrong - notions that we humans (a) think for ourselves and (b) left behind all the mumbo-jumbo of our primitive ancestors who did things like ritual sacrifice of first-born children. Wrong on both counts, says mimetic theory.

We are hugely influenced by the desires of others and, therefore, at the whim of those who know this about ourselves and take advantage of it. Think Madison Avenue. Think all those sales flyers that fall out of your Sunday newspaper. Think about going to work, or to a class reunion, or to a dinner party wearing what is hanging in the never-touched recesses of your closet. Why is that? Not because you care what people think, surely.

The Gospel has indeed been hard at work in history freeing us from many of the superstitions of what Girard calls "the primitive sacred." But as the Gospel in general and the teachings of the Catholic Church in particular are abandoned and rejected, the pagan rises again. And one of the most prominent elements of the primitive sacred is the king/priest/shaman figure; i.e., one vested with the aura of the sacred. How that figure accrues this aura and power is important, but for now just realized that the vacuum created by the secular West's rejection of the Christian faith has opened the realm of this sacred human figure once again.

Enter Barack Obama. The adulation and "leg-tingling" of Chris Matthew, the Obots on street corners before the election, the fawning free-ride by the MSM (now showing a few signs of waking up and smelling the coffee grounds) all smack of the mystification of the primitive sacred's legendary divine figure come alive again.

Enter the Gulf of Mexico oil-spill disaster. Nothing seemingly can stop it. Not technology. Not bureaucrats' posturing and grand-standing. And NOT the king/priest/shaman of the Last Self-Help Administration.

His divine status, it would seem, cannot cap this catastrophic act of nature, and, while he is clearly not to blame for it, he clearly cannot do anything to stop it. His post-modern version of the primitive sacred leader - the only alternative to the Church's more realistic understanding of fallen, fallible human nature (even the Pope goes to Confession) - is beginning to look oil-soaked and - hmm - less than divine.

If ever there was a wake-up call from Heaven, in my opinion, this Gulf of Mexico fiasco is one. What shall it be? A modern recrudescence of the primitive sacred? Or a return to sanity in Catholic truth?

Is anyone else asking - or answering - this question?

The Freedom we resist for the sake of the false self - self indentity - self esteem

Humans cannot attain a state of happiness without conversion, a complete reorientation of their entire existence. It cannot be achieved by their own effort; it can only result from the supreme freedom which God bestows as soon as we cease to hedge ourselves round with self-sufficiency, isolation, and arrogance.  The question is: how can human beings cross the borderline of human limitation to that divine intimacy which calls for complete surrender, and in return gives us all the resources of the infinite?  To find the answer we must turn to Saint John the Baptist,... he confessed and did not deny...  It is not I.  We must know the truth about ourselves without equivocation; we must be brought to the point of absolute honesty before ourselves and before others.  Again and again we will be tempted to stand on the pedestal of our own self-esteem, and this temptation must be overcome at all costs. We may cavort for a time on our high horse of vanity and self-deception, but sooner or later the animal will throw us and make off leaving us stranded in the wilderness.  We must abandon the fictions we have labored to polish so as to increase their plausibility.  An honest self-appraisal combined with a sober summing-up of one's own capacities and potentialities is the first step toward truth in life.  The truth shall set you free - and freedom, in every part of life, is all that matters. -- Fr Alfred Delp, SJ in Magnificat, May 2010, p. 396

We are "called" (as in vocation) out of these false and deceptive illusions of autonomous individuality to a Freedom of and in Grace - not by anything we have done, but rather by acknowledging that the world does not revolve around "me" and instead, re-presenting the One for whom Life revolves.

Prelude to Memorial Day - Coming Home

(Wiki Commons)

I don't trust the embedding for this Eyeblast video with our format, so I am directing you to Mark Shea's blog for it. I'm a sucker for unrehearsed welcome home appearances of our service men and women. You will be, too. Trust me. Go here.

Participation in a Familly Affair

Saint Philip Neri and Johns Hopkins

"Let me get through today, and I shall not fear tomorrow."

"A joyful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one."

