Mr. Friday Night

Mass of the Ages is a 3 part movie series which shows the beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). Parts I and II are available now and part III will be released soon. It was recommended to me a few months ago by a friend who goes to the TLM.

Part I
Part I is about the beauty of the TLM. Watch on youtube here.
Some of the movie’s chapters:
Discover the Latin Mass
What makes the Latin Mass unique?
When priests learn the Latin Mass
How the Latin Mass teaches reverence and humility
“Tradition is another word for solid foundation”
The best setting for the mystery of the Eucharist
Why the Latin Mass?

Part II
Part II discusses how the new Mass came about and contrasts the new Mass with the TLM. Watch part II here.

If you’ve never seen the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated you are in for a treat.

5 stars, highly recommended.

Here is a short talk by Fr. Ripperger on the Promises of the Rosary. I took notes, and almost all of the words are his, but I did leave out some parts of his talk.

I want to highlight something he says in other talks and this one. He always says to pray the Rosary daily, and that the Rosary must be said faithfully. He repeats this whenever he talks about the Rosary. I suppose that is obvious, but just praying the Rosary every day is not enough, it must be said devoutly, with faith.

All words below are Fr. Ripperger’s:

There are 15 promises in relationship to the Rosary, when you’re talking about one of the greatest mysteries, that is, the power which God has set up for the Rosary to have. Here are a few:

• Whoever shall faithfully serve me by recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces. Signal graces are little signs here and there and God manifests them and then in your intellect He gives you a grace to see that there is some sign from our Lord or from Our Lady that this particular thing is happening. This is important, particularly for those who are trying to discern God’s will for them that if they are praying the Rosary consistently Our Lady will send these signal graces to them so they can see what God’s will is.
  
• Another one is that our Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, and it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies. It is a powerful weapon. There have been cases where battles have been won on the battlefield by it. (editor’s note: he then talks about the Battle of Lepanto and how the Rosary was used by the Christian soldiers. It is worth the listen.)
  
• It will cause virtue and good works to flourish. When we wonder why things are so bad in the Church well part of the reason is because so few people are praying the Rosary, and so good isn’t flourishing in the church.
  
• It will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God, and it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and it’s vanities and it will lift them to the desire of eternal things. This is quite important because by the means of the meditation a person reflects on God, the mind and the heart is turned towards God through this instrument, the Rosary. And so as a result their mind is turned away from the world and to eternal things. If they do it consistently then it becomes a habit and a habit tends to affect their whole way of thinking.
  
• The soul which recommends itself to me – that is Our Lady by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish or die an unprovided for death. They’ll never suffer a death in which there were not sufficient graces in order to save them, or, without the sacraments…it means that we will never be unprovided for at the time of our death so that we can make sure that we get into Heaven.
  
• It is a sign of predestination…praying the Rosary would bring great hope because it would be a sign of destination. The person can gain hope by saying the Rosary. They will think, “If I keep saying this then this will be a sign that God is going to save me, Our Lady is going to save me.”
  
• A person who says it regularly can become worthy of eternal life.
  
• You shall obtain all that you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
  
• All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities and so it’s always good to help other people to come to knowledge of the Rosary to pray it so that God will provide, that Our Lady will provide in our necessities.
  
  

Some of the blessings of the Rosary include:

• That sinners are forgiven.
  
• It purifies our souls and washes away our sins.
  
• Souls that thirst will be refreshed. As a person becomes holier there becomes a stronger craving for God and for the next life. And those that say the Rosary will have that craving somewhat sated in this life.
  
• Those who are fettered will have their bonds broken. Those who feel like they’re under some oppression – there’s something that is just burdening them, this will be lightened.
  
• Those who weep shall find happiness and those who are tempted shall find peace, the poor will find help, the religious are reformed.
  
• Those who are innerrant will be instructed and the living shall learn to overcome their pride.
  
• The dead, the holy souls in Purgatory have their pains eased by suffrage, that is by the Rosary.
  
• It gradually gives us perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ and it gives us victory over all our enemies. If someone is difficult to work with, praying the Rosary for them will help us to overcome their imperfections so that we can lead peaceful lives with them.
  
• It makes it easier for us to practice virtue. If people say the Rosary consistently they will find that the virtues, of acting virtuously, will just kind of come on its own.
  
