Dead Bird

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pater Noster. Sed Libera Nos A Malo.

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

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

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

Poor Baby Bird

Just a short image.

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

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

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

Lust

For some reason I am not often drawn to lust any more. I don't know if this is normal. I am now thirty eight years old. I became religious when I was twenty six. Then I started fighting temptations to lust instead of entertaining them. Now it is no longer an issue. I am not sure why. I could say, my mental condition and the medicine I take could contribute to it. The lack of practice. Addictions are easier to avoid as time goes on. When one breaks a habit. But I wonder because I see people who are always fighting such temptations and even see things such as a story of a young priest asking an old priest when the temptations to desire young women will end and the old priest tells the young one "I will tell you when they end if that ever happens." I still love women, but for some reason I do not lust after them or think of them in a lustful way.

I say this because while I was waiting for the pizza man to give me my pizza I saw a young black woman wearing a face mask who had a nice looking body and I was drawn a little bit towards the beginning of a temptation towards lust. She was wearing a dress and had slippers on her feet and was gabbing on the telephone. It was surprising because it does not often happen to me anymore so I noted it. Then I got my pizza and went home. Our family had pizza for dinner tonight as we do every Friday.

But there is a person who seems to have problems with lust. He can not get his head around the idea of Christian purity considering how man is naturally inclined to lust. As if God could not demand purity if he creates us with base instincts that make purity difficult. And the idea that procreation is necessary for the perpetuation of the human race contradicts this for him. He once admitted to being addicted to lust and masturbation, even joining some sort of masturbators anonymous, or perhaps it was sex addicts anonymous, based on AA, where he went to meetings and they talk about their addictions to sins of lust in hopes of overcoming them. This program is not religious but is secular. I guess it is like "no-fap". The person is not a Catholic, though he has tried various forms of Christianity including Catholicism in the past. I could advise him if he were interested. I wonder if in his time in Catholicism, if he ever had the true faith (the Christian beliefs he expressed in the time I knew him were not orthodox Catholic ones) and if he did if he was ever able to stay in the state of grace for a prolonged period of time, or if he was one of those Catholics who goes from week to week, always confessing and always falling back into the same sins soon after, in this case lust. I imagine he was one of these. He does not seem like the type to live in sin and not receive the sacraments at all, or worse, to live in sin but still take Communion. But it is interesting seeing him try to think about religion and God in his state. I wonder if his mind is clouded by his sins which keep him far from God or if God is near him in spite of his sins. We are not friends and have never interacted much, though I did rebuke him once for his beliefs, but I see him talking sometimes and sometimes think of him. He seems like he is politically correct, as far as Christians go, and not a right-wing "nutter." Peace be upon him. In talking about him I do not want to seem like I am looking down on him or am better than him, only that I do not habitually fall into the same sins that he fall into, by the grace of God. Who knows, hopefully he does not anymore either, and has overcome such urges, though I believe he is not now Catholic so he presumably does not have the grace of God, not being invincibly ignorant, if such exemptions do exist.

I don't know. I have a friend from Church who I will not name who told me he struggles with looking at pornography and masturbating, so I told him about the Three Hail Marys devotion for purity. He started praying it, but I have not seen him during this lock-down so I do not know how his struggle is going. I imagine if he is of good will it is going well as the devotion helped me very much and I imagine the Blessed Mother is giving her Christians extra graces to avoid sin now that confession is not easily available because of the lock-down. I am glad this vice is easy for me to avoid as it seems to cause so much trouble in the world and it is good because as an imbecile I do not and will never be able to have a lawful outlet for feelings of lust in a wife (though it is also a sin to lust after one's own wife, but they say it can help assuage concupiscence). I know that the world pushes all sorts of lust at us all the time and wants us to indulge in them so that we will be surely be damned. But I wonder how frequent it is for Catholics to fall into such sins. Am I uncommon in not often falling in to them? Or am I normal? I see that I could more easily fall into sins of drunkenness than into lust, but how goes everyone else? I have no idea. I imagine most of my friends from Church and the Christians I know on the computer are relatively pure and pious. But there are rumors and stories of impurity being everywhere, outside of my bedroom, even in the Church where I imagine things and persons are relatively pure of heart.

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.

Everything Is An Illusion

Just thinking that everything is an illusion. A phantasm of the demons. The houses, cars, buildings, schools, all an illusion. Even the people, some of them are dead, some of them are demons, and some of them are real people. I think the animals are real, and the flowers and the birds. They are so beautiful. And one day we awake and find that there is nothing but God and the angels and the souls of men created by him, beautiful beyond compare, but the world is dust and ashes peopled by demons and by ghosts. Like the man in the hospital who would not eat because he thought all the food was insects and he did not want to eat insects. Nothing but ensure.