- St. Philip Neri

My students had left the classroom yesterday afternoon and I was getting things ready for the substitute teacher who would be coming in this morning. I always write the name of the saint of the day above the schedule for the day on the white-board, so I looked it up. St. Philip Neri. My Confirmation saint's name.

What a great companion for today when I drive up to Johns Hopkins to see an oncological surgeon about a (possible) resection for my liver. I could not have asked for a nicer "coincidence" of Providence.

UPDATE: I will be having a liver resectioning in the next 2-3 weeks, and chemotherapy to follow. No sympathy, please. Prayers appreciated. Cheers

Barron & Hahn - Stinkin' Thinkin'

Fr Robert Barron and Dr. Scott Hahn discuss modern versions of a very old heresy: Gnosticism.

Be Open to Receive - St Bede

Bede, the Venerable
Link on the above for a rich telling of Bede whose feast day is today, May 25th.

Bede was also an eminent teacher... Following the "realism" of the catecheses of Cyril, Ambrose and Augustine, Bede teaches that the sacraments of Christian initiation make every faithful person "not only a Christian but Christ". Indeed, every time that a faithful soul lovingly accepts and preserves the Word of God, in imitation of Mary, he conceives and generates Christ anew. And every time that a group of neophytes receives the Easter sacraments the Church "reproduces herself" or, to use a more daring term, the Church becomes "Mother of God", participating in the generation of her children through the action of the Holy Spirit.

When meditating on Church teaching and teachers of the faith I've come to know that the secular notion of individuality, at least the version I was raised on, is so empty of nourishment and sustenance, for one's self and in particular those who are to come after.  Life, that is True Life (is there any other?) is not about myself getting ahead or even falling into the sin of fretting over.  Life is about Being Christ and therefore building up the Body of Christ - the regeneration of Life, as Mary so beautifully exemplifies.  Sin then can be understood as our refusal of the Gift of the Word of God.

Insieme Con Il Papa

Leave it to young Andrew Cusack to bolster our spirits on this day after Pentecost. He shares an eye-witness report of one Hilary White who sauntered into St. Peter's Piazza not sure what to expect last Sunday (Ascension Sunday). What she found might be expressed as the reality of love.

ευαγγέλιον - Lift High the Cross

Fr Barron on the power of the world - the Cross vs. the power of Our Lord's vindication - the Resurrection:

Saint Hospitius

Saint Hospice (Hospicius) a hermit friar whose feast day was May 21st.  He lived amid the ruins of a tower just east of Nice, France.  His prayers wrought the healings of one man who was blind from birth and another who was deaf and mute.  In foretelling an invasion by the Lombards, he warned of it as a chastisement, lamenting, "All the world is without faith, taken to lies, accustomed to stealing, prompt to kill."  Boy, one could surmise that he is prophesying about us today.

Lightning Meditations by RONALD KNOX

Heart and Head

THE Church describes the heart of her Incarnate Lord as a treasure-house of all wisdom and knowledge. Most evidently, the popular devotion which tinges our prayer during the month of June is a devotion to the whole of our Lord's sacred humanity, not to one single part or aspect of it. That we should treat the Sacred Heart as the symbol of his emotional nature is not surprising. The language of lovers has claimed the heart for its symbol ever since the Middle Ages, and we have learned, in consequence, to treat it as the centre of the feelings, relegating the intellect to the head. The "heart-work" which John Wesley was for ever vindicating against its critics was precisely the enlistment of the emotions in the service of religion.

But from the beginning it was not so. To the Hebrews, as to the Romans, the heart was the seat of the intellect; "My son, give me thy heart" is only an appeal for the pupil's attention, and the "largeness of heart" granted to King Solomon was wisdom, not sensibility. This habit of speech is found in the New Testament as in the Old; nor is the distinction between head and heart observed in the liturgy, where cor and mens seem to be almost interchangeable. Have we a right to limit the range of the Sacred Heart by making it a symbol of our Lord's human tenderness, nothing else?

It is well that the sinner should find pardon, the mourner comfort, in the source from which pardon came to the Magdalen, comfort to the widow of Nairn. But there are other burdens that may be cast, if we will, on those patient shoulders. There is (for example) a kind of intellectual fatigue which overtakes us when we are introduced to the daring speculations of modern sci­ence; we cannot understand the very terms of them. Well, here is the effigy of that Heart which is the treasure-house of all wisdom and all knowledge. We have found a fresh avenue of approach; “Lord, you know all things; you can tell that I love you.”. Jn. 21:17. (Knox ‘you’ version).

