Monday, April 13, 2026

Smoke in This Life and Not the Next

Mon, Apr 13 – Civic Reflection

Virtue: Justice & Stewardship
Cigar: Structured, historic (Habano)
Bourbon: Uncle Nearest 1856 – bold, dignified
Reflection: “What do I owe to the common good?”

✨ Purgatory in the Divine Plan (Short, Sharp, True)
The word Purgatory is sometimes taken to mean a place, sometimes an intermediate state between Hell and Heaven.
Properly speaking, it is the condition of souls who die in God’s grace, yet still need purification — souls who have not fully expiated their faults nor reached the purity required to behold God.

Purgatory is a transitory state that ends in everlasting happiness.
It is not a second trial, nor a place where merit is gained or lost.
It is a state of atonement and expiation, where love completes what life left unfinished.

A structured Habano and a dignified bourbon preach the same civic truth:
Justice requires responsibility,
and stewardship requires purification —
in this life or the next.

Monday Night at the Movies

🔸 April 2026 – Resurrection & Marian Vision

Apr 6 – King of Kings (1927)
Apr 13 – Lady for a Day (1933)
Apr 20 – The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Apr 27 – The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)

Across these four films, Resurrection appears not only as an event but as a pattern: Christ rises, dignity rises, vision rises, vocation rises. King of Kings opens the month with the Resurrection as cosmic rupture — light breaking into darkness, Magdalene restored, and Mary standing as the quiet axis of fidelity. One week later, Lady for a Day translates that same rising into human terms: a woman the world overlooks is lifted into honor, revealing a Marian truth that the lowly are never invisible to God. What Christ does in glory, grace echoes in the lives of the poor.

The movement deepens with The Song of Bernadette, where Marian vision becomes the lens through which Resurrection continues in history. Heaven touches earth through humility, purity, and suffering — the same virtues that shaped Mary’s own discipleship. And the month concludes with The Keys of the Kingdom, where Resurrection becomes mission: a long obedience marked by Marian endurance, hidden fruitfulness, and the quiet courage to love in obscurity. Together, these films trace a single arc — from the empty tomb to the human heart, from glory revealed to glory lived — showing how the light of Easter becomes the shape of a life.

Lady for a Day (1933)

May Robson & Warren William

A Depression‑era miracle of dignity, disguise, and communal mercy. Capra’s fable turns a street corner into a sanctuary and a group of hustlers into unlikely ministers of grace. Apple Annie’s transformation is not vanity—it is a sacrament of restored honor, a single day in which the poor are seen, the forgotten are lifted, and the world briefly remembers how to love.

🎬 Production Snapshot

Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Frank Capra
Release: 1933
Screenplay: Robert Riskin (from Damon Runyon’s story Madame La Gimp)
Stars:

May Robson (Apple Annie)
Warren William (Dave the Dude)
Guy Kibbee (Judge Blake)
Glenda Farrell (Missouri Martin)
Genre: Depression‑Era Comedy‑Drama / Runyon Fable
Notable: Capra’s first major Oscar breakthrough; prototype for his later “miracle of communal goodness” films.

🧭 Story Summary

Apple Annie—aging, poor, alcoholic, and beloved by the street hustlers who orbit her—has one treasure: a daughter studying in Spain who believes her mother is a wealthy society matron. When the daughter arrives in New York with her aristocratic fiancé, Annie collapses under the weight of her own shame.

Enter Dave the Dude, a gangster with a code of honor and a heart that betrays him at all the right moments. He marshals his entire underworld network to stage a transformation:

Annie becomes “Mrs. E. Worthington Manville,”
A hotel suite becomes a palace,
A judge and his wife become her borrowed family,
And the city’s forgotten people become her royal court.

The deception is not cruelty—it is mercy.
The makeover is not vanity—it is restoration.
The comedy is not mockery—it is tenderness.

The climax arrives not with exposure but with recognition: Annie’s daughter sees her mother’s dignity, not her disguise. The miracle holds because love, not illusion, is the engine of the story.

🕰 Historical & Cultural Context

Released at the height of the Great Depression, the film reflects:

America’s hunger for stories where the poor are not invisible
Capra’s emerging belief in communal grace—that ordinary people can create extraordinary goodness
Runyon’s world of gangsters with hearts, sinners who perform sacraments without knowing it
Hollywood’s shift toward moral fables disguised as comedies

It stands beside It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) as Capra’s early architecture of hope.

✝️ Catholic Moral Resonances

1. Dignity as a Birthright

Annie’s worth is not bestowed by wealth or appearance; it is revealed by love.

Insight:
Grace often arrives disguised as kindness from unlikely people.

2. Mercy as Communal Action

Dave the Dude’s crew becomes a parish—rough, profane, but united in charity.

Insight:
Communal mercy can restore what individual effort cannot.

3. The Poor as Sacramental

Annie is not an object of pity but a vessel of hidden holiness.

Insight:
The lowly often carry the clearest image of God.

4. Truth Through Tender Illusion

The “lie” told for Annie’s sake becomes a vehicle for a deeper truth: her daughter’s love.

Insight:
Sometimes the heart sees more clearly than the facts.

5. Conversion Through Compassion

Dave the Dude is changed by the very mercy he orchestrates.

Insight:
Acts of charity reshape the giver as much as the recipient.

🍷 Hospitality Pairing

Drink: “Apple Annie’s Blessing”

A warm, humble, restorative cocktail:

Apple brandy
Honey syrup
A splash of lemon
Cinnamon garnish

Symbolism:

Apple = Annie’s identity
Honey = mercy made tangible
Cinnamon = the warmth of communal love

Serve in a simple glass—grace does not need ornament.

