Advent Reflections on Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence

Good morning, and prayers for a blessed Advent. I am reading Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, a very beautiful and thought-provoking little tract available at Tan Books. I may from time to time post some reflections here during Advent.

But, let’s just start today with this obvious mirror to our ourselves:

Later when the Jews by their iniquities had grievously offended Him and provoked His wrath, He says: The Assyrian is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in his hands, I will send him to the deceitful nation, and I will give him charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

… Let us conclude then with Saint Augustine: All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to Divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it to us without cause.

Happy Thanksgiving

One of our smaller celebrations as two children are away and other family have other plans. Heck, we had a bigger feast during the plandemic.

But, as always, and despite King Lincoln’s role in the creation of the occasion generally, we are very thankful to Our Lord for all His blessings to us. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

“Congratulate me, all ye that love the Lord, because when I was a little one I pleased the Most High.” Such is the invitation thou addressest to us, O Mary, in the Office chanted in thy honor; and on what feast couldst thou do so more appropriately?

When, even more little in thy humility than by thy tender age, thou didst mount, in thy sweet purity, the steps of the temple, all heaven must have owned that it was henceforth just for the Most High to take his delight in our earth. Having hitherto lived in retirement with thy blessed parents, this was thy first public act; it showed thee for a moment to the eyes of men, only to withdraw thee immediately into deeper obscurity. But, as thou wast officially offered and presented to the Lord, he himself doubtless surrounded by the princes of his court, presented thee not less solemnly to those noble spirits as their Queen. In the fullness of the new light that then burst upon them, they understood at once thy incomparable greatness, the majesty of the temple where Jehovah was receiving an homage superior to that of their nine choirs, and the august prerogative of the Old Testament to have thee for its daughter, and to perfect, by its teachings and guidance during those twelve years, the formation of the Mother of God.

Holy Church, however, declares that we can imitate thee, (Ambrose, de Virginibus, 2) O Mary, in this mystery of thy Presentation, as in all others. Deign to bless especially those privileged souls who, by the grace of their vocation, are even here below dwellers in the house of the Lord: may they be like that fruitful olive enriched by the Holy Spirit, to which St. John Damascene compares thee. (Damascene. de Fide oxthodoxa, 4) But is not every Christian, by reason of his Baptism, an indweller and a member of the Church, God’s true sanctuary, prefigured by that of Moriah? May we, through thy intercession, follow thee so closely in thy Presentation, even here in the land of shadows, that we may deserve to be presented after thee to the Most High in the temple of his glory.

–from The Liturgical Year by Dom Gueranger

Well, Don’t Worry. Noooooooothing Can Possibly be Done about It

This is fine.

/SARCASM OFF/

We are so comfortable watching it all burn. God have mercy on us.

Good to Keep in Mind Going Forward

12:5 And you have forgotten the consolation which speaketh to you, as unto children, saying: My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord: neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by him.

12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth: and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

12:7 Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons. For what son is there whom the father doth not correct?

Hebrews 12: 5-7

Also Very True

Don’t become demoralized. We win in the end. If we are on Christ’s side, that is. Book it.

Bonus Update

Still over.

Twelve Judases

Horse long ago out of the barn, but for the sake of accountability and the historical record, here are the 12 GOP senators that have rolled over and voted to enshrine into law the pretend equivalency of violations of the Natural Law with Holy Matrimony:

Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mitt Romney of Utah, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Todd Young of Indiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

So glad “we” protected that filibuster.

Introit, Sunday XXIII after Pentecost

Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exáudiam vos: et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis.

Ps 84:2

Benedixísti, Dómine, terram tuam: avertísti captivitátem Iacob.

V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto.
R. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculórum. Amen

Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exáudiam vos: et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis.

Update: It’s Still Over