• It sets us on fire with the love of God and enriches us with graces and merits. It supplies us with what is needed to pay all our debts to God and to our fellow men.
  
• It obtains all kinds of graces for us from Almighty God.
  
  

Since Our Lady is the Mediatrix of all graces and this is her principle sacramental and relationship to her, those who say it devoutly and say it with the love of Our Lady, she’ll shower them with graces because they use this in a loving way, which she wants us to, so she can lead us to Heaven.

Some fail to pray the Rosary every day but we must realize it is one of the principle means of growing in holiness and in saving our souls. While the sacraments are the ordinary means by which we save our souls and grow in grace, nevertheless the Rosary is a very powerful means by which we can save our soul.

To save our souls. Say the Rosary daily, say it devoutly and Our Lady will welcome you into Heaven.

It’s a Great Time to Buy a Home

Contrasting Bubbles
Inflation was low during the 2007 housing bubble. It was a simple, old-fashioned bubble where the fed gave the monopoly game players lots more money for little more cost. Thus the price of baltic ave and boardwalk soared. When the bubble deflated, home prices went down.

The current bubble is different. The fed is still injecting monopoly money into the hands of buyers at a low cost, that part is the same. But this time we have rampant inflation. As I showed in a recent article, the cost to build a home has increased 55% in 4 years. So the idea that house prices will crash could be true, but the downside crash in prices is limited because the cost to build has increased.

If it costs $175 a sq. ft. to build a house, how much further below that floor can the price of housing go?

Costs Going Up In All Directions
The consumer is growing poorer in 3 directions:
1 – the cost to build has risen 55% in 4 years.
2 – the cost of money to buy a house – mortgage rates – has increased.
3 – the economy itself is tanking, job loses are mounting, and inflation is eating away the value of the dollar.

Is it a Good Time to Buy a Home?
I think that this could be a good time to buy a home – if you can find a deal close to or below build cost. I don’t think any one of the 3 factors listed above is going to abate anytime soon. Housing prices will continue to increase:

#1 – Inflation is still soaring. The cost to build a home might continue to rise rapidly from here. If that happens, this will be looked back upon as the ‘good old days’ for buying a home…a time when a person could still afford a home. Inflation is still seen as a temporary condition – the average seller hasn’t realized that inflation is going to increase from here. They have bought into the ‘housing price crash’ to some degree. This will

#2 – The cost of financing a home is increasing. Mortgage rates are well over 6% now. They could, and should go to 10% or more to slow inflation. Whether the fed has the fortitude to do this we don’t know. We do know that if they lower rates the price of housing will soar, which puts the current home buyer in a good position. If the fed continues to raise rates the cost of financing will get more expensive. Rates are still low enough to be considered ‘cheap money’.

#3 – If he loses his job this is not good for his prospects for keeping his home, but if he loses his job he won’t be able to buy either. Inflation will ‘help’ him pay off the home faster.

Americans Growing Poorer
This ultimately is another fascinating example of americans growing poorer, which has been the sole objective of the federal reserve since its inception. To transfer money from the people of the country into the pockets of insiders and those who own the federal reserve. This transfer has been ongoing and continues unabated to this day.

At some point, americans will only be able to afford a tin shack, like many people in poor countries. The people of haiti would much prefer to live in a 3 bed 2 bath brick home on a lake. Unfortunately, they cannot afford it. Such will be the case for americans, hard as it might be to believe at this time. If the cost of a home goes up, the cost of financing a home goes up, and you have no job to even try to buy a home, you are poor and will live in a tin shack if you can cobble one together. This is where america is headed, the end destination of this long and winding road of fiat banking.

One looks around and sees strip malls and platted subdivisions – the wealth of america. The idea that this is not how it will always be is anathema to virtually every american. But the country has been hollowed out by the money masters – by those tasked with ‘protecting’ your wealth and money. They have, for their entire existence, been stealing from your grandparents, parents, you, and your children. This has been their stated objective. We shouldn’t be surprised when we “wake up homeless on the continent our fathers conquered.”

I hear many talk disparagingly about the New Mass. I don’t know if either Mass is ‘better’ than the other but I thought this gentleman Decrevi had an interesting perspective regarding thinking about both Masses. Maybe this is a good way to heal any rift between both groups.

