Vatican II and the decline of our Church

     I was just reading Pat Buchanan's "Suicide of a Superpower" and he claims that many of our current problems may well be traced back to Vatican II. This is a very new notion to me, but the more I read about it, the more I am convinced.
     It seems most probable that modernizing the liturgy, conducting mass in vernacular languages, discarding old traditions and engaging the world may well have done a lot of the damage. I personally never liked using English because I was an altar boy for many years, and I got very used to the beauty and timelessness of Latin.
     If the Council of Pope John XXIII was the object of a succesful attack by Modernist leaders, it was very successful indeed. The Church is chock full of so-called Catholics who do not beleive in the sanctity of traditional marriage and have little problem with abortion. Just look at Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for example. There are also many Catholics who do not believe in the real presence of Christ. What is more worrying is that many of these people are now teaching in our Catholic schools!
     I have the greatest respect and admiration for Pope John XXIII; however, I do agree that once we opened the doors to the liberal thinkers, the Church would never be the same. And it continues to lose its grip on tradition, especially in Europe, where Catholics hate to be told anything.
     I personally will remain a traditionalist until the day I die. I am not here to judge others, but I do believe in good example and speaking your mind. Thank God we have writers like Michael Coren around, and superlative Cardinals like Cardinal Collins of Toronto to lead us in the traditional direction, the direction of Christ, and Peter.

Tim Tebow's powerful message

     NFL football quarterback Tim Tebow has all the sports world a-twitter because of his up-front pride in his personal relationship to Jesus Christ, and his stance on clean living. He believes in chastity before marriage, the importance of fatherhood and the traditional family, and he is not afraid to talk about it, and live it. All of this has, of course, rankled the left-leaning world of entertainment, of which pro sports is a member in good standing. Sports panelists don't know what to make of this guy, but after a lot of head scratching and sarcasm, they finally get the picture. Tim Tebow is for real.
     Something else which bothers the sports world is Tim's habit of going down on one knee, and praying to God after a touchdown. He has been mimicked and teased, and even the players who habitually do their own little post-touchdown dramatic monologue, which nobody understands or cares to, have given him a hard time. Perhaps they are envious of Tim's sincerity and lack of irony.
     All of this is nothing new. In baseball, Albert Pujols, and many others make the sign of the cross during the game, especially before going up to bat. He gets little flak for this, because many people have no idea of the significance or meaning of this action. Perhaps Pujols is asking Jesus to protect him from the ball. Perhaps he is asking Jesus to take him in his arms in the event that he is killed by the ball. Who knows? But he does it quickly, and many do not even notice the gesture. This is what he choses to do, and it is fine. I am certain many people think he is asking God to let him hit a home run. I really doubt it.
     But Tim Tebow actually mouths prayers which are clearly visible, although not audible on television. He may be thanking Jesus for his God-given talents, or perhaps he is simply demonstrating who is really the boss of his team. Whatever the case, Tim Tebow has done an awful lot to publish the power of positive thinking, faith in God, and the beauty of humility. He goes down on one knee as a humble man, not as a show-off doing some sort of rhythmic egocentric dance in honour of oneself. To tell you the truth, these little theatrical improvs in honour of oneself unsettle me. They have, in my opinion, belittled the NFL, and have made it more of a side-show as compared to the old days when men simply scored, and then went back to the bench to shake hands with their coach and fellow players.
     What Tim Tebow has done is bring prayer to the forefront, and he has done it with a dignity, and a perseverance which just has to be based in a very deep faith in Jesus Christ. Imagine the effect this must be having on teenagers who have never seen a professional football player kneel down in prayer. "What is he doing?" they must ask themselves.
     They have witnessed baseball players cupping their hands, and looking up towards the heavens in thanks after hitting a home run, but this is altogether different. It takes guts and focus to stop everything and get down on one knee to pray to God in thanksgiving in front of a secular crowd, which has little stomach for spiritual activity.
     We Catholics have some notion of humility because we go down on two knees and bow very low when we are in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament. The only difference is that I get much more satisfaction kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament than Tim Tebow does when he kneels in front of a crowd after a touchdown. I'm certain of that.
     Kudos to Tim Tebow for showing us how important his faith is to him and those around him. He is a leader on the field, and also off the field. His message is as loud and clear as the thundering cheers he gets after scoring a touchdown in Denver, and even though the numbers of Biblical verses are no longer written on his eye-black, because it is now illegal to do so, it is obvious to the whole world when he kneels down to pray what Tim Tebow is trying to say.
     It is written on his face and on his heart, where the same message of the Good News of Christ should reside in all Christians. It is written in the example he gives to young people and in the way he accepts the leadership of the Prince of Peace, even though he enters a violent battle every time he plays a game.
     Thanks, Tim. Thanks for showing us who you really are.

