Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Michael



I love my brother Michael but I do not understand. Who is he? Is he really a person?

I bought a salami. Julian wanted a salami sandwich. So I bought a salami for him. I wanted to visit him today, but he told me that he had to go to dialysis today so I could not visit him. So I went to Church to pray instead. I can do that often. The Church is a block and a half away from my home. It is never crowded in the middle of the day. Other people have to work or don't care to visit God when they are free. Sometimes homeless people are there, but not always. Usually it is me alone before the tabernacle. I wonder what if Jesus is not really there because Julian is right and the Novus Ordo does not have true sacraments? Would that make it bad to go there? They say that wherever a priest says Mass even one time, the angels go to visit and worship God there until the end of time. So even if a Church goes out of use, the angels remain there and it is holy ground. So even then, perhaps it is good to go there and be with the holy angels and worship God there as the Church is older than 1969 and was the scene of countless valid Masses.

About how to be a good person. I think it is  most important to be chaste. I do not know the right words. But to not commit sexual sins. One should not masturbate or fornicate or adultery or sodomy. One has to control one's base passions. And if one is married one must have relations so as to have children. It is important not just to not do these things, but to not want to do these things, and to not even think of these things with desire or longing. To not be an addict to one's passions. One should want to be innocent like a young uncorrupted child. Teach a boy to masturbate and he will cease to pray. One must look up to God like he is truly your father and that he loves you and cares for you and that you love him in return. And that no matter what happens, even if the most evil things happen to you, in the end you will be happy with him forever if you remain faithful to him and love him. A child of grace. If one merely does not do bad things, but one wants to do bad things, and would do them if they were not punished by God, would one be good? Or merely afraid of punishment?

The more I have quiet, the more and more I despise nearly all entertainment. My father was listening to old pop songs and I was disgusted and thought to myself, people listen to music all day, every day, and even in the fifties is was just as bad; all it is is propaganda exalting fornication. Sweet little sixteen. To think that people allowed this and listened to this in their homes for generations. Their children. And people try to say we were moral and good back then? It makes me think everyone is a devil and they all deserve the moral and social decay that has happened in the past few decades. It really is very perverse. I think of Churches having mixed dances playing sexualized music to teenagers with the priests as impotent chaperones, some perhaps knowing that they are complicit in the damnation of those young souls, but they did nothing to object. I can no longer watch television or movies or other such things. Nearly everyone I see is a pervert. Even the conservative voices are often perverts. I read some conservative content and listen to some conservative talks on the computer and sometimes I am shocked by them. It makes me want to be alone, or just remain in Church all day looking at Jesus. But then I think at some Churches the priests are perverts also like was reported in the Post. So even if I do have Jesus in the tabernacle or in the monstrance, He was brought down here to earth by the hands of a sexual deviant. But perhaps Julian is right and Jesus is no longer there. As in the Eagles' song, "We haven't had that Spirit here since nine-teen sixty-nine".

I do not know. I do not understand.

So chastity is the most important virtue for me. I am sure that I am wrong. But I see it is tied up in innocence, and innocence is what we all should be. Innocence born or innocence regained. As like unto little children. There is a wonderful story about the parents of the little flower. After their marriage, perhaps a year later, her dear mother was sad because she was not pregnant yet and she spoke to someone about how she wanted to be with child but was not even though she had prayed for a child ceaselessly. In the course of the conversation it was discovered that neither she nor her husband knew what sex was and that that was the way one became pregnant. She just thought that if one was married and prayed for a child, God would grant it and the wife would become pregnant. After this discovery was made they were surprised and asked their priest if it would be better to remain in a Josephite marriage or to have children. And the priest told them to have as many children as God sends to be a good example to the other Catholics. In the world I want to live in everyone would be like those parents. Not that I am angry at God creating a world with sin, but I imagine what it would be like if there were less sin in it than there is.

I have heard one traditional Catholic priest who came across this same thing, so it exists today. He married a man and a woman and they did not have a child and the priest found out later that they did not know what sex was. So he told them. And they were so repulsed by the idea that they decided not to have sex and to not have their own children, but to adopt instead. Ever after this priest, just to make sure they knew, would instruct the couples he was to marry about what sex was to make sure that they knew. So people are innocent even today.

I am a lucky person. I have family that takes care of me. Without them life would be hard and I would lose hope. My mind is just not fully functional anymore. I hope they live longer and that I remain safe after my parents leave me, or that I leave them before they leave me.

I kind of wish I still went to AA meetings. It was nice to hear people talk as if they were friends. But it was too cultish for me. But I wish there were similar meetings where people talked, perhaps a Church group or something, however a Church group would be odd because of my peculiar religious beliefs.

Julian wouldn't like the priest we had say Mass for us on Sunday. He was too liberal on EENS for him (or for me). He was talking about protestants being saved without conversion to Catholicism. It used to be the "invincibly ignorant" and now it is any of them who are nice.

I was reading Rod Dreher for some reason and he was talking about sexual depravity as a result of having power over others. Not only among Catholic priests as he often talks about, but in the culture in general. It seems as a race we are so deprived that power leads to rape for many people, inexorably. I find sexuality so ugly honestly, even consensual. But the thought of the things many of those people do makes me almost wish for damnation. And I used to do wicked things myself before I became religious, so I know a little about depravity. Now I only want to be innocent. To be virtuous. But I am weak. I am not courageous. I am not a fighter. I would like to be a monk or a hermit and have a quiet life of silence.

It is new year's eve. Tomorrow is the beginning of year 7218 since creation if my math is correct. However there are different schools of thought on this apparently. I promised my parents I wouldn't have beer. I have to decide if I want diet soda. I am thinking yes, as a form of celebration.

I am not a good hermit. Robert would not like that I do eat meat. I could easily do without, but I eat at the same table as my parents who would not do without meat so I simply eat what I make them (I do not think eating meat is a sin). And I eat a little too much and drink a lot of coffee and diet soda. I would have to cut down on the meat and eat less and drink less. If I went back to my diet of rice and lentils with an egg with a little oatmeal and some bread and one cup of coffee I would be a better hermit. Since I got out of the hospital I have been a glutton, I admit. I pray a lot, but I also eat and drink and do not fast. Hopefully I will fast well for Lent. But my will power has decreased from what it used to be. I do not get bored or worry or get depressed often lately, but I have my sins.

So happy New Year. Julian and Karen wouldn't like it but I plan on going to Holy Innocents tomorrow for Mass. I should see people I know there and perhaps we can get coffee. 10:30 AM High Mass. I do not think it is invalid, but I don't know about receiving Communion. Would that be wrong if Jesus is really there? I know some SSPX priests oppose even going to the indult, but they do not say it is a sin, even to those who receive Communion there as many people do. But I just want to worship Jesus and talk to friends. So happy New Year. Hopefully next year I will be a better hermit.

Monday, December 23, 2019

A Dozen Mourning Doves


For Christmas I am celebrating with some beer. To get it I walked to the "Beer Garden". On the way there I was walking past an apartment building when I saw a group of a dozen mourning doves and they flew from the ground up into a fire escape on the side of the building with so many curtained windows. As they flew they all chanted their lonely dirge. "Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo." as only they can sing. I was so happy I shouted out something in joy. I forget exactly what I cried out, something like "what beautiful birds." A man was walking by, who seemed like a drifter and he smiled at me and said "aren't those birds wonderful?" And I said, "Yes, they are." And he walked away. I was happy and he seemed happy to see me happy.

A half a mile later I found the "Beer Garden" and went inside. I wanted a four pack of Duvel. I found it and purchased it. I had to wait for a woman who was buying Christmas scratch-off lotto tickets and a six pack. Expensive, but a treat for once a year.

Walking back I got to the apartment building where the birds were and they were still there on the fire escape, trying to keep warm in their feathers shivering with their heads pulled inside their bodies. I stopped and looked at them again. They are so  very beautiful. I smiled. On the way there and home I thought of how wonderful God is and I thought about someone and thought that I hoped I would see them in heaven together with God. After all the sorrows have melted away like wax before the flame. Mourning doves are my favorite birds. Turtle doves.

When strangers speak to me I take it as a sign. The man knew about life. He was awake. I find homeless people know the most. And drifters. And saints.

Mourning doves and sparrows. Grackles and crows. As if they are signs.

On Suicide


Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro and Paulo, et omnibus Sanctis, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione verbo and opere, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelen Archangelum, beatum Joannam Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, et omnes Sanctos, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

Miseratur nostri omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis nostris, perducat nos ad vitam aeternam. Amen.

Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. Amen.

I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the Saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me.

May the almighty and merciful God have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins, and bring us unto life everlasting. Amen.

May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins. Amen.

