Custodian of Tradition

 So I went to Church today for the first time since the end of the world. The world ended on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Friday. Francis abrogated the Latin Mass. Sort of. It seems it will be allowed on a small scale for a while, but hopefully the fools who like it will die out and then there will be nothing but the glory of the Novus Ordo. Someone was saying that trads are stupid and idolize the Latin Mass. But I say those people do not have a religion. They just slavishly obey the pope's orders with no religion. No belief. No liturgy, No cosmology. No morality. Just do what the Pope says. That is all. I want to follow Christ, not the demon Francis. Like the people say that you can know nothing for yourself, except to slavishly follow the magisterium. Like someone on Suscipe Domine, who also contradictorilly claims to admire the Jansenists. But he is an obvious shill. Though an amusing one. Even St. Paul told people to hold to tradition and if anyone, even an angel from heaven, were to say otherwise, let him be anathema. Even demon Francis.

People say that after Vatican I and up until Vatican II, the laity came to worship the Pope and the priests. Whatever the Pope said was from God and whatever the priest said was from God. They were infallible. Now we see the failure of this idea. We have clergy with no faith who are Communists and sodomites who hate God and his holy Church. As one person said, if my priest said I could cheat on my wife, I could cheat on her without sin. As John Zmirak said a while ago on twitter, his priest would hold a bingo party and would give everyone a bologna sandwich but it was a Friday. So he would say, don't worry, I give you all a dispensation, you can eat meat today without sin. 

I go to an SSPX Mass. So we do not obey. When the Novus Ordo Mass came out, Lefebvre said, "Well, we'll keep saying the Old Mass, right?" Indeed. Father Sulzen gave a sermon where he talked about the Moto Proprio, and said we will keep the faith, and we will. Nobody cares, but I do. I hate the Novus Ordo and hope it dies. Even someone like Matt Walsh who works for Ben Shapiro, was talking about how they have this Latin Mass that all the young people love and really believe in, while the Novus Ordo is only attended by lackluster boomers. Wouldn't the Pope like to go with what the hopeful enthusiastic young people care for? Of course not. They hate God and his holy Mass. I hope people do not lose faith and come to the SSPX and things go well.

I think things will get serious. They will end the diocesan Latin Masses and all the trads will go to the SSPX or the sedevacantists with no choice (other than going to the Novus Ordo or the Eastern Rites.) And when everyone is in the SSPX, the Pope devil will excommunicate the SSPX and all who go to their Masses. And the shills will talk about how we have to obey the pope, and how if one follows the Pope it is impossible to lose the faith or salvation, and to still go to the Latin Mass is an act of disobedience. Go to hell. I would much rather live with Blaise Pascal than with people like him. 

I Want To Live In Credemore

 There is a big tall building near the parkway that we pass when we go to long island, usually for shopping. It is a tall building and a campus of smaller buildings. It is called Creedmore. It is an insane asylum. Or that is what such places used to be called. Many of them closed down, but I believe this one is still in use for its original purpose. Nowadays most crazy people live with family and are on medications and are outpatients, and most of the rest are homeless, living on the street and being crazy all the time, not having any treatment. They yell at people in the street and beg for money which they spend on food and booze and drugs. And then there are the people in the insane asylums. I believe they closed most of them down. But Creedmore is still there. The thing is I want to live in Creedmore. My parents will not be around forever and I don't see how I would be able to take care of myself without them. Unless my brother takes me in. I could live with him if he would let me. But I want to live in Creedmore.

Away from the world where I could think to myself and be with the sane people. For the people on the inside are more sane than the people in the world. We may think we are Jesus, but we do not think we are women and have the doctors cut off our penises and give us drugs to make us grow breasts or think that those people are okay or even sane. I would not worry about the other crazy people. But there are the nurses and the doctors. I believe many of them are witches and some of them abuse the inmates. In my time in such places, and I have a limited experience of a four visits and a total of about seven weeks, the nurses were kind to me and did not abuse me. I was never struck or abused, but they might be likely to try to get me to sell my soul to the devil. I am not sure which portions of the stay were real and which were imagined. But I do remember there being witches who wanted me to sell my soul to the devil.

The last time I was there I thought I was in limbo, and then I descended into hell, and then when I got home I was happy and was in a little heaven. The world was magical. I had a friend there named Nido who helped me. He was like a teacher. I was grateful for him helping me. But after I left I have not seen him. I learned that I should put four sugars in my Cream of Wheat, not that I would ever eat that outside of a hospital. When I was there I was afraid and I wrote out the Ave Maris Stella and put it on the wall and would sing it to myself as a sign that after it was over I would go home, and then after death, to Mother Mary in heaven.

But the world is crazy now. I do not want to take any vaccine. Some are made from dead babies and some alter your DNA or RNA, or whatever it is that I can not understand. One catalog I got said it would change your DNA so that you are no longer a human. I could even see it being the Mark of the Beast, but Bishop Williamson and the Fatima Fundamentalists think we are not there yet, as they believe there will be a period of peace where Mary reigns and the Church triumphs before the great apostasy and the coming of the antichrist. So as long as the world is like it is I want to live in Creedmore with the sane people. Only the religious fanatics and the schizophrenics live in the real world. They live in the world of the spirits, serving God or the devil, not in the material world, the world of materialism. Who is closer to the truth? The bulemic saint who fasts in honor of the Blessed Mother and has visions of Jesus and Mary and is in the hospital (like K who goes to Mass at our chapel), or the man who works hard for a living, spending his free time watching television and sometimes porn when he has sex with his own hand and spills his seed on his pillow? I would rather be with K.

