Fasting Again

 I have gained a lot of weight since this covid nonsense started. I have been eating more, and also drinking beer. So I decided to stop and lose weight again. Actually the weight gain really began when I got out of the hospital almost two years ago, but it got worse since covid. I ate more, and stopped going out for my two daily walks during the winter.

So now I started going on my two daily walks again. And starting yesterday I am fasting. It will be slow going, as I do not have the will built up yet. The immediate goal is to eat two meals a day, not counting tea. A half of a tuna melt, or alternatively two pieces of toast with butter and jam, at noon time. And a normal dinner, whatever I make for my family at night. I am not going to eat a separate meal of rice and lentils as I did the last time I fasted. But that is for now, I may switch as time goes on. On Sundays I will not fast, and sometimes I will allow myself to take some beer. But still eat less than I normally would.

On day one I did well. I had my two meals and took a little extra food in between meals as I got hungry. But even though I had a little extra, it was a little enough amount of food that if I continued to eat that way I would lose weight. Today, day two, I also took a little extra food. But a little less than yesterday. And I will be having a light dinner. In time, I will get less hungry and be able to eat less food. Who knows, in time I may have the will to eat only one meal, at night, and not have my half a tuna melt in the morning. But I will not do this quickly, as recently I bought a lot of cans of tuna from the internet so I have at least a month's worth to eat before it is gone. Perhaps the goal will be to reduce the amount of food until I am ready to eat only one meal when I run out of cans of tuna. So it is going well so far. I hope the will to fast does not go away. I was able to sustain it for half a year the first time, hopefully the same will happen again.

And I started taking my two daily walks. Yesterday I saw a falcon soaring and an oriole sitting high up in a tree and singing. I love seeing uncommon birds. The common birds in my neighborhood are mourning doves which are my favorite birds, sparrows, pigeons, starlings, mockingbirds, and robins. Sometimes I see gold finches, cardinals, blue jays, and woodpeckers. There are also the hawks who often rest atop the steeple of the Church a block and a half away from our house. And of course there are the grackles who live in South Richmond Hill on the way to St. Benny's. But I have stopped walking to St. Benny's for Benediction since covid so I haven't seen them recently. I should find out if they have Benediction again over there so I could go on Thursdays as I used to go. And of course there are the songbirds who live in the bird store on Atlantic Avenue which I go past on my walks. There are other birds whose names do not come to my mind but they are not as common as those I named.

I have been bringing my best friend Julian food on Fridays. I bring him tuna salad sandwiches with celery and cucumbers and lettuce with no cheese. He wants a specific type of bread from Trader Joe's called Ezekiel Bread. I bought it once for him. But we do not eat it so it will go bad every week if I continue to buy it for him. Perhaps I will just give him the whole loaf when I bring the sandwiches to him on Fridays. I would get him the bread every week, but I can not always get a ride to Trader Joe's and it is a long walk or 5.50 for the bus fare. Julian is a charity case. I am always buying him things and he doesn't pay me back very much. For every ten dollars I spend on him he gives me one dollar back. But I don't mind. I have nothing to spend my money on anyway. I guess I could give more money to Church.

And I have started taking my cold showers again. It does strengthen the will so it goes well with fasting. And I have decided to say more prayers. Be sure to pray the whole Little Office every day except for Sunday and the Office of the Dead at night before I go to bed. And the Rosary which I always pray. Sunday is a Holiday. I go into the city for Church and after Mass we talk foe a while with my friends. There is a new man at Church named Raymond. He introduced himself to me last week, though I had seen him before. He started coming regularly a little earlier in the year. Perhaps next week we will invite him to the Donut Pub after Mass so we can talk about religion. CUP. I was thinking about these things at Church this week and during the Canon I started praying "help me to be more of a monk". So I am eating less and praying more, and having my recreation of my walks. 

I have a problem of talking to myself. Sometimes when I talk to myself I say bad things without really thinking about what I am saying until after it is said. I used to confess this until the priest told me that if it was not intentional it probably was not a sin. I do say bad things. Maybe it is the wickedness spilling over the brim of my wicked heart. But sometimes I say good things as well, does that mean my heart is good? Am I a good tree or a wicked one. Do I bear fruit? 

Hawk Mountain

 

Yesterday my father drove us to Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania. It is a mountain where one can look into the valley where hawks often fly. We saw a couple of hawks. I could not tell what kind of hawks they were, but they were probably sharp-shinned hawks as they are the most common kind seen there. Someone saw a bald eagle yesterday, but we did not.

There were about a half a dozen lookout points, collections of boulders piled on top of each other where you climb and look out over the valley or over the fields. The views were beautiful as in the picture above.

