England is Gone

You know that already, of course. It’s been gone since 1558.

What is Later than Better Late than Never?

Maybe this (from Kansas Catholic on twitter) but Cdl. Müller calling for a trial of the heretical German bishops is welcome, all the same.

Maybe the good Cardinal will call for a trial of heretical Argentinian bishop(s) next? And not just call for one, but hold one and act on one.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

Prosecuted for Telling the Truth: the Future is Now

This is not unique, but as a marker on the world’s ski jump into hell I point you to this story about a UK protestant minister’s arrest for correctly referring to a tranny as a man. It would be easy enough to point out that this is England, the country that so loves to persecute Catholics and others who adhere to any part of the truth. But we all know that every Western country is on the same team when it comes to sexual perversion and the silencing of truth. Ask (though of course you can’t) someone detained without process for attending a political rally in 2021.

It won’t be long, should heaven not intervene, that you and I will face death for telling the truth. Our Lord warned us, and here it comes.

Offer up your Lenten penances that Our Lord and His mother will succor us and convert hearts.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

Two Shrovetide Meditations from The Liturgical Year

There is a choice we make, as Archbishop Viganó says. We must fight for good or evil. There is no third way. We need to fight for good, and stand for truth. All this is to say we must be faithful to Christ. Below are entries from Thursday and Friday of Sexagesima Week from The Liturgical Year:

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Thursday of Sexagesima Week

God promised Noah that He would never more punish the earth with a deluge. But in His justice, He has many times visited the sins of men with a scourge which, in more senses than one, bears a resemblance to a deluge: the invasion of enemies. We meet with these invasions in every age; and each time we see the hand of God. We can trace the crimes that each of them was sent to punish, and in each we find a manifest proof of the infinite justice wherewith God governs the world.

It is not requisite that we should here mention the long list of these revolutions, which we might almost say make up the history of mankind, for in its every page we read of conquests, extinction of races, destruction of nations, and violent amalgamations which effaced the traditions and character of the several peoples that were thus forced into union. We will confine our considerations to the two great invasions which the just anger of God has permitted to come upon the world since the commencement of the Christian era.

The Roman Empire had made itself as pre-eminent in crime as it was in power. It conquered the world, and then corrupted it. Idolatry and immorality were the civilization it gave to the nations which had come under its sway. Christianity could save individuals in the great empire, but the empire itself could not be made Christian. God let loose upon it the deluge of barbarians. The stream of the wild invasion rose to the very dome of the Capitol; the empire was engulfed. The ruthless ministers of divine justice were conscious of their being chosen for this mission of vengeance, and they gave themselves the name of “God’s scourge.”

When later on the Christian nations of the east had lost the faith which they themselves had transmitted to the western world; when they had disfigured the sacred symbol of faith by their blasphemous heresies; the anger of God sent upon them, from Arabia, the deluge of Mahometanism. It swept away the Christian Churches that had existed from the very times of the apostles. Jerusalem, the favored Jerusalem on which Jesus has lavished His tenderest love, even she became a victim to the infidel hordes. Antioch and Alexandria, with their patriarchates, were plunged into the vilest slavery; and at length Constantinople, that had so obstinately provoked the divine indignation, was made the very capital of the Turkish empire.

And we, the western nations, if we return not to the Lord our God, shall we be spared? Shall the food-gates of heaven’s vengeance, the torrent of fresh Vandals, ever be menacing to burst upon us, yet never come? Where is the country of our own Europe that has not corrupted its way, as in the days of Noah? that has not made conventions against the Lord and against His Christ? (Psalm 2:2) that has not clamored out that old cry of revolt: Let us break the bonds asunder, let us cast away their yoke from us? (Psalm 2:3) Well may we fear lest the time is at hand when, despite our haughty confidence in our means of defense, Christ our Lord, to whom all nations have been given by the Father, shall rule us with a rod of iron, and break us in pieces like a potter’s vessel. (Psalm 2:9) Let us propitiate the anger of our offended God and follow the inspired counsel of the royal prophet: Serve ye the Lord with fear; embrace the discipline of His Law; lest at any time the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the just way. (Psalm 2:12)