The only down side about living in Creedmore is that I would not be able to go to my SSPX chapel. (Though K lives in a facility where they let her out on Sundays to go to Mass). I do not think they let you out of Creedmore to go to Mass. I imagine there are Novus Ordo chaplains that serve Creedmore and maybe even sometimes say Mass. But I could call Father S, or whoever the local SSPX priest is when I finally live in Creedmore and ask him to visit me. I would be kind to him and make my confession and receive Communion kneeling and on the tongue. If I were alone in Creedmore I would hope they would let me have a Rosary and some holy books and I would pray unceasingly. I wonder how often he would visit me. I would always pray the Little Office. Creedmore is right off the highway halfway beetween the chapel in Long Island and Manhattan where Father S says Mass for the New Yorkers. So he could visit me in between sometimes. But I would pray the Rosary and the Little Office. And I would talk to the other crazy people. Maybe I could even convert some of them.

They say Ezra Pound lived in an insane asylum after World War II. I guess it was better than prison. Perhaps his lawyers argued that he had to be crazy to support Mussolini. I listen to a podcast by a man who likes Mussolini though he does not like Hitler, but he is a revisionist. He interviews Bishop Williamson who was infamous for a while for denying the supposed massacre of the Jews by Germany. A Christian should not call it by its common name because that name means a perfect sacrifice to God and as we know the true and perfect "holocaust" was Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross and there is no other.

So I want to live in Creedmore as long as they do not abuse me, and it would be a treat if they allowed me to be visited by a traditional priest. There is the SSPX and the SSPV and the independent chapel where they have a few priests and a Bishop. I do not trust them, but the others are fine. And there are the Ukranian priests that the sedevacantists like to go to. With the sacraments I could live in Creedmore.

My life now is no different than it would be if I were living in a mental asylum. I have nothing to look forward to, and nothing to mark the time. I have Julian to visit and if I could no longer see him I would lose a friend, but I could meet new friends in Creedmore. And maybe even friends who think that they are Jesus, or John the Baptist. I make food and I eat. I do not think that they would allow me to have a computer in Creedmore, so I would miss that. For some reason in my time in mental hospitals they were big on television, but there were no computers. Which is strange because television is insane, while computers can be used for sane things, at least for now. Who knows, perhaps in a few years the internet will be nothing but insanity and pornography. It is much worse than it was ten years ago, so in ten years, perhaps it will be nothing but a bunch of liberals and Bruce Jenner.

Now I watch shows on Youtube, but half the time the hosts have to censor themselves when discussing anything interesting. There are alternative sites but I do not know which one is best and if they are really any better.

The New World Order wants us all to be slaves and all truth will be banned. Fornication and Sodomy and Onanism a thousand times followed by an eternity of hell. Perhaps it will be Brave New World and not 1984, that has always been my thought. It is easier to make people perverts and have them as willing slaves than to make people afraid and keep them in line with torture.

I want to live in Creedmore. I hope they let me stay. Rather than live in Sodom and Gomorrah my city will soon turn into, only worse, put me in a home where the people are sane, but believe they have magical powers, rather than with the normies who think the Jews are our "elder brothers in the faith". In this world of pain. I want to live in Creedmore. The world is so insane I want nothing to do with normies. It is hard enough living with my boomer normie parents, though my dad is not greedy and takes care of mom and me so he is not as bad as some. But he is a normie boomer.

It was nice when my parents visited me the last time I was in the hospital. When I am in Creedmore, maybe my brother will visit me. My parents would probably be dead before I go there. But it would be nice to be visited by my brother. We could talk about life. Maybe by then he will have a family. I don't think he wants to get married or have children, so he life is as meaningless as mine. But he is still my brother and I love him and he is not a normie.

So maybe in a few years I will be there after mom and dad die. I would rather be there than on the street. As long as they don't torment me or try to make me sell my soul to the devil. I could say my prayers and read books and have a nice life in a little room with a bed and a little desk in the corner.

The Fly

 

Today is Friday. I go to Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction at the local Church. In case Jesus is still there, I go to honor Him. At three I pray the stations in front of the monstrance and then I pray the Rosary. Fifteen decades. There is the fly. The devil comes to bother me for a few moments, buzzing around my ears. I finish praying and go home. At six thirty I go for Benediction. I pray and think and meditate and pray. The fly returns. The devil buzzes around me ears. To and fro, here and there. Just before the ceremony begins, the fly lands on my right hand. I feel him. I do not move. Then the fly goes away, the devil buzzes around my ears. I look at Jesus, if Jesus is still really there. I think He is. Julian does not. Julian once told me that his mother used to go to Benediction and one time she told him that when she looked at the monstrance she did not see the face of Jesus, but instead she saw the face of the devil. I think Jesus is there. But if he is not the devil can not harm me. I am not afraid of the devil. Sometimes I fear God's justice. That I have sinned so much that I cannot be forgiven. But usually I am fine. I pray to Jesus and to Mary and to Gemma.

