The dog must learn it, when he is a whelp, or else it will not be . . .

 

 . . . for it is hard to make an old dog to stoop [submit]. 

-- Anthony Fitzherbert, The Book of Husbandry (1523/1534), paragraph 41:

 

 

 

Beware of sadness

 

 Such a wantwit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.

 

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 1

They need to think bigger at Big Think lol

 

 Why historians can only give Jesus a one-sentence biography

 ... In the ancient world, gods, heroes, and even Caesars were resurrected with fair regularity. ...

Right, right, that's why the Athenians laughed out loud at the idea.

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked . . ..

-- Acts 17:32 

 

A certain diseased beggar named Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, but never once was he fed from his sumptuous table

 Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.

 

-- Jonathan Swift

What in the world is the heart of Islam coming to?

 First we have MBS shaking hands publicly with the openly homosexual US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and now we get this headline:

Saudi Arabia to lift booze ban at 600 tourist locations ...
 

... Spirits and hard liquor above 20% ABV will remain banned, with no sign of shops, takeaways or home brewing being permitted. ...

O believers! Intoxicants, gambling, idols, and drawing lots for decisions are all evil of Satan’s handiwork. So shun them so you may be successful.

 

-- Qur'an, Sura 5:90 

And ˹remember˺ when Lot scolded ˹the men of˺ his people, ˹saying,˺ “Do you commit a shameful deed that no man has ever done before?

 

You lust after men instead of women! You are certainly transgressors.”

 

But his people’s only response was to say, “Expel them from your land! They are a people who wish to remain chaste!”

 

-- Qur'an, Sura 7:80-82

 

 

Look thou be true

 

 Look thou be true: do not give dalliance

Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw

To th' fire i' th' blood.

 

-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

Today shalt thou be with me in paradise, not tomorrow, nor on the third day, but truly, today

 

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμήν λέγω σοι σήμερον μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ.

 

-- Luke 23:43 

σήμερον is obviously in emphatic position. The promise to the penitent thief is that there will be no lingering death, and the conviction of Jesus is firm belief in immediate immortality for both himself and this thief, not in future resurrection.

She dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun

 

 She her airie buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

 

-- William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Scene 3 (the reading is Samuel Johnson's)

Time is an ocean

 

 

 I consider time as an immense ocean, into which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up, many very much shattered and damaged, some quite disjointed and broken into pieces.

 

-- Joseph Addison

Pope Leo graduated in 1973 from Saint Augustine Seminary High School in Allegan County, Michigan, which closed in 1977

 

... The estate was built by inventor Dorr Felt in 1925 and bought by the Augustinian order in 1949 for use as a school, with the goal of educating between 50 and 60 students at a time who were interested in becoming priests. The mansion included the dorm and chapel and a garage was converted to host classes and include a library. By 1965, the Felt Estate said, the school was serving 180 students and had a waiting list of 400. But interest later waned and enrollment was below 70 by the mid-1970s. The school closed in 1977. The state bought the land and Laketown Township bought it for $1 in 1996. The mansion is now a venue and museum. ...

More.

The new pope's a wiener in Chicago

I am not ecumenical when it comes to hot dogs.

The Chicago style is without doubt the very best, the top dog, yes, the pontifex maximus of salsicce, as long as it comes from Vienna or Frankfurt.

 

 

Leo XIV, the first pope born in America, in the city of Chicago, had an extensive career in Peru for the Augustinians from 1985

He had been created cardinal by Pope Francis only recently, in 2023.

He's also a tweeter.

 

The tyrant is the real slave, possessed of desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and of more wants than any one

But he does know how to stay in the news.

Posted at 10:29 PM Friday night.

Promoted by the irredeemable Rod Dreher Saturday morning.

Trending #1 at CNBC Saturday night.

If Trump had any real power, US Treasury Bills wouldn't be yielding more as he posted this than they have in nine weeks.

 

 

Pope Francis is gone, but not forgotten

 

Pope Francis' last laugh: Latin Mass for me, but not for thee

 

 ... While Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, began the liturgy, the crowd stayed silent. Most of the mass was in Latin and punctuated with hymns and Gregorian chants. A light breeze ruffled an open gospel placed on the coffin. ...

More.

J. D. Vance succeeds where others have failed, finally makes Easter a religious holiday again

 

I kinda gave up Rod Dreher for Lent, he gave up milk in his latte

Nothing screams serious like giving up milk.

 

Angel of Death visits Pope on Easter Sunday, Francis dead Easter Monday

 

Once a man is dead there is no resurrection

 But when the dust has drawn up the blood of a man, once he is dead, there is no resurrection.

-- Aeschylus, Eumenides, 647f.

... ἅπαξ θανόντος, οὔτις ἔστ ἀνάστασις.

 

Jesus wasn't killed for blasphemy but for challenging Jewish complicity with Roman economic tyranny

 

I'm glad to see this argument gaining wider circulation, even if it appears in an essay which more broadly is mistaken to think that Jesus imagined that terrestrial injustice could be overcome by anyone or anything short of the coming of God's celestial kingdom to earth. Not even the resurrection has done that.