First Part of the Video – Explaining the First Indult to Allow the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
The first part of the video is about the Marnau Petition – a petition written in 1971 which asked Pope Paul VI for special permission to allow the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated in England and Wales. The petition was signed by many people, including Agatha Christie.

Decrevi says:

“According to legend…when Paul VI saw her name – she wasn’t a Catholic – he allowed this permission for the Latin Mass to be continued to be said in England and Wales. This was the first approval. Obviously, there have been many more but there has been a fight in the Church over the last 50 years over this Mass.”

The indult was granted by Pope Paul VI.

He then reads the original petition, as well as the letter from Archbishop Bugnini to Pope Paul VI.

Second Part of the Video – Brief history of the TLM
But what I want to look at is what Decrevi says in the second part of the video:

The battle for the Traditional Latin Mass has been going on for 50 years.

This was the first indult granted that allowed the Traditional Latin Mass.

We had a second indult in the early 80’s which allowed bishops to give special permission for the Mass to be said.

After Bishops Lefeve’s ordination in 1988 we had the Ecclesia Dei permission, which gave far more liberty to the Mass.

With Pope Benedict we saw Summorum Pontificum which allowed any priest in the world to celebrate Traditional Latin Mass. They didn’t need to ask permission.

Pope Francis, in 2021, abrogated Summorum Pontificum, limiting when the TLM could be celebrated.

So the struggle for the TLM has been ongoing for 50 years.

3rd Part of the Video – Healing
Then he addresses those who love the TLM, and offers advice on how to look favorably on Vatican II and the New Mass. He says,

Don’t be worried about what’s going on. If it wasn’t for the Novus Ordo and the reform of the Mass, we wouldn’t have the reform of the Traditional Latin Rite…I don’t know if devotional Catholicism…would have survived the modern era.

Catholics before Vatican II were devoted but they couldn’t defend their faith. They didn’t know how to teach the faith. In Ireland, pre-Vatican II it was up to the clergy to teach the faith.

People today are coming to church with their Missals, they are highly involved in the Mass, in short they are stronger Catholics than many of those pre-Vatican II. The people are more devoted, understand the Mass better, participate more, and because of this and in many ways the Church is growing stronger.

What we have today is radically different TLM that what we had 50 years ago…if you go to any TLM in 2022, everybody that takes up the challenge of going to TLM knows what is being said at every moment in that Mass.

This didn’t exist 50 or 60 years ago to the same extent.

So let’s not be too hard on the Second Vatican Council and the Council Fathers and those in the 1960’s.

We should be grateful that the TLM survived, but look at this in how the Church is being purified over the last 50 years because today the TLM is a different movement than what we had before. It is a movement that is intentionally looking to preserve something that is sacred and to say it with reverence, love and respect.

It is simply not right to say that before Vatican II and before the reforms everything was rosy, it simply wasn’t. Reform was needed. And whether we like it or not the Vatican II and the reforms after Vatican II, those reforms also reformed the TLM movement…and now you have this new movement that is growing exponentially, republishing the Missals, the laity going to Mass with their Missals…following the order of the Mass with their Missals. I think the Church should be embracing what the Holy Spirit is doing. If it was up to me I’d put the Vetus Ordo and the Novus Ordo Missae, put them into the same Missale Romano and say, look, whatever the faithful are nourished by, you can use…Let the faithful, the priests and bishops offer a Mass that is working in their communities. And let’s not divide ourselves.

Father Ripperger says, “What the bishops and pope need is your prayers not your gossiping. If you’re going to use your tongue, wag it at God and not at the other people.” I think Decrevi, in this video, goes a long way towards healing, and puts forth a good way to look at the TLM and New Mass.

This was emailed to me from a good friend. He said, “This is the best explanation I have seen regarding the Catholic view of faith vs. works.”
I copied and pasted directly from here.

