A Dream of Hell

 I have two sedevacantist friends. One is named Julian. He is blind and has diabetes. The other is Tom. He has the cancer. I talk to them and they talk to each other. Julian and Tom had a falling out because Julian told Tom not to use bad language and Tom thought there was nothing wrong with it.

Julian had a dream that Tom was falling into hell and was asking Julian to help him. And Julian told him to stop using bad language. So now Julian thinks Tom is bad for using curse words, not blasphemies or using the Lord's name in vain, but common dirty words. And he is in mortal sin and will go to hell if he does not stop using them.

Anyway yesterday was my birthday. My father got me a computer. It was cheap. But it is good. It has a backlit keyboard and a touch screen. But it only cost 309 dollars. Computers are cheap now. It is a chromebook, so it is a budget computer. I am glad. My old computer still works except that the keyboard is broken. Not the whole keyboard, but some of the keys. I am listening to a lot of Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson's radio shnows. I like him. He is Russian Orthodox. A priest of on of the more conservative jurisdictions that is not in communion with many of the other ones. He had a religious crisis and investigated all the Christian Churches. He went to St. Marys and talked to the SSPX. And he thought the Novus Ordo was a joke. But he decided that the Eastern Orthodox were right. The Greeks were right. And later he was ordained a priest. He says everything you know about the world or history is wrong.

I hope Tom is not in disgrace. I love Tom and Julian both. I wish they would not argue. 

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.

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.

Johannes

It is strange but the character from the motion pictures who I relate to most is Johannes from Dreyer's Ordet. Because I am a schizophrenic hyper-religious Christian who complains to my parents that we should get rid of the television because it is the devil's tabernacle, and nobody listens to me even though they show care for me and show love for me and support me. "He has lost his wits," they say. Though I never studied Schopenhauer.*

And my dad comments on how he wishes me and my brother would go to the demonstrations. I should have told him that the only demonstration that I would be interested in going to would be the march for life, but he makes fun of them (which made me get angry and break things). He laments the fact that I am not a communist and I lament the fact that he is not a Christian. And I noticed the absurdity of him being a promoter of masks and social distancing and that this disease is really serious and not over-hyped;  "a monster" he called it, and that we have to be safe, yet he also is promoting massive gatherings with no precautions in this time of pandemic.

I have yet to raise anyone from the dead, so there is that.

I made Manhattan clam chowder yesterday. The girl said it was the best clam chowder she has ever had and she has had a lot. I followed a recipe I found on the internet and changed it a bit which must have made it better. And I did not use fresh clams, but only the canned ones. I thought it tasted good. So there is that.

*edit. Robert, one of my few faithful readers informed me that I made an error. It was Kierkegaard that Johannes studied which made him go insane, not Schopenhauer. Forgive me for my error as I have never read Kierkegaard and misremembered.

Silly Thoughts

Her biography says that she rarely bathed and never used soap but always had a nice fragrance coming from her body. A thought that everything bad that comes from us is not because of nature but because of sin. If one has a strong body odor it is because one is a sinner. The reason teenagers have a lot of acne is because at that time the youth are introduced into the world of sexual sins after their innocent childhood. How far does it go?

There is a man who is a hermit who worships at the shrine of St. Francis in Assissi. He went to Mass often and received the sacraments and by all accounts he was a good holy man. He was old but looked good and had smooth skin. Reading about him, someone commented on how young he looked even though he was in his late seventies and the response was that right worship does marvels for the body and the immune system. I look at pictures of the Little Flower while in her convent, in her youth, before her fatal illness, and she looked like a beautiful young marshmallow. She looked so pure. And so do people who are good.

I think of the animals and how when they go poop they do not need toilet paper but it comes out clean. It should be the same for good people. Only sin leads to uncleanness and rottenness. A pure man would not have pimples, because a spoiled face is a punishment for sin. He should always look pure and clean unless the Lord has chosen him for chastisements like holy Job.

But I am being silly. None of this is true, just ridiculous thoughts I am having because I am crazy.

For what it's worth. But humans are such sinful creatures, would that we are pure and beautiful as the paintings of Fra Angelica and worthy of the grace of God, a grace which we all need and some of us desire. I was looking at pictures. People are so ugly. Devils or statues. People have no soul in their eyes. Their eyes are black holes.

But I am a proud man. I think highly of myself. I think I am a nice man and that God is somewhat happy with me and that I have grace and the Holy Spirit is living in my soul. I wish I could go to Church more. My skin is nice and soft. I have peace and am happy with the world. I look at pictures. Of her, who I love.

On Monday my therapist will be calling and I hope my friend Julian calls me and maybe some of my other friends. I do not know a lot of people. I know God. I know Him. And He is above all people. I have her. I love her and pray for her but I am nothing to her. But I love her.