In my life I only have a few friends now. I count as friends only among the people who I know from Church, (not because they share the same religion, but because I don't really know many people other than Church friends, except neighbor acquaintances and doctors and fellow crazy patients). And of those only one is a true friend and that is Julian. Julian is like a Russian Old believer, only Catholic. I love him dearly. You see he went blind and cannot see. So I visit him in the nursing home where he lives and bring him food. And he likes to pray so we pray the Saint Michael chaplet. There are also other friends from Church, but Julian is the closest. Next is angry Tom and Cora who moved far away but calls me at least once a month and sends me text messages asking me to pray for her. So I have only one real friend.

But there are other people who I love dearly. You see I have heard speak of suicide among two people who I love. I do not know what to say about that. Neither of these people believe what I believe. I hope they do not go through with it. One is more serious than the other. One mentioned it as a reality already attempted but failed with the likelihood of attempting it again. The other mentioned it more like some beautiful ideal, but not a reality to be chosen immediately.

I am not a movie expert. But the most beautifully filmed movie that in my eyes (of the few that I know) was a late silent film called Tabu, the last film directed by Murnau. It was gorgeous. At the end a man swims into the ocean as far as he is able until his strength fails him and he falls beneath the waves and drowns.

Nobody cares what I write and I do not think the person I am thinking of will ever read this. But what must one think of suicide? I do not know what the person believes. Whether atheist, or satanist, or agnostic. What can I say?

To my mind there is nothing worse that one can do than suicide. Not because it is the worst sin, but because it is one's last act. To end one's life with mortal sin means hell for there is no chance for repentance. I don't know if they believe this. I do not know if they care about me or anything or even know that there is a crazy person far away who loves them and would be heartbroken if they did it or if they care. They already know of friends and family who would be sadder so I am not that important. And the pain that is near and deep is more powerful than the pain of another who may know thee and care. The demon that is gripping one seems stronger than the angel that is far away.

I have been through suffering. Everyone suffers. It is as if it is the meaning of life after the fall. I imagine the devils have a lot to do with suicide. I imagine they grab into souls in despair and sadness and tempt them to off themselves, and when they succeed they drag their souls to hell and gleefully, in their agony, can they sense glee? Yes, glee is a wicked thing. Drag them down forever and forever. It must take a lot of egging on. It is something that I not considered even in my darkest moments. I stopped at black-out drunkenness until I could no longer remember. Perhaps I am innocent. And then when I was tormented by my demons for so long I believed so suicide was not an option so I stopped at frantic prayer in my agony. I have my own demons. Even when I was in the hospital lately the priest thought I was possessed and prayed over me prayers of exorcism and now I am at peace so perhaps they worked. My whole psychosis is caked in religious themes of angels and demons and has been since its beginning.

But if someone I loved, and the person is someone I love but am not close to at all so I cannot just call them on the phone like a good friend, were to commit suicide? My relationship to her is like a person who likes an actress he sees in the movies and thinks about her often. I don't want to think of it or have it happen. But it is out of my hands. I hope it is just bluster and not a serious threat. If it happened, then when I thought of this person I would have to think, she is in hell. And if I am saved I will never meet her again and if I am damned I will be with her forever, but I will no longer love her but would hate her forever. Sometimes in one's romantic moments one might have thought of some girl in one's lust and have said to oneself "when I am in hell, I want to be by her side" but if it ever happens one will regret ever having thought of it.

I am just hoping it does not happen. I have no ears who listen to these words but I do pray. Hopefully I am misunderstanding things and nothing bad is really happening (except to the animals in factory farms).

It is a sensible thing to do. If one is in pain and that pain is unbearable, one thinks one can end that pain by an overdose or a noose or even a trigger. But what if it is not the end of the pain but merely the beginning of the real pain, the pain that never ends?

I don't know. I feel that most people these days must be tormented by the demons. I am at peace. Now. The demons are not bothering me now. I wish that I could take on some of the demons that are hurting other people to myself so that they could have some peace. Or have them go away because of prayers. I don't know. I would take a little suffering to ease another person's pain. I could bear a little more than I have now. Are we in this world together?

Often I pensee that we are in hell and we are all damned and that there is no hope for us and this life will go on forever and never end. Perhaps we will die in the end only to be born again in a new hell and the suffering will continue forever. However one might think this world is not all that bad for being hell. A good point. Or I can think that I do not remember my particular judgment by Jesus so I cannot be in hell. But perhaps when one is born into hell one forgets their "birth" as one forgets the beginning of one's life in the world. Often I think that I am already damned but have gone on living. As if my sins are unforgivable and there is no more mercy available and that everyone else is in the same boat so we are all merely waiting for the inevitable damnation (one must say that there was a private revelation where the Virgin lamented that if men continue to go in in sin there will reach a time where there will no longer be any pardon from God. Perhaps we have reached that time. I know I have played my part). "Some drink, some become sex addicts, and some go on hoping." Others kill themselves with this thought: "Yes, it is a sin and I will be punished, but it will end my life and thus I will not go on living, piling sin upon sin, so in the end I will be better off and my eternity will be a little less painful." While I was in the hospital my parents visited me as often as it was allowed. The nurses and other patients pointed out how good they were to visit me so often. One time I thought that they were vampires and they had turned me into a vampire as a child and now I was un-dead and I got angry at them for stealing my soul and condemning me to eternal damnation before I was old enough to choose for myself. One thinks strange thoughts when one is a paranoid schizophrenic (though usually I am not paranoid).

So I do not blame one for committing suicide, more than any other sin. I do not think it is the act of a coward. But the effects are unthinkable as I believe . . . and in my mind, I know. Perhaps one can think that after they swallowed the pills and before they passed out they repented and called out to God and were forgiven, but they also say one generally dies as one lives and such repentance is rare. I am a nobody. But I cry out in the wilderness and nobody hears me. Nobody has crossed the Jordan to receive my baptism. Perhaps because I am not a saint. I am a fool. Yes, but a fool who loves, but I have converted no one. Perhaps I strengthen the faith of a few, like Julian, who knows, but I am a little man. A poor fool of no account. All alone. What God cares of my prayers? How many have prayed for those who they loved, yet despite their prayers, the ones they have loved were damned?

Yes or no. Nobody reads this anyway. I hope out loud, but nobody hears me. I hope and pray. It is Christmas soon. Merry Christmas. Go to Church and pray, even if you do not believe anymore. Don't hate life.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

The Devil's Face

I was talking to my best friend Julian. It was too cold to take the trip to Far Rockaway and visit him, so I had to settle for a phone call. He told me something interesting. When his mother was at a Novus Ordo Church, years ago, before she died, she was looking at a monstrance and she told Julian that she saw not Jesus, but the devil's face there. I wonder how it looked. So perhaps when I go to Church and adore the Novus Ordo Eucharist I am adoring the devil and not Jesus. Everyone has their own revelation. I do not see how it could be the devil in fact as the devil should not have the power to become flesh of flesh in a host. So it could not really be the devil. But I can see how the devil can be present at Novus Ordo Churches and at the New Mass.

But I still went to my local Church today. If the devil is there, and I suspect he is in the air, I go there to worship Jesus. I am not afraid of the devil, If I was a good person the devil would be afraid of me. So I wish to worship Jesus in the devil's Church if it really is his and Julian is right about the crisis and not I. Ed was speaking about the possibility of the Indult Mass not having valid sacraments and he said, "if it is not valid what harm could it do? Just eating a little bread?" It makes sense, but if the bread is possessed by devils perhaps it could be like eating the flesh of the devil.

So Julian's mother saw the face of the devil in the monstrance? But to me I believe it is Christ. I hope that Julian is mistaken even though I do not go to the Novus Ordo Masses even though I presume they are valid. I am a nut, and we live in strange times. In Malta. Anyways. In Malta. The devil's face is in the monstrance.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Memorare


This is a common prayer. As my life stands now, when I die, I would like it to be the prayer on the back of my prayer card at the funeral home, and this picture would be on the front.

The Memorare:
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left forsaken. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.

Something bad happened. It does not directly concern me, But it made me very sad and troubled me, but I was praying about it and cried a little. Thinking about the demons that surround us and oppress so many of us.