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Friday of Sexagesima Week

God chastises the world by the deluge; but He is faithful to the promise made to our first parents, that the head of the serpent should be crushed. The human race has to be preserved, therefore, until the time shall come for the fulfillment of this promise. The Ark gives shelter to the just Noah and to his family. The angry waters reach even to the tops of the highest mountains; but the frail yet safe vessel rides peacefully on the waves. When the day fixed by God shall come, they that dwell in this Ark shall once more tread the earth, purified as it then will be; and God will say to them, as heretofore to our first parents: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1)

Mankind, then, owes its safety to the Ark. O saving Ark, that wast planned by God Himself, and didst sail unhurt amidst the universal wreck! But if we can thus bless this contemptible wood, (Wisdom 10:4) how fervently should we love that other Ark, of which Noah’s was but the figure, and which, for now two thousand years, has been saving and bringing men to their God! How fervently should we bless that Church, the bride of our Jesus, out of which there is no salvation, and in which we find that truth which delivers us from error and doubt, (John 8:32) that grace which purifies and heart, and that food which nourishes the soul and fits her for immortality!

O sacred Ark! thou art inhabited, not by one family alone, but by people of every nation under the sun. Ever since that glorious day when our Lord launched thee in the sea of this world, thou hast been tossed by tempests, yet never wrecked. Thou wilt reach the eternal shore, witnessing, by thy unworn vigor and beauty, to the divine guidance of the Pilot who loves thee, both for thine own sake, and for the work thou art doing for His glory. It is by thee that He peoples the world with His elect, and it is for them that He created the world. (Matthew 24:22) When He is angry, He remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3:2) because of thee, for it is through thee that He has made His covenant with mankind.

O venerable Ark! be thou our refuge in the deluge. When Rome’s great empire, that was drunk with the blood of the martyrs, (Apocalypse 17:6) sank beneath the invasion of the barbarians, the Christians were safe, because sheltered by thee; the waters slowly subsided, and the race of men that had fled to thee for protection, thou conquered according to the flesh, was victorious by the spirit. Kings, who till then had been haughty despots and barbarians, kissed reverently the hand of the slave who was not their pastor and baptized them. New peoples sprang up and, with the Gospel as their law, began their glorious career in those very countries which the Cæsars had degraded and forfeited.

When the Saracen invasion came sweeping into ruin the eastern world and menacing the whole of Europe, which would have been lost had not the energy of thy sons repelled the infidel horde, was it not within thee, O Ark of salvation! that the few Christians took refuge who had resisted schism and heresy and who, while the rest of their brethren apostatized from the faith, still kept alive the holy flame? Under thy protection they are even now perpetuating, in their unfortunate countries, the traditions of faith, until the divine mercy shall bring happier times, and they be permitted to multiply, as did of old the sons of Sem, in that land once so glorious and holy.

Oh! happy we, dear Church of God! that are sheltered within thee, and protected by thee against that wild sea of anarchy, which the sins of men have let loose on our earth! We beseech our Lord to check the tempest with that word of His omnipotence: “Thus far shalt thou come, and no further, and here shalt thou break thy swelling waves.” (Job 38:11) But if His divine justice has decreed that it prevail for a time, we know that it cannot reach such as dwell in thee. Of this happy number are we. In thy peaceful bosom, dear mother, we find those true riches, the riches of the soul, of which no violence can deprive us. (Matthew 6:20) The life thou givest us is the only real life. Our true fatherland is the kingdom formed by thee. Keep us, O thou Ark of our God! Keep us, and all that are dear to us, and shelter us beneath thy roof, until the deluge of iniquity be passed away. (Psalm 56:2) When the earth, purified by its chastisements, shall once more receive the seed of the divine word which produces the children of God, those among us whom thou shalt not have led to our eternal home will then venture forth and preach to the world the principles of authority and law, of family and social rights: those sacred principles which came from heaven, and which thou, O holy Church, art commissioned to maintain and teach, even to the end of time.

This Lifesite Headline is Absolutely True

Novak Djokovic, the greatest tennis player in history, was absolutely vindicated for his principled stand against the Big Lie. He took a stand without regard to victory and at personal cost. He is now “tied” for most grand slams with Vaxxboy, who threw Djokovic under the bus while benefiting from his persecution.

This victory is sweet, and not just for Djokovic. He could have two or three more slams than the official count, and Vaxxboy should have one fewer. No matter. People know the truth when they see it.