The argument was first made by St. Luke.

And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.  

-- Luke 23:1f.

Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession

 ... The next day, Jesus walked into the Temple, the heart of Jerusalem’s religious and economic life, and flipped the tables in the marketplace, which he described as “a den of robbers.” The Temple wasn’t just a house of prayer. It was a financial engine, operated by complicit leaders under the constraints and demands of the occupying empire. Jesus shuts it down. This is what gets him killed.

Jesus wasn’t killed for preaching love, or healing the sick, or discussing theology routinely debated in the Temple’s courtyards, or blasphemy (the punishment for which was stoning). Rome didn’t crucify philosophers or miracle workers. Rome crucified insurrectionists. The sign nailed above his head — “King of the Jews” — was a political indictment and public warning. ...

Ordinarily you would want a saint who can intercede to get you out of an economic collapse, not get you into one lol

Actors are rarely known for their intelligence. And as we are all very painfully aware, Donald Trump is an actor, too.

 

Oh, the pervert is dead . . .

 

Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Defrocked Over Sex Abuse, Dies at 94

NYTimes

 

"... Three of the four bishops, it said, found that Mr. McCarrick had shared a bed with seminarians and young adult men, but said they were not sure there had been sexual contact. ..."

 

 

Oh, McCarrick is dead, and his boyfriend don't know it

His boyfriend is dead, and McCarrick don't know it

They both are dead in the very same bed

And neither one knows that the other is dead.    

-- Johnny

 

 

Actor Val Kilmer, a follower of Christian Science, has died of pneumonia at 65

Reported here:

... His daughter Mercedes told The New York Times the cause was pneumonia. He was 65. He had been battling throat cancer for several years. ...

A lifelong Christian Scientist, Kilmer was unwilling to confirm his cancer diagnosis when it was revealed by Michael Douglas in 2016. He combined his fascination with Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy with his love of Mark Twain in a screenplay that featured the two figures. He toured the country with his one-man show “Citizen Twain” for several years, which incorporated film and live readings of the humorist’s work. ... 

My body is a Catholic Church . . .

 . . . full of wine, bread, and guilt.

 

No presence of human blood discovered on consecrated host

 

 Indianapolis Archdiocese probes parish’s alleged Eucharistic miracle

... a “young woman” ... described seeing “drops of blood” on two consecrated hosts. The hosts had apparently fallen on the floor Feb. 21 and were placed in water and kept in the tabernacle to dissolve. A day later, what the woman saw instead, she claimed, “looked like a very very thin piece of skin with blood on it.”

A CUP founder confirmed in an email to OSV News that the same woman, who wished to remain anonymous, took the photos of the apparently blood-stained hosts that were posted on social media. ...

No Eucharistic miracle in Indianapolis, archdiocese confirms after lab tests

... “A biochemical analysis of a host from St. Anthony Catholic Church in Morris, Ind., that was displaying red discoloration revealed the presence of a common bacteria found on all humans,” the statement said. “No presence of human blood was discovered.”

The March 24 statement confirmed that the host had “fallen out of a Mass kit used at the parish, and when it was discovered, red spots were present. ...

Catholics believe that upon their consecration at Mass, bread and wine become Jesus Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity — while still retaining the appearances of bread and wine. ...

 

 

OMG Trump-Vance supporter Rod Dreher is worried that Mexico is re-paganizing

 

A friend is the gift of God

 

 People, young and raw, and soft natured, think it an easy thing to gain love, and reckon their own friendship a sure price of any man's; but when experience shall have shewn them the hardness of most hearts, the hollowness of others, and the baseness and ingratitude of almost all, they will then find that a friend is the gift of God, and that he only who made hearts can unite them.

 

-- Robert South

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour, you know, like Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.  

-- 1 Peter 5:8

And after the shot, Satan entered into him

And after the sop Satan entered into him. ...

-- John 13:27

Trump betrays Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe

 Thou hast slain

The flower of Europe for his chivalry,

And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him.

 

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 3, Act 2, Scene 1

Evidently both J. D. Vance and his pope are so embarrassed by a nature miracle in Mark's Gospel that they feel they have to misrepresent it

 

Or is it just USA Today?

Who knows.

I highlight the obvious misrepresentations.

Can anyone read anymore?

Here:

Vance quoted at length from a Francis homily in March 2020 about a passage from the book of Mark about Jesus being in a boat with his disciples. A storm caught the group off guard by an unexpected and turbulent storm, which left them disoriented and in need of comfort.

Jesus slept for the only time mentioned in the gospels. When he awakens after the storm has passed, the disciples ask why he wasn’t concerned if they perished.

“Indeed, once they call on Him, He saves his disciples from their discouragement,” Vance quoted Francis as saying. “The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers our faults and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities.”

“We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity,” Vance added.