Monday, December 16, 2019

On Making Money

I have no problem with people making money. It is necessary in the fallen world we live in. I make money myself. I get a small disability stipend for being crazy which I mostly give away to my family (because father takes care of me and deserves it and because I love my brother). But some people are good at it and make a lot of money. But as a reason to exist it is lacking to me. I have no desire for money or the things that money can buy, after the meeting of basic necessities. Perhaps it is because I do not watch television. Sometimes I buy books; I do like some of my prayer books. But what else is there to money? What is the point of luxury after necessity is met? Saint Benny had his office and his Imitation of Christ and a rosary around his neck and one in his hands. Even he did not have nothing. He carried around those two books in a bag and read from them often. He begged for coins and for bread and if he had a crust and needed more to share he would multiply the bread like Christ did the loaves on the mountainside and share it with his beggar friends on the streets and in the Colosseum of Rome. I have a little more. I have a book case with books I sometimes read. But they are more for show than for reading. I do not need them. The only books I regularly read are my Way of the Cross and my Little Office, and I also have my little Holy Hour booklet, but I would like to also keep a picture of Gemma like a soldier carries a picture of his young wife and looks at it and dreams of being with her while in the trenches. I could shed those and have nothing. I could be like a desert Father and spend my life meditating on a short prayer or a single line from scripture. I could say over and over again "Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine heart" and after thirty years I could tell my friends that I was only beginning to understand the meaning of those words. I am a little person. I love people and things and my family and women and God and I love even the cruel hard world. And I love you if you are reading this. Yes, you. I love you. There are abortions and there are sparrows. Blood and tears and Our Lady of Guadalupe. There is a heaven and there is a hell. This I know. There is a God and a devil. Some worship God and some worship the devil. I think a lot of people are wretched and a lot of people are not honest. I don't want to make a lot of money. I would be happy if I were a slave whose master gave him a place to sleep and food and daily tasks and other slaves to talk to. I would be happy as long as the master did not abuse me and there was a little Church I could go to to pray.

People go to Communion. We are to believe that the Blessed Host is Our Lord Jesus Himself, come down from heaven, dying on the Cross for us and He is to be our food. If one is well disposed it will raise one up to the highest heaven and if one is ill disposed one will be hurled into the deepest pits of hell. There is nothing more perilous than appearing before the altar rail to receive Holy Communion. It truly is as it was in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the professor had to guess which chalice was the true Holy Grail and drink from it, and to choose wisely will lead to life and to choose poorly will lead to death. I go to Communion at our little mission in the upper room. So do many of us. I go to confession once a month and I receive Communion every Sunday. I am not afraid because I do not feel guilty. I feel as if I were a friend of Jesus. I try to visit him every day. It is special when he is in the monstrance, but more often he is still there only inside the Tabernacle. I like to sit close to him and look into his heart. I can only see bread, as only once did I see the Light of the World, but I know that he is looking back at me and sees deep into my soul. I do not doubt these things. It is my reality and it has been for eleven years.

I like to pray the Holy Hour every Thursday evening. It makes the day a special day. I read the little meditations and pray and think and look at the pictures of Gemma, for in her face I see the Christ Crucified as she bore His wounds in her flesh. It has become a favorite prayer of mine. I look forward to reading the parts that move me most and I hope to have it memorized some day so I can go back to it over and over in my mind during the week. If I had a friend and I wanted to convert her I would take her into my room and pray the Hour with her if she was interested. Gather around the Christ in Gethsemane and tell Him that you love Him.

I do not have a wide audience with my blog. I only have a few readers, I am not sure how many, but I seem to have a reader from Portugal. Blessings to you, my Portuguese friend. I have a wider audience when I make posts on the niche Catholic forums I like to post on. But here this is a place of my own where I can leave a record of my own thoughts. A record of my thoughts. I am only a fool. Do I seem pious? Or do I come across as a fraud? I think I am always talking about the same things. I have been thinking of God and the angels lately and have been speaking of the same things over and over again. Yet there are those who are always speaking of Nietzsche.

His blood! His blood! What profit in His blood? I don't know? Nobody in my life takes me seriously anyway except for my friends from Church. Julian takes me seriously. My good friend who I will visit tomorrow. He prays for us and since he is blind all he can do is pray. And listen to the television. We will pray together the Chaplet of St. Michael as we always do. And I will bring him some food. A salami sandwich. And angry Tom takes me seriously. He asked me if I wanted to become a religious brother, but I do not think anywhere I wanted to go would take me, being too old and infirm and crazy. As a young man he went to the seminary but he said at the time it had become too liberal and he left. He wanted to become a priest but instead he became a social worker. He did help people in his life. More than I have done.

I want to be like a little child and love God as a little boy loves his father. Only more. Everything good He has given to me. Life. My life is charmed. Envy not for envy is the source of unhappiness.

I used to roll cigarettes. I rolled them better than anyone else in the world. It probably took five years off of my life. That was ages ago. I remember I used to get enough tobacco and papers for fifty cigarettes for four dollars. I would smoke them constantly. My brand was Drum. It was the thing I did. But then I gave it up. A few years after my conversion, and after I had given up cigarettes, I met a traditional Catholic at Mass (of the tweed suit variety) who rolled his own cigarettes. Unlike me, he put little filters into his cigarettes as he rolled them. I guess he was worried about his health. He was travelling and I only saw him twice, but he talked to me after Mass at the coffee shop. One Sunday he told me that the night before he was at a party and he challenged a protestant to a fist fight because he blasphemed Our Lady. I thought of asking him what he was doing at a party with such people but I held my lip. He seemed like a good chap, but the kind of person who would be good at making money. I wish him the best even though I can not remember his name.

Sunday is something to look forward to now. The whole day. Now we have music at Church. More people are coming to the Cenacle now. Church is at five. So I go in early and try to visit one or two of the Churches in Manhattan before. And after we have coffee and food. I am liberal with money on Sundays. I have a happy life. I am so happy. Not all the time when I am busy doing things, but in the quiet of the night and in the silence I am a very happy person.

I don't want to be an important person or be famous or be a great artist. I do not want to abuse women. I do not resent people with money or men who have beautiful women. I do not regret becoming crazy and losing my chance at a normal life. I am happy for my father and my mother and my family for my brother. I am happy for my friends and for our priests and for Church. I am happy for God and for the angels and the saints. I am happy for my Gemma and that I can look at my pictures of her and read about her and pray to her. Thinking about her makes me so very happy. You do not know. I am happy for so many things. Even if the world is full of ugliness and sin and pain. I often forget all the pain I was in when I was being tormented by the devils, but I knew what it was like to suffer. And now I have a life of peace and joy. I am grateful for being tormented by the devils for all that time because it makes me grateful for the peace I have now.


I Want To Go Back To Therapy

I do. I really do. I am supposed to go to group therapy once every two weeks for an hour. It is socialization with other people. We talk about our problems. With the group I do not feel I can be as open as I would with individual therapy. I can not talk about everything because I do not want to make the other patients uncomfortable. But I like going there to talk. Outside of mom and dad and Church friends it is my only socialization. I stopped going to AA because I thought it was a preternatural cult. But I wish it were not in my eyes a preternatural cult so I could continue to go there and talk to the alcoholics. I came to the conclusion also that by AA standards I was not an alcoholic. So if I were to get up and talk and introduce myself and say: "Hello, I am Matthew, and I am an alcoholic" I would be lying because I do not have that demon badly enough to claim the title honestly. My father told me I could not get a sponsor so I can not go all in to AA anyways while obeying my father. It seems the deep stuff requires having a sponsor and revealing one's soul to your sponsor in an even deeper way than a Catholic reveals his soul to his priest confessor, or even more than a monk reveals his soul to his elder abbot.

But I want to go back to therapy. The reason I am on my own now is because my therapist is having a health problem. She did not reveal what kind of problem it was and how long she will be out for and we were not given a substitute therapist. I think we are considered "stable crazies". Our therapist is young and seems healthy except that she is very fat. But I have only been there two or three times since I was released from the hospital in late July. I miss the people there. I wonder if they miss me. I am not going schizo again, I just have my normal semi-sane brokenness about me. Able to function at a low level. I am either broken or psychotic now. You get used to it.

There is a man who comes in to Church and he seems crazy like me. He breathes loudly. When I first saw him I thought he was disrespectful because he was wearing a baseball cap in Church. If you do not know, in Church men are supposed to not wear hats and women are supposed to cover their heads. Starting in the sixties the women all rebelled while the men continued to follow the rules for the most part. But today he came in to pray and I saw him and he bowed down before the altar in a profound way and kissed the floor before the altar. What respect he showed. More than most people, more than I as I merely genuflect. It made me think he really believes and just did not know to not wear a hat in Church. He makes noises and talks to himself and breathes heavily. But he seems to go to Church regularly to pray before God. I saw him there twice and hope to see him more.

I wonder if he goes to therapy like I do. They are kind of like friends, the people in therapy. I hope to see them again soon and then regularly again like we used to before our therapist got sick.

I am a very lucky person. I have a family to help take care of me. I can only imagine how I would fare if I were on my own. I love them even though we are not the same.

Bad News



Back from Church. Got bad news from the Queens Chronicle and the New York Post.