Dear Lord

Evil times, getting more evil. Someone who tried to actually do something. May the Lord reward his brave servant, George Neumayr.

Man Up

This is a good time to repost the quote of St. Athanasius at the bottom of this blog. The Mass is the hill we die on. It cannot be abrogated and any attempt must be resisted:

YOU ARE THE ONES WHO ARE HAPPY; YOU WHO REMAIN WITHIN THE CHURCH BY YOUR FAITH, WHO HOLD FIRMLY TO THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE FAITH WHICH HAS COME DOWN TO YOU FROM APOSTOLIC TRADITION. AND IF AN EXECRABLE JEALOUSY HAS TRIED TO SHAKE IT ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS, IT HAS NOT SUCCEEDED. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE BROKEN AWAY FROM IT IN THE PRESENT CRISIS. NO ONE, EVER, WILL PREVAIL AGAINST YOUR FAITH, BELOVED BROTHERS. AND WE BELIEVE THAT GOD WILL GIVE US OUR CHURCHES BACK SOME DAY.

Vigil of the Epiphany and Twelfth Night

As I am in full prep zone for a Twelfth Night Party, I will not hesitate to brazenly steal from the day’s entry at the wonderful Fisheaters website. I go back to this site periodically and marvel at the effort to put such a wonderful compendium of the traditional practice of the Catholic faith in one place. I think a lot of “trads” make use of it early in our “tradversion”, but then leave it. It is a good touchstone from time to time.

Today is the Vigil of one of the great Feasts of Our Lord:

Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thy eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, they are come to thee: thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side. Then shalt thou see, and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, the. strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense: and shewing forth praise to the Lord.

Isaias 60: 1-6

Therefore taking up his parable, again he said: Balaam the son of Beor hath said: The man whose eye is stopped up, hath said: The hearer of the words of God hath said, who knoweth the doctrine of the Highest, and seeth the visions of the Almighty, who falling hath his eyes opened: I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near. A STAR SHALL RISE out of Jacob and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel: and shall strike the chiefs of Moab, and shall waste all the children of Seth. And he shall possess Idumea: the inheritance of Seir shall come to their enemies, but Israel shall do manfully. Out of Jacob shall he come that shall rule, and shall destroy the remains of the city.

Numbers 24: 15-19

If today is the Vigil of the Epiphany, then that means tomorrow is the Epiphany itself. See how I did that? And that means tonight is Twelfth Night. You don’t have to be a fan of Shakespeare to celebrate it.

On the Vigil, water is blessed with the special Epiphany blessing, and is used with blessed chalk and incense to bless homes. In the evening, it seems fitting for a Catholic to begin the celebration to welcome the Magi.

Our Lord is born, and is the salvation of the Gentiles! Let us adore Him!

To conclude, back to Fisheaters:

The custom of choosing Twelfthnight “royalty” is described in “Twelfth Night: Or King and Queen” by the English poet, Robert Herrick (A.D. 1591-1674):

Twelfth Night: Or King and Queen

Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean’s the king of the sport here;
Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.

Begin then to choose,
This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.

Which known, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake;
And let not a man then be seen here,
Who unurg’d will not drink
To the base from the brink
A health to the king and queen here.

Next crown a bowl full
With gentle lamb’s wool:
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too;
And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.

Give then to the king
And queen wassailing:
And though with ale ye be whet here,
Yet part from hence
As free from offence
As when ye innocent met here.

Archbishop Viganó’s Letter for the New Year

A must read. I repost it here in full. Oremus pro invicem:

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Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuæ. 
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in æternum.
Save your people, Lord, and bless your inheritance.
Govern and uphold them now and always.  – Hymn. Te Deum

In these last hours that mark the conclusion of the civil year, each of us is preparing to take part in the solemn functions with which the Church raises to the Divine Majesty the praises of thanksgiving contained in the hymn Te Deum.

Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur. We praise you, O God: we acclaim you as Lord. In the plural “we,” one perceives the august voice of the Bride of the Lamb, adorned with the precious jewels of the Sacraments and the most precious gems of her royal crown: the most august Sacrament of the Altar, the Sacrosanct Sacrifice of the Mass and the Order of the Priesthood. And it is before the Most Blessed Sacrament that we all, standing as befits victors who are on our feet with Christ on the day of triumph, give thanks to God for the year that is drawing to a close.