Being visited by flies as I pray in the Church is a recurring theme. It is never a fly. It is the devil. The Lord of the Flies. He wants to distract me or to make me afraid.

It is something I have been doing since I got out of the hospital. I do not like the Novus Ordo. But I think it is valid. So Jesus is really there. So if I go before Jesus in the tabernacle it is good. And I keep Him company. In the Novus Ordo there are not that many who have the true faith and love Jesus. So I will love Him. But I do not want to go the the Novus Ordo Mass because I think it is bad. So I walk the line. Cross myself as I pass the Church, and genuflect before the tabernacle.

My uncle George is a Russian Orthodox. But he belongs to a strict Church. He is not in Communion with most of the other Churches in Orthodoxy. We went to his granddaughter's baptism at a monastery and he spoke about how he sung at the ceremonies but did not go to Communion because he was not in Communion with the monastery where his granddaughter was baptized. And he thought the schism was getting out of hand and it would be better if all the sects would be in Communion with each other. But not under Rome. It seems all the Orthodox share a distrust of the Pope and Rome.

My uncle's mother just died. She was orthodox. EENS. So she is in hell most likely. I heard on one of the forums that the Orthodox do not have their own version of EENS, so they hold that those outside of orthodoxy might be saved. But they are territorial and prone to schism. Charles Coulombe says that In the West we will accept any amount of heresy but no schism, but in the East they will accept any amount of schism but no heresy. And both halves of what should be the one united Church are meant to be corrective of each other's tendencies. Mithrandylan once said on one of the forums that he used to watch all of Charles Coulombe's lectures with Professor Biersach and he watched hours and hours and he thought they were enlightening, but later on after he became a more knowledgeable Catholic, that he couldn't think of a single important thing he learned from those lectures.

It is the devil. The fly. I do really believe in the devil. I do not want to be a witch but I believe they are real. I do not know what powers witches have, but I think their powers are increased greatly now that there are so few good Christians and so many abortions. As man abandons God, God abandons the people to the witches and the vampires. I do wonder if the end of the world is near. I think it is. But Tom says that the Garabandal warning will come first. But Joey Lomangino died blind. And then the Consecration of Russia and then the period of peace and only then the end of the world. I am not so hopeful. I fear the end is nigh. And the antichrist is here and the mark of the beast is the vaccine or something related to it. I told Tom that I would give him twenty dollars if the Warning happened while we were still alive and together in this valley of tears. The warning. What would you do if you could see the state of your soul as it was before the judgement seat of Jesus Christ? Would you go to confession? Or would you hate God even more. I fear many will hate God even more.

So I am home and tomorrow we are going to the orthodox funeral to pay our respects. In this world of pain. I saw a fly and he landed on my right hand in Church as I was looking at Jesus.

Merry Christmas

 Today is Christmas Day. Went to Church. Mass was in a new location in Soho. As we do not have a real Church, but have Mass in a rented room. There were only about ten people. I think some did not know where it was. The smallest crowd I have ever seen there. But some people moved away. I was wondering where the lovely Helena and her sister Olivia have been as we haven't seen them in a while. They may be home from school. We did not have the normal vestments or chalice or crucifix or all the holy things. Father brought a travelling Mass kit with him to say Mass. We tried to sing the Alma Redemptoris Mater. At first we had trouble, but then after we got going we did a decent job. I remember most of the melody but not the words. So Tom had it written down and we were able to sing it. I don't know why we all know the Salve Regina, but not the other Marian songs.

Now Mom is cooking dinner. I am helping. We are having a turkey. Then we will open our presents.

The Upper Room

 So yesterday we were able to go to our little Mass in the upper room again and not Holy Innocents. Mass is back. I am happy. After Mass six of us went out to get food and talked for a while. I left before everyone else because it was getting late. They are only allowing 25 people in for Mass. Father said if more than 25 people come, he would let the extra people come up after the rest of us left and hear their confessions, give a sermon, and distribute Communion but not say another Mass.

Me and Michael had some beers and talked last night before bed. We think similarly about a lot of things. He is respectful and sympathetic, but he doesn't go to Mass all the time, or the Latin Mass, though he did come with us once a while ago and liked it. We agree about a lot of things. It is like he reads some of the same things and watches the same kind of things as I do. He is five years younger than me.

The election is tomorrow. I plan on drinking Guinness and then going to sleep without following the election. My parents will be watching the election coverage on thee TV so I will avoid them. I hate politics. 

A Visit From Jesus At Home

Today Father S came to visit Julian and then he came to visit me. He brought in the Blessed Sacrament and put Him on a table with a white cloth he had me prepare. Then he said some prayers and had me say the Confiteor. Then he heard my confession. And then he absolved me. And then he gave me Communion. He broke the host in half because he had to visit another person after me. It was nice. He also blessed some medals and my picture of the Sorrowful Mother.