We were counting the number of Churches in New York City that have Latin Masses on Sunday and we counted seven. Holy Innocents, Our Lady of Peace, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Josaphat, St. Agnes, St. Christopher, and Our Lady of La Salette.

Our Lady of La Salette has a Bishop and two priests. The papers say the Bishop was just accused of sexual assault against a twelve year old boy. They are independent with orders from a vagante Bishop, possibly of the Thuc line, but they are not sedevacantists. I went to their Church on Ash Wednesday, I believe three years ago. Tom was just talking about their Church and how he wanted to go there with me some Thursday. Now I do not want to go and I wonder if the Church will still have services there if the Bishop is in prison. Perhaps there will be a lawsuit and the remaining two priests will have to sell the Church building. Or perhaps the two priests will carry on. I imagine they will lose parishioners. When I went there, there were many beautiful hispanic women. Why is it always a boy and not a young woman? At least with a woman it would be more natural.

 https://nypost.com/2019/12/06/bayside-bishop-accused-of-sexually-abusing-12-year-old-boy/

Small world. I am not condemning him yet, as he might not be guilty. But this does not look good. There was another Bishop of the Thuc line who was accused of a similar crime whose Masses Julian used to go to and he swore he was innocent. We live in a dirty world. We all know there are issues with the Catholic Church and traditionalists are not free from such sickness. Everyone knows of the infamous seminarian who had a cult of personality going in La Reja and then in Winona who left and went on to found a small traditionalist society of homosexuals in lace.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.

But it was good to talk to friends after Mass. I told Tom how whenever Cecilia sits next to me or in front of me I get distracted during Mass because she is so beautiful. She sat next to me today. Tom has cancer. We hope he is not dying.

I got my books back. Jan saved them for me. I am looking forward to Christmas. Only ten days. Things will be learned. I do not want many presents. My brother is buying me a book.

When I am not thinking of dark things the world is beautiful. But there is so much ugliness. My mother showed me the article in the Chronicle and there was a picture and she asked me if that was the Church we went to one time? Yes, it was.

What does it even mean to be a Catholic? Danica says she grew up as a strict Catholic. Then she had her troubles and now she no longer goes to Church regularly and one could say she is a sinner. I grew up lax Catholic and left religion altogether. And then I started to believe and became a traditional Catholic (strict and "crazy"). When I was twenty-six. I was so sorry for all of my sins. Unforgivable, but then I was forgiven. Or so I believe. The feelings of guilt left me. Now I feel innocent. After the demons went away for a while. But what does it mean? For me it is like living like a child. I am a child. I want to be innocent. Like I was when I was a boy getting ice cream from Joe the ice cream man. Creamsicles. In the hospital I loved it when my mother brought me ice cream. I am not an unhappy rigorist who secretly wishes to be a libertine but is afraid of doing his own will for fear of punishment from an angry God. My will is to have a nice peaceful life trying to obey God's commandments, or the commandments that I believe come from God. I want to go to Mass, receive Commnunion, and go to Churches when I can, especially for Adoration and Benediction, which I am lucky to have near me two days a week. If I were to travel into the City I could attend it every day, but it would be unwise to spend the money on subway fare as my family has need of it. But I avoid the Novus Ordo for the most part, but not entirely. I want to look at the consecrated host and talk to God, or at least imagine that I am talking to Him. I do not want to do dirty things. Not that sex is bad, but it has its place, for children. Yes it is pleasurable but it makes you a slave. I have no desire. Even when I look at the beautiful Cecilia, and I love her, but am afraid of talking to her. I do not want to do dirty things with her. I want to be her friend and talk to her and look into her beautiful face. I love so many women. One can say I love Danica as she was the girl from my youth who I loved the most even though I was not important in her own life at all and I haven't seen her in years. I look at pictures and little videos and I pray for her. One can say I love the beautiful Cecilia and since I know her from Church I hope she is innocent and pure, despite being so very beautiful. One can say I love the lovely Helena who sings and plays the organ so nicely. But I know I am not good enough for any woman. I think I will spend my life alone as my disability makes me unable to support a wife and a family, so I have little to offer. So it is sad. But I am content. What does it mean? I just want to sit quietly and pray. What is the value of prayer? I believe in God but how can I serve Him? Is just thinking of Him and loving Him of value to Him even if I do not DO anything important at all? I have a bad habit of talking to myself and sometimes I say bad things. When I go to confession I say the same thing every time. I do not think it is a big sin, but it is repetitive. I want it to go away. When it happens I beat my breast and say "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." I know I am not without sin. I remember at the hospital the doctor there pointed at me and said that I was the most innocent of all the people there in the psych ward. I remember with Nido where he put his foot next to mine and it felt like he was giving me psychic energy and something similar happened at night where I seem to remember being in a room with one of the men workers and a woman, perhaps his girlfriend or his wife. Like they gave me energy. I don't know what actually happened and what I was imagining. I had the idea that I was taking my pills and then taking everyone else's pills and I kept taking more and more pills until I got sick and I was lucky I did not die.

I don't know, but I love Julian, and I love Tom. Julian is my very best friend and Tom is the best friend who I see at Church. I hope he does not die. But perhaps he would be happier if he were dead. Without any more pain. But Tom gets angry. At the Church, at priests, at other people. But never at me. Never at me. He was a social worker and he spent his life helping people until his cancer made him unable to work. I wonder if he had a temper with his clients. I wonder if he is ready to die. Sometimes I think that we are already dead and we are all in hell. But if this is hell it is a happy place for being hell. And beautiful. And I do not remember the last judgment. So I guess this cannot be hell. Though I do not die and I have been alive for so very long. Sometimes I think "It has been eleven years since I went crazy, it seems like it has been no time at all". The sense of time when one has a broken memory as I do.

As a crazy person I have a strange existence. It has been so long that I do not remember what it was like to be normal. The island of saints and schizophrenics. I am trying to be both. The demons are not bothering me lately. All I have to worry about is my poor poor broken mind. So I am quiet and I pray and I am happy and content. I love my God. But not enough. I must learn to love better. It hurts me to think of pain. Not of the pain itself but when the pain makes one turn away from God. No God could allow such suffering. I do not have the answer but one must believe.

We went to the religious store and looked at the knick knacks. They had medals of saints. My mother bought Christmas cards for priests and deacons and bishops. I looked at the books. They had prayer books and Bibles. Catholic and Anglican. Statues and vestments. And then we went to the Catholic thrift store where I  bought my chest of drawers. I love Julian. I am going to visit him on Tuesday. I do not pray for him much. He wants me to pray that he be cured of his blindness. But I do not remember to pray for him like I pray for others. I hope my prayers that I do pray go to him and help him, but he seems like he does not need the prayers. He suffers in his disability. I will go to comfort him.

Father told me he visited Julian on Saturday and he told me that he needs visitors. I will go. To my friend. We will probably pray the chaplet of Saint Michael. I will give him a salami sandwich. We will talk. Perhaps about God. To pray is the most important thing. Tuesday for my friend in Advent. I hope to make him a little happier and give him strength to believe even though God has not seen to cure him as he hopes and prays.

Into the sea, Our Lady, Star of the Sea. Keep watch over me and Julian and all of those who are important to me who I pray for and who I forget to pray for. For those I love and those who love me. Thank you for reading. It is past midnight and I am rambling. So bad news, bad news, bad news. The world is such a wicked place. I pray for innocence and for peace for you and for me and for everyone we know and love. Amen.

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

A Reason To Live



What is a reason to live? My only answer is eternity. I do not know what to say to other people though. I am content living the way I live and I am happy. So if there is no eternity I am better off living how I live anyway if happiness is the goal (and that seems to be the common goal if eternity is denied. Though some have come to the conclusion that all that matters is pain and the point of life is to suffer as much pain as possible (or at least as one can bear). Hurt). When I used to seek pleasure I was always miserable when I attained it and also when I lacked it, so that was not the way for me. I am content living peacefully in a small way. As an insignificant nobody. I am not on the street though. If I were on the street it might make me miserable. But it has not yet come to that. I am calm and am not being tortured. I do not yet know how to be happy while being tortured, I only know I am happy at rest.

Sometimes I think how my life would be better if I had a wife. But I know that I am not capable of that so it is better not to worry about it. Be at peace with silence. I feel at peace with the world, with God, with everything. I feel a great joy looking at the birds and looking at the clouds (for I remember a time when the clouds were angry at me) though the sensual pleasure is not as great. Pleasure is a momentary rush which ebbs and flows, but joy and peace are lasting. And significant. I can not live for pleasure like the rats in the cage. That is madness, but I can live for joy.