Let us therefore consider that for which we must give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity.

We thank the Lord God for punishing us for our lukewarmness, our silence, our inclination to compromise, our hypocrisies, our yielding to the spirit of the world and the errors of the dominant ideologies. It was these sins and shortcomings that have allowed those who today impose the tyranny of the New World Order to flourish in the civil world, and those who excommunicate a pro-life priest and scandalously promote corrupt and heretical prelates and clerics to prevail in the ecclesiastical world. They have allowed, in the civil world, democracy to be transformed into the apostasy of nations and the cruel slaughter of the innocent. They have allowed, in the ecclesial body, the Second Vatican Council to introduce the principles of the Revolution into the Church, as a subversive lever to destroy it from within. They have allowed sin and vice be encouraged in the civil world, while honesty, integrity, and Christian morality are mocked and trampled upon, if not criminalized. They have allowed, in the ecclesiastical world, the persecution of the faithful and clerics who ask to profess the Catholic Faith and to celebrate it in the Apostolic Rite, while the Vatican Sanhedrin worships an infernal idol at the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles. They have allowed, in both the civil and ecclesiastical world – significantly allied on this point – the health mark of the Beast to be imposed on billions of people, in the name of a delirious plan of global population control, using as a pretext a disease that has proven to be curable and not fatal only after the prohibition of appropriate treatments had caused a sufficient number of deaths to terrorize the masses. They have allowed an operation, long time planned, carried out with impunity by NATO to provoke a war against an “invader” and in order to destroy the economy of Western nations, while it is evident that the Ukrainian crisis is instrumental to the realization of the Great Reset; no more and no less than COVID-19, as well as being as an expedient for Joe Biden to hide the evidence of the corruption of his family and the presence of biolaboratories linked to the Pentagon. They have allowed, in both civil and ecclesiastical institutions, officials to be more blackmailed the more they ascend in their careers, and that neither citizens nor believers demand that the corrupt and perverted be removed and prosecuted.

What we are witnessing today is the inevitable outcome of a series of small steps, each of which could have been prevented if only we had exercised a minimum of critical judgment and raised our voice, if we had protested in order to defend our rights that have been violated by those who should have been the first to protect them. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia, sodomy, gender ideology, leftist or right-wing liberalism, immigrationism, cancel culture, globalism, the health dictatorship, Malthusian environmentalism, ecumenism, synodality. . . Each time, we could and should have denounced the threat that loomed, and yet we were silent, so as not to be called “conspiracy theorists” or branded as “fundamentalists,” so that we would not suffer social and ecclesial ostracism because of our ideas or our Faith.  “Each person is free to do what he wishes, so long as this also allows me to be Catholic and to go to the Latin Mass,” say those who have allowed themselves to be contaminated by liberal thought. But it is precisely this “doing whatever one wants” that has allowed the manipulators of the masses to change society and to make us strangers in our homeland, both in our own Nations and also within the Church.

Yet we knew very well that the project of Masonic liberalism ought to have been opposed by Catholics, following the repeated alarms and multiple condemnations of the Roman Pontiffs. We knew that liberals give their tolerance to everyone except Catholics, and that their worst enemy is Christ the King of the Nations, because wherever He reigns, the enemies of God and mankind are in shackles and not at the head of governments. We knew very well that rebellion against God in temporal and spiritual matters could only lead to either dictatorship or anarchy, yet we have allowed the trampling down of Justice in our courts and workers’ rights in our businesses, the prevention of treatment in our hospitals, the spreading of lies in our media, the corruption of young people’s morals in our schools, and the contradiction of the Magisterium from our pulpits.

Those who up until now have held positions of authority have done so by usurping power for the opposite purpose to that for which it exists. As I said earlier: we feel treated as if we are foreigners, indeed, although we are citizens we are treated like enemies of the State, and although we are members of the faithful we are treated as enemies of the Church, while the true foreigners and enemies of the State are welcomed, honored, and obeyed in the delirious “humanitarian” and “philanthropic” projects of the elite who have usurped authority. And some of us, in the face of this operation of social and religious engineering, have given up fighting, or even sided with the conspirators: they have chosen to please the powerful, to support their subversive plans in our Parliaments, in the halls of international institutions, in our cathedrals and even right under the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica. Conformism, cowardice, obsequiousness; with the hope that today’s betrayal by which they crush our neighbor – whether it is a citizen who asks for honest rulers or one of the faithful who asks for holy shepherds – can somehow spare us from subsequent decimation. They forget that the Revolution devours its own children like Saturn, and that none of the accomplices of the first hour are spared the gallows, either in reality or in the media.