“So, again, good works do not save us, but by doing the good works which God has prepared for us beforehand, we can, by the grace of God, stay united to Christ and die in a state of grace and thus spend eternity in Heaven with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Question
In terms of topics to cover in future newsletters, I would suggest the faith/works debate with one important distinction. I may be completely wrong on this point on Church teaching (as I was raised in the Baptist church) but when I began to read about this topic from the Catholic side, the point I missed for quite a while is that when Protestants hear Catholics talking about works, they automatically assume the works are solely those of the person actually doing them who can then take credit for doing them. However, if I’m correct, although the person is doing them, they are doing them as to be obedient to God and His will and the works He wants us to perform. When the works are presented as being done by the person, the protestant lenses I used to read through quickly dismissed that as a works based system but when I realised the full picture, the long standing objection to the Catholic position fell away. 

The above then changed my previous understanding of salvation: if salvation is now by grace through faith in order to perform good (His) works, this would have to be an ongoing process covering our entire lives whereas my Baptist family members would all agree they were saved at a point in time and there is no ongoing process.

I may be talking absolute nonsense so I apologise for that but thank you for the newsletters. I always read them because I learn from them and I have a lot to learn about Catholicism.
Kind regards,
Andrew.  
Scotland, UK

Answer
     Andrew, thanks for the question.  My initial thought is that you are almost there in your understanding of this topic, and you might actually be all the way there, but I want to make sure of one very important point regarding works and the role they play in the salvation process.  And that is this: That works have nothing at all to do with us gaining salvation, but they could have everything to do with us losing salvation.  I’ll explain and clarify in the paragraphs below. 

     As Ephesians 2:8-9, which you were alluding to in your question, states, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not because of works, lest any man should boast.”  This is one of the 1st verses that Protestants will turn to in order to “prove” to a Catholic that works play no role in our being saved.  What the Protestant doesn’t understand, nor do some Catholics, is that it is a dogma of the Catholic Church that we are not saved by our works.  As the Council of Trent states: “…we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because ‘faith is the beginning of human salvation,’ the foundation and root of all justification, ‘without which it is impossible to please God’ [Heb 11:6] and to come to the fellowship of His sons; and are, therefore, said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace itself of justification; for, ‘if it is a grace, it is not now by reason of works…’” (Council of Trent, Decree on Justification; Denzinger, p. 252).  Which means to accuse Catholics of a “works-based” salvation is absolutely ludicrous.

     Again, as the Council of Trent says, nothing which precedes justification – whether faith or works – merits the grace of justification.  We are not saved by our faith or by our works, we are saved by God’s grace and God’s grace alone.  Salvation is a gratuitous gift of God to any given individual.  God doesn’t owe anyone salvation no matter how much faith they have or how many works they do.  It is a free gift that we receive throughfaith, but not becauseof our faith.  The question is, though, when does God give us this free gift of salvation?  When we say a sinner’s prayer?  When we “accept Jesus into our heart as our personal Lord and Savior”?  No and no!  We receive God’s free gift of salvation when we are baptized. “Baptism, which corresponds to this [being saved through water], now saves you,” (1 Peter 3:21). “[God our Savior] saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit [Baptism], which He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by His grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life,” (Titus 3:5-7).

     And nowhere is it demonstrated more clearly in Catholic theology that we believe salvation is a free gift of God that we cannot earn by our faith or our works, than it is in infant Baptism.  The infant has no faith.  The infant can do no works.  Yet, we believe, as Catholics, that the child is saved…washed clean…receives the Holy Spirit…brought into covenant with God…given the free gift of God’s salvation…through Baptism. 

    Okay, if we are saved by God’s grace, through faith, not because of works (lest any man should boast), at the moment of our Baptism, then exactly how is it works have anything to do with our salvation?  Works, as I stated above, do not save us, but if we do not do the works God calls us to do (Eph 2:10), then we could lose the salvation God has freely given us.  Or, if we do works we are not supposed to be doing (sins), that could also result in the loss of our salvation.  The former being sins of omission, the latter being sins of commission.

     Does Scripture back me up on this?  Absolutely.  First, Ephesians 2:10 says that we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we shouldwalk in them.”  “Should” walk in them!  Well, what happens if we refuse to walk in these good works that God has prepared for us beforehand?  Are we still saved?  Protestants have to say, “Yes,” because according to the dogma of Sola Fide, works have nothing to do with our salvation.  However, when the Word of God says that God has prepared these works for us to walk in, we need to recognize that means it is the will of God for us to do those works.  What if we decide we don’t want to do the will of God in regard to those works?  The Word of God tells us what happens if we don’t do the will of God – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven,” (Matt 7:21).  You don’t do the will of God for your life, you don’t enter the kingdom of heaven. If you don’t do the works God has prepared for you to do, you don’t do the will of God, you don’t enter the kingdom of heaven.  So, again, our works don’t save us, but they could keep us from losing our salvation. 