I want to be like a little child, before he has lost his innocence. I try. I have done so many bad things, but now I try to be good. I am as innocent as a guilty man can be. The blood on my hands is mingled with the blood of Christ. My blood-stained hands. The one stains, the other cleans. Like bleach. I do not want to sound arrogant. I am such a backward person. My thoughts belong at least a hundred and fifty years ago, but could only exist in the age of the internet. I am a man of the twenty-first century and a man of the fourth century at the same time. I told my father tonight that if I was not crazy I would want to join a monastery. This was after telling my father that I had just read an article and if what was in it was true that Thomas Merton was a bad monk and that now I did not want to read Seven Story Mountain, the book that he got me and my father told me that I was taking it too serious (as if I was crazy for judging a man on his sexual morals and his treatment of his fellow monks, as if to say all men are sexual and moral perverts).

Is everyone as perverse as they seem? I know I was, but is everyone really? I read a study that said that ninety-eight percent of grown men watch pornography (in the first world, or perhaps just in America). Is that true? That includes those in relationships and marriages. Am I alone like a lamb bleating in the desert for his keeper? Sometimes the mother come. And sometimes the wolf. I cry out. He sayeth "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me. As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep." I think good of everyone, but I fear that everyone else is either a goat or a wolf. Are you a wolf? I know we are meant to be as wise as serpents, but we are also meant to be as simple as doves, to become like little children. Are little children wise? They know nothing, but cry out "Abba". Father. I do not think dirty thoughts. My mind is clean. I hope everyone is like this, but I come across so much filth in the world. As Dostoevsky wrote in his greatest novel, Alyosha was pure and innocent and was afraid of dirty talk and the little schoolboys (children of eight or nine) learned this and would talk dirty around him and when he would cover his ears they would force his hands down and shout obscenities into his ears. I am like Alyosha, honestly, except I have more knowledge of the filth that so offended his pure ears. As far as I know when I was a child, my mother never held me up to an icon of the Theotokos as my father was tormenting her and in a mix of hope and despair prayed to her and asked her to protect me. The crazy saint. I spend most of my time thinking about the good God and the faith and religious things. But sometimes I go out of the cloister and into the world. And I read about the world and about politics. I am as far to the right socially as nearly anyone, but I despise libertarian economics as well as communism, so I do not know exactly where I stand economically as far as politics go. But I think social issues are more important, with abortion at the top, so I would vote for Republican candidates as being more against abortion as the lesser of two evils. But when I read about politics I am far too often scandalized. People are filthy. The talk about sexual perversions is everywhere and seen as normal. It is more common to find a woman of age who is into BDSM than one who admits to being a virgin. I know I am not a virgin, but that was because I was raised as a child of unbelief and only came to take religion seriously in my mid-twenties after some time stewing in a mess of perversions. So I guess I should lower my standards from a virgin, to a woman who is no longer a whore or a sexual pervert.

Robert at The Rose of Paracelsus posted a quote from a famous moral theology manual which tries to normalize sodomy and say it is not sinful as long as . . . you can guess, but it is literally filthy. He did not know at the time of making the post that I was aware of that quote and it is of everything that I have ever read from anyone in the Church who was not commonly considered a heretic, the most disgusting and vile thing I have ever read and the thing I am disgusted by more than any other teaching of any commonly respected theologian who ever lived. And a lot of priests read that and accept it as good and true and moral (including sedevacantists!) There are some scandalous things taught be theologians but that is the worst I am aware of (Other theologians teach differently but this man was respected). It makes me want to retreat into a bubble and read only about the desert fathers who would not as much as look at a woman fully clothed. Men who I am sure are in heaven, rather than think about men who endorse "imperfect sodomy" as not sodomy, and not even a sin. Men who if I had to guess would say they are in the other place.

I am not going to call all men to believe. I call on them, but I understand if they do not. But I will call all men to live their lives as if they did believe, especially when it comes to seeking sensual pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. I only know from my own life. But seeking sensual pleasure was for me the greatest cause of anxiety and misery in my life and rejecting pleasure and learning to live without it has caused the opposite, a lasting peace. It has come to the point where the more sensual pleasure I avoid, the more peace I have. There are two components of peace working in my life. The belief that I am at peace with God, through repentance and confession and penance, which one can accept or reject (I wish all to accept it, but I know that many will reject it as mindless superstition). And the end of the slavery to sensual pleasure, which I believe will give many a real peace, even if they are not Christians. Most children are happy unless they are abused, and when they become more corrupted they become more miserable. The more they learn of sin the more unhappy they get. I believe the baptized are at peace with God but the unbaptized are also happier than they become when their innocence is lost. So I advise all men to try to regain that innocence. One can not unlearn what one has learned about sin, but one can end its mastery over one's soul. One can end the addiction. Every sensual pleasure is a drug and once it is kicked one will be happier without it that with it. The lack of all sensual pleasure paradoxically creates the greatest joy in the soul. I speak of pleasure as sensual delight. And with the suppression of sensual pleasure comes a greater spiritual pleasure which is not as high at a peak but sustained and persistent. And one can move the perverse things that one has learned from the front and center of one's mind and instead of them being the reason for one's living, instead make them silly shameful things that one used to do but has grown wiser than.

I tell myself I want to learn how to be happy when I suffer and am in pain. I do not have enough practice. I am not being abused and I am not ill, so I do not know how to practice suffering. I do not want to be violent to my own body. The most I have done is fasting. I am not fasting now, but I plan to take it up heavily for Lent this year. One meal and one cup of coffee would be a good goal. I would probably have to keep myself going with tea though, at least at first.

But what is a reason to live? God alone is all that matters to me. That is one thing I cannot overcome. All that matters in the end is God. My weakness is that I cannot imagine a world without God. I can imagine different Gods and different religions, but I cannot imagine no God. And with a God, I cannot get around the immortality of the soul. Sentience must be paired with immortality, otherwise it is a cruel joke or a complete waste of time. If one might think that eternal damnation is unfair, a thought which I can understand, I cannot but think that it is necessary for the world to have any purpose. Somehow in the mind of God it was acceptable to let many souls fall into eternal hellfire. I believe this, though I am not at the point where I do not wish that it were not so.

As frightening as the reality of hell is, as happy as the thought of heaven is. To imagine unending bliss without any more suffering. A crown of glory given to those who carry their cross. One can not speak much about heaven without sounding presumptuous or shallow. But the thought of it brings joy to the soul. If we have the pleasure of the joy of watching the sparrows chatter or the mourning doves coo, imagine if we have these joys and greater joys that never end but only increase as the time goes by and every moment of one's life is seen as a stepping stone towards such joy. Not pleasure, but joy. I see heaven as an eternity of joy and not an eternity of pleasure. If this makes sense, perhaps there will be pleasure as well, but the central happiness is joy. I think many see heaven as eternal pleasure, as if it is sleeping with a new beautiful virgin every night forever and ever. If there is anything as shallow and dirty as sexual intercourse in heaven I will be slightly disappointed. For if I were in heaven I would prefer to touch a woman's hand and look into her eyes and smile and that is enough. To gaze at the pure soul of Gemma for just a moment, or forever and ever, with the beauty of God in her face, no less than to look at the face of God himself. I can not speak of heaven. It is not filthy, it is the smile of a virgin, not the sighs of a fallen whore. Of what use is a virgin if all she is for is the destruction of her virginity?

There is someone who has lost her will to live. I have nothing to say to her. I do not know what to say. I would advise her to enter into the great silence. Into the great silence. And leave the world behind. There is no beauty left in the world. It is fallen. The only beauty left does not belong to the world as of herself, but is only that within the world that points to God. The beauty is the beauty of God Himself and how he is reflected in His creatures.

What does one see when one adores the Blessed Sacrament. One sees a little bread. But in the quiet of the night God is truly there looking back at you from the monstrance and if you ask Him to help you He will help you transform into a better person. He will give you peace, even in your suffering. Maybe I speak too broadly, I can only speak of myself. I would spend hours a day looking at Jesus if I could. Saying prayers and asking him what I always ask of him "Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine heart". I do not know if I am sounding arrogant. I want to be innocent. Jesus was innocent and more pure than snow, yet He knew everything there is to know of sin, but was still innocent. I know a little, and the Lord knows I know only a little. As wicked as I was, when I venture out into the world I see depravity that makes my own depravity seem tame. But I sound like I think I am better than other people. What is one to do? If one believes one is at peace with God? What of others who do not share your religion and are therefore not at peace with God? His blood. Sprinkle it upon us and upon our children.

