Saturday, June 25, 2022
IMMACULATE HEART OF THE VIRGIN MARY
Malachi,
Chapter 2, verse 5
My covenant with him was the life and peace which I gave him, and the FEAR he had for me, standing in awe of my name.
When we remain silent in the presence of evil, out of fear, this is wrong. Our Lord suffers with every injustice. We must speak out against evil our Lord tells us, “Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.”
One such evil is the murder of the unborn. The good news is we can do something. Today consider spending some of your time in defense of life.
we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict on us[1]
Margaret Sanger, whose American Birth Control League became Planned Parenthood, was the founding mother of the birth-control movement. She is today considered a liberal saint, a founder of modern feminism, and one of the leading lights of the Progressive pantheon. Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood proclaims, “I stand by Margaret Sanger’s side,” leading “the organization that carries on Sanger’s legacy.” Planned Parenthood’s first black president, Faye Wattleton — Ms. magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 1989 — said that she was “proud” to be “walking in the footsteps of Margaret Sanger.” What Sanger’s liberal admirers are eager to downplay is that she was a thoroughgoing racist who subscribed completely to the views of E. A. Ross and other “raceologists.” Indeed, she made many of them seem tame.
Sanger
was born into a poor family of eleven children in Corning, New York, in 1879.
In 1902 she received her degree as a registered nurse. In 1911 she moved to New
York City, where she fell in with the transatlantic bohemian avant-garde of the
burgeoning fascist moment. “Our living-room,” she wrote in her autobiography,
“became a gathering place where liberals, anarchists, Socialists and I.W.W.’s (Industrial
Workers of the World) could meet.” A member of the Women’s Committee of
the New York Socialist Party, she participated in all the usual protests and
demonstrations. In 1912 she started writing what amounted to a sex-advice
column for the New
York Call, dubbed “What Every Girl Should Know.” The
overriding theme of her columns was the importance of contraception. A disciple
of the anarchist Emma Goldman — another eugenicist — Sanger became the nation’s
first “birth control martyr” when she was arrested for handing out condoms in
1917. In order to escape a subsequent arrest for violating obscenity laws, she
went to England, where she fell under the thrall of Havelock Ellis, a sex
theorist and ardent advocate of forced sterilization. She also had an affair
with H. G. Wells, the self-avowed champion of “liberal fascism.” Her marriage
fell apart early, and one of her children — whom she admitted to neglecting —
died of pneumonia at age four. Indeed, she always acknowledged that she wasn’t
right for family life, admitting she was not a “fit person for love or home or
children or anything which needs attention or consideration.”Under the banner
of “reproductive freedom,” Sanger subscribed to nearly all of the eugenic views
discussed above. She sought to ban reproduction of the unfit and regulate
reproduction for everybody else. She scoffed at the soft approach of the
“positive” eugenicists, deriding it as mere “cradle competition” between the
fit and the unfit. “More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is
the chief issue of birth control,” she frankly wrote in her 1922 book The
Pivot of Civilization. (The book featured an introduction by Wells, in
which he proclaimed, “We want fewer and better children…and we cannot make the
social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred,
ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict on us.” Two
civilizations were at war: that of progress and that which sought a world
“swamped by an indiscriminate torrent of progeny. “A fair-minded person cannot
read Sanger’s books, articles, and pamphlets today without finding similarities
not only to Nazi eugenics but to the dark dystopias of the feminist imagination
found in such allegories as Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. As
editor of The Birth
Control Review, Sanger regularly published the sort of hard
racists we normally associate with Goebbels or Himmler. Indeed, after she
resigned as editor, The Birth
Control Review ran articles by people who worked for Goebbels and
Himmler. For example, when the Nazi eugenics program was first getting wide
attention, The Birth
Control Review was quick to cast the Nazis in a positive light,
giving over its pages for an article titled “Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent
Need,” by Ernst Rüdin, Hitler’s director of sterilization and a founder of the
Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene. In 1926 Sanger proudly gave a speech to a KKK
rally in Silver Lake, New Jersey. One of Sanger’s closest friends and
influential colleagues was the white supremacist Lothrop Stoddard, author of The Rising Tide of Color Against
White World-Supremacy. In the
book he offered his solution for the threat posed by the darker races: “Just as
we isolate bacterial invasions, and starve out the bacteria, by limiting the
area and amount of their food supply, so we can compel an inferior race to
remain in its native habitat.” When the book came out, Sanger was sufficiently
impressed to invite him to join the board of directors of the American Birth
Control League. Sanger’s genius was to advance Ross’s campaign for social
control by hitching the racist-eugenic campaign to sexual pleasure and female
liberation. In her “Code to Stop Overproduction of Children,” published in
1934, she decreed that “no woman shall have a legal right to bear a child
without a permit…no permit shall be valid for more than one child.” But Sanger
couched this fascistic agenda in the argument that “liberated” women wouldn’t
mind such measures because they don’t really want large families in the first
place. In a trope that would be echoed by later feminists such as Betty
Friedan, she argued that motherhood itself was a socially imposed constraint on
the liberty of women. It was a form of what Marxists called false consciousness
to want a large family.