The Lord is our Father, and as Father He punishes us so that we understand our faults, repent of them, and change our lives. Deus, qui culpa offenderis, pœnitentia placaris, says a prayer of Lent: O God, who is offended by guilt and appeased by penance. Wherever there is guilt, wherever the Majesty of God is infinitely offended, there is the need of a punishment. Flagella tuæ iracundiæ, quæ pro peccatis nostri meremur: the scourges of Your indignation, which we merit because of our sins – just as so often happened to the people of Israel.

Blessed be this chastisement, which has lasted for over two years, and which is destined to endure if we do not make ourselves worthy of being spared, giving signs of conversion, repentance, expiation, and reparation. Blessed be this most inauspicious year that we now leave behind, during which the pandemic farce has shown itself in its criminal nature by revealing the project of death of the globalist elite; during which the ruthless cynicism of international organizations has manifested itself in hypocritical propaganda in favor of governments led by those who are most corrupt and subservient to the Great Reset, showing what lies those who do not recognize the transcendent principle of Truth are capable of telling, deluding themselves that they can erase the very work of the Creator by transhumanism, in whose image and likeness we have been made. Blessed be the boldness with which the tyrants of the New World Order have shown us the horrors that await us if we remain inert, passively enduring their health, environmental, energy, economic or war blackmails. Blessed is the arrogance of the Bergoglian sect, the accomplice of power and the servant of Masonic ideology, which with its compliance towards the wicked and its pharisaic severity against the good reveals – even to the simple – its apostasy and uncovers the gangrene of its vices. Like Job, let us bless the Lord above all in moments of tribulation, because in those trials – even in the most arduous and painful – we ought to see the intervention of Providence, the loving hand of God who does not abandon us to our own devices, we who have ended up much worse than watching over pigs, as happened to the prodigal son.

Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us. May thy mercy be upon us, Lord, in the measure that we have hoped in You. Have mercy on your children who have been abandoned by their rulers and shepherds. Have mercy on those who, precisely because they do not wallow in the false illusions of this age but live by the blessed Hope of your holy help, find in You the strength to fight the good fight, whether conducted in the family or in the workplace, from the seats of Parliament or from the editorial offices of a newspaper, from the pulpit of a country church or from the cell of a convent. Have mercy on those who do not resign themselves to the establishment of the hell on earth of the New World Order, nor to the no-less-infernal apostasy of irenic ecumenism.

And if we ask for an end to the scourges of this 2022, preparing to invoke with the Veni Creator the gifts of the Paraclete at the beginning of 2023, let us do so with the trusting humility of the prodigal son: Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son (Lk 15:21). We do this by renewing our determination to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29), when men abuse their authority by offending and disobeying Him in temporal and spiritual things.

The Te Deum is a hymn of thanksgiving for victory, a song of triumph. But this triumph is not the passing triumph of men. Rather it is the eternal triumph of the Son of God, who conquered Satan, not with armies and angelic hosts, but by dying on the Cross, an instrument of ignominy transformed into a banner of glory by the Blood of the Lamb. Christ’s victory – Ego vici mundum, I have overcome the world, Our Lord assures us (Jn 16:33) –  is accomplished on the triumphal way to Calvary, which the entire Mystical Body must follow, even to the passio Ecclesiæ, following the example of the Divine Redeemer, its Head. If we do not unite ourselves to the Passion of Christ, we will not be able to rise with Him and sit at His right hand in the blessed glory of Heaven. If we do not fight against sin under the banner of Christ and the Blessed Virgin, we will not be able to celebrate the final triumph over the ancient Serpent and his followers. If we do not rouse ourselves from torpor but instead remain simply watching the scoundrels who rage against the Church and humanity, seeking to cancel every trace of Christ, we have no reason to thank the Lord by singing the Te Deum, because we will have remained insensitive to His punishments and to the many warnings that He deigns to send us to urge us to reciprocate His love, that perfect and infinite love which enabled the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to become Incarnate in order to redeem us. Then we will be deserving of that dystopian nightmare which the servants of Masonic globalism have been preparing for us for years and of which we have had a terrifying foretaste in the recent past.