     We see this also in Matthew 25 with the parable of the sheep and the goats.  The sheep fed Jesus in the hungry, gave Him drink in the thirsty, clothed Him in the naked, and visited Him in the sick and the imprisoned.  The goats did not do those things.  The sheep will go away into “eternal life” and the goats will go away into “eternal punishment”…the “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” (v. 31-46).  Sins of omission can cause you to lose your salvation and land you in Hell. 

     On the other hand, sins of commission can do the same, as evidenced by what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.  By looking lustfully at a woman, you commit the sin of adultery.  It is very clear from Matt 5:27-29, that this sin will cause you to lose your salvation and land you in Hell.  In Romans 2:6-10, it is also exceedingly clear that by doing good you will be given eternal life (verses 7 and 10) but by doing evil you will receive eternal damnation (verses 8 and 9).  But, again, your good works do not gain you salvation, they work to help you keep the salvation you have already been given.  The evil works (sins), work to cause you to lose the salvation that has been given to you.

     One more time to Matthew 25 and the Parable of the Talents (verses 14-30) to make this crystal clear.  In the Parable of the Talents, the 3 servants do nothing to earn what their Master gives them.  2 of the servants go out and earn interest on what they have freely been given.  The 3rd servant buries what he has been given by his Master.  When the Master returns, the 2 servants who did something with what they had been given, were told, “Well done, good and faithful servant…enter into the joy of your Master.”  The servant who gave back to the Master exactly what the Master had given him, with no added interest on it whatsoever, was excoriated by his Master and had what he had been given taken away from him and he was then thrown into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.”  Servants #1 and #2 represent Catholic theology.  They were given something freely by their Master…something they had not earned.  They bore good fruit with what they had been given (see also John 15:1-6).  By doing so, they got to keep what they had been given and were praised by their Master.  Servant #3 represents Sola Fide theology.  He was given something freely by his Master…something he had not earned.  Then, he did absolutely nothing with it.  Didn’t think he had to do anything with it.  He bore no fruit.  Earned no interest.  The result?  He was ripped into by his Master and had what was freely given to him taken away.  

     To sum all of this up, and to address the main point you were making in your question: Yes, the works we do – the good works we do – are done by Christ working His will in us and through us (Phil 2:13; 1 Cor 15:10).  But, the saving grace of God is not working in us and through us to do good works, to bear good fruit, until after we have already been saved through Baptism…until after we have already been united to the Body of Christ through Baptism…until after we have already received the Holy Spirit through Baptism.  So, again, good works do not save us, but by doing the good works which God has prepared for us beforehand, we can, by the grace of God, stay united to Christ and die in a state of grace and thus spend eternity in Heaven with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

     Hope that all makes sense and answers your question…

“Canon 1: If anyone shall say that man can be justified before God by his own works which are done either by his own natural powers, or through the teaching of the Law, and without divine grace through Christ Jesus: let him be anathema.” (Council of Trent; Denzinger, p.258)

Closing Comments
I hope you have a great week, and please know that I keep all of you in my prayers! 

If you could spare a minute during the week, please pray for the Bible Christian Society and, if I might be so bold as to ask: Please pray for a special intention that I have that, if it comes about, could be a big help in growing the work of evangelization that we do.

Notes from a must watch speech by Fr. Ripperger – How to Raise a Man. This talk is filled with beauty and actionable advice on how to raise a real man, not an effeminate man. Video below.

What is it to be a man?
You have to do what’s hard, not pleasurable, to become a masculine man. Boys grow up into men by doing things that require suffering and responsibility.

For a man to find his ultimate fulfillment as a man, not in the sense of a human being and seeing God face to face, but as a man, he has to master himself to the point where when he does things that are hard and he takes responsibility and does the right kind of a job. There is the delight that comes from virtue, not pleasure. St. Thomas said, we get a form of delight from performing acts of virtue.