Michael and the girl came. We talked a little. About our worries. He does not like the lockdown and like me thinks it is insane. I did not wear a mask on the mountain, but I carried it on my arm in case anyone bothered me about it. That is also what I do when I walk around town.

We got to the mountain after two and by the time we were done it was almost night time. We had to walk over rocks through the woods and my mother was having trouble walking. Me and Michael took turns leading her. I was afraid we would not get back to the car before night time, but we barely made it. We were some of the last people to leave. It was a good trip.

Stigmata

 Yesterday Darius drove me to Church on long Island. With John. Near the Church I saw some grackles. Mass was beautiful.

Last night I had many dreams, but I only remember one. I dreamed I had the stigmata and was looking at the wounds in my hands. My dreams were pleasant, they were not dreams of despair. I am no Padre Pio. I may have mentioned that my uncle's father met Padre Pio and was his driver for a short while in Italy during the war. He saw his wounds.

The gold finches must live near my house, because again I saw them, three or four of them, hanging around by the flowers in our front yard. When I went out and when I came back they greeted me.

On my second walk for the first time in a long time, I saw the grackles down by Liberty Avenue I saw two big ones up in a tall tree. Only two. It was good to see them. I was wondering where they were. 

Parakeet

 As I was walking I saw a yellow bird eating rice with the sparrows as if they were friends. After a while the birds flew away onto the roof of a house and I saw the flashing yellow. Then the bird flew away shining brightly and she was gone. I am not sure what kind of bird it was, but it was not a finch. It looked like a parakeet, yellow with some green, but I am not sure.

Soon after a man was walking down the street with a brown blanket wrapped around his neck, flowing down. In his left hand he held a 40 oz been and was lifting it up to his mouth to drink. At 11:30 AM. He had white hair and looked like an Old Testament prophet.

Gold Finch

 

I saw the yellow birds again today. I think they look like gold finches, but I did not get so close to them as I could be sure. However they were smaller than the internet say that gold finches usually are. Pretty. Now that I have seen them three times on our block, I think they live here and are not just travelling.

Yellow Birds

 A few days ago I saw a pair of pretty yellow birds of which type I did not know. Then today I saw three of them. They chirped the same three notes over and over again. They were so pretty. Now that I saw them twice I think they might live here and are not just travelling through. I looked for them on the internet by searching for yellow birds who live in New York, but I could not find the type of bird they were. I hope I continue to see them as they were beautiful and nice to look at and listen to.

A Bad Omen

 

On my first walk I found a lot of coins scattered around on the street. A dollar and fifty-two cents.

Then I went to Dunkin Donuts to get food for mom and dad. It is across the street from the library. Walking past the library I saw three of the drunkards who sit on the benches by the library. One ugly old woman looked at me like I offended her but said nothing. Then I went to the store.

The woman at the store had a grey left eye. It looked like it was blind and cloudy and permanently facing down. I got a croissant and a boston kreme donut for mom and dad.

Walking back I passed the drunkards and looked in the garden of the library. There is a tree with white blossoms and in and around the tree were dozens of starlings. When I looked at them, the ones on the ground flew away but not the ones in the tree.

Then I walked home. And on the way, I crossed the path of a dead praying mantis. She looked like she was stepped on. A bad omen. Then I walked home.

A Gift

 As I left the house there was a pretty group of birds by the street. Sparrows and mourning doves. And as I went out there she was, a beautiful black swallowtail butterfly flopping around among our neighbors' flowers. So pretty. A lovely introduction to the day. It was a sign that the Blessed Mother loves me and us. A gift.

Sparrows

On my second walk today I was nearing Jamaica Avenue on the way home when I looked to my left and saw a huge gathering of sparrows. As I neared them they flew away and landed a few yards from where they first were. Then I cried out "Where are you going sparrows?" They flew away again, several dozen of them. They flew right into the path of a young black man who was walking the other way. Some of the sparrows flew right into him and crashed into him. We were both surprised. He yelled out "What the . . . ?" And I laughed. I had never seen sparrows accidentally flying into a person as a group. Usually the little birds are infallible. It was neat, I thought.

There is a fly in my room. He is crawling on the inside of the window screen. The window is open. Flies are signs of the devil. The evil one may be near.

Three Omens

Today there were three omens.

The first was as I was walking on my first walk. As I reached the end of our block I saw a swallowtail butterfly. It flew away down the avenue towards the Church without landing on any flowers and went away. I always think of this as the Mary butterfly. It was not the first I have seen this season.