Barron - Why the World

Father Robert Barron on why God created the universe:

In order to improve we must have some idea of what's "good"

Hobbes: "How are you doing on your New Year's resolutions?"

Calvin: "I didn't make any. See, in order to improve oneself, one must have some idea of what's 'good.' That implies certain values. But as we all know, values are relative. Every system of belief is equally valid and we need to tolerate diversity. Virtue isn't 'better' than vice. It's just different."

Hobbes: "I don't know if I can tolerate that much tolerance."

Calvin: "I refuse to be victimized by notions of virtuous behavior."

Generative Conversion

If you are a sucker for redemption stories - I am - then here is a story of the kind of hope and change you can really believe in.

Saint Bernadine of Siena - Feast Day May 20

My patron saint: Saint Bernadine of Siena

When a fire is lit to clear a field, it burns off all the dry and useless weeds and thorns. When the sun rises and darkness is dispelled, robbers, night-prowlers and burglars hide away. So when Paul’s voice was raised to preach the Gospel to the nations, like a great clap of thunder in the sky, his preaching was a blazing fire carrying all before it. It was the sun rising in full glory. Infidelity was consumed by it, false beliefs fled away, and the truth appeared like a great candle lighting the whole world with its brilliant flame.


By word of mouth, by letters, by miracles, and by the example of his own life, Saint Paul bore the name of Jesus wherever he went. He praised the name of Jesus “at all times,” but never more than when “bearing witness to his faith.”

- from a sermon by Saint Bernadine of Siena

Saint Bernadine of Siena Profile


Friar Minor. Priest. Itinerant preacher. Theological writer. His preaching skills were so great, and the conversions so numerous, that he has become associated with all areas of speaking, advertising, public relations, etc.

What does it mean, Consecrated in the Truth?

Far from losing, we gain all in abandoning ourselves entirely to God by love and confidence. The sight of yourself: that confused heap of weaknesses, miseries, corruption, should never distress you. It is on this account that I say boldly, all is well, for I have never known anyone endowed with this keen insight, so humiliating, to whom it was not a most special grace of God; nor who has not found in it, combined with a true self-knowledge, that solid humility which is the foundation of all perfection. I have known, and do know many saintly people who, for their sole possession have that profound conviction of their weakness, and are never so happy as when they feel themselves, as it were, engulfed in it. They then dwell in truth, and consequently in God who is the sovereign truth. - JEAN-PIERRE DE CAUSSADE (1675 - 1751)

It Is Your Choice

Here is an interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand, we have Hendrik Hertzberg writing in the New Yorker magazine.

And on the other hand, we have Bevil Bramwell, OMI, writing at The Catholic Thing.

Time was, I would have trusted the former for truth ... if not goodness and beauty. But over the years and with time, I realized that the latter speaks much more truth AND goodness and beauty. Why? Because the latter can understand the former, and not vice versa.

That is to say, Hertzberg criticizes the Catholic Church for a silence surrounding the sex abuse scandal, and rightly so. But he neglects to point out that the sex abuse going on prior to steps to alter those nefarious actions was no more likely than sex abuse going on just about everywhere else, including Protestant churches, public schools, and other places in the public square.

Since Benedict XVI's pontificate, sex abuse in the Church has dropped exponentially.

But who cares when you want to reduce to rubble an "institution" that is protected by "a nimbus of mystery, pomp, holiness, and, in the case of the Pope, infallibility," to use Hertzberg's turn of phrase?

I don't know much, but this I do know: Hertzberg and his ilk have nothing - absolutely nothing - to offer human beings in terms of soteriology, not to mention epistemology, or anthropology.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, knows it is comprised of sinners - the Holy Father goes to confession too. And the truth, faith, reason, and morals vouchsafed by the Catholic Church are worth giving your life for and, in some instances, going to your death for.

Who, after all, are you going to trust? As Carlyle Marney once said, "If it don't play in the cancer ward, it ain't the gospel." Amen and amen.