We talked. He said our living room and dining room combined were about the same size as the place where we used to have Mass in the city (and hopefully will again). They are looking for a new place and hoping for an end or an easing of the virus lockdown so we could have Mass again. He said that maybe we could have Mass at our house. I said I would like that, but not sure about mom and dad. They always used to make fun of my uncle George for having an obscure Russian Orthodox Church in his basement. It would be cool if we had a traditionalist Mass in our living room. But this is not likely. What is likely is that I had Jesus again from my priest. I gave him a donation.

When I go to the indult Mass in the city it just doesn't feel right. Now I think Jesus is also there, just that I have doubts about the priests' orthodoxy and traditionalism, which is why my preferences lie the way they do.

Some people think all Novus Ordo priests ordained in the New Rite are invalid so they avoid them. I do not go to them for confession, but lately I am willing to assume they are valid and receive the Sacraments there out of necessity. But Some people I know are going to the "resistance" chapel up north because of doubts about the validity of one of the priests in Ridgefield. People do not agree. And not only sedes. For a while, though I was never really a sede, I held some of their opinions like that the Novus Ordo did not have true Sacraments. But now I do not. Though I would completely understand refusing to receive the Sacraments from Novus Ordo priests out of the principle on not wanting anything to do with the new "springtime of Vatican II." Blessed be God.

A Book I Bought

There is a blog I read. If you know me, you know that there is a monastery I support and have even made donations to. If you know me I generally support the SSPX. I go to Mass and confession there. But this monastery is not SSPX; it is more like the reform of the reform. They say the old Mass and sing the old office, but under the local Bishop. During the isolation, for a while I watched their livestreams of Mass and vespers until they stopped streaming them.

The monastery is called Silverstream Priory and it is in Ireland and the blog is called Vultus Christi. I discovered it when I was a new traditional Catholic, somewhere between 2008 and 2010. One of the priests there claims to receive revelations from Jesus and Mary that promote Eucharistic Adoration. And he published some of them in a book. I just bought the book and am waiting for it to be mailed to me. Dawn Eden does not like it which is a good sign for me. So I should like it.

It was my favorite blog, with inspiring devotional posts. I would read it and it would often make me cry, especially in my times of despair, and boy did I have times of despair. I am looking forward to reading the book. It has been out for a few years so it is not new, but I only just discovered it. I would expect condemnation from those I know, that monastery is liberal, they are compromisers.

I want to read the book. I hope to read it. And I will probably talk about it on this blog. I do not do much spiritual reading other than my daily prayers. This will be some. If it is anything like the blog I will probably love it. In Sinu Jesu is the name of the book. Even if it is a fraud, I think I will like it.

Our Lady Of La Salette's secrets were placed on the index. "Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the antichrist" was condemned, yet it is all that is remembered. And it seems to have come true. This book is probably just uncontroversial general piety.

I am looking forward to the book. I have to spend money. I went to the bank today and gave my father some. I pay him rent, but we don't call it that. Money. Money. Money. Some things I just don't understand. Usury.

In SIlence

In silence one will find peace; in much speech one will find much sin.

Something the monk was speaking of was the numerous sins that come from much speech. I know I speak too much. I am an ignorant fool so I should remain silent, yet I speak. It is a weakness. I feel the need to express myself in the hopes of finding understanding. And perhaps to ask for help and to help those who need it. I have this blog where I express my thoughts freely. And I speak to people on the internet in forums and things.

When I think of my sins. Lately, I think the sins I commit most frequently are saying aloud bad thoughts. When I think, it is a peculiarity of my condition, I often say my thoughts out loud. Usually when I am alone. Sometimes I fear that I will say bad things around other people and they will accuse me. But mostly I say bad things when I am alone. I think about things, and thinking leads to me speaking to myself. Father Purdy told me that if I just speak without thinking and do not really mean what I say, and it is just a slip of the tongue, there is no sin. But he also seemed to think I shouldn't be talking to myself, even if it was not sin. As if that was a sign that there was something wrong with me; which I admit is likely to be true.

But it seems like a sin. Surely venial. But to say bad things, even without meaning them. It is like I have a devil in my heart living there and I am a sinner and my heart is truly black which is why bad things come from it. The words of the mouth are the substance of the heart overflowing. What one says in the silence of the night without thought is what one truly believes. There is no better indication of the state of one's soul, than the content of one's dreams. Perhaps. But the demons give us dreams often to scare us and corrupt us, but then so does the good God and our guardian angel give us dreams to enlighten and encourage. To divine the meaning of dreams.

I regret the fact that I deleted my dream blog. Over five hundred of my dreams recorded and I deleted it forever. Stupid me. Vanity of vanities. I had many religious dreams. Often in my dreams I was at Mass or receiving Communion or saying prayers. Sometimes I would die in my dreams, and most of the time as I was dying I would pray the Salve Regina. In my dream that was the prayer I would say to prepare for death. Not the Ave Maria. I do not often remember my dreams now that I no longer record them. I think the act of recording them gets one in practice and disposes one to remember one's dreams more often. For two years I remembered my dreams most nights, and often multiple dreams during one night.

So in silence one finds peace; in speech one finds sin. I am a sinner because I speak. I think before I speak unless it is my nervous habit, and meditate and I often pray during the day. My favorite writer was Dostoyevsky and my favorite book was The Brothers Karamazov. He was a Russian Orthodox believer who is buried in a monastery. I guess the Orthodox are the closest to Catholicism of all the other religions. One must say that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation so he was damned, yet he was baptized so we could hope for his repentance. I should start praying for Dostoyevsky. Or would that be an act of false ecumenism? Perhaps I should rather pray for Blaise Pascal.