I am a glutton. I eat too much food and drink too much coffee. It is not making me unhappy, but I would be better off if I were more penitent. I may not have the will until Lent. I should go back to my rice and lentil diet with one egg. That would be a good way to live. I am looking forward to Lent. I want to be good. And temperance makes me happier, even though all men are drawn to be slaves to their desires. So that is my reason to live.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Immaculate Conception

Just a diary note today. On Sunday we had a High Mass for the Immaculate Conception. Notably Ronan was there, but so was angry Tom. Ronan did not want to sit at the same table with Tom. So what to do? I wanted to talk to both. So I stayed after Mass with Ronan for about twenty minutes and then went late to the diner with everyone else, including Tom. The thing is I lost my two books. I brought my Little Office and Way of the Cross to Mass because I planned on going to a couple of Churches early and praying in them. I did not use them because outside of the first Church I wanted to pray in I met Chris and he wanted to go walk across town to "the upper room" so I went with him. But I lost my books. I am not sure where. I am hoping that I lost them at Church and someone picked them up, probably Jan, and kept them and will return them to me next Sunday. If not I will have to buy them again. I really use them. Often. To pray. They are both published by Angelus Press and I like them both.

Ronan told me he will be there one Sunday in January. Though I also love Tom I hope he will not be there that week so Ronan will come out with all of us to talk. I like talking to him and he can talk to other people who he does not know well because he rarely comes to Mass because he has to work.

I don't know if I have anything interesting to say in this post. Just a diary note. My mother scolded the neighbor lady so now I do not think she wants to be friends with me anymore. She was talking to me and told me to take her name out of my phone so I did. So I may have lost a friend.

None of us know what to do during a high Mass. We only ever have Low Masses. So we don't know when to sit and kneel and stand. I try to follow the other people, but sometimes some people do different things and I do not know who to follow. I know when to do everything during a Low Mass. Father Sulzen seems to want to have more High Masses for us and now that we have the Lovely Helena to play the organ we can do it. We do not have incense though. Perhaps the fear is we would set off the sprinklers.

I just read an article about Thomas Merton. If true, he was not much of a monk. It accused him of bad things, and it was not from a traditionalist source. Another reason not to read Seven Story Mountain (which my father bought for me). It would be interesting to try to be a monk. I do not think it is possible for me but it would fit my life well. So I wish you well, my readers. I do not know how many of them are real people and how many are bots. But I do get some views. I wish you all well.

Monday, December 2, 2019

Elvia

So I went for a ride in a car today. I saw my neighbor lady while walking to Church today. She is there to pick up her daughter from school at 2:45 every day. I like to go to Church at that time to pray the Way of the Cross. She invited me into her car, or ordered me, the same. Her name is Elvia. We exchanged cell phone numbers. She asks me why I don't have a girlfriend and told me I should have a baby. I say I can't have a baby without a girl who wanted to have my child. She laughs. I asked her if I could get a pretty girl and she laughs. She told me she wants to have another baby and I said she didn't look pregnant and she said, not yet! She wants to wait until her child is older I guess. Her daughter is five. I saw she had two rosaries and a brown scapular hanging from her rear view mirror which I pointed out to her. She asked me if I Rosary and I said I had one in my pocket and she told me I should wear it around my neck. And she looked at my neck and touched me and checked under my collar with her hand to see if I had a Rosary there. And she combed my hair with her hand. My hair was wet with snow. I think a woman touching me in that way is a sign of flirting and sexual interest. But it has been a long time. My mother and father do not trust her and think she wants to steal my identity, or perhaps marry me for some reason, perhaps to become a citizen (I do not know if she is one) or for some kind of tax or welfare scheme. I am friendly with her because it is nice to have a friend. I do not have many friends. And she is a woman and all women are charming, even if she is not my type. But they do say with good reason a man's type of woman is the woman who is interested in him. She asked me where I was going to and I told her to 102nd street and she offered to drive me. When her daughter got into the car she drove me there and we had a little talk. Then I thanked her and got out of the car and walked back to Church where I said my prayers and then home.

I don't know why she is interested in me talking to me, a crazy poor man of no note. Perhaps she does want to take advantage of me or maybe she just thinks I am handsome. Every time I see her she acts happy or is happy and wants to talk. Maybe she is friendly to everyone for all I know. But my parents do not trust her and get upset when I talk to her. I just want to be friendly and nice to our neighbor and be friends.

Friday, November 29, 2019

Depression


I have never suffered from serious depression. I should be depressed materially speaking. I am alone. I am crazy. I have little money. I have no girlfriend and doubt I will ever marry (I certainly have no prospects) or have a family. But I am happy. I am fortunate that my psychosis is not supplemented with depression so that while I might end up in the psych ward again I will likely not kill myself.

But thinking more about my life, this is not entirely true. I had a short period of time where I used to be extremely depressed in the past. For a short year or so before I went crazy I felt very lonely without a girlfriend or meaningful relationships and fought depression with booze and sex. It did not help. They were just distractions. And then I had my year of hell. But now I am happy.

What changed to make me happy? Two things happened. (Well three, I went through hell). One, I went crazy. And two, I became religious. Perhaps there is something about being crazy that makes one happier, but that does not seem right. But I think my being religious helps me be happier. I have come to the conclusion that making a good confession is more helpful psychologically than any other factor in my life, or else, something about the ritual has such a very strong placebo effect that it is extraordinary. I am not consumed and oppressed with foreboding and guilt and regret. And feeling that I am not alone, even though I am so very alone, but have a God and the saints to give me comfort and friendship is very helpful. Also avoiding strong addictive physical stimulations such as sex and alcohol also seem to help me be happier. I have a measure of peace now, more than I have ever had and I am generally happy. I do not have as much pleasure as I used to have, but in the dead of night when all is quiet I do not feel miserable or wretched, I can sleep without booze and am content and happy. And while I have daily cares and worries, all I have to do is look at a tree or up at the sky or at a bird and I will have joy. Even the homeless can look up at the sky and at the clouds or at the moon or at the stars (even in the city we can see a few of the stars).

I am materially okay, not in need. This is an important factor, so I am not on the street or in danger of being on the street (for now, but not forever). But this was also the case when I was miserable.

The picture is Danica crying because I was thinking about depression because of her. I learned that she is having a sad time in her life. Nobody reads this blog and she probably will not see this so I hope she won't mind me using her so very beautiful picture here.

At one time in my life there was a boy who had a crush on me, but I was only interested in women, but I unwisely was friendly with him, and he once overdosed in my company on purpose, perhaps over me, or just out of depression, I am not certain, so he was on the floor of my room as I waited for him to wake up. I do not know if he truly meant to try to kill himself, but he survived. It was such a strange time in my life, chaotic, my time of misery before my year of hell. Our relationship did not end well, but it did not end in suicide for either of us. I am such a wretched person.

So my cure in general for my own depression was to make peace with God and go to confession (as despair and guilt was a large part of my sadness). However this only works if one believes in God and no longer wants to do those things considered to be sins and is willing to change one's life and one can not force this. And this does not work if one is already at peace with God and is still depressed or if sin is not in part the cause one one's depression. I also think reducing the amount of sensory pleasure also makes me happier and less depressed, though this does not make sense at first. The hangover is always worse than the high is good in a way. I do not know if secular therapy is helpful for those with depression. I go to secular therapy and it does not help me, but my problem is psychosis and not depression. Medicine is helpful for me and I like going to therapy because I don't have many friends and it is fun to talk to people but it is no cure. But I imagine it is helpful for depression for those who do not have other meaningful relationships where one can be honest and cut to the heart without being afraid to show one's weakness and one's ugliness. I would think that talking about one's wounds must help if one's depressed, but there is no absolution so the guilt remains. And there are wounds where there is no guilt at all which still bite and cut so what happens to such wounds as these? I know my wounds were mostly of my own making. I was guilty and was not innocent. I was not solely a victim like a girl abused.

I do not know if anti-depressants work or if they are only distractions like alcohol (though I doubt they are as destructive as alcohol). I only know that some psychiatric medicines work to some degree because my psychosis is helped by the medicine I take (usually!).

My life is not as tragic as most people's, so I do not have as many wounds or as many reasons to be depressed. My greatest wounds were my guilt and then the terrors of the demons from my year in hell (which to me was as harsh abuse as most suffering from the hands of men).

I am not a teacher> I am only a fool. I have no followers. I hope to have a quiet peaceful life followed by a happy eternity in heaven. But many believe that such an eternity does not exist. For the past four months I have been well. And if there is no after life I hope to have the same quiet peaceful life.

But I have been crying a bit lately. But my tears have been happy tears for the most part, or meaningful tears. Crying over my sins or the sufferings of Our Lord or with happiness at the grace of God or His redemption. Perhaps these are fantasies. But I would not give back these tears.

I am so very alone. I have my parents but they are not a wife or children. And soon they will die. I hope to have peace and I wish you all have peace as well.