One Fear Only - BXVI

Pope Benedict XVI says that the Church should fear only one thing: sin.

Haunted by Chartres

"In his heart, the hyper-modernist not only still believes in progress (or, "hope and change") in the face of all evidence to the contrary. He also deeply believes that nothing matters, because everything is going to change anyway. Hence his inability to make anything worth keeping.

"We have a society that ought to be haunted by Chartres: by the fragments of our landscape over which great steeples once rose, declaring truth in stone meant to outlast ages. Instead we look around at a clutter of cheap franchise operations; and traffic accelerating from nowhere to nowhere."

- David Warren

Fascinosum et Tremendum

You want yer true transcendence? Okay, you got yer true transcendence: here.

Brrr

Warming ... cooling ... warming ... cooling ... Would you make up your mind, guys?

Use Your Suffering Chivalrously

Before leaving Portugal, Pope Benedict asked the suffering and dying to help save the world.

Great advice, Holy Father. I was bolstered to hear you saying it.

Out You Go

A good reason to engage in legitimate defense, to protect our bishops, priests, and religious, and have able-bodied men ready for the bums rush and old heave-ho here.

The neo-pagan, like its primitive sacred predecessor, looks for new victims while feeling exceedingly self righteous in doing so. This Pentecost Sunday plot is nothing other than an endeavor to destroy the faith, reason, and morals of the revealed truth vouchsafed in the Catholic Church by fallen, depraved, and satanically-influenced humans gone to seed.

Show 'em the door and don't be gentle about it.

Getting Out the Word

And back to the sublime. Fr Robert Barron's Catholicism Project:

Happy Landings

I had to post it. To all of our German speaking readers (yeah, right), I apologize in advance for the swearing. [h/t: Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys]

Worse Than Golden Compass?

Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films says it plainly: Don't go see Robin Hood. Ridley Scott is still in the Middle Ages revisionist mode.

Ouch

If any of you good fellows posted on this previously, I will immediately delete it. But Eric Sammons recalls the good-old-bad-old days of Evangelical worship with a video that is must-must-see material for all recovering mega-church addicts here. WARNING: do not watch video while drinking a beverage in front of your computer screen!

Pope offers hope against suffering at Fatima Mass

FATIMA, Portugal — Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday offered comfort to those enduring hardship, telling some 400,000 pilgrims at the Fatima shrine that suffering is not in vain.

The outdoor Mass was the centerpiece of Benedict's four-day visit to Portugal and marked the anniversary of the day 93 years ago when three local shepherd children reported having visions of the Virgin in this small farming town.

The May 13 celebrations are one of the Catholic church's major annual pilgrimages to a site where, many believe, the Virgin still works miracles.

"I have come to Fatima to pray, in union with Mary and so many pilgrims, for our human family, afflicted as it is by various ills and sufferings," Benedict told the crowd.

Ascension

The Ascension (1408) - Andrei Rublev

Baiocchi - Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Benedicto

The 4Ms always encourage prayers for the Holy Father, especially in these trying times.

Catholic Radio in DC !!!

Eberstadt, Doino, Hendrix

Mary Eberstadt has a great piece in The Weekly Standard on the The Convert Conundrum - The long parade of worldly believers. [h/t: Francis Beckwith]

By the way, William Doino, Jr. currently reviews my book, A Little Guide for Your Last Days there, too, in Exit Strategy.

It Is All About Him

And to affirm Aramis's superb reflection on love, marriage, and looking deeply into the beloved's eyes to see Christ reflected there, I remind you, gentle reader, that our Almighty God knew that we would need - absolutely need - His Son Incarnate, the Word made flesh (Jn 1,14). This "scandal of particularity" began with His Chosen People, the Jews to whom He gave the Law. Then the fulfillment of the Law was born of Mary, our Savior and our God.

Secondly, I recently viewed the History Channel's Time Machine: The Real Face of Jesus? on researchers' efforts to show us a 3-D image of Our Lord from the Shroud of Turin. It's not a bad effort: the guy's pompadour and the ridiculous incoherent speculation about Gnosticism just about turned me off, but the pay-off at the end is worth the wait. And the physicist's hypothesis about the edge of the Shroud is nye-on breathtaking. That's all I'll say ...