You have to embrace what is painful to achieve what is good.

How do you get there?
Self sacrifice, especially with regards to a man’s wife and children. Your job is to sacrifice yourself for her.
Must master chastity, whether in or outside of marriage.
A true man never counts the cost in terms of pain but in terms of means to the end. I need to achieve the good for my family, my wife etc.

The Virtues
Temperance. He must be able to put aside the pleasures of food and drink and women. If not he is selfish and only thinking of himself. A real man doesn’t sleep with lots of women. A man who does is effeminate – he doesn’t put aside his pleasure to help the women protect themselves from him.

A woman, because of the nature of childbearing, has to have the husband support her so she can take proper care of the children. That means that she has to look for a guy that’s going to take care of her not for her sake but for the sake of the children.

Fortitude – a true man finds doing difficult things fulfilling. He likes doing them. He likes the feeling of being physically exhausted from a hard days work. Because it is what he was designed to do.

Men excelling in chastity is less for them and more for the women. He has to look at chastity from the point of view of guarding the integrity and the spiritual and psychological and physical well being of women. That’s how he has to view it.

Religion. Praying is hard. Religion is hard. That’s why it is masculine.

Prudence – the application of moral principles in the concrete.

Universal principle – thou shalt not steal. This is a case of stealing, prudence says OK don’t take it. Men should excel at this.

Meekness – the guy who is angry is the most effeminate. Anger is a complex passion where there is a perception of injury with a desire for vindication. Vindication is when you harm another person or thing so that it stops harming you. And when you do that you get a pleasure out of it. There’s your effeminacy part. There is another feminacy part – the perception of injury. A real man can take blows, he can take the blows and still keep standing. The guy who, regardless of what happens in the family or his wife or in work or driving down the road. If he can’t take the needling, and he just goes to seek the vindication that is a sign of effeminacy whereas a real man can just stand there and take the needling. It’s painful? Yea, but I can deal with that I’m just concerned about what’s best for my wife’s spiritual well being or this particular child I’m not interested on whether I get to mete out this and get this satisfaction from it.

Humility – a truly masculine virtue. A willingness to lead a life in accordance with the truth, and not judging yourself greater than you are. “Pride is effeminate because in pride we get a pleasure out of thinking about our own excellence.” St. Thomas.

It is effeminate because a person takes pride in his own greatness. The truly humble man embraces his defects, embraces what his problems are and looks at it and says, “This is what I am.” That’s painful, difficult and hard and requires interior self discipline and self control. In fact, it is the hardest virtue I think, especially for men.

A man should have all of the virtues. The guy who not just physically but morally and spiritually can remain steadfast, has that interior self discipline, self control and remains steadfast in what is right regardless of the pain or pleasure involved.

So what is the means?
So if you are going to raise a man the first thing you have to do is you have to be willing to let your boys suffer a bit. And here I am not talking about disordered suffering, I’m talking about ordered suffering. Today, boys have no responsibility either. There are no consequences for when they do something wrong. They have no suffering. Boys today are constantly feeding that pleasure, their appetites and their fathers as well.

So what is the difference between suffering and pain? Animals have pain but they do not suffer. Human beings have both suffering and pain. Pain is when you feel something bad that is affecting you whether it is physical or emotional etc. Suffering is when it goes on for a while.

This means that boys must work at things which are physically, emotionally, mentally and volitionally difficult. They must be required to encounter things that are physically difficult to do, emotionally – where they have to put their emotions aside, mentally and volitionally. They must be put in situations where they are consistently engaged in what is hard to do to build self denial at every level. It has to be a consistent thing that they have to come up against. Consistent, not constant. Once a boy goes through puberty he has to do hard physical work and he has to do it consistently. An hour or two every day or every other day. If it is inconsistent he will not learn to work hard but he will figure out how to avoid hard work. He must be shown the value of that hard work and what they achieve through that. Pay him, so he gets a reward for the hard work, and he understands that the hard work is for a good end. Then encourage him – so he recognizes that affirmation of this is a good thing.

Don’t give him what he wants all the time. He won’t learn what it is to be a man by doing things that are hard and difficult. He must be taught by example. If the father is absent or effeminate it will be hard to become a man. Either he will become effeminate like his father or he will go to the opposite extreme and pursue effeminacy in another form like getting the joy by beating other boys up.