For a while before my last relapse I was feeling very lonely and I was not always happy. I also was drinking a bit which was likely on part the cause. I would think how my life had no meaning without a wife and a family of my own, and while I was writing my stories about a relationship I did not have in reality, this added to my sense of sadness. At times I would want nothing more than a wife and children. And most men are made for family. Yet I will likely never have this and certainly do not have it now. It is one thing to be sad because one loses a lover, but it is another to know that one will likely never have a lover again. But now even though I am so alone, I am happy now (but not always).

Anyway I am no teacher> I was just thinking about these things and hoping for the best . . .

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Miraculous Medal



So today is the feast of the Miraculous Medal in some Churches. I remember when I was new to the faith I bought a Miraculous Medal and wore it to Church one day. I thought to myself in my bouts of despair that God would not allow one who wore His Blessed Mother's Medal to go to Hell. And then the first Sunday I went to Church while wearing the medal I had my vision and was frightened and I never wore a Miraculous Medal regularly again.

The vision was an interesting event in my life. Though I am no saint, I can claim a vision from God, or perhaps a hallucination. I have talked about it before. Quickly, while at the Latin Mass, at the moment of the elevation of the host, as the server was ringing the bells, I saw the host glow like a light bulb very brightly and felt interiorly like dirt, nothingness, evil, vile, as if I was possessed by a thousand devils and the devils were manifesting themselves before the presence of God. It was a very important moment in my life. But I still do not wear a Miraculous Medal though I am no longer terrified of them.

I carry a Miraculous Medal in my wallet now. It is embedded in a prayer card to Gemma, a little one, I got from a Passionist Monastery. O Mary Conceived Without Sin, Pray For Us Who Have Recourse To Thee.

I wonder if I am a good person. I don't do a lot of things. I think of God a lot and I like going to Church, but I am not doing many things. I am not a missionary or a crusader. I do think of God. The heroes were the men who fled to the desert and ate rocks and thought of God, coming to Church once in a while or receiving visiting priests to give them the sacraments. They did not Do much either. But their prayers were of great value. I do not have a lot of interaction with other people, and as a crazy person, I am not a man of eminence. I am a little person.

I follow people on the internet and some of them seem good. But who can one trust? Anyone? Would not all truth-speakers be banned from the internet? Are there not algorithms used by Google and Facebook to suppress all truth and only allow errors of various degrees? And if truth is stated it must be expunged (unless it is used as bait to lure the youth into other greater errors)? As we live in a world full of the snares of the devil only the innocent and humble can be saved. Only the humble will find truth. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.

Do you want to be innocent?

Sometimes I feel as if I am the only sane man left in the world. Or one of a few. I have temperence for some of the people I know from Church, but everyone else is crazy. Knowing of my own limitations I wonder if everyone is crazy or if they are just evil or afraid. We live in a world of snares. If Abba Anthony saw all the snares and wondered who can be saved with all those snares, how would it look today if we could see as Anthony saw? If the answer is still humility, the power of humility must be greater now that the snares are multiplied. Do we need more grace today than in previous times? Life is not more difficult, but human respect is far stronger, and people do not want to believe. Everyone says to you, do not believe and I will give you fruit and we take the fruit and are glad, but at night we die and find out that the fruit we took was poison.

Do you want to be innocent?

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Ronan and Tom?

I hope to see both Ronan and Tom in Church today. They both told me they would be there. They were old friends but a little less than a year ago they got in a fight and stopped being friends. I hope they make friends again. Today would be a good day. It would be nice to go out to dinner with both of them after Church tonight. I hope so.

. . .

They were there but they did not reconcile. The friendship was not saved. And father was sick so we did not have Mass. We prayed the Rosary. Oh well.Peace be upon them.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Just A Thought

When I had a girlfriend named Stephanie I had a thought come into my mind out of nowhere. The thought was "Sex is for children, not for pleasure. It is wrong to have sex for pleasure and not for children." It was the first thought that I had that was remotely Christian while I was living in sin, so I remembered it as an important moment in my life, though I did not follow the thought to its end immediately and in fact not for another year.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

My Neighbor


There is a woman who owns the house next door to mine. She is Hispanic, about my age, she has a daughter. She likes talking to me for some reason. She once told me, a few weeks ago, that I was her best friend. I was surprised. I think perhaps she was lying. My parents don't trust her. My father said something very strange to me, that she might want to marry me, though I am not quite sure why she would want to marry me, he suggested some sort of attempt to get more government assistance. I do get a small disability stipend every month, but that wouldn't be much of an incentive to marry me in my mind. People think strange things, including my father. I never saw her with the father of her daughter and I never asked about him.

She asks me if I have a girlfriend, have I had girlfriends in the past, if I am looking for one. To which I responded truthfully. Though I did tell her I was looking for a girlfriend, which is bending the truth, as I have no hope of ever finding one, but if one came along according to my desires who I could trust I would accept one, almost anyone, something that is probably impossible. I told her it was hard to find a girlfriend, and she said "really?" And I said it was hard to find a good one. I haven't actively looked for a girlfriend since I both went crazy and became religious. I fear it is beyond my abilities to have a normal relationship with a woman. Man. Wife. Children. So I just figure it will never happen. I don't know what women think of me now. I think for two years while I was working at Barnes and Noble from 2005 to 2007, young women found me to be attractive. I say that because there were a good number of girls (and one homosexual man) who were interested in me or apparently had crushes on me. But I have no idea what they might think now that I am older. I do not think I look much older or ugly, but my hair is thinning and I am a little overweight.

Now I stay away from women for the most part. Other than my neighbor. There are the two wonderful girls at Church, the beautiful Cecilia and the lovely Helena, but I do not talk to either of them often because I imagine they would be looking for a better man than me. I think I am a good man, but not in a conventional way, and not able to raise and support a big family. I am a broken man with narrow shoulders. I just hope to have a peaceful life in quiet solitude. Hopefully have a place to live and a place to go to Church to my liking.

This blog has some readers though I do not promote it. I don't know how many people return regularly. Blogger does not give a lot of information about my readers so I do not know much about them other than I get a few visits per day.

So I have thought a little about what my life would be like if I married the woman who owns the house next door. She is not beautiful but she is in good physical shape for her age. She wears heavy make-up around her eyes, the last time I saw her it was blue. There is nothing remarkable about her appearance. Her hair is dark brown but she dyed it blonde so that a lot of it remains brown and a lot of it is blonde. It looks totally unnatural. So much so that I wonder how she would think such a look would be attractive. But she is a woman and all women are beautiful. I do not even know her name. It may be Rita. She wears tight pants though she covers herself. The pants would have to go. She told me that she has God in her heart so she is happy and I told her that I am also happy. Something which is true. I think she is Catholic because she sends her daughter to the Catholic School near my house and she went to the Blessing of the Animals on the Feast of Saint Francis. She may go to the local Spanish Mass at Church. I saw her that day and she asked me why I wasn't there and I told her it was because I did not have any animals to bless. I guess I could have brought my fish in a pitcher. She knows I like to pray and go to Church.

A thought about the idea that women enjoy sex more than men do. And how they can have a great deal of pleasure, and as often as they would like to and yet remain unhappy. When the lights go out and they are alone at night they cry and want to commit suicide. If pleasure would mean happiness . . . But it does not. I would rather think the opposite that the happiest man would be the one who has the least pleasure, as long as his sufferings were not too great or if he was able to bear them. It has been four months and I am very happy and have been since I returned home. I am at peace with God. Or so I hope. Perhaps I hate him but do not know I hate him, but I feel I am at peace and that I love him. I do not have any doubts and I have not had any doubts for eleven years. I do not know the vast universe of belief but I believe it is in essence true.