In eternity all the bad in this world will be made up for, if you are numbered among the lambs. I am not afraid of death, I told my brother today. But the world is terrifying. I think of her a lot. And my Gemma. There is a lull in my days between 4 PM and 6 PM where I have nothing to do. The rest of my day is good and pure. My pandemic routine.

My brother wants me to become a stock investor. I could study and learn how to invest and become rich off of my tiny disability checks. For what it's worth. I love her but am nothing to her. But I love Gemma and I know she loves me. All the love I have for her is paid back a thousand times. My sweet love.

Like I said before, I am happy with my investment in a selection of holy cards of Gemma with third class relics in them. The pictures are pretty, because her soul was pure and pure souls are beautiful to look at. She was a little angel. I do not know anyone alive who was like her but the thought of her makes me happy. I hope to one day meet her in heaven. I believe in heaven. Life is nothing. I want to die soon.

Into The Sea

Walking on eggshells. I feel strange around the house with everyone. Today was the feast of the seven sorrows. I was reminded of it by a girl. I prayed the Te Deum today.

Thinking of the world, it is the calm before the storm. It is still pleasant. Our family of five still has money and are not angry at each other yet. My brother has bad luck. Really bad luck. Everything is going wrong with him. And I say this as the rest of the family, including myself, has been lucky for a long time. But he has bad luck. Everything is breaking and going bad, without saying what are his problems.

Not watching television, I do not know what is going wrong in the world. Strangely enough, my interactions with the world are limited to reading Cathinfo and Suscipe Domine and following a few Catholic accounts on twitter. So I don't know much. I hear that some people are getting 1200 dollars from the government. I am not sure if I am included. I would just give it to mom and dad or my brother.

I have a little fish named aurora. She is a goldfish. Every morning I turn on the light and feed her. And every evening I feed her and turn off the light. I have had her for eight months. If she has grown, it is not by much. I have her in a ten gallon tank. They said that a goldfish can grow as large as a football. That has not happened to my aurora just yet. She is still small. I feed her. I bought her a set of two Greek columns to swim around and through and to look pretty in her tank.

My friend angry Tom is looking for a place where they still have Mass. Some private or semi-private chapel. There is nowhere to go. I told him if he found someplace I would go with him on Easter. As it stands now, on Good Friday, one week from today, I will go to the Church in Glendale and pray at the Lourdes Grotto and say the Stations.

I do not know what to think.

This blog is the record of my thoughts. I don't write much anymore but it is how I am doing. My life for anyone who is interested. My life is not interesting, but it is a good life for the most part, now, and has been since late July.

I am looking at aurora. I am in the basement with her now. She still swims around. I wonder how long she will live.

But life is as life is. Everyone is wearing masks when I go out. I still take my walks. I go to stores less, and when I do, gloves and masks, usually. No one in my family is sick. Julian was sick, but he told me he is better now.

I a not trying to be interesting. My life is not at all interesting, so my blog should be dull also. Many people try to make up for having a dull life by reading books or watching television of movies. I am trying to live a normal life without the need for interesting things to happen or to watch interesting stories. I live, I think, I say my prayers much of which are similar or the same from day to day. Thursday I have my hour so it is special. It was better before the Churches were closed, but I make be with what is be.

My new Gemma prayer cards with relics are pretty. Some of them are paintings with angels and Mary and Jesus and of course my Gemma. She died when she was twenty five. There is a nice one of Mary holding baby Jesus and and Gemma genuflecting and reaching out towards the baby Jesus. There is an angel standing with his hand raised and a little baby cherub holding the insignia of the Passionists, a black heart with a cross. There is another with Gemma with her wounded hands, pointing towards Jesus on a Cross, surrounded by angels.

To think of holy things. I  must be a strange person. What is the world? All I ask for is enough to survive in a simple way until I die. Hopefully sooner rather than later. And not be tortured or abused or on the street (or if I end up on the street, it is not as unpleasant as it seems). Perhaps I will spend the rest of my days in a mental institution and live there with the crazies and the nurses. That would be a life. I could draw pictures and look at my holy cards, if they let me have them. I never lived in a mental institution. There used to be more of them, but years ago they closed many of them and just let the crazies be homeless or go to jails. But I read an article that suggested that in the future, because of governmental policy changes, they may be coming back. So it may be my life. In my time in the psych ward, they never let me have a rosary or wear a scapular. So I had to make do. And they do not allow the patients to wear belts out of fear of suicide, so everyone (if they are wearing street clothes) has to tie their pants tight with short strings tied to the belt loops.

I am not trying to make my blog popular. It is what I am. I am not trying to impress girls so they would marry me. But perhaps some people will find my blog and get something from it. Or at least know what I am like as if we were friends. I have to get back into a better habit of prayer. I will be good today, starting now. So be peaceful, now is the time to go for my walk. So be it.