Let us therefore sing this Te Deum with a renewed heart and with the intention of witnessing to our fidelity to the Lord, regardless of our abilities, trusting in His holy help, which is all the more powerful the greater and more ferocious is the assault of the Enemy: In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in æternum.

And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
31 December 2022
S. Silvestri Papæ et Confessoris

Two Christmas Eves

A repost tradition, from Dan England and the Noonday Devil, by the late, great Myles Connelly. In this depraved age, yet in this still-beautiful time, while God yet offers us His Mercy, we are all travelers in the strange, cold, dead world of modernity. Followers of Him Who is all the world:

There would be tea brewing on the stove in the kitchen. The coals would show red with thin blue flames where one of the stove covers had been tilted. Then, there would be a candle, perhaps two, for there could only be candles on Christmas Eve. They would be burned down pretty low now, it being after eleven o’clock when he would reach home. About ten minutes past eleven, he always reached home. His stamping the snow off his shoes on the steps outside would be the signal for the handful of tea to be dropped into the pot. There would be candles in the next room, too, the dining room they called it. And then beyond that, another candle or two. Always candles on Christmas Eve. Not many candles. A few candles, but good candles special for the vigil. They would spear the dark with steady yellow flames, and make long, rich shadows on the walls and on the pictures on the walls. The ceiling would be lighted without shadows.

There were never shadows like these Christmas Eve candle shadows. They gave mystery to the house, and a soft strangeness that you never found on any other night.

The Boy would throw his hat and coat on the chair by the kitchen stove. Then, he would go on through the dining room, as they called it, into the other room. She would meet him, as she got up from the floor where she would be setting out the presents before the tiny crib. Her knees would be stiff, he knew, and her poor body tired, but she would get up with her white face happy in spite of its whiteness, and her always bright eyes brighter, and she would turn to him for a glance of appreciative pleasure. He knew she would look for that, though she had made the house clean, had washed and mended the old lace curtains, had scrubbed the floors–hadn’t he noticed the kitchen floor, white with the grain showing?– had swept and dusted not so much for his pleasure this night, but because God was coming. But she would look to see if he were happy. He would scowl. It was defensive, or perverse. But he would scowl, and while he scowled he would notice how white her hair showed on the side that caught the light of the candles.

“My poor boy is tired,” she would say.

Then he could hold the scowl no longer. He would say:

“Ma, the crib is beautiful.”

Then he would get down on his knees beside it. There would be a little red sanctuary lamp on the floor before it, with the white wick floating in oil. At twelve o’clock the lamp would be lighted. If you should happen into the room–the parlor they called it– in the early hours when the candles would be out, you would see only this, the red lamp with its tiny light flickering. It would cast a spell over you, this unsteady small light showing red on the floor beneath you. You would stand there and look at it, unstirring, unthinking, for minutes.

So, the Boy would get down on his knees beside the crib. It would be the same little crib they had last Christmas, and the Christmas before that. There would be the little imitation thatch shed, open in front. Outside, would be three shepherds with two sheep, kneeling. Inside, would be St. Joseph with his brown cloak and white beard and our Mother with her blue dress. In back would be the ox and the ass, the ox with his head low. And in the center, on a few wisps of hay– real hay that the peddler fed his horse–would be the tiny figure of Him who was all the world.

He would kneel there, before the shed that was not a foot high, and move the figures about a bit. He always liked to have the ox and ass close to the crib. Then, he would study the presents, laid out before the crib as tenderly as the Wise Men must have laid out their gifts. They would still be in their boxes. He would not touch them, not until daybreak. Then, they would all stop for a swift minute on their way out to Mass.

Afterward, after Mass and Communion, they, with their glass of water drunk but not yet with breakfast, would strew the floor with red strings and wrapping paper and boxes. How much colorful rubbish a few little things could make! For there were but a few things before the crib: a fountain pen, a tie, two books, a box of handkerchiefs… He could recognize everything from their boxes, thin square boxes for handkerchiefs, long boxes for gloves and ties. . . . But he knew, anyway. He and his mother had conspired together for the family. He had his gifts, too. But they would not be put out until he was safely in bed….