The second was later on in the walk. As I reached the place where there was the body of a dead bird, and it has been there for several days, not yet decomposed, the cats must have better food to eat, I heard the falcon cry out and I looked up and saw him, we have falcons who like to sit at the top of our Church's steeple, and the falcon had a dead animal in his claws. I could not tell if it was a squirrel or a smaller bird, but he was carrying some form of prey. He flew up into a pine tree and all of the other birds were squawking. Crying out in fear or to warn other birds of the danger.

The third was as I was walking to Church later in the day. I saw a monarch butterfly flying away in the same direction as the earlier butterfly, going off towards Church. I always think of this as the Jesus butterfly and it was the first one I have seen this season. I guess they come around later in the summer though I do not know.

The Church bells are ringing as I write this. Three-thirty bells. What do these three omens mean? The falcon is a prince of the birds, and the butterflies are beautiful. I once saw one of the falcons in the woods, as my father and I were walking through the woods to go to the place where my brother died in the winter time in the woods, and the falcon had a dead squirrel in his claws and he walked away with the squirrel as we went near.

In this world of fire.

Mockingbird

A few days ago I was out on my walk, near the house owned by the witch and the pirate. The house has a beautiful garden and the woman who keeps the garden looks like a witch and her husband looks like a pirate with tattoos. They have a daughter who is in her twenties. There are so many rose bushes of different colors and other flowers. It is a beautiful garden. Well the other day as I was walking a bird flew near my head and then pulled up right before hitting my head. I felt the wind from his wings on the back of my neck. I looked up and it was a mockingbird. Strange.

Today, a few minutes ago I was on the same walk (almost every day I go on the same two walks, first, to 102nd street, and second, to Atlantic Avenue) and again a mockingbird flew right at my head. It was almost attacking me, dive bombing me and pulling up right before hitting my head. A warning. It did so three or four times, a mockingbird. There were two of them. So they must have a nest somewhere near the witches' garden and they were protecting the eggs from me. It is by the sidewalk where many people walk, so I wonder if the mockingbirds are always attacking the pedestrians and if they attack the witch and the pirate when they are in their garden.

My father told me the other day that a family they knew who owned a house at Fire Island let a young writer live in their house for one summer so that she could have free time to write a book. Her name was Harper Lee. The book she wrote was To Kill A Mockingbird, the famous novel they make everyone read in school.

So the mockingbirds attack me on my walk. If this continues I may have to change the route of my walk, and not go past the beautiful garden but walk across the street.

I got an email from one of my blog's readers that was very nice. I worry that people will not like my blog. I have a few readers. It is hard to tell how many from the stats but it is not a lot. You are la creme de la creme. An exclusive club.

Still praying the Office of the Dead for someone. It feels like I do not pray at all. I have my little prayers and then I go for my walks and make dinner. It is not exhausting at all. I am happy. That seems to be the common theme of my blog, how happy I am. I am fortunate, for now. The future may be bleak. Since I last got out of the hospital I have been praying a lot. And I have been happy. When I first became religious I started praying the fifteen decades of the Rosary every day and since then I missed only one day in so many years. But for a long time I did not always pray more, now I pray more. If is a good way to relieve stress and advance contentment. I do not always say my prayers in the most devout way. When I pray the Rosary because my mind is broken I can not meditate as that function of my mind is out of order, but I say all the words. Usually in Latin, but sometimes in English. And at three I pray the stations, I have fourteen different ones that I pray, a different one each day. Perhaps I should stick to one until I memorize it. And I look at my holy pictures. And I look at Jesus' house and now on Saturdays at Jesus. I wish you happiness and peace.

The common birds in my area are rock doves, mourning doves, sparrows, starlings, mockingbirds, robins, and blue Jays. Sometimes I see cardinals, on rare occasion woodpeckers, and sometimes, lately at least, orange orioles. There is also a family of peregrine falcons. They like to sit on the local Church's steeple. Sometimes various gulls come here from the seashore. I live on Long Island, but not close to the sea, but sometimes the gulls come inland to where I live. Those are all the common birds I see in my neighborhood. Oh yes, on the other side of the Avenue and to the East there are grackles also. I rarely see other birds at all. I love birds. Few things are as beautiful as a bird on the wing, and it is rare for man-made music to reach the heights of the music of the birds. Even simple calls are wonderful. I do not think most people have eyes to see or ears to hear and that is part of why everyone is so miserable. Because they are blind because they do not have God in their souls. My neighbor Elvia is a Catholic. She told me she is happy because she has God in her heart. I hope it is true.