Thirdly, the Vatican Information Service announces that the Holy Father's second volume of Jesus of Nazareth has gone to the publisher.

Remember and never forget: it is all about Jesus. All of it - our Judge and our Hope, Who will not leave us comfortless and pours out His eucharistic grace through His Church's sacramental life. Deo gratias. +

We Wish Many Joyous Moments for Gil & Kathleen

The Mass'keteers wish Gil and Kathleen many wonderful blessings on their marriage May 8th.

When my wife Ann and I tied the knot and now Gil and Kathleen I can't help but recall the image of love flowing.  (I insert my notes from Gil Bailie's taped lecture commentary series on Canto XXXI of The Divine Comedy Vol. II: Purgatory:)

The four Virtues said to Virgil, “Look deep, look well. However your eyes may smart, we have led you now before those emeralds from which Love’s shot his arrows through your heart.” They had led him to the transfigured Beatrice, who he had known in his youth.

Dante continues, “A thousand burning passions, every passion – every one hotter than any flame, held my eyes fixed on the lucent eyes she held fixed on the griffin.” So she is not looking at him, she is looking at Christ. (Christ is manifested in this pageant as the griffin, the figure that is part lion and part eagle. And the griffin represents for Dante the two natures of Christ, the divine and human nature.)

Dante says, “Like sunlight in the glass the two-fold creature shown from the deep reflection in her eyes.” So he looked into her eyes and he saw the reflection as in a mirror of Christ.

(108 – 126 from Mark Musa translation)

“It is us to lead you to her eyes. The other three, who see more deeply, will instruct your sight, as you bathe in her gaze of joyful light,” they sang to me; then they accompanied me up to the griffin’s breast, while Beatrice now faced us from the center of the cart.

“Look deeply, look with all your sight,” they said, “for now you stand before those emeralds from which Love once shot loving darts at you.”

A thousand yearning flames of my desire held my eyes fixed upon those brilliant eyes that held the griffin fixed within their range. Like sunlight in a mirror, shining back, I saw the twofold creature in her eyes, reflecting its two natures, separately.

Imagine, reader, how amazed I was to see the creature standing there unchanged, yet, in its image, changing constantly…

116. now you stand before those emeralds: Beatrice’s eyes are green, symbolizing Hope. Here we are presented with a clear indication of Beatrice’s two interconnected roles in the poem. The pilgrim is reminded first of the Beatrice of the “a thousand yearning flames of my desire,” the woman whose love should have sufficed to teach him to aspire to the Ultimate Good. But when he actually does look into Beatrice’s eyes, the Pilgrim sees the image of the griffin. One of Beatrice’s other roles, then, is that of Revelation. The mystery of Christ’s dual nature is still beyond the Pilgrim’s understanding, and so, allegorically, he is as yet unable to gaze directly at the griffin, the symbol of those two natures. But he can begin to comprehend through Beatrice’s (Revelation’s) green eyes.

122. I saw the twofold creature in her eyes: The Pilgrim encounters in Beatrice’s eyes, as in a mirror, the mystery of Christ’s dual nature. The words of Paul (1 Cor. 13:12) come to mind: “We see now through a mirror in an obscure way (darkly).” Just as Christ is both God and man in one, and at the same time, so he is represented by the griffin, which is part eagle and part lion. The Pilgrim can “see” the two natures of the beast imaged in Beatrice’s eyes, but he cannot comprehend their oneness; hence the natures are visible to him only alternately (“separately,”) and not simultaneously. He can only marvel at the mysteriousness of oneness by describing an image that changed natures (from eagle to lion and back again) while the creature itself remains unchanged.

Tea Parties, Mimetic Rivals, and Hope

From a mimetic theory point of view, it was predictable that the tea party phenomenon occur. With the election to the presidency of the United States of the most leftist, progressivist, pro-abortion, socialist-like, and oligarchical candidate imaginable, there was an inevitability to the rise of the tea party movement.

Some, wrongly, want to accuse the tea party folk of having surreptitious racist motives. This is nearly as Procrustean an accusation as, say, the New Atheists' accusation that anyone who does not view reality like them solely through the empirical method criteria are "dim".