Then, she would call from the kitchen. He had better hurry. It was getting close on midnight. So he would have his cup of tea, and a slice of brown-crusted white bread that had come from the oven that afternoon. And maybe a piece of the fruit cake, the rich, dark fruit cake heavy with spice and raisins that was always in the house on Christmas Eve. She would have her cup of tea with the cream– for they would use the cream tonight– showing brown gold on top. But she would have only tea for it was the vigil of Christmas.

That would be beautiful. He would tell her all that had happened at work. How old Nelson was worried because his little girl was ill, and it was Christmas Eve. How the yardmaster who cursed constantly was quiet today, and swore only when he was mad. How Big Mike had gone down to St. Mary’s to confession with him, and how the church was crowded. Everything, everything. . . .

And then he would empty his pockets of all his money, including the gold piece the firm had given him for Christmas. That would be his supreme moment– to give over every dollar, every cent. He had been doing that so long now but it never, for some strange reason, failed to make him gulp with happiness. Hadn’t they bought the piano together, his mother and he, the upright piano with the green covering that came with it? Hadn’t thy bought the new heavy rug for the parlor, the two of them, conspiring this way? Weren’t they saving now to buy the house?– the house out of town a little distance, the house with a garden, quiet, but near the church.

How happily she would look at him. How proudly. And he would drain his teacup so that he could hold the cup high and hide his eyes, his moist eyes. . . .

That would be beautiful, beautiful.

“Pray for those poor souls who have no home on Christmas Eve,” she would say, as always she had said.

And the Boy would pray.

The Pullman porter gave a quick turn to the Young Man’s chair. The Young Man who had been dozing sat up abruptly.

“Grand Central, suh.”

The porter was holding his overcoat.

The Young Man was dazed.

Wasn’t there tea brewing, and a red fire showing where the stove corner had been tilted? And across from him. . . .

Across from him was a row of Pullman chairs. Empty, of course. Who else but a harried reporter would be traveling thus into New York at eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve?

The porter took his tip and was gone. The Young Man made his way hazily out into the station.

And there were candles, one or two that spotted the room with yellow flames and threw long shadows. . . .

“Reservation?” asked the room clerk in the hotel.

The Young Man nodded and wrote his name. A tall bald-headed man in a dinner jacket staggered across the heavily ornate hotel lobby. Two gaudy young women tittered.

Candles, a few candles. . . .

“Front!”

A thin, small, ageless bellboy, in blue uniform and silver braid, appeared mechanically. He took his bags and led the way to the elevator.

And she was there, rising from the crib on the floor. How white her hair showed where it caught the light of the candles. . . .

“The heat on, sir?” The bellboy was turning the valve on the radiator. The steam began to pound through the pipes.

The Young Man moved to the window. Twenty stories below him the city was stirring out of its newly laid cover of snow. Even in the dark, the roofs were white, the cornices and window ledges were white. Far, far down, the streets were white, white spotted with black, streaked with black.

“Looks like a white Christmas.”

The bellboy spoke impatiently. The Young Man gave him his tip. He banged the door as he left.

The Young Man turned back to the window.

It was the same little crib with its imitation thatch, and the few wisps of hay– real hay the peddler fed his horse. . . .

The Young Man looked down. Everywhere there were lights, ragged lights, pointed lights, clustered lights, solitary lights, white, red, yellow lights. But the Young Man did not see. He drew the shade and turned from the window.

And there was St. Joseph in his brown cloak and our Lady in her blue dress and the tiny figure of Him who was all the world. . . .

The Young Man still had on his overcoat. Under the mirror of the dresser was a collar button of a former guest which the maid, in her cleaning, had missed. He fixed his eyes on it but did not see. He was without heart and his mind whirred. Where, he was asking himself dazedly, where in this world’s maze of people and places, where in this wilderness of stars and philosophies, where is Home?

Hadn’t they bought the piano together, and the rug….

The Young Man threw himself on the bed.

“Dear Jesus! Dear Mother of God!”

His sobbing filled his cell in the mountain of earth and steel, glass and stone.

“Dear Mother of God!”

And she would say, “Pray for those poor souls who have no home on Christmas Eve…”

“Dear Jesus!” He sobbed.

The while midnight came, and with it Christmas.