Battling Porn

https://www.catholicgentleman.net/2020/05/battling-porn-how-to-know-if-youre-addicted/

I read this blog for some reason. I don't remember how I found it. It seems to be an attempt to help young troubled men lead decent Catholic lives. This post is about pornography addiction. I guess a lot of men struggle with this. It is hard to deal with. In my days before I became religious I used to look at pornography and it was highly addictive. Now I do not struggle with it, though I do drink too much caffeine and I like beer on occasion. Those are my addictions. But I think the question should not be, "how to know if you're addicted." It should be rather, that any use at all is a sin, so even if one only does it on occasion and could give it up, one would still be damned. Sometimes you really do have to gouge out your eye to attain the crown.

Forsaken not man being one with the father. I don't know. I am having problems lately. In thinking about people. I am judging them harshly. I am thinking they are bad, evil, and knowingly wicked. I know I am wicked, but not as bad as I used to be. But I think most people are bad. Maybe if one looks at the world it would make sense to think we are all evil. The world has more physical resources than ever before since the great flood and we are gluttonous for material things and pleasure more than we ever were and nobody is satisfied. Everyone eats their bread on the blood of Christ. I don't know. Rape of the world for momentary pleasure. I would be happier if we lived in a world of relative poverty, as long as people had enough to eat and didn't starve, but it were simpler, with fewer luxuries. As long as the government did not torture us or it was dangerous to go out in the streets because of crime.

I have been trying to appreciate the dollar store. I was happy to learn that their diet soda was passable so I can save 1.25 for every bottle of soda I buy. Last visit I bought two 6 oz bags of coffee and I am excited to try them. If they are passable I can save about 2 dollars for every two bags I buy. It is exciting. To live thriftily. It is good so I can give more money to Church or to my family. They have pretty good dollar sandwiches which I can eat for breakfast or lunch, also for a dollar. It is really helpful. And they have lots of good cookies.

I got my holy cards from the monastery. They gave me a card to apply to join a confraternity of Jesus under the title of King of Love. It is a fairly new devotion. I may join. And they sell statues of Jesus that they carve themselves. If I join I will buy one of their statues. They are expensive, but they are a labor of love so they would be worth it.

I have a statue of a black Mary holding the baby Jesus wearing royal garments. This is Jesus alone as a beautiful little boy.

I was thinking about sedevacantism. I know some sedevacantists. Many online. Some in person. My best friend Julian (who I did not choose my pen name after) is one, and angry Tom is another. Of the sedevacantists I know, some are good people. But I am now very opposed to their position on Churchy things. When someone becomes a sedevacantist I get sad inside. I am a liberal. But they seem to go too far. They say for every heresy that arises, another heresy the opposite of it arises that goes too far in response to the first heresy. The example here is the Donatists and now the sedevacantists. They are scandalized by the Church so they reject it. But I love Julian, and I would think that he is in a state of grace despite his sedevacantism. It is understandable and I hope they are not condemned. I hope God does not judge them with as strict of a judgment as they judge the Pope and the Bishops and the Novus Ordo priests.

I hate Novus Ordo Watch and have for years. And True Restoration is a running joke in my mind. A sick joke. Even worse by far than the Crusade Channel of the Saint Benedict Center (and I respect Father Feeney). But nobody cares what I think. I was amused when someone spoke about me on Cathinfo as my handle. As if I were a famous person. They spoke of me as if I was a person of note that all traditional Catholics should know. It was as if someone said: "you are a traditional Catholic and you do not know 'Matto'?". Perhaps I am prominent in this little pond as I have made many posts on various traditional Catholic forums. But very few people read this blog. My SSPX priests know of my internet handle and that I talk on the forums. I do not bash them very often so I am not ashamed of them knowing who I am, though I do not support them blindly either. I do hope they are mostly good priests as I think they are, and not bad, though recently Mr. Voris, who I think is one of the least reputable men in the trad world, has accused some of them of sexual sins. So I have made a name for myself, I guess. It is a small world. I have been living in this pond since 2010, though I first sighted it in 2008. The world has changed a lot in 12 years. When I discovered this pond George W. Bush was president, then quickly Obama took office and now we are near the end of Trump's first term. It seemed like yesterday that I told Matthew that he should vote for Trump because the media hated him, but he preferred Ted Cruz. And now he is a fervent Trump supporter while I don't trust him, though I prefer him to a Democrat. For a while he even believed in Q Anon.

When you come to judge this world by fire.

Today our family, me, the girl, Michael, mom and dad, went to the wildlife refuge. It is a pond by the bay which is of salt water, where a lot of birds live. We saw yellow birds, swallows, red-winged blackbirds, ducks, geese, and various gulls and terns. There were so many swallows eating bugs. they darted back and forth, turning quickly, over the water and over the sand, eating flying bugs too small for us to see. We saw two Canada geese walking, presumable a mother and father, with two baby geese. My father took pictures of them and I told him to send me one of them which I want to post on my Instagram. My father took two pictures of me but I didn't look good in them so I will not share them. And after that we went to get food. We went to Popeyes but it was closed so instead we went to KFC. The food was good (for fast food) so it made me happy. And now I am having my beer, relaxing, and writing this blog post. I am such a sinner.