 

What absolute tosh. 

Do these people ever look up anything?

The storm hadn't passed. It was raging. They were going to die. He was sleeping. They wake him. He commands the storm to stop. It stops. They are amazed. He was upset at their faithlessness.

They were saved from being killed by an actual storm, not from some stupid, introspective-conscience-of-the-west-like existential angst imported into the text from our cowardly, post-Christian, 21st century dull humanitarian consensus which cannot say what a woman is and can't even bring itself to call things what they actually are, such as that a man posing as a woman is a man posing as a woman.

Are we surprised that the same people who deliberately misrepresent their foundational book misrepresent also who is the dictator destroying Ukraine and who started the war?

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?  

-- Mark 4:37ff. 

Trump imagines a rebuilt Gaza, complete with a hotel, a golden idol of himself to worship, copies of which you can buy and take home with you, and of course drag queen entertainment on the beach, among other amenities

 

Occasionally a Christian reminds the world that the religion is pagan, its human sacrifice an abomination to the God of Moses

 

What Protestants Get Wrong About the Epistle to the Hebrews

Peter J. Leithart, First Things

 ... The blood of bulls and goats was always impotent; what was needed was the human sacrifice of total obedience, fulfilled in the cross. It’s not a conservative gospel, but a revolutionary one in which first things change place with last things. ...

To wit:

When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.  There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.

-- Deuteronomy 18:9ff.

They built the high places of Ba'al in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

-- Jeremiah 32:35

Not only that, Leithart's interpretation of the Eucharist is an abomination to the Christian God, even whose catechumens were excluded from the Lord's Supper as strangers from the third and fourth centuries:

The Eucharist is the Lord’s, and our, hospitality to strangers.

To wit:

The Church urges the entire assembly of the faithful to pray for the catechumens, even though they are still strangers. Indeed, they do not yet belong to the Body of Christ, they have not partaken of the Holy Mysteries; they are still apart from the spiritual flock … They stand outside the royal court, far from the sacred forecourts. That is why they are sent away before those fearful prayers [of the Anaphora] are said. So she asks you to pray for them, that they may become fellow members with you and no longer be strangers and cut off.

— Apostolic Constitutions, 8.32 PG 1.1132B; Apostolic Tradition, 17, SC 11bis, p. 75

Behold your king, pompous, and acting like an ass

 

You're wearing a mask while driving a Subaru, so you must vote Democrat

 Can syllogism set things right?

No, majors soon with minors fight:

Or, both in friendly consort joined,

The consequence limps false behind.

 

 -- Matthew Prior

There is nothing conservative about any of these people, whose morals are those of chimps and whose mouths are open sewers

 

 

‘Elon Musk Is the Father’: Conservative Influencer Announces New Child

 

Conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair asked for privacy in a post on X Friday when she claimed she recently gave birth to a baby and said Elon Musk is the father. ...

The former Turning Point USA ambassador defended Musk’s DOGE work when she dismissed privacy concerns about his access to sensitive information.

“What the fuck do you think Elon Musk is going to do with your social security number???” she posted. “Tweet it???? Open a line of credit you don’t have??????”

Musk shared her post and commented, “Seriously. And for damn sure, I’m 1000% more trustworthy than untold numbers of deep state bureaucrats and fraudsters who may be misusing your SSN right now.”

Musk had not commented on St. Clair’s revelation or the baby as of the time of publication. Musk had fathered 12 children by three different women before St Clair’s announcement, according to People magazine.

Turning Point USA severed ties with St. Clair in 2019 after she posed for photos with Nick Fuentes and other White nationalists.

 

Bob's your uncle

 Tut, tut! grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.

-- William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act 2, Scene 3

Elon Musk is a dangerous know-nothing: He calls US government payments to Lutheran Family/Social/Immigration Services illegal when they are not and never have been

 

One can disagree that public funds should be distributed to religious organizations who specialize in aid to immigrants as a matter of policy, but the programs are not illegal, and were even heralded a quarter century ago when they began under George W. Bush.

O tempora, o mores.

 

In 1999, then-presidential candidate George W. Bush called for the funding of religious groups that fed the hungry and housed the homeless, part of what he called the “armies of compassion.” During his first month in office, in 2001, the Republican unveiled an office to help faith-based groups partner with government, calling them “some of the finest America has got to offer.”...

... on the social media site X, right-wing Trump ally Mike Flynn accused Lutheran organizations that receive federal grants to help the needy of committing “money laundering.” Flynn put quote marks around the word “Lutheran” — one of America’s largest Protestant groups — in the post.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s then shared Flynn’s post, calling “illegal” multiple Lutheran organizations that work in the United States to provide health care to homeless people, run food pantries, and help migrants and refugees. “The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments,” Musk said, referring to his U.S. DOGE Service, also known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

More.

Conversation with foreigners

 Conversation with foreigners enlarges our minds, and sets them free from many prejudices we are ready to imbibe concerning them.

-- Isaac Watts