He must also see his father practice the theological virtues especially prayer so that he learns that being a real man includes rendering to God His due, and not just indulging himself.

He must learn meekness when things do not go his way he must learn to moderate his anger.

He must learn humility in all matters.

Technology must be kept to a minimum – it is to be used only when it is necessary.

He must see technology as a tool not a toy. Learning to use technology properly will help him to moderate himself. He will have to learn to moderate it himself as he gets older.

Recreation must be seen as a means and not an end.

Women’s rights movement is about self hatred. You should feel good about being a woman. Women who are real effeminate take real delight in seeing a real man, they love true masculinity. Whereas women who are feminists are miserable.

The real problem with feminism is that it ultimately wants to destroy what is feminine. And that’s sad, because what is feminine is beautiful. Not just physical but psychologically and morally. They have to emasculate men so they don’t feel so bad about themselves.

Women have to let their boys be men.

Responsibility. He must see his father exercise his authority responsibly. The boy must be given a responsibility. If he doesn’t do it well then you must figure out a proportionate punishment, so that he learns this is life.

Parents owe their children one thing – to get their children to adulthood in physical and spiritual intactness.

He must be taught to take care of those things under his charge. To want to take care of them. He takes a joy in seeing those things flourish. Because when he gets married he will take joy in seeing his family flourish.

A true boy submits to his mother because it is hard and it will help him to become a true man through the virtue of piety, in which we give honor to those who are above us. He gets delight from pleasing his parents.

You have to have that interior self-discipline and self-control, that is where your freedom is going to lie because you are going to be freed from the compulsion of doing things that you know are wrong.

So how do you develop a boy into a man? You develop virtue. He has to be taught what the virtues are, and how to obtain them, and how to take delight in them. Not pleasure, delight. He thinks, “I’m doing the right thing, and I’m going to remain steadfast in that.”

The goal is to get him to the age of 18 in which he has all the moral and proper mental habits of seeing things properly. Making sure his judgment is not affected by his emotion. And that his intellect judges matter illumined by faith rather than emotion. That’s the goal. And you’re not going to attain that unless he has some degree of responsibility and suffering. It’s just part of it.

We all have people in our close circle of friends and family that we want to get into the Church. How to do this is the difficult part, as they see our own hypocrisy and weaknesses. I saw this talk on youtube and took notes, mainly so that I can use the information for my family, but included them here in case it might benefit someone else. I cannot find the name of the priest who gave the talk. Full video below.

Never forget, the conversion of a loved one is a work of God’s grace, and never our own achievement.

We are instruments of God’s grace.

How often do we desire to leap in and begin the work of conversion in the reverse order, saying whatever is on our mind to draw longing to hear our own voice, our attachment to our own words, and only afterwards consider the example we set and how much we commend these souls to God in prayer.

Prayer
Consider prayer first of all. Do you have friends or loved ones whom you desire their conversion, place these souls on the paten, as you see the priest holding it up at the beginning of the offertory at Mass. Recommend them to Him especially in the most august sacrifice. Give them to our Lord at the moment you receive him in Holy Communion. Always form the intention of bringing them with you to adoration, placing them within the pierced side of our Savior. It is our blessed lady who obtains for them the graces necessary for conversion and disposes them, even remotely, for the worthy reception of the sacraments. Let these souls of yours always be found among her beads. Always think of one of them as you pray a decade of the Rosary. And never forget the example of St. Monica and make a prayer out of your tears. Tears springing from natural affection will not obtain the grace you seek. They must well up into tears of true charity – unconditional love that seeks not mere satisfaction – having a friend or family member in the pew, but only that person’s eternal good, regardless whether you ever get a thanks or acknowledgment or whether his conversion is something you even get to see, or enjoy or take credit for.

Good example
And here we must consider the terrible stumbling block to conversion posed by hypocrisy. But I think it is important here to distinguish here hypocrisy from simply not living up to the principles we espouse. Of course we all fall short of practicing the faith we profess. This does not mean that our beliefs are false and it does not necessarily have to be a stumbling block to anyone. Of course people of bad will may call us a hypocrite nonetheless. But what we should truly be mindful of is that there is one thing that people scarcely ever forgive or forget, and that is arrogance. Even if we fail at being good Catholics this does not need to keep our loved ones away from the faith, as long as we are humble.