For what it's worth, amazon is recommending me a book titled Things Fall Apart. It is reading my blog posts. I have no desire to read right now, I have not even read The Leopard or The Penitent, all I want to read is my prayer books. Much of it the same every day, with variations for the days of the week and the seasons of the year. And I pray fourteen different Stations of the Cross, for the most part in a two week cycles, for the most part.

So I will join the Confraternity of Jesus, King of Love. It is my monastery. I gave them money. They are under the local diocese in Ireland, but they say the Latin Mass and are somewhat traditional. They are not SSPX leaning of sedevacantist. I hope they are good people. I have been watching their livestreams during the lockdown and they have a lot of young monks, though the priest abbot is older. But all of the other monks look young. I can not join them, as I am too old, and also because I am infirm. I have never prayed like they pray, though. I pray a little, but they pray a lot. Every day. They pray. I watch Vespers, but that is only one of the offices. There are eight, plus Mass. One could think of it as a job. But it is so calming when I listen to them pray.

I hope to be able to join and buy their statue. I believe a 4 inch statue it 78 dollars. A bit much, but it is beautiful and hand-made and would go to a good cause. I will join the confraternity. The only requirements are to pray a short prayer, "Jesus, King of Love, I put my trust in thy loving mercy" in the morning and in the evening, and to carry a medal wherever you go. I can put it on my key chain. I am so glad they sent me their holy cards. I will not cherish them as I do the cards of Gemma, but they are nice. One is a picture of the Little Flower. In the sea.

I do not have a lot of friends anymore. I never had a lot. I do not think Mellonie wants to talk to me anymore. I will not contact her. If she contacts me I will be happy and try to be friends, but it is up to her. I do not have a lot of other friends. Nobody loves me or cares. I have Julian and angry Tom, yes. Julian is my best friend, the crazy sedevacantist. And Cora calls me sometimes. I have to get back to Church. With the beautiful Cecilia and the lovely Helena. What a joy. When I see them I think of how beautiful they are and not how ugly everyone else is. I imagine it is because they have grace while everyone else has sin. But that is merely speculation. In the eyes of God. Pax tecum.

Dead Bird

It may have been a day or so after my brother found the dead baby bird in our garden.

My mother drove us to the grocery store and we were parked on the street. I got out of the car to go pay at the parking meter and I stepped on something. It was another dead baby bird, squished on the sidewalk. I took it to be an ill omen.

The quarantine is going well, but we are running out of money. My father is using my stipend to pay the bills. I will go shopping today. I will buy some rice for just in case. None of us have gotten any stimulus or unemployment money yet. When they do get it we will be better any I may even be reimbursed for some of the expenses I have covered. But I do not need the money.

My expenses, other than the food I buy for my family. Diet soda. I found an acceptable one for one dollar at the dollar store. Beer. This I have been drinking one or two times a week during the quarantine which has now gone on for more than forty days. So my expenses are low. But the bills are a killer. Yesterday I gave my parents money for one bill and the one bill was 240 dollars. And there are many. If they do not get their money we will not be able to pay any of the bills. But God will provide. And perhaps this quarantine will end soon. I do not mind it. It is nice having family with the dinner most nights, even though me and the girl are not comfortable around each other, or at least, I am not comfortable around her.

I have been watching Vespers from a monastery in Ireland, and sometimes Mass. It is according to the old rite, but I noticed two things that seemed odd when I was watching Mass yesterday. One of the monks in just a habit and no vestments read the epistle facing the people and the priest abbot read the gospel facing the people. All in Latin. I do not know why these practices are different from what I am used to, but the services were beautiful.

The weather is lovely and I am happy watching the birds when I go out. The sparrows and the mourning doves and the starlings. Even the pigeons, and the less common birds like the mockingbirds who sing for us and the robins who eat worms and the song birds.

I have seen some butterflies this spring, but not many yet. I love watching butterflies. And not many bees yet. there are a lot of flowers on our block so we get them in the summer time. Many years ago now we had a bee hive above the front door of our house in a hole where a lamp is. One day a bee stung my father. But then the bees went away. The hive died and ceased to exist except for in my memory. Why does memory matter? Who remembers those bees other than me and our family? Why does it matter if your children and your children's children remember you and think about you, and then after them you will be forgotten and never thought of again. Except in the mind of God?