They say that Saint Alphonsus Liguori wrote a hundred books. The only one I read was The Glories of Mary. I was told that reading Liguori would lead one to despair, except for that one book, The Glories of Mary. They say the Church used to be stricter until the Jesuits ruined it and turned the Church of Christ into the Church of presumption. It did not start with the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

I am not a great saint. In some ways I do well. My heart is pure for such a sinner as I am (relative to how I used to be. I only know my own heart and not that of others, and it is better than it used to be). I do not lust after women. But I am weak. I eat food and drink beer too often. Never to drunkenness, of course, but I have some at night and then go to bed. I am ten pounds overweight. I can be better when I try, but I do not try lately. I am content to say my prayers and be a regular person, but not of the world for the most part. I do not watch television ever or movies often or listen to modern music much anymore.

They say the best prayer is prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Since Jesus is truly present, he hears your prayer in the person of the real presence directly, and not just as the God who sees all thoughts and knows all desires everywhere. So the best prayer is before the Blessed Sacrament on the altar. Before the monstrance, but best would be before a monstrance without a glass. Or at the moment of the elevation at Mass when the priest holds up the Body of Our Lord, like the time I was looking and saw the host glow like the sun in Church when I was a new believer and was still filled with the demons of my youth.

I am a sinful man and my heart is the abode of demons. I do not think this is true any more. I think my heart holds God inside of it and the good God expelled the demons. I am sorry for my sins. I went to confession. I am clean now. Perhaps. I do not feel tormented by them any more. I fell last year, but I did not die; I lived to repent. And now I am okay.

So I am trying to stop talking in this way. When I do, even when I say something not bad, I pound my chest, "Mea culpa . . ." I was not always like this. This is something that I started doing about two years ago. Maybe it is because of excitedness or stress or not fasting enough. Or maybe it is the devil's new way of tripping me. I pray more now, but I am talking more now also. I want to be better.

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.

Christ Before Pilate

On Traditional Catholicism

I would consider myself to be a traditional Catholic. I have been in those circles since at first, 2008, when I started praying the Rosary and somehow found out about such things on the internet. The first time I went to an SSPX Mass was in 2008 or 2009. I went for a couple of months. Then I had my vision at Mass which instilled in me the fear of God. At the same time of my conversion I started to go crazy. After that I went to the Novus Ordo for about a year, afraid to go back to the Mass where I had my vision. And then in 2010, I believe the week after Easter, but my memory is horrible, I went back again. And I have been going there since.

My thoughts have changed over time. For a long time I was on the right of the traditional wagon, almost being a sedevacantist if you know what that means. I used to think that the Novus Ordo Church did not have true sacraments, as the changes invalidated them. And that only among tradition and in the Eastern Rites that did not change were the sacraments to be found (other than baptism and matrimony). Even among the sedevacantists there are degrees. The most interesting  ones are the home-aloners. They think that the Novus Ordo is not valid, but that also the traditional priests are not licit either as they are wolves and not shepherds and that the only way to serve God is to not go to Mass, stay home alone and pray the Rosary and read Holy Books. Now I am still a traditional Catholic, but a more moderate one. I now accept the Novus Ordo sacraments as valid, for the most part. But I still go to my SSPX Latin Mass as I think it is better than the Novus Ordo Mass which I do not like, but accept as valid. I guess what it comes down to is if 99.9 percent of the Church could have no Jesus, what kind of a Church is that? Or if the sedevacantists are right, the Church is a few thousand laymen and men with stolen orders who excommunicate themselves. I sometimes wonder if the reason some public sedevacantists are liberals on the dogma "Outside of the Catholic Church There is No Salvation" is because in their hearts they know that if they are correct the sedevacantist sect they belong to alone is the true Church, and not even all sedevacantists, the sect of maybe ten thousand people, and everyone else is going to hell. So not willing to accept the belief that only one in a million men are saved (not counting the baptized infants who die) they deny the dogma as being too harsh. So now I consider the sedes to be schismatic for the most part, though no doubt many of them are honest and not guilty of the sin of schism. And I do not trust the priests, but I should not say bad things about them individually (though I have said bad things about Father Cekada in the past).

So I attend an SSPX chapel which is a moderate traditional Catholic position. There is a group mis-named "the resistance" which split off from the SSPX about eight years ago, but has not grown and is very small and considers the regular SSPX to have sold out. I am sympathetic to them, and I like their Bishop, Williamson enough, but I say to them, the Novus Ordo has to be at least in part the Catholic Church, and if it is, and you accept the papacy of Francis, you should have some kind of relationship with them. If he says, "no, you can not say the Latin Mass", then I see reason to disobey, but one cannot be a sedevacantist in all but name, while claiming to be against them.