 

Toronto Returns to Being a First Class City

    Having attended numerous Lectio Divina sessions, and a lecture at Newman House presented by Archbishop Thomas Collins, I can honestlty say that I feel that I know the man. I do not know him as a friend, but as a shepherd who has done a very admirable job, in Canada's largest diocese.
    And so, it was with great pleasure and excitement that I learned this morning that Arcbishop Collins would soon be made a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. This is thundering news for us Toronto Catholics, and for all Canadian Catholics for that matter.
    Imagine! Cardinal Collins will be electing our next pope, and Toronto is now home to a Prince of the Church. This returns our city to its former level, and all Torontonians should be honoured by this announcement from Rome. Toronto may be home to the Gay Pride Parade, but now it is also home to one of the Cardinals of the Catholic Church. This certainly evens the scale a bit. I feel better already about my city, and as the days pass, and I get to hear the new Cardinal preach, I am certain that I will beam with pride at the fact that I am a member of the largest diocese in Canada, and that I am being led by a most competent Prince of the Church.
    May God be with you, Cardinal Collins, and may the angels guide you in carrying out the most important job in Canada. May Saint Michael guide and protect you, and may you shine with the blinding light of Christ, here in the most beautiful land on earth!
   
   

The Christmas heifer in the shed

    At Christmas in Alexandria, Ontario, we did not have very much. So, instead of buying a turkey, which would have lasted us a couple of days at best, my father would buy half a heifer from the farmer up the road, and he would keep it frozen in the shed attached to our house.
    Every afternoon, my father would head out to the shed with the Swede saw, where he would cut off a piece of frozen beef which my mother would proceed to cook with potatoes and carrots and onions. I used to go out with my father, and watch him sawing the frozen meat. That was the best beef I have ever tasted. It was sweet, and tender, and there was no taste of hormones or other chemicals they put in the cattle these days.
    In some ways, that heifer represented the different type of Christmas we celebrated as a family. Today, there is way too much exaggeration on all fronts. People congregate at large malls for sales on items they do not need. They even fight for them sometimes, and yesterday, a man was viciously stabbed at a mall in a fight over a consumer item which was on sale. Imagine bleeding to death on a mall floor, watched by hundreds of anxious and exhausted shoppers, for being a super consumer.
    One thing Jesus was not was a consumer. The Prince of Peace did not even have a roof over his head when he came into the world. This is true poverty which I never knew. We were a simple family with little extra, but we did not know poverty as Jesus did; however, we did not have extras either.
    It was a happier time. It was a time with less anxiety and less greed. That tender heifer in the shed meant more to us than a big shiny SUV or a house full of high tech gadgetry. When my father unceremoniously brought it into the house on a large plate and handed it to my mother, we all smiled and felt warm inside. We could smell and feel the cold from the shed on my father and his ruddy cheeks glowed with the frost. We knew that supper would be good, and that the fire in the old coal stove would beat out a steady rhythm of heat all night long.
    There was no flat screen television to blare out what we did not have and, what we should buy in order to be happy and to have a complete 'holiday'. We were not subjected to a daily routine of Christmas ads which slowly brainwash shoppers into thinking it is normal to want so many things for our kids and grandchildren. We never heard the word "The Holidays" and if we did, we would not know what it meant. Christmas was a simple time like the birth of Our Lord. And everything revolved around his arrival on this confused, greedy and misled planet, and his Good News, which, if we followed, would change the world forever.
    All we had was the greatest story ever told to think about, and because of it, to thank God for all we had, for, like Mary, the Mighty One had done great things for us, and Holy was His name.
   

The run for the cash

     People are stampeding the cash registers, but forgetting why they are giving gifts in the first place. It's as if the mass media has set up a new religion based upon how much money people can actually waste at Christmas. Yesterday, on CBC Television, they interviewed the manager of the SummerHill LCBO, and he proudly informed us that this year, he expected to break last year's one day record: $48,000,000 two days before Christmas! We've had helicopter shots of the Yorkdale parking lot wich looked more like Mecca than a store and they keep pumping us up with all these financial forecasts about how much money people are actually dumping.
    And on it goes. Every year has to beat the previous year for greed and insanity, all in the search for good feelings and a sense that yes, I  bought the best gift of all.
    The grandchildren will get a gift from us, but we will continually remind them that they have to give a gift too. That gift is the tiny door in their hearts which we will tell them to open for Jesus, so that they can make some room for the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Almighty Ruler, the Son of God.
    What people who do not believe in Jesus do at Christmas is beyond me. But I do know that we will be thinking of Him a lot, and trying to remain calm at a time of frenetic business, a time of searching and grabbing for things which will be thrown away a few weeks after Christmas, as the anxiety sets in again, and the meaning of the birth of Our Lord is lost on commercialism and secularism once more.
    Money talks, but talk is cheap. Christ says nothing at this time of year. We simply watch a baby in a stable, and the message is loud and clear. The Angel Garbriel does the rest. Settle down, appreciate what you have, rejoice at the good news. The Prince of Peace is here as promised, to be recognized by men of kind hearts and good will.
 