Sanger
believed — prophetically enough — that if women conceived of sex as first and
foremost a pleasurable experience rather than a procreative act, they would
embrace birth control as a necessary tool for their own personal gratification.
She brilliantly used the language of liberation to convince women they weren’t
going along with a collectivist scheme but were in fact “speaking truth to power,”
as it were. This was the identical trick the Nazis pulled off. They took a
radical Nietzschean doctrine of individual will and made it into a trendy dogma
of middle-class conformity. This trick remains the core of much faddish
“individualism” among rebellious conformists on the American cultural left
today. Nonetheless, Sanger’s analysis was surely correct, and led directly to
the widespread feminist association of sex with political rebellion. Sanger in
effect “bought off” women (and grateful men) by offering tolerance for
promiscuity in return for compliance with her eugenic schemes. In 1939
Sanger created the “Negro Project,” which aimed to get blacks to adopt birth
control. Through the Birth Control Federation, she hired black ministers
(including the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr.), doctors, and other leaders to
help pare down the supposedly surplus black population. The project’s racist
intent is beyond doubt. “The mass of significant Negroes,” read the project’s
report, “still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the
increase among Negroes…is [in] that portion of the population least intelligent
and fit.” Sanger’s intent is shocking today, but she recognized its extreme
radicalism even then. “We do not want word to go out,” she wrote to a
colleague, “that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister
is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their
more rebellious members. “It is possible that Sanger didn’t really want to
“exterminate” the Negro population so much as merely limit its growth. Still,
many in the black community saw it that way and remained rightly suspicious of
the Progressives’ motives. It wasn’t difficult to see that middle-class whites
who consistently spoke of “race suicide” at the hands of dark, subhuman savages
might not have the best interests of blacks in mind. This skepticism persisted
within the black community for decades. Someone who saw the relationship
between abortion and race from a less trusting perspective telegrammed Congress
in 1977 to tell them that abortion amounted to “genocide against the black
race.” And he added, in block letters, “AS A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE I MUST OPPOSE
THE USE OF FEDERAL FUNDS FOR A POLICY OF KILLING INFANTS.” This was Jesse
Jackson, who changed his position when he decided to seek the Democratic
nomination.
Just
a few years ago, the racial eugenic “bonus” of abortion rights was something
one could only admit among those fully committed to the cause, and even then in
politically correct whispers. No more. Increasingly, this argument is
acceptable on the left, as are arguments in favor of eugenics generally. In
2005 the acclaimed University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt broke the
taboo with his critical and commercial hit Freakonomics (co-written with Stephen Dubner). The most
sensational chapter in the book updated a paper Levitt had written in 1999
which argued that abortion cuts crime. “Legalized abortion led to less
unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore,
led to less crime.” Freakonomics excised
all references to race and never connected the facts that because the aborted
fetuses were disproportionately black and blacks disproportionately contribute
to the crime rate, reducing the size of the black population reduces crime. Yet
the press coverage acknowledged this and didn’t seem to mind. In 2005 William
Bennett, a committed pro-lifer, invoked the Levitt argument in order to
denounce eugenic thinking. “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to
reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every
black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an
impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime
rate would go down.” What seemed to offend liberals most was that Bennett had
accidentally borrowed some conventional liberal logic to make a conservative
point, and, as with the social Darwinists of yore, that makes liberals quite
cross. According to the New
York Times’s Bob Herbert, Bennett believed “exterminating
blacks would be a most effective crime-fighting tool.” Various liberal
spokesmen, including Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the Democratic
National Committee, said Bennett wanted to exterminate “black babies.” Juan
Williams proclaimed that Bennett’s remarks speak “to a deeply racist mindset.”