So Yes, I Do Believe In Fortune Tellers And Sibyls.

Thinking about Communion. Just got back from Benediction. As you know I like going to benediction in the local Catholic Churches. It makes me think about Communion. I have gotten to be a liberal. I think the Novus Ordo does have Jesus. I used to think it did not. So I think Jesus is there and I go to Him.

But about the Masses, I don't know. Karen says they are valid but not licit. I still do not want to go to Novus Ordo Masses for the most part. To me it is still like a fraud and I wish it would go away forever soon and be replaced by the Old Mass once again. But that leaves the indult. As I mentioned before, I went to an indult Mass said by Cardinal Zen on Saturday. It was beautiful. Barbara also went but I did not see her. For the first time since my conversion (in full), I went to Communion at an indult Mass. They had taken the altar rail away but we all knelt by the steps and received on the tongue. But I contemplated it during Mass and came to the conclusion that I was in communion with Cardinal Zen so, I went up to receive Jesus as a sign of that Communion. If I believe Jesus is really there, and it is not a Novus Ordo Mass, I figured I could go to Communion. Cardinal Zen may even be some sort of hero, as a leader of the Chinese Church.

So be it. I guess I do not want to think Jesus has abandoned the Church and there are over a billion Catholics who do not have the sacraments while a few hundred thousand only have the sacraments and can be saved. I do firmly believe it is better to go to the Old Mass, and if one has no Latin Mass to go to, I might even recommend staying home, and I still go there to the little mission I have always gone to but my thinking is a little wider so to speak. I consider Lifeboat Louis to be a good Catholic.

Do you know who lifeboat Louis is? I am not sure if he is still alive. He lived on a boat and protests abortion. He is a devout Catholic and looks like a homeless man, old and white-bearded. And when I last saw him he used to wear tee-shirts with Catholic pictures on them, I remember him wearing the Divine Mercy image. The tee-shirt was dirty, but he did not smell. He goes to all different kinds of Catholic Churches, and once he came to our little SSPX mission and received Communion there which is a statement. I met him the first time I was invited out for coffee after Mass. Out of nowhere, this old man who was not at Mass came up to us and sat down and started talking to me. He had pictures he drew, one of a boat and one of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he gave me prayers and pro-life articles. I don't know how he knew we were there eating after Mass, and how he knew we were Catholics and would be interested in his company. We only ate there a couple of times. He did not come to Mass with us. I guess it was providence. Louis was arrested many times for his pro-life work and he was a good man. I still have the things he gave me in a binder. Sometimes I look at his pictures. The New York Times wrote an article about him a few years ago. I would like to see him again and talk to him.

Sometimes I feel like I am all alone in the world. I am happy. I pray to God. But I do not have many friends who are like me. My beliefs are strange. I do have Julian. He is the closest I have to a friend. But we do not believe all of the same things. But we are close. And next I would count Karen. She is like me, but again we do not believe all the same things. I do not tell either of them that I go to Novus Ordo Churches to pray with Jesus. Julian would say Jesus is not there and Karen would say that if you go there the devils get you. I do not think the devils are getting me. I am with Jesus. But I feel alone with God.

Do you really hate television like I hate television? I can't stand it. I stopped watching regularly twenty years ago and now in my peace I cannot stand it. Everything on it is in my mind either stupid or wicked. I really do think it is the devil's tabernacle. A funny thing one of the mystics said was that in the end times everyone will have a little box in their houses that they sit in front of and that the devil talks to them through the little boxes. That is television. My parents watch television and when they do I get upset. I want to kick the television until it breaks like in that German movie. You know the one. But I do not because it is not my house. Sometimes I yell. Especially when they watch the news. My parents watch the liberal news shows while I am conservative, in a different way, not the common Libertarian way or the Neo-con way. I just see everyone as satan's minions, including my parents. Satan's minions who are addicted to the devil's tabernacle. I am crazy, yes I know. But I do not understand why so many people are so stupid or wicked that they watch television. I guess there are some good shows. When I was younger I liked certain foreign movies, the kind that were usually not on television. But overall it was mostly trash to me.

Are there some sins that are so great that they are beyond the power of absolution? I think of this. The common opinion is that with repentance and confession any sin can be forgiven. But there are also opinions of some saints that for certain people, they have gone too far and cannot be forgiven. Perhaps, since repentance is itself a grace from God, for certain people God will not grant them repentance. So it would mean that if you are sorry for your sins and ask God's forgiveness, it is a sign that you are not among the already damned. But what about Voltaire? I am not afraid anymore. I feel peace and comfort.