I have a happy life now. I hope I do not fall int o despair! Or if I do fall into despair, I overcome it!

It is wonderful to wake up, say my prayers and then watch Vespers on the computer from Ireland at noon. It is calming to hear them chanting. My life is not hard as I do not work. My work is living with being an imbecile. Ah life. I vaguely remember when I was normal. I am happier now. But if I continued being normal, perhaps I could have had a normal life with a wife and some kids and then grandchildren. Alas. I am happy . . . for now. I try to love God. I think I do.

My beliefs are strange. I am a lonely wanderer. I am a Catholic of some sort. A traditionalist, I guess, meaning I prefer going to the old Latin Mass and services. But I am not a sedevacantist. I attend at an SSPX Mass normally. But I sometimes go to the indult Mass, though not regularly the Novus Ordo. But even though I do not like going to the Novus Ordo, I think it is valid and that Jesus is really there. So I like going to Eucharistic adoration even at Novus Ordo parishes. So my beliefs are strange. During the quarantine, I went to the indult parish in Manhattan for Eucharistic Adoration to sit quietly and pray and it was calming and serene. Karen would say not to go because there re devils there. Julian would say it is idolatry.

Pater Noster. Sed Libera Nos A Malo.

The girl is baking a cake. She is going to bake it, cut it in half and make two layers of frosting, one on the inside and one on top. Yellow cake with dark chocolate frosting. We are eating well. Perhaps soon we will have nothing but rice. I need to buy more rice.

Praying for people. But who am I to pray? Yet I pray for people. People I know. I hope to meet them again. Alone in a house unable to think normally, a nut, an imbecile, but I have family to take care of me and am happy. There is a girl I pray for, and then I pray for everyone. Everyone needs prayers. And I pray for myself. To God and to Mary and to Gemma and to Mary of Egypt and to the saints. I pray.

Pray for me, a sinner who needs prayers. Pray for me St. Moses the Black. Amen.

Poor Baby Bird

Just a short image.

Yesterday my mother called to me, "look, there is a baby bird outside." I looked out back and a baby bird, a rather large one, but obviously a baby, was walking around in our backyard. There were no parents. It was squawking. when I saw it I thought to myself, "poor bird, she is dead." And I told my mother that I thought the bird would be eaten by a stray cat. I do not know how to keep a baby bird alive who has no mother to feed her. I can not eat worms and digest them, then vomit them up into the baby birds mouth. That is a game one can play, baby bird. So I let her walk around and live for a while.

Today my brother was gardening and he told us "the baby bird did not make it." There was part of her carcass in the back yard. I guess it was a cat. I do not know if the bird fell or was thrown out of her nest by the mother. I think I remember learning that often when birds have more than one chicks in the nest and they are not able to feed them all, they abandon the ones who are weaker and less likely to live. I thought that is what happened to this bird. I do not know what kind of bird this was, but she was large for a baby bird.

My brother told me that his friend Igor got his pet blue jay when he found her as a baby. She is dead. Perhaps I should have saved her. But then the cat would have gone hungry. Over a decade ago I found a couple of abandoned kittens with no parents and I tried to save them. I fed them milk. That was what the man who owned the pet store told me to do. Then I gave the two cute kittens away and they both died.

Bird Man

Just a little note I wanted to remember. For the second time I saw the bird man on my walk. He runs down Atlantic Avenue in the middle of the street and he has a pet bird. The pet bird flies with him, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, and from side to side. And then the bird comes back to the master and lands in his hand. Bird man. I thought that was like God with his children. On Easter. I saw the bird man for the second time. Happy Easter.

Three Rosaries

I bought three rosaries online today. The last time I purchased a rosary online, it was a beautiful blue rosary with a relic from Gemma's coffin in it. It is the rosary that will be wrapped around my hands as I lay in my coffin stone cold dead. I wonder who will go to my wake and funeral. I only have Church friends. I lost my secular friends after I went crazy and I don't think Mellonie wants to talk to me anymore, but some of the people from Church will come and pray for me. And my parents and my brother and my cousins. But today I bought three everyday rosaries. They are all wooden with cords and no links, as I have found these to be the best ones for me. I can pray with them without links to break. The cord is stronger than the chain. If a rosary has five hundred links, only one of them has to break for the rosary to become worthless, and in my experience, one of them always breaks. When my first rosary broke I saw it as a sign of my own reprobation as the breaking of a rosary must certainly be a sign of damnation. But no, they always break. They are meant to be pretty, but since nobody ever actually prays the rosary, they make them weak so they break if regularly used. I am sure there are quality chain rosaries that do not break, but I have never owned one. My favorite was very expensive and made of green malachite stones and real silver links and it fell to pieces, both the stones and the links. And every other chain rosary I bought since has also fallen to pieces. So now I like the wooden beads on cords. This is the website I like to buy them from. I wish more people would buy from them, so if you want a rosary, order it from them. They have the kind I like and I am grateful to them because once I bought a rosary from them, prayed with it, and pulled it a bit, and the string broke on the first day I used it. So I complained and they sent me a new one right away at no cost and it has lasted for years, so ever since they were so nice to me I like to talk them up and recommend their website.