So I am a liberal now. But I am all alone by myself now. I used to never attend the Novus Ordo Mass or even the "indult" which is what we call the Latin Masses officially under the diocese. But now I will attend the "indult" if there is no other Mass available. And once in a blue moon I will even attend the Novus Ordo, but only to avoid scandal. Such as if there is no Mass available while I am traveling and it is either attend the Novus Ordo with my family or go to no Mass at all. In such cases I just sit there and pray silently. But I like going to the Novus Ordo Churches when there is no Mass going on to sit in front of the tabernacle and be with Jesus. And even in the Novus Ordo, I like going to Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction is nice. So I am now a moderate traditional Catholic. I hope that there are many Catholics among the Novus Ordo worshipers, though I know that a lot of them don't really believe. I hope there are good people among the worshipers there who believe the sex is for marriage and marriage is for life and Jesus is present in the Eucharist and that Adam and Eve were real people.

But recently for the first time I received the Blessed Sacrament at an "indult" Mass as a sign that I thought Jesus was there and of my new liberal stance.

Karen wants to go with me to Connecticut for Mass during this crisis as the closest SSPX Mass that is open. I may go. But Karen does not approve of going into Novus Ordo Churches. There are devils there, she says. So I don't tell her I go there to pray. I am alone. But it would be nice to go to Church again. It has only been a few weeks but it seems like months. I should go to confession to confess an old sin that I was thinking about which caused me nerves a few weeks ago. So be it.

Illness

So people are taking this Corona virus seriously. I just hope they do not close the Churches and I get to go to Benediction and to Mass like I usually do. My mother told me to go to the dollar store and buy six rolls of toilet paper. And she bought some anti-bacterial soap. That is the extent of our preparation.

This is the first time in my life where there has been an illness scare that I noticed. They are cancelling public events in many places and even sporting events that would have made billions of dollars such as the NCAA tournament. None of the other scares in my lifetime have caused such cancellations.

So I just hope they don't close the Churches. I could go without Mass for a few months if need be. And I feel OK with God so I do not have an urgent need to go to confession. But I would rather things go on as normal and the routine of my hidden life goes on as it has been going since the end of July.

I got my New Roman Missal in the mail today. Soon it will go on to the book shelf. It is not for use but to have. It is a 1945 Missal. I looked at some of the prayers. The most noticeable prayer change is the Good Friday prayer for the Jews. It has the "perfidis". I already had a 1962 Missal with the modern Holy Week that was prayed for only a few years so I wanted a Missal with the older Holy Week also. The missal seems good, however there seems to be a flaw. There is no real table of contents in the beginning of the book. There is a short one near the end of a book and an Index, but I think a two thousand page book could use a real table of contents. But it seems good and I am happy. It is funny because the reason I chose the Lasance Missal is because in the reviews I read of the Saint Andrew Daily Missal, there was the complaint that there was no table of contents. That helped persuade me to get the Lasance one instead only to be faced with the same problem. But it is a beautiful book.

My therapist told me I had to start spending money now that I get disability. It is not much money, but the way my life is I have been unable so far this year, to spend all of my money in any month, without saving money or giving it away. I spend so little money and my parents do not charge me rent. So lately I have just been giving generously at Church, and or giving money to my family. I have been buying some things on amazon. But my only major expense is going to Church. subway fare, donation, and coffee and food with the people after Mass.

But I am a frugal person. I do not want anything. I am content without buying things. So I will just help out my family.

Tonight the Bishop said the Benediction. He had us pray for protection from the corona virus. I think sometimes that he state of one's soul can be seen by looking at one's face. The bishop looks like a good man. Even though he is Novus Ordo, he has a good look about him. He is from Cuba.

So far nothing strange has happened because of the virus. The supermarkets are not out of food. The pizza store had pizza for us today. Mom went shopping at Michael's and said there was nobody in the store. But the parking lot was full because everyone was going to Trader Joe's. Life is still normal. Except that New York City made it illegal for stores to give you plastic shopping bags. You can get paper bags but you have to pay for them. They cost 5 cents. Which I think is a bargain. I remember years ago people said we should stop using paper bags because they killed trees to make them, so we should only use plastic bags. Now everyone says we should not use plastic bags because they get thrown away and do not decompose so they are bad for the environment. And now they have us using paper bags again, which I prefer anyway and am willing to spend a nickel for. But now we get to use some of those reusable cloth bags we have acquired over the years. I think people should do that as the ideal solution. Things that get used one time and then thrown away are not a good idea.

I am stealing a quote from a book I once read that was on the Index of Forbidden Books '"I did nothing today." --What? Did you not live? That is not only the most fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations.' It is from Montaigne. Such is my life. I do nothing. But I am happy. I live and am happy. I am not a hero. Robert introduced me to the idea of being an "outsider artist." So I thought to myself, "yes, that is what I would like to be, an outsider, though I am not much of an artist". So I thought of my self, that I am "aspiring to be an unknown outsider." That fits. I am one of those people who thinks the modern world is insane. I mean it is mainstream now and socially approved for a man to cut off his penis and call himself a woman. And if one says, no, he is still a man and not a woman, that person is ostracized and will lose his family, his friends, and his employment. I do wonder about such people, how do they have sex? And if it is somehow possible for them to have sex, could they enjoy it as much as they could if their genitals were not mutilated. I mean I have at times thought what it would be like to be a woman and if perhaps I would be happier, but that was as far as it went.

