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.