La Biche and Papa Boule were real actors

     My Remembrance Day flic this year was a film called "The Train." It is the story of a group of French resistance fighters who plan to 'de-rail' a German Colonel's attempts to ship a fortune's worth of French paintings to Germany at the end of World War II.
     A French railroad inspector named La Biche, played by Burt Lancaster, along with an aging steam locomotive engineer, by the name of Papa Boule devise a plan to bring the trainload of paintings back to France. They do this right under the noses of the Nazis by changing signs at railway stations, steaming ahead at full speed through air raid attacks, and using the railway switches like magicians.
     These were actors whom people could look up to. The black and white close-ups of their faces, pock-marked with the scars of daily life and stained with train soot, and their steely expressions of unrelenting resistance to the evil that was Nazi Germany are works of art. Those were the days when actors were real heroes, and they had little to say about how people should lead their lives.
     Today, Hollywood is like a religion, sermonizing on everything from animal rights to gay marriage, and many people follow like drunken sheep proclaiming its teachings to the letter. Many actors can't keep a marriage together, and plaster their lives all over the covers of seedy magazines, which peep out at you beside the cash register at the super market. Hollywood is a hotbed of irony and so-called humour, which on closer inspection is in reality, an attempt to discredit religion and establish a secular society based on relativism.
     Do yourself a favour and go out and rent "The Train." Watch real men in action, men who led by example and then kept quiet about it. These were men who did not know much about political correctness, but who knew the right thing to do. They knew right and wrong and they did not joke about it. They knew the meaning of true love between a man and a woman, and they knew the value of the family. They respected tradition and the importance of knowing what is right and what is wrong. But above all else, they knew the meaning of loyalty, and staying the course.
     So many people today rely on the media to tell them what is right and what is wrong, and behind its facade lies a culture of death which allows, even promotes the killing of fetuses, and has little respect for illness and old age. Papa Boule was old, but he was respected by all his comrades and despised by the Germans. When it was time for him to push the throttle and roar through an air raid attack at a French station, people questioned his tenacity. He leaned his blackened rotund face out the window, and his eyes blazed with defiance as he said, "Watch me!" It was an honour for him to be shot in a firing squad because he had foiled the German attempts to steal the art from France. La Biche watched him die and then vowed to keep the art in France, even though it did not mean that much to him, but as a tribute to the life of Papa Boule.
    These are the types of people I think about every Remembrance Day, when many around me are wondering why people are standing in silence, with their heads bowed, in respect for the ways of the past.
    

Lack of respect for ritual

    More and more people are losing their respect for ritual. For example, Remembrance Day has become an embarrassment, unless you are at an official function, and even then, it can be challenging. Society does not like to be told what to do, especially if it infringes on its phone, texing or workout time.
     I was at the gym at the time of the two minute silence at 11:00 am sharp, November 11, 2011, and many people continued working out even though there had been a public announcement. There was rap music playing in the background, and it was very difficult to concentrate on the immense sacrifices which had been made for us over the years, and to give thanks. It was as if people were saying, "Who cares?" I found this very demoralizing and difficult to accept, and it affected my own concentration and sincerity very much.
     But then again, this lack of respect for ritual seems to be a result of the secularization of society. People are afraid to use the word "God" in public, and to be seen standing at attention, and seemingly praying for two minutes in public is almost an offensive act. Where will this all lead us? If we cannot pay our respects to the thousands of soldiers who gave up their lives for our freedom, then what is the meaning of freedom in the first place? And what value does freedom really have if we are afraid to show our deep gratitide to God, even at national ceremonies, which are covered by national television, and which seem to be deleting any reference to God, and the afterlife more and more as the years go by?
    Many of our veterans died for both God and country. Even in a secular society, we would be sadly remiss if we did not acknowledge this on Remembrance Day, by respecting ritual and praying with reverence to Almighty God. Otherwise, we insult the memory of our veterans, and we desecrate the meaning of the freedom we all enjoy every day.