Father Rutler: "A Sign That A Dawn Awaits"

The maxim “It is always darkest before the dawn” supposedly dates to the seventeenth century, but sentiments like it have been around forever. Holy Mother Church moves it beyond the platitudinous “self-help” literature to the realm of fact. Coincident with the darkest days of the year, the birth of the Light of the World, who is Christ, is preceded by warnings of attempts to hide that light. Of the “Four Last Things” preached in Advent, Hell is saved for last. Death contrasts with life, Judgment refutes meaninglessness, Heaven opens the gates to eternity. Then just before the “Dayspring from on High,” the Church declares that Hell is real. It is an endless moral darkness in which the most unrelenting suffering perhaps is boredom.
 
Universally, and not just here in our neighborhood of “Hell’s Kitchen,” the contradiction of God’s joy is sensed when ugliness mocks beauty, deceit twists truth, and evil defies goodness. But Heaven is intuited through that triad of beauty, truth, and goodness. As primary colors refract from pure light, so do those three fundamentals emanate from the divine Light of the World, who came into a world darkened by sin and death. Just as Catherine of Siena said that “all the way to Heaven is already Heaven for those who love the Lord,” so is the path to Hell already Hell for those who deliberately reject him. If boredom is the chief quality of Hell, it is significant that when Christ walked through this world, some people loved him so much that they were willing to die for him, and others hated him so much that they killed him, but no one ever found him boring.
 
Our nation has gone through a long moral darkness, dimming awareness of human dignity and the sacredness of life. While not putting trust in princes (Psalm 146:3), there is no doubting the fact that if the recent election had gone another way, the downward spiral of our culture would have continued. There may be some glimmer of dawn in recent executive nominations.
 
The next Secretary for Health and Human Services has a one-hundred percent approval rating from the National Pro-Life Committee, the new Attorney General is a protector of religious liberty, and the future Secretary of Defense is a champion of the persecuted Christians in the Middle East. No mention of those suffering Christians was made in the recent presidential proclamation of Human Rights Day, and the hellish massacre of dozens of Coptic Christians in Cairo last week received scant attention, and less outrage. That will change soon, and there is hope for the Supreme Court.
 
While not naïve about politics, the darkness of our times may be a sign that a dawn awaits. Whatever that means for our culture, the dawn has always shone on the Church and “the darkness has never overcome it” (John 1:5).

Newt Gingrich Explains The Donald Trump Phenomenon

A brilliant analysis of one of the most remarkable candidacies and accomplishments in American political history.

Four Cardinals Have Taken the ‘Correct Road’, Says Leading German Philosopher

Robert Spaemann, a friend of Benedict XVI, said the cardinals had chosen the right course and wishes more would join them

The German philosopher Robert Spaemann has supported the four cardinals’ request for clarification of Amoris Laetitia, and said it is “regrettable” that more cardinals have not joined them.

Spaemann, a friend of Benedict XVI and one of the most distinguished Catholic intellectuals in Europe, told the Italian newspaper La Nova Bussola: “The cardinals have taken the correct road.” He says that cardinals have a duty to support the Church, which they are fulfilling by making the request.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >> 

Ampleforth Abbey Awarded £2.9 Million Lottery Grant

The home of the largest Benedictine monastic community in Britain has been given a fundraising boost for urgent repairs to preserve historic church

Ampleforth Abbey, home to the largest Benedictine monastic community in Britain, has been awarded a grant of £2.9 million by Heritage Lottery Fund.

The grant will be released in its entirety once Ampleforth Abbey processes plans to make urgent repairs to the Grade II listed Monk’s Bridge and the Grade I listed Abbey Church.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >> 

 

St. Martin's Chamber Choir - "Of the Father's Love Begotten"

A splendid hymn for the first Sunday of Advent ...

Polish Bishops End Year of Mercy by Enthroning Christ as King in Presence of President

On November 19, at the end of the Jubilee of Mercy, Poland celebrated a historical Act of Acceptance of Christ as King and Lord with a Mass at the Shrine of Divine Mercy, with the Polish bishops, government authorities, and many faithful in attendance. President Andrzej Duda from the Law and Justice Party took part in the event, thus attracting international media attention.

More than 100,000 Poles in Krakow recited the solemn pledge: “O Immortal King of Ages, Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior! In the Jubilee Year of the 1,050th anniversary of Poland’s baptism, in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, we Poles stand here before you to acknowledge your reign, to submit ourselves to your law, to entrust and consecrate to you our Fatherland and our whole people.”

Read more at Life Site News >> 

Tricky Nikki's Appointment as UN Ambassador

President-Elect Trump with South Carolina Lt. Governor Henry McMaster - A team to make America and South Carolina great again!

For my friends outside of South Carolina who may not understand the appointment of Nikki Haley as United States UN Ambassador -- a woman to whom the President-Elect owes NOTHING -- this is more a maneuver to reward South Carolina Lt. Governor Henry McMaster, a popular leader to whom the President-Elect owes a great deal.

Nikki Haley is a powerless and disliked Governor who has attempted to achieve national recognition by betraying the people of her own state and conservative principles. She is an opportunist and has no future in South Carolina whatsoever, and her success to date has depended on the same factor which helps elect Lindsey Graham to the United States Senate. Democrat voters have known that they are unlikely to obtain anything closer to one of their own and have therefore cast their votes for the RINO candidate.

Lt. Governor Henry McMaster, on the other hand, is a popular figure who will be a well-respected, popular Governor. He was also the most prominent elected official in South Carolina to support the President-Elect in South Carolina's "first in the South" Republican primary. Trump's win here was the first in what became an unbroken and unprecedented string of victories throughout Dixie.

Haley's role at the UN will be that of a TV news anchorwoman; she will read statements prepared by others in the White House and State Department and take the slings and arrows of a world community hostile to the United States. She will have no policy role and will be a place-filler until someone qualified can take the job, unless the Trump administration can extract the US from that enormous waste of money. Many of us will be grateful for an ingenious way to get Haley out of the state.

Now South Carolina will have a superb, new Governor who reflects conservative South Carolina values and will be an important ally to the Trump Administration in making America great again.