Much of the day was spent on the phone catching up with the various contacts, trying to fathom what is happening with Monsignor Edward J. Arsenault.
I’ve written quite a bit this afternoon and this evening as well. But that article is not finished, nor will it be today. There is so very much going on right now. But I do intend to publish something on RICO tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in trying to put this into perspective…
The chickens are put to bed, and prayers still need to be said, and Laudie-dog is chewing on a bone. And… and…
When times are especially dark and dreary, I like to give a flower to the Immaculate Conception, from Holy Souls Mountain, of course. That, more than anything, helps put things in perspective.
Mary was a tough woman. She knew how and knows how to be a good mother. There’s no greater warrior than a Mother who’s protecting her only son. I spoke about her up in Washington, D.C. a while back. Here’s what I said:
1. The first is a link to the *.mp3 file. If you want to download the file to listen at any time, just click on it, but using Microsoft Internet Explorer. Diversely, in that same browser, right-click and choose “Save target as…”, saving it to the location and with the name you desire. Chrome will not download such files, only play them, just click for Chrome.
GENESIS IMMACULATE CONCEPTION GEORGE DAVID BYERS IVE CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 7 2013
2. If you just want to listen, use this:
3. If you just want to listen, you can use this as well:
For the *.PDF of the talk: IVE GENESIS IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CONFERENCE 7 FEBRUARY 2013
For the *.PDF of the entire thesis (for which I want to write a popular version): GENESIS THESIS
And then, just for fun, because it’s still within the Easter season, and because I’m from Minnesota:
To the young, the pure, and the ingenuous, irony must always appear to have a quality of something evil, and so it has, for [...] it is a sword to wound. It is so directly the product or reflex of evil that, though it can never be used – nay, can hardly exist – save in the chastisement of evil, yet irony always carries with it some reflections of the bad spirit against which it was directed. [...] It suggests most powerfully the evil against which it is directed, and those innocent of evil shun so terrible an instrument. [...] The mere truth is vivid with ironical power [...] when the mere utterance of a plain truth labouriously concealed by hypocrisy, denied by contemporary falsehood, and forgotten in the moral lethargy of the populace, takes upon itself an ironical quality more powerful than any elaboration of special ironies could have taken in the past. [...] No man possessed of irony and using it has lived happily; nor has any man possessing it and using it died without having done great good to his fellows and secured a singular advantage to his own soul. “On Irony” (pages 124-127; Penguin books 1325. Selected Essays (2/6), edited by J.B. Morton; Harmondsworth – Baltimore – Mitcham 1958).
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio;
The Catholic Church in America launched what is perhaps the largest legal defence of religious liberty in history, but the “mainstream” (= leftist) media won’t carry the story of the persecution of the Catholic Church by the Obama Administration. This is exactly how things worked out in Germany before the Holocaust. Yep. Will we refuse yet again to learn from history? Perhaps the MSM is waiting for the decision about commerce laws coming up in June. If it’s decided that everyone must purchase a certain product (abortion insurance, thus paying into the pot which will pay for abortions), and this against their consciences, mayhem will ensue. The next decision, more specifically about religious liberty, if this is not taken up within the commerce decision, will need to happen before 1 August, or mayhem will ensue. What to do, I mean, you know, practically speaking?
Actually, the most practical thing one can do is to pick some flowers, put them in a little vase, and bring them to church, and put them before a statue of our Lady, the Immaculate Conception. I hope no one has forgotten that she is the Patronness of the United States. I hope no one has forgotten that she, as a mother, is solicitous for our welfare. I hope no one has fogotten that her intercession is most powerful before the throne of the Most High. We are her little children, are we not? Don’t little kids pick flowers to bring to their mothers? Sure, it’s a simple thing to do. But, you know, it changes everything. 
It sets everything in proper order. We are in humble thanksgiving for the intercession that our heavenly mother provides for us. Aren’t flowers appropriate? Don’t underestimate the fortitude for facing what is to come with a small action like this. Just do it.
This is from a French-Roman style “fiddleback” vestment made for yours truly when I was a chaplain in Lourdes for a couple of years by a wonderful group of ladies from a parish north of Toulouse, whose pastor was concerned that a chaplain in Lourdes responsible for reinstituting the Extraordinary Form of the Mass was surely to have the proper vestments. I think that, in fact, the new vestments were made using bits of pieces of vestments which had been discarded from Lourdes when the shrines suffered wreckovations on every level imaginable. I sure did and do make good use of these vestments to this day!
I’d like to go one step further. Let’s take a look at the Greek version!
In the Gospels, the word used for the Lord’s mercy is a passive verb — ἐσπλαγχνίσθη — His Heart was sacrificed… Yikes! Yes, Jesus’ Heart was uniquely sacrificed for us. And… and… the Immaculate Heart of His Mother was also pierced with a sword of sorrow as none of our hearts could ever be, for she had a clear vision in her immaculateness of the goodness of her Son, and therefore also saw all the hell vomited upon Him with incisive clarity. What sorrow! What intercession for us! What mercy! What a sacrificing of her heart for us… The Greek used for “protection” refers instead to a goodheartedness which in turn refers to just how good a Heart our Lord had, sacrificed for us, and therefore just how good a heart His Mother had, also sacrificed for us.
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