About Eucharistic Adoration. I spoke of my new habit (it was new in August) of visiting Novus Ordo Churches for Eucharistic Adoration on Cathinfo and someone responded that they used to do that and they thought that they had reached a high level of prayer, the unitive way with Jesus and that it was very different from the illuninative way but now he no longer goes and he has fallen lower in the spiritual life. And I asked him why he does not go back and continue to pray there. He never responded. But I am happy going there. I would that I could go there and look at Jesus's heart every day. I am an honest man. I am not trying to deceive anyone. I do not speak of everything, but I do not lie to people. One thing that troubles me is the idea that people receive Communion sacrilegiously. I know that there are a lot of people who go to Church who do not believe or do not go to confession, but they still receive Jesus in the Eucharist. This only heaps coals of torment upon the soul and tortures Jesus, yet they still go. If I were the devil I would not want to make the Masses invalid. I would want them to be valid, but have nobody truly believe or be repentant but always receive Communion so all of the souls commit greater sins and are punished more harshly in hell. So that speaks to my belief that Jesus is really there. He is there and the heartless bastards, along with those who do not know any better, are torturing him. Not only does he go through the torture of Calvary at every Mass, but in every individual sacrilegious Communion he is tortured individually and the suffering he endures in each blackened soul is greater than the sufferings of all the damned in hell. Who knows, perhaps I am among those who torture Jesus. Honestly, I do not think I am, and I hope and pray that I am not.

What does Holy Communion give you, if you receive it in a state of mortal sin? All it does is make you suffer more in hell and it makes your heart more like a stone and less like flesh. Do you so want to torment Jesus that you will do so even at the cost of more torment for yourself? And if you do not believe, what is the point of going up there to eat a little bit of bread as an unbeliever? And in the hand? People speak of those like Joe Biden, but most of those who receive are no better than him and in their dirty grubby hands. I have the idea that when I die they should have a requiem Mass and the priest will not give out Communion to avoid the abominable sacrilege. I think I try to be an honest man. I have secrets, yes, but I try not to lie to myself or to you or to Jesus. I feel alone. Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor, Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor. I am feeling like a Jansenist today I guess.

I do feel alone. I was speaking to Karen and saying how we have a big city and only about thirty people come to our little chapel for Mass and if you count all of the traditional Masses, there are still not a lot of people. There are not a lot of us. But there are good people I think who go to the New Mass also, though I imagine the percentage of the good is lower there.

I know when I go to the local Novus Ordo Church, the one near my house is open all day, but few people go there to pray or to visit Jesus, other than me. There is a man and a woman who come together and pray some prayers together for a few minutes, and the men who work there, and sometimes one of the priests walks by, but there are as many homeless men who are there to stay warm in the winter than there are people to pray, except during Eucharistic Adoration. There was one homeless man who prayed and he knelt down before Jesus in the tabernacle in the most profound way.

So are there some sins too great to be forgiven? What if one worshiped Satan as a witch and sold one's soul to the devil, could one then be forgiven? Karen said she knew people who made deals with the devil and they are beyond prayer so she does not pray for them. I hope they can be forgiven, though I imagine they would need exorcisms. I know a little about devils as a hyper-religious schizo who believes his condition is caused as much by the influence of demons as by bad luck that runs in the family. I really wish I remembered the visit of the chaplain when he said an exorcism over me and gave me a New Testament with the Psalms in Spanish. I was supposed to contact him after I got out and his contact info may have been in the Bible, but they stole the Bible from me and I lost it so I did not talk to him again. I was supposed to pray two psalms. I wonder if he thinks about me ever. 

But sometimes I think nearly everyone is a devil. Including you, dear reader. Are you a devil? But no, it is better to think everyone is a mere sinner, as I am. I often think that you can tell whether or not a man was good just by looking at him. A sinner's face becomes distorted over time, and a good man's face becomes holy-looking. A trained eye can tell just by looking at him. I believe Prof. Plinio claimed to be able to do this, to be able to tell the state of a man's soul by looking into his eyes. I do not know how to judge this, but it is something to think about.

But in this. I imagine there are a lot of people who can do this. Especially wicked people. They gain powers from the demons. They can tell the future to a degree. But I do not know their secrets from experience. I just have my crazy ideas. A girl did once try to predict my future using tarot cards. She said I would meet a new woman in my life but she did not give me details.

So yes, I do believe in fortune tellers and sibyls. They do have power. And the apothecary can give you a potion to cause a boy to fall in love with you. But there is a price. What is the price? But how do I hate television! So much. So much. I am glad I am not forced to watch it, but it grieves me that my family does watch it. Every time they turn on that television they are selling their soul to the devil one more time for a little comfort. Like a cigarette with smoke from the fires of hell. Ten thousand times already? What would one more matter? One more time my love. Things fall apart. 

But thank you for reading my blog. This was a long and strange one. I hope it makes your day a little better. A little better without television.

Three Rosaries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Making Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Want To Go Back To Therapy

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

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

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

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

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