But I live. That is all I do. I do think one can be an important person without doing much. I live well and am happy. I am a part of a family. I go to Church. I pray. I hope to go to heaven one day. I am not much interested in the world. I hope to have peace and to be able to survive until my death, hopefully of natural causes. But I do not long for money or for riches, beyond basic sustenance. If I were not crazy I would want to be a monk, but I am broken and am too old now so I let it be. I have peace. I am content with life. I do nothing, but I live, and life is what is important. To give one's life to God. Or to give him a tithe, and be grateful for the balance. So be it. So be it.

The Bishop said Benediction tonight. He looks like a good man. As traditionalists we look at the Novus Ordo Bishops and think they are not good, but I like our Bishop, the pastor of my local parish. He has never offended me. There is one Bishop in particular, who I like. Like my Bishop, he is also an auxiliary. The world famous Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He looks like a good man to me. I look at him and think he is kind, and good. He is not a pervert. He is pious and can be trusted. I hope he is a good man and has a good heart and loves God.

I love God. It sounds like pious talk, but I love God. But God is far away. Even in the Incarnate form of Jesus Christ. He is Our Creator and he is perfect and not a sinner. Even Mary, who is a creature, is not a sinner. So she is far away. But the saints who are creatures and who are sinners. They are my friends. My Gemma who I love a lot. I feel my love for her as a girl and as a sinner far more than I feel my love for God. But I love her because of God and I love God in her. So all my love for her is an act of praise for the God who created her. She is not an idol, but a creature beloved of the good God. Pious babbling.

I am always happy lately in my time of peace. The clouds, the birds, the stars, the moon, the sun. Mostly Jesus in the tabernacle. Jesus in the monstrance like today. Friday is almost as good a day as Sunday because I can visit Jesus in the monstrance several times a day and be blessed by him before I go to bed. It is good to look at Jesus.

I do not know if I can communicate my peace and happiness to other people by writing. Perhaps if things went bad I would be bitter. Nobody hurts me so I am happy. If I was handed over to the devil like Job, perhaps then I would scratch my boils and be miserable. I would cry out to God, but I hope I would not curse Him. In my time of despair when the devils tormented me for so long, I did not curse God. I hope I do not curse Him in the future. In this world of pain.

I do not feel as if I have a shepherd other than Jesus. That must be dangerous. I love God, but I do not have a leader who tells me what to think and what to believe. This is a problem in the strange world of traditional Catholicism, where we believe the leaders have lost the faith for the most part and cannot be trusted. I do not worry much. I try to believe in my own way and love.

I think the most important thing is to believe. And then to love. I try to believe and I try to love.

I Am Grateful

I am grateful. I am grateful for my family I have, and who take care of me. They let me live with them without paying rent, though I share my meager stipend with them when there is a need. If I were forced to survive on my own, I fear I would end up in the street. But they let me live with them.

My life is simple. I am crazy and I cannot think straight. I cannot remember things and I am always losing things. So I am useless. I can not work. I get a little disability check because the doctors determined that I was a bad case. It is good because it allows me to go to Church, give a little tithe and go out for coffee after Mass with my friends without begging my parents for money.

This is my life, which I am grateful for. I try to live a silent life. I avoid television and movies and the radio for the most part. I like peace and quiet. I do not usually get bored. I like to go to Church to sit before Jesus. And pray. The Church is a block and a half from my house and Jesus is there so I can go visit Him like a good friend. He looks at me from the tabernacle. I go at least once a day, though ideally I would go three times. Once at noon, once at three, and once at six. I say my prayers. Lately I have been trying to pray from my prayer book. In my free time, I do use the computer I am typing on. I think I use it too much, though I do not do anything bad on it. It is an attachment to the world. On Thursdays in the mid-day I walk to the neighboring Church for Benediction. I always see the grackles on my walk there, south of the avenue. I saw them again today. And at night I make my little holy hour and look at pictures of Gemma crucified. On Fridays they have Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction at my local parish so I go there during the day and at night for the blessing. And Sunday is the best day. Now that Mass is in the evening, I go a little early, and listen to Vespers at the indult parish, before going to our little upper room for our Low Mass. There is music now because of the Lovely Helena. And afterwards we talk of things in the Church and in the world and about our lives.

I have a happy life. But my parents are getting older. They will not live forever. Without them life would be difficult. So I am grateful for the time I have with them. My father hurt his knee this week so I have been helping him. He can barely walk. Today he got a cortisone shot and an x-ray. I am happier than I have ever been, since the last time I got out of the hospital in late July. Though I am also alone. My parents do not go to Church with me. They must think I am strange going to Church all the time. And I have no girlfriend or wife. But I do not feel lonely on this account like I used to. I can not explain why. Like when I was a child, I do not need a woman in my life to be happy. The need for a woman is a sign of a fall. It is better to be happy alone, than to have your happiness rely on the whims of a woman. To be able to be happy alone, but still have a woman, is another state. I have never been in that state. I do not worry about it, though, because of my condition it is unlikely to ever happen. I am like a nice young man with down syndrome. Crippled, alone, but happy. I wish I were as innocent as they are.