Immaculate Heart of Mary[2]
The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus, and her compassionate love for all persons. Two elements are essential to the devotion, Mary’s interior life and the beauties of her soul, and Mary’s virginal body. According to Roman Catholic theology, soul and body are necessary to the constitution of man. It was in 1855, that the Mass of the Most Pure Heart of Mary formally became a part of the Catholic practice. Traditionally, the heart of Mary in artwork is depicted with seven wounds or swords, in homage to the seven sorrows of Mary. Also, roses or another type of flower may be wrapped around the heart. Veneration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary generally coincides with the worship of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
However,
there is a difference that explains the Roman Catholic devotion to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is
especially directed to the “Divine Heart”, as overflowing with love for
humanity. In the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the other
hand, the attraction is the love of her Immaculate Heart for Jesus and for God.
A
second difference is the nature of the devotion itself. In devotion to
the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Roman Catholic venerates in a sense of
love, responding to love. In devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
love is formed from study and imitation of Mary’s yes to God as the mother of
Jesus. In this devotion, love is more the result, than the “object” of
the devotion; the object being rather to love God and Jesus by uniting oneself
to Mary for this purpose and by imitating her virtues, to help one achieve
this. History of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is connected in
many ways to that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Christians were drawn to
the love and virtues of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and this paved the
devotion from the beginning. Early Christians had compassion for the
Virgin Mary, and the Gospels recount prophecy delivered to her at Jesus’
presentation in the temple, and that her heart would be pierced with a
sword. The image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the pierced heart
is the most popular representation. St. John’s Gospel further invites us
to the attention of Mary’s heart with its depiction of Mary at the foot of the
cross at Jesus’ crucifixion. St. Augustine tells us that Mary was more
blessed in having born Christ in her heart, than in having conceived him in the
flesh.
Things
to Do:[3]
·
Read
the entire article from the Catholic
Encyclopedia about the Immaculate Heart of
Mary.
·
Read
this article about Saturdays and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
St. William of Monte Virgine, Abbot[4]
William was born in Vercelli, Italy, in
1085. His parents died when he was a baby. Relatives raised him. When William
grew up, he became a hermit. He worked a miracle, curing a blind man, and found
himself famous. William was too humble to be happy with the people’s
admiration. He really wanted to remain a hermit so that he could concentrate on
God. He went away to live alone on a high, wild mountain. No one would bother
him now. But even there he was not to remain alone. Men gathered around the saint,
and they built a monastery dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Because of
William’s monastery, people gave the mountain a new name. They called it the
Mountain of the Virgin.
Things
to Do:
·
William's pilgrimage to the tomb of St.
James the Apostle in Spain was the turning point of his life. Is it not easily
possible for you to make a pilgrimage to some holy place in your neighborhood
now during the summertime? First of all, however, are you familiar with the
relics in your own parish church? Remember that any visit to a church is a
pilgrimage to the grave of a saint!
·
Read more about the life of St. William here
and the monastery he founded, Monte Vergine.
Today
is my Stepson Ryan Patrick’s birthday. He was a US Paratrooper who suffered
knee problems as a result of his service and now serves as a critical care
nurse continuing to serve. It is my hope someday to be able to make a
pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, like St. William, with Ryan. I ask your
prayers.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION
ONE THE SACRAMENTAL ECONOMY
1076 The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of
Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit
ushers in a new era in the "dispensation of the mystery" the age of
the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates his
work of salvation
through the
liturgy of his Church, "until he comes."2 In this age of the Church Christ now lives and acts
in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts
through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and the West
calls "the sacramental economy"; this is the communication (or
"dispensation") of the fruits of Christ's Paschal mystery in the
celebration of the Church's "sacramental" liturgy.
It is
therefore important first to explain this "sacramental dispensation"
(chapter one). the nature and essential features of liturgical celebration will
then appear more clearly (chapter two).
Daily
Devotions
·
I will not delude you with
prospects of peace and consolations; on the contrary, prepare for great
battles. Be
vigilant.
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: The
sanctification of the Church Militant.
· Saturday Litany of the Hours
Invoking the Aid of Mother Mary
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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