I wonder if we will be watching the Super Bowl this year. Mass is at 5, so it will end at 6. And the game starts around 6:30, usually. I know our priest is a football fan and his team is the Chiefs and they are playing, so we may all go out as a group to a pub or something to watch the game. There is nothing more worldly than the Super Bowl and the inner Jansenist in me suggests boycotting it on principle. I remember I watched the Katy Perry halftime show a few years ago and it was a mockery of the Whore of Babylon from the Book of the Apocalypse. So I have no desire to take part in the satanism or blasphemy on public display. But I have nothing against having two pints and eating some wings and the football itself is merely stupid and not sinful. The gladiators are not killing each other, and there are no Christians being eaten by tigers or anything. Though some suggested boycotting the game over some advertisements promoting sodomy, for what it's worth. And the pro-lifers complained that the network turned down a pro-life advertisement. Still, I would not want to give an anti-christ television network a couple of million dollars for an ad even if the ad itself did promote a good cause.

So I am more excited for the rosaries than about the big game. I still have a weakness for baseball. I like when the Yankees win. I want them to win the world series. Last year I watched a few games. I will probably watch a few this year. But it is still stupid and a weakness of mine. An imperfection perhaps, and not a sin.

I want to live in my little room and be peaceful and pray and hope as I have been. I have been good since I got out of the hospital. It has been six months. I am at peace, even in my infirmities. More hope, and no despair. Nobody bothers me, and I don't feel lonely even though I know I am pretty much alone. I am happy more than any other emotion. I live in my little room and look at pictures. I go to Church to say my prayers. I pray for people in my life who I love, and people from my past who I used to love and still have a fondness for. Lately there is one person who I am thinking of and praying for all the time. I have thought about praying the Office of the Dead for her and did tonight, even though she is still alive. I wonder if my prayers make a difference? Even if God does not exist, the meditation and disciplining of the mind and the will makes me happy and gives me peace, even if there is no power of divinity in it. And of course I think there is great power in it. In prayer, if even not in my own prayer because I am feeble and a sinful man like Saul.

I imagine Cora's prayers are powerful. She is living with the relatives of a friend who are members of some sort of cult in another state and is praying for them, unable to make it to a Church, or at least a Church she is willing to go to. She is more pious than me, as I am willing to step foot in a Novus Ordo Church to pray. She prays more than anyone I know and I think she is very holy if anyone I know is holy. Angry Tom thinks she is crazy. She is a seventy eight year old Filipino woman, forty years older than I am, but when I used to see her at Church I sometimes thought about how beautiful she was for an older woman and how if she was forty years younger she would be the kind of woman I would like to marry (if I were not broken). And then there is Karen. She is feebleminded like I am, and is an old maid. I bet her prayers are powerful. She told me she prays for three and a half hours every day. She likes the Pieta Prayer Book. And she comes to Mass. She is like Cora in her sensibilities and she gets visits from Jesus and Mary and they tell her what to do and what Churches to go to. She has not told me of any prophecies. She told me about how one time one of her friends tried to get her to marry the devil as a young woman but she refused and another girl she knew accepted and wedded the devil and now she is rich and living with a multimillionaire husband not caring for a thing but trying not to think about eternity. And Julian's prayers must be powerful. He is all alone in the nursing home with no friends and nobody to take him to Church. Our good priest visits him to hear his confessions and bring him Holy Communion every once in a while and they argue about salvation. In my mind whatever your position on EENS is I can't imagine a lot of people are going to heaven these days. I wonder about the Christians in Africa. They are dirt poor, but they have families and they seem to believe and they fight with Muslims and are more conservative than Americans and Europeans. There liturgy is strange and Africanized but I hope a lot of them have the faith and are good people. So Julian in his nursing home alone, with nurses who are not kind to him, praying for all of us, blind, with bad kidneys, unable to walk much. He is a victim for sure and it is always nice to talk to him. I am looking forward to March because he says he will be leaving the nursing home in March and moving in with his sisters, six blocks from my house. So we can be friends. I can bring him to the diner and we can eat together, perhaps once a week. And perhaps once in a while I can get my Father to drive us to our Mission in the City for Mass. He will not go to the local Churches where I go for Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction because he does not believe the Novus Ordo has true Sacraments so to him it would be idolatry, so he only goes to the Latin Mass (and not all Latin Masses) and the Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy. I think Jesus is there and that God would not abandon 99.9 percent of the world's Catholics to idolatry, even if the Novus Ordo is a deficient Mass, but he is more pious than me and is even a sedevacantist if you know what that means. So I do not tell him about how I like to go to Novus Ordo Church to look at Jesus because that would lead to an argument. I can tell angry Tom that, but not Julian or Cora or Karen, because I like to keep the peace, and I don't think their differing opinions would lead them to have less hope for salvation.