I imagine I would be happier with a girlfriend or a wife, but I do not grieve it. I still love women and am entranced when I see them walking around, if they are beautiful, or modest. But immodesty is ugly to me and makes me happy I am alone rather than with such a woman. The women at Church dress nicely and decently so it is good to see them, even though I feel like they are above me because of my condition.

I am grateful for God because I am happy. I feel like he is taking care of me. And I feel he has forgiven me for the sins of my youth. So many sins. It was difficult and painful but I feel the suffering had a purpose. But now I have peace. Trouble may come again, but now is a happy time for me. I feel as if I have grace. I have joy. I want to sing and I do to myself when I go out walking.

I do not have a wife, but I have a heavenly mother and the saints, including my favorite, my poor poor Gemma. If I go to heaven one day I will be one of her friends there. They keep me company and are good friends to me when I am alone. I have my Church friends and Julian who I visit and get Father to visit with the Blessed Sacrament.

So my life is happy. For now. As long as my parents are able to help me. It would be good if I die before they do. I am not afraid of death. If I was right with God I would be happy to die. Get this mortal life done with so the real life can begin. But then I may be damned. I fear that less now than I used to. So I am very grateful.

Father R.

Today we had Father R. as our priest. He used to be our pastor seven or eight years ago and we hadn't seen him since. He remembered me and knew my name. He said my name without asking. I told him I had seen the picture of him saying Mass on top of the cliff at the grand canyon. He gave a sermon on which he talked about EENS and salvation. He spoke of how God gives graces to all men so they have a chance to be saved (whenever this is spoken of I think of all the unbaptized babies). And he spoke about how if a man tries to be good but does not know about Jesus, Our Lord will enlighten him and send a missionary or an angel or an internal inspiration so that he can learn about Jesus and receive the faith and join the Church. This is different from what another priest talked about a few weeks ago where he denied the need to have the faith and join the Church. So Father R. believes the faith is necessary while the other priest expressed the modern view that "being nice" is enough.

He spoke about how it was years since he had last been here and how there were few of us who he recognized and I told him how some people died. The skinny old lady? D.? Yes she died. And M.? Yes, I know she died. She was very generous. But a friend who I was hoping to see was not there. I was sad. I had hoped to see him because he told me he would be at Church one Sunday in January and this was the last and he was not there. I could have spoken to him.

After Church for coffee there were four of us. We spoke for a little while. I expressed the thought that I would probably never marry and was offered encouragement. T. is the same age as me and also single and he was speaking about his troubles with women. He says he attracts the wrong kinds of women. And he also expresses disinterest in Church girls. They are stuck up or something. I don't know as I have never tried to date a Church girl. I just ignorantly hope that they are angels and that they are better than me. I am afraid of even speaking with them honestly. Less people come now that Mass is at 5 and not 2:30. But at night I get to go early and see Vespers as well as Mass and visit a few Churches. So you win and lose.

I just wanted to remember Father R. was here and he said he should be back some time in the next few months when Father S. is away. At Mass today I was praying for someone's conversion, and for me and my family. I was talking to God about them.

I read most of the life of Antony today. I will finish it tomorrow. When he speaks about faith he tells the Greek philosophers that faith comes directly from God and does not come from arguments. So that for a man with faith arguments are useless and even bad. For a man to have faith, he just knows interiorly. Faith comes from hearing, but it does not come from proofs. So his faith is different from the faith of the philosophers. I trust the faith of Antony.

Looking forward to the doctor and therapy tomorrow.

Abba Moses

Wouldn't it be nice to climb into a little hole and live there alone for the rest of one's life with no troubles from the world? I was looking for a story about one of the desert fathers. As a young man one of them (I thought it was Abba Moses but I could not find it in my lovely little book) was a criminal and he saw a pregnant woman and with a knife cut the baby out of her womb, killing the mother and the baby. And he repented and ran into the desert for many years. A while later he went to his brother hermit and he told him that after all this time God has forgiven him for killing the woman, but he has not yet done enough penance for the child. And a while later he went back to his brother and he told him, now you have been forgiven for killing the child, be at peace. And in another story one of his brother hermits saw Moses after his death in heaven eating honey cakes with the angels and the saints. Moses was a dark skinned black man and some did not trust him because of his appearance, and others did not trust him because of his violent past. But he became a priest and a great father or so they say.

I found out that on Thursdays for now they will have Eucharistic adoration at St. Benny's from the end of the 9:00 Mass until Benediction at 12:00. I went there yesterday for about an hour. It is in the big Church. The man at the office said that they may have it until later in the day but for now the new pastors do not. They do not have enough people to have someone with Jesus at all times and not be left alone. They used to have Jesus in a little room, barely larger than a closet, with a cube-shaped tabernacle. And when there were people there He would be exposed and when people left they would put Him away. Now they have no priest living there. The Church was taken over by my own home Church which has a bishop and a few priests. I liked praying in the little closet. I could visit a few times during the day. Now I can only go one time. Today they have Jesus in the little Chapel at Holy Child right by my house. I like to go throughout the day a few times and at night for the benediction. I would that I could go every day.

I have free time because I am disabled. I am broken. But I feel at peace. I have never done anything great. I am a little person. I don't want to be a big person. A great man.

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.

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.

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.

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.