If you want to get serious about winning your loved ones for Christ, start acting like your master. These are the people before whom above all you must humble yourself, meekly suffering injuries from them, helping them, showing a genuine interest in their lives apart from any question from the faith.

Words
There are words to be said. But even after prayerful discernment you determine that there are things you should say in a given situation, always remember the more you say, the less well you say it. Every time you add a word, you cheapen all the words that came before it. As soon as you are talking to win an argument, rather than win a soul, your fish is already off the hook. Again, St. Paul tells us today if a man be overtaken in any fault, instruct him in a spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.

Certain things cannot pass without a word. Specifically when someone blasphemes the holy name of God, His blessed mother or any of the truths of our faith. When someone mocks your faith, you don’t need a clever comeback, you need outrage, tears over the injuries your God has suffered from His creatures or even a raised voice to put to silence the mouth of the blasphemer. St. Paul says we must be all things to all men, in order to gain them for Christ. One of those all things is being severe, or even angry, when the rights of God demand it. Very often this is the start of a conversion. Such a person may remember his good manners at least and apologize saying, “I didn’t mean to offend you.” You can reply, you didn’t offend me, you offended my God, and yours too. Sometimes this means the person will turn to mocking you instead of God. But that should not trouble you a bit. That’s what it means for being a fool for Christ’s sake. And that too can be the cause of conversion, at least for those who witness it.

Place your wayward loved ones under the compassionate care of our heavenly mother. Remember that we invoke her as our lady of sorrows, not our lady of worries. Her sorrow has always been deep, knowing how many souls reject her son’s gift of redemption. But that sorrow has always been mixed with joy, not with doubt or disquiet. The tears that flow from her Immaculate Heart intercede at every moment before the throne of God, for those whose hearts are hardened to the truth, take courage, a child of those tears shall not perish

The people are desperate for Christ, you can see it in the eyes of the passerbys in the video. The hour is getting late – do you think you are going to live forever? Do you think you will have unlimited time to convert people? It’s time to pack the pews with people. Evangelization, processions, talking to everyone you meet…

Certainly, we are close. But open, rampant theft is still covered up by those committing it. For instance, fed members and those in congress ‘trade stocks’ for profit. Certainly with insider information, for they are the insiders setting policy which affect the stock markets. They make money through these stock trades as a way to cast an air of fraudlessness to an obviously fraudulent activity. 3 fed governors have resigned for this behavior. It is a scandal-less scandal, for no one cared about the scandal.

The next step will be open, flagrant fraud and theft. You will know america has gone full banana republic when those in power don’t care to maintain any semblance of fraud-less activities. When they don’t hide the obvious theft. There was no resistance to the fed governor’s insider trading stocks, so they will feel compelled to take it to the next level of theft – they will just begin printing money and depositing it into their accounts. There is no one to stop them. How do we know it will come to this? Because it makes the criminal feel good to commit a crime and then not only get away with it but rub it in the faces of the victims…to do it openly, right in front of the very people they are ripping off…and then to get away with it. That is the crowning feature of all banana republics.

When criminality by the ruling class is not only not hidden but is broadcast in full daylight…when a light is shined upon the criminal activity as though it is a good thing, and no one cares. Then america will be a full banana republic.

Mr. Friday Night

What a great idea: make a movie where the narrator reads directly the Gospel of John while the actors act out the narration. It is hearing the Bible and watching a movie at the same time.

The acting is good enough to keep you entertained, with actors that look like they are from the area Jesus lived and traveled. They speak Aramaic, which is the language Jesus spoke, with narration in English.

This is a great movie for kids as kids love to watch tv, but it seems that every modern show has all types of weird innuendo in it. With the Gospel of St. John, they can watch the movie and be filled with the words of the Bible at the same time.

The only knock is that they use the NIV version of the Bible, which isn’t a Catholic translation. Otherwise a great way to ‘hear’ the Gospel of St. John.

Free on Amazon Prime. 2 hr, 40 minutes long.

5 stars – highly recommended.