So I am happy to wait on my three rosaries. They should come next week and I will have them blessed by Father after Mass next Sunday. I am thinking of buying a fourth rosary, this one a fifteen decade one, also with wooden beads and a cord. It is more expensive though. I have no use for a twenty decade one because I do not pray the Luminous Mysteries (because I am a traditional Catholic and we do not like new prayers for the most part, though I have thought about learning how to say them and also learning how to say the Divine Mercy Chaplet, as an act of charity. I doubt, even if I do not think they are as good as the real rosary, that it would be a sin to pray those prayers, even if they are weaker).

Yesterday there were so many grackles. I noticed there were two kinds of grackles. One with brown breasts and one who were all black. The black ones are bigger. There were like fifty of them in front of a house near St. Benny's flying to and fro, cackling. Often I do wonder if animals really are a sign. The black birds represent the state of the souls of the people who live near by, like the squirrels. If people were holy all the squirrels would be white and all the pigeons would be as ivory doves. I looked at the grackles for five minutes or so. Some were eating. Really, they were just hanging out, talking to each other. Like people do outside of their apartments when you walk by and smell marijuana smoke. I wonder if animals get bored. I never get bored anymore. I waste time on the computer, but when I have quiet and silence it does not bother me. My thoughts are straight and I always have a prayer in my mind or on my lips. For some reason I never get tired of the same prayer, at least for the last six months. In the hospital in my despair in limbo I prayed Ave Maris Stella. Now in my freedom I pray a simpler prayer in English, "O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine heart." I say it over and over. Sometimes in front of Jesus I look at him, and I did this today at Eucharistic Adoration and repeat it over and over, hundreds of times. Or in front of the tabernacle. Today I held my rosary beads and counted them out, in my mind, not vocally. Over and over. They say the Orthodox do that with the Jesus Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner". But you can do that with any prayer. A monk might retreat on to his mountain with a few lines of a psalm and contemplate them for seventy years and still not fully understand it. I will walk around the mountain a thousand times. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will not fear because the Lord is with me. His rod and his staff, they comfort me. But my mind is by no means free of trouble. Sometimes I have bad thoughts but when I do usually I speak them out loud, they do not remain in my mind, and sometimes I say bad things. But usually I have peace. And when I go to confession I confess that sometimes I say bad things to myself but I do not remember how often or what exactly I said. It is my most common sin, but Father P. told me to not worry because it probably was not a sin because it was like a tic of the mind with no intent in the will.

I just thought about the mayor of Kew Gardens, Aaron, and how I told him that when he died I would go to his grave in the Maple Grove Cemetery and put a toasted bialy with butter and a cup of coffee on his headstone. I wonder if he is still alive. It has been twelve years and he was an old man back then. He must be dead by now, no? I have not seen him like some of the old reprobates from my last job when I am around Kew Gardens to go shopping, or to the bank, or to the post office with my mother. Poor old Aaron and Stanley. Yes, they must be dead by now. So much time has passed. Perhaps I should pray for them?

There is one thing lately that I am grateful for. I am grateful that I am a happy crazy and not an angry crazy or a depressed crazy. If one has to break, I broke in a better way. I am not suicidal, and I do not suffer. Now. If things get bad I may go there in the future and when I was newly broken, I was in a bad place, but I survived. But now, I am glad to be happy broken.

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.

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.

Crows

Walking back from St. Benny's I saw many birds. They looked like crows with dark brown chests. There were a hundred of them eating, flying, sitting in the trees. I watched them for a few minutes. So many birds.

Downy Woodpecker

 On my walk today I saw a Chinese lady with a blue and green parrot on her shoulder drying laundry on a clothes line. She waved to me and I waved back. And on the tree in my back yard I heard a knocking and I knew it was a woodpecker. But it was not the red-headed woodpecker I am used to seeing. It was a black-headed one new to me. It is apparently a downy woodpecker. There are some in New York but this is the first time I noticed one. All the previous woodpeckers I have seen in trees near my house have had red heads.