Mimetic theory posits the "problem of the doubles" in all conventional cultural structures. One might assume that a Democrat president in the Oval Office would find his "model/rival" across the aisle in Congress in the form of Republicans. The problem with this assumption is that there is an increasing awareness that in actuality there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Hence, the inevitability of the tea party phenomenon: a structurally authentic "double" had to arise in the mimetic swirl, and it has.

Is this a good sign? Not really. I place no hopes in the tea party uprisings, at least no hope for it to help bring about a renewed and vital Christendom. At best, it may like Pentheus in Euripides' play The Bacchae, put the clamps on the skid into the sacrificial vortex for a while. The neo-pagan resurgence coupled with the Scimitar's demographic victory in the West seem all too preponderant in force and scope for the largely middle to older-aged tea party folk.

That does not mean, however, there is no hope. Rather, it means that unless you want to have your hopes dashed once again, you had best place hope - and faith and charity - on sources of true transcendence still availing us, even in these darkening ages.

Man or Rabbit? C.S. Lewis

Why do we not only NOT press the questions that C.S. Lewis presents here but we bury further our heads in the sand, is it so we won't have to come to terms with our humanity?

But still—for intellectual honour has sunk very low in our age—I hear someone whimpering on with his question - “Will it help me? Will it make me happy? Do you really think I’d be better if I became a Christian?” Well, if you must have it, my answer is “Yes.” But I don’t like giving an answer at all at this stage. Here is a door, behind which, according to some people, the secret of the universe is waiting for you. Either that’s true or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud, the most colossal “sell” on record. Isn’t it obviously the job of every man (that is a man and not a rabbit) to try to find out which, and then to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or to exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug? Faced with such an issue, can you really remain wholly absorbed in your own blessed “moral development”?

Read this very relevant chapter by C.S. Lewis from God in the Dock

Simply Catholic

From that great state that brought us brother Aramis - a most Normal hale fellow well met - comes Simply Catholic:

Except I Give Flowers Yuengling

And speaking of love. If you were ever wondering, here is what real men love ...

If you really LOVE one another...

The following is a reflection by Mother Teresa of Calcutta - Sunday May 2, 2010, The Magnificat.


“The less we have, the more we give. Seems absurd, but it’s the logic of love.”…

True love causes pain. Jesus, in order to give us the proof of his love, died on the cross. A mother, in order to give birth to her baby, has to suffer. If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices.

The poor do not need our condescending attitude or our pity. They only need our love and our tenderness.

To me, Jesus is the Life I want to life, the Light I want to reflect, the Way to the Father, the Love I want to express, the joy I want to share, the Peace I want to sow around me. Jesus is everything to me.

Faith is scarce, it is because there is too much selfishness in the world, too much egoism. Faith, in order to be authentic, has to be generous and giving. Love and faith go hand in hand…

God has created us so we do small things with great love. I believe in that great love, that comes, or should come from our heart, should start at home: with my family, my neighbors across the street, house right next door. And this love should then reach to everyone.

(Magnificat, from Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, compiled by Jose Luis Gonzales-Balado)



To expound on the underlined portion above, Jesus didn’t give us a list of do’s and don’ts in the Gospels. Rather, he gave us a way of life. (Another good reflection here.)
 
I also go back to yesterday and the idea of "work" as the "Gospel of Work" or our work lived as vocation.  All this provides us a glimpse into God's gift of HIS LOVE and what we are to imitate.

The Feast of Joseph the Worker: The 'Gospel of Work' and our Contemporary Challenge

The following is a reflection from Deacon Keith Rournier as well as a good rebuttal to the worship of the things of man.

On this Feast of Joseph the Worker, let us seek the intercession of the Patron of the Universal Church and follow his example, recognizing that all human work participates in the workshop of Nazareth...

Are you old enough to remember the parades? May 1st - a day of international solidary of workers

"I am old enough to remember the days when on May 1st Communist Nations paraded their weapons of destruction through the streets of major cities promising a workers' paradise through their counterfeit ideology." Deacon Keith Fournier

When we draw out with the end in mind this worship & celebration of the "worker" what are we really saying?