Julian is my friend. It is strange because that is my pen-name. But my best friend is named Julian. He lives in a nursing home and hopes to soon move into his sister's apartment. He is blind and sick with diabetes and bad kidneys. I visit him and talk to him. I met him at Church. He is the most extreme believer one could ever hope to meet. He is a sedevacantist and a Feeneyite. He is a follower of a monastery in upstate New York that condemns almost every other priest and Bishop that they know about to the point that they do not have a single Bishop in the world who they agree with and follow. They think there has not been a Pope for sixty-one years. There are some Catholics who reject the changes that occurred in the Church since the Second Vatican council, and I am among them. But I am a moderate. Some have come to the belief that it is impossible for the Pope to do what was done. Yet it happened. So they come to the conclusion that in doing what was done, the Pope automatically ceased being Popes so none of the changes counted as it were because it was not really the Church, and the Church now has no head (and no Bishops except for a few vagantes). "Ipso-facto" so they say. I find the position to be absurd, but I love a number of people who believe it is the case. But it causes strife. Julian loves talking about the Church and I love talking about the Church also, but I am cautious to avoid disagreement. He does not believe modern priests are really priests and he does not believe they can forgive sins or that Jesus is truly present in the modern Churches. So I do not try to tell him that I believe Jesus really is there, even though I think the priests are wrong and do not go to their Masses. In a way what I believe is worse. He thinks God is not present in the modern Church, but I believe he is still there but when he comes down to the altars he is tortured and abused by the people there. So I go to adore him and hope to love him and kneel before him to show my love. So while I do not go to the modern Masses often, I like to go before the tabernacles and pray, and I go to Benediction and to pray before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, which is really a treat. I believe Jesus is there and that I can see him and talk to him and adore him in the quiet without showing my approval of the modern Mass and the beliefs of the modern Churchmen. Julian is not as extreme as they come because there are some priests whose Mass he goes to and who he confesses his sins to. There are some men who are so extreme that there are no priests to whom they will go and they will not go to any Church at all and they will never confess their sins to a priest and will ask God himself for forgiveness and hope to be forgiven without the sacraments, which is a very grave thing to do if one believes one must confess one's sins to a priest to be forgiven as we do. They are called home-aloners. I have met them on the internet but never met one in person. How would I meet one? If they never go to Church? The only way to meet one would be on the internet where they argue with the other traditional Catholics (though they are almost always banned from most websites when their true beliefs are discovered) or to meet them at a conference about traditional Catholicism. The most famous of these believers is named Gerry Matatics and he gives conferences and talks where he tries to convince people to stop going to Mass because there are no more priests left that we know of whose Masses are pleasing to God, and it is better to have no priest than to have a vagante priest who is not sent by the Church or a heretic priest of the whore of Babylon, the Vatican II sect.

I am a very religious person and I have spent a lot of time reading about it and talking about it. Most people would think I am strange. While I was in the hospital they asked me, I have no idea why, "Is Jerusalem the capital of Israel?" And my response was "Well Trump says it is." And they thought that was a clever answer and they let me be. I don't know why they would ask me that. I guess they knew I opposed Zionism and Judaism as a traditional Catholic, but I thought it was a strange thing to ask in a psych ward. Who the hell cares when one can not think straight and was possibly hallucinating and heavily medicated.

I love watching birds. In the hospital from my window I could not see a lot of birds but sometimes they would fly by and I would be happy. Today as I was walking to Saint Benny's there were some crows, but when my mother was driving me to get my haircut through Forest Hills Gardens I saw more crows than I have ever seen before in my life. Some were on the ground and some were flying across the street in front of our car. So many crows. Birds of ill omen. When I see crows (and black squirrels) I see them as a sign that there are a lot of devils around and that the world around me is full of wickedness. I see them as a sign. But I do not think my own soul is wicked so I do not fear. There are usually a lot of crows on the south side of Jamaica Avenue. I see them when I walk to Saint Benny's. They cackle at me. So I don't tell Julian how I go to Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction at Holy Child and Saint Benny's. He would not agree. But I love to. That is the best thing I have started doing since I got out of the hospital (something I did not do before). Perhaps I should look and find out when they have Eucharistic Adoration at all the Churches close to me so I can go as often as possible instead of only on Thursdays and Fridays. Wouldn't it be nice to look into the face of God, and to have him look into my own face, for an hour or two every day?

I pray the Rosary and now the Way of the Cross and sometimes parts of the Little Office and sometimes just looking and saying short prayers or being quiet. I prefer the quiet to any prayers, except for the Latin Mass on Sundays. But I do love the quiet so. It would be wonderful if the little mission where I go to Mass on Sundays had traditional Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction every day! I would go even every day. But we are just a Sunday Mission. I like to think about religion and about God. I do not know if anyone would find that interesting but I do. I really do. I am happy with my life now. I am content. I have peace. They say suffering makes saints. So perhaps I should pray for suffering. But I fear I will not be strong enough to bear it. Bear it away. In the peace of God. Let us pray.

My mother found me a lovely prayer. It is called The Holy Hour and it is a little booklet with a picture of Gemma on it and is a meditation on the Garden of Gethsemane as Gemma used to pray it. It was while praying it that she received the wounds in her flesh. I have been praying it on Thursday evenings. For an hour. It is a lovely prayer. I have quiet. I cannot meditate well so when the time comes I just look at the pictures of Gemma. As if one can see in her face the Crucified Christ, or at least she is so very beautiful. I have the idea that in looking at beautiful things one becomes beautiful and that in looking at ugly things one becomes ugly. So looking at holy people one becomes holy and looking at sinful people one becomes sinful. So I always look at my pictures of Gemma so that I can become like her, or worthy of her.

Monday, November 18, 2019

Going to Doctors in Old Age

Lingering on to a life
Not worth living
Till death comes.

I was talking to my mother about how she is going to all these doctors and how she could afford it. Medicare pays for it she says. I love my mother. But thinking about it I wonder how it is sustainable. If all of the fifty million old people go to doctors as frequently as she does and doctors want to make their quarter of a million a year and the insurance companies have to make their billions and the drug companies have to make their billions, and it is all paid for by the government, doesn't that seem unsustainable? I have a good doctor, but I do not know who are the greater leeches, doctors or university professors, or public employees? I am a leech myself, but I am infirm, so the leechness is not of my own making. But all of those old people contribute nothing to society according to the mind of the utilitarian (the old retired people). So they are only kept alive for nostalgia sake if one wants to be a utilitarian. I am also only kept alive for the same reason. But somebody has to pay for all of this. I only take a little, but what of the doctor who makes his quarter of a million and all of his clients are on Medicare being paid for by tax dollars? This is why I imagine pretty soon they are just going to deny care to old people to save money and let them die off in large numbers. Disabled people as well. I am not a libertarian, but sometimes I think like one. I can not decide if the world is threatened more by the governments or the big corporations, so I can not decide if it would be better to be a socialist or a libertarian. Perhaps our society has reached the point of no return as I suspect. I do not foresee an environmental catastrophe, but rather the boot stage. So far I am left alone and am able to survive for the moment. I do not have to watch television and I can be quiet and pray and they let me go to Church. I have food and shelter. I do not go to public school so I am not indoctrinated for six hours every day. I have my share of peace. But there is Twitter.

Nobody told me it would be this way. It is interesting going to benediction and adoration at the local Catholic Churches. It is mostly Spanish women. A lot of the people hold out their arms as if they can feel the grace of God flowing into their hearts from the Blessed Sacrament. There is one strange man who mumbles prayers in a low voice and often he brings a Bible to read and write in. I can recognize the Novus Odro version of the Confiteor but the rest is to me only mumbling. An old woman with a machine that makes creaking noises that helps her breath through a tube. A man with white hair who is handsome. And the beautiful Polish woman. Sometimes around noon there is a young man with black hair who reads the Breviary on his iPad. I imagine he may want to become a priest. I do not talk with the other people who go to pray. Except for the one time Christian came to talk to me. But I remember what they look like. I hope they are good people. Some of the women wear veils or hats, but not the majority. At Holy Child on Friday nights when there is Benediction, there is incense and it is usually presided over by a deacon. The Spanish deacon, when it is his turn, makes a big deal over it, praying the Rosary, giving a sermon, chanting hymns, and then the Benediction and the Divine Praises. The other deacon just does the Benediction and a prayer for vocations. I like when the Spanish deacon presides even though he prays a lot in Spanish and I cannot understand it. He seems to have the faith, or if not the faith, he believes something. With his Jesus and his demons.

God is patient
God is kind
We are always
On his mind.

One, Two, Three, Four
Someone's knocking on your door.
Five, Six, Seven, Eight
Someone's waiting at your gate.

Into the sea, Into the sea
Mother is waiting
We go to the sea.

Everyone has their beliefs that are dear to them. One of mine is the belief that God created the world as is recorded in Genesis. I get upset when other Catholics reject this, and so many do, probably most of them. I feel as if they are crucifying Christ with their infidelity and it is an infidelity that none of them recognize and they go on and act as if they still have the faith. So I see them as very dangerous to believers. Little snakes within the sanctuary. I say this because I got upset at someone online for this reason the other day. Snakes in the sanctuary. Often these snakes think they are enlightened and that those who have faith in the scriptures are ignorant little children and that they are the superior elite. They are snakes, so I got upset. A bunch of asps biting Christians like the Jews in the desert, and dragging them to eternal ruin with their venom. I am not an important person and nobody listens to me.

Our Church is now at five o'clock in the evening. It gives me a lot of time to kill during the day. So I have been visiting various Churches to pray before I go to our little mission in the upper room. It seems as if not as many people can go out after Mass to eat like we used to in the afternoon. Yesterday it was me and just one other man, instead of six or seven or eight people. I hope this does not continue as I rather enjoy the talking after Mass. The more the merrier. Next week I am looking forward to meeting an old friend from Church who has not been there for a while. So I will be happy to see him.