Snack: Warm Bread & Salted Butter

The food of welcome, poverty, and home.

Symbolism:
Bread = sustenance shared
Butter = dignity restored

Atmosphere:
Soft lamplight, a small table, the sense of a room transformed not by wealth but by love.

🪞 Reflection Prompt

Where is God asking you to restore someone’s dignity—quietly, creatively, without applause?
Who in your life needs a “day”—a moment of being seen, honored, lifted?
And what small conspiracy of mercy can you begin today?

If you want, I can now:

Pair this with Pocketful of Miracles (1961) for a comparative devotional,
Place it precisely within your April or Resurrection‑season arc,
Or build a symbolic triad with It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

APRIL 13 Monday of the Second Week of Easter

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)-T. Jefferson

Judges, Chapter 7, Verse 10-11

If you are AFRAID to attack, go down to the camp with your aide Purah and listen to what they are saying. After that you will have the courage to descend on the camp. So he went down with his aide Purah to the outposts of the armed men in the camp.

“Take courage; get up, he is calling you.” (Mk: 10:49)

Christ calls us to a greater purpose than he did Gideon:

No man or woman of good will can renounce the struggle to overcome evil with good. This fight can be fought effectively only with the weapons of love. When good overcomes evil, love prevails and where love prevails, there peace prevails. This is the teaching of the Gospel, restated by the Second Vatican Council: "the fundamental law of human perfection, and consequently of the transformation of the world, is the new commandment of love"…Christians must be convinced witnesses of this truth. They should show by their lives that love is the only force capable of bringing fulfillment to persons and societies, the only force capable of directing the course of history in the way of goodness and peace…By Christ's death and resurrection, made sacramentally present in each Eucharistic celebration, we are saved from evil and enabled to do good. Through the new life which Christ has bestowed on us, we can recognize one another as brothers and sisters, despite every difference of language, nationality and culture. In a word, by sharing in the one bread and the one cup, we come to realize that we are "God's family" and that together we can make our own effective contribution to building a world based on the values of justice, freedom and peace.[1]

Aids in Battle[2] Empty consolations of the Devil

Some people, when they reflect on the goodness of God and the passion of Christ, are powerfully moved to sighs, tears, prayers, and other devout actions, so that you might suppose their hearts were seized with a very fervent devotion. But when they are tested we find that they are like the passing rains of a hot summer, which may fall heavily on the earth, but do not penetrate it, and bring forth only mushrooms. In the same way, these tears and emotions in a corrupt heart do not penetrate it and are altogether fruitless. For these unhappy people would not give up a penny of their unjustly acquired wealth or renounce one of their perverse affections, nor would they endure the slightest suffering in the service of that Savior over whom they have wept. Their good impulses are like spiritual mushrooms. Not only are they a false devotion, but too often they are actually the deep wiles of Satan. While he amuses souls with such empty consolations, he induces them to remain satisfied with them instead of seeking true and solid devotion, which consists in a constant, resolute, prompt, and active will to carry out what we know to be pleasing to God. ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

Copilot’s Take

Gideon’s descent into the enemy camp reveals how God trains courage through fear rather than bypassing it. The Lord tells him, “If you are afraid… go down and listen,” showing that fortitude is not the absence of fear but the ordering of fear toward the good. The Catechism teaches that fortitude ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good (CCC 1808). Christ echoes this pattern in the Gospel: “Take courage; get up, he is calling you.” Courage is not a feeling but a response to a summons, and April 13—held between Easter’s triumph and Yom HaShoah’s solemn memory—demands that response.

Yom HaShoah confronts the world with the historical reality of evil. The Shoah is the clearest modern revelation of what happens when conscience collapses and the human person is stripped of dignity. The Church teaches that every human being bears the image of God and must never be reduced to an object or a category (CCC 1700–1706). The Holocaust stands as the permanent warning of what occurs when this truth is denied. Remembering it is not optional; it is a moral obligation rooted in the command to honor human dignity and resist every ideology that destroys it.

Easter speaks into this remembrance with a different but equally uncompromising truth: evil is real, but it is not final. By His death and resurrection, Christ has definitively conquered sin and death (CCC 654), and this victory is made present in every Eucharist (CCC 1323). John Paul II’s insistence that no person of good will can renounce the struggle to overcome evil with good reflects the Catechism’s teaching that Christians must work to transform the world in the light of the Gospel (CCC 2044). Love is not sentiment; it is the only force capable of redirecting history.

Modern anxieties—whether about Iran, global instability, or the resurgence of extremist ideologies—must be interpreted through the Church’s moral lens. The Catechism teaches that peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity (CCC 2304), and that legitimate defense is permitted but must always respect human dignity (CCC 2308). The Shoah warns what happens when fear becomes hatred and hatred becomes policy. The Church warns that societies fall when they forget the moral law (CCC 1959), and that the common good must never be sacrificed to ideology (CCC 1905–1912).

St. Francis de Sales exposes the most subtle danger in this battle: the devil’s counterfeit consolations. Emotional devotion without conversion—“spiritual mushrooms”—is not only fruitless but spiritually dangerous. The Catechism teaches that true worship requires a sincere heart and a willingness to offer one’s life (CCC 2099–2100). True repentance demands renouncing sin, unjust gain, and disordered affections (CCC 1430–1431). Without this interior transformation, even the most passionate remembrance of the Shoah or denunciation of modern evil becomes hollow.

The Eucharist stands at the center of the Christian confrontation with evil. In the one bread and one cup, we become God’s family, reconciled across every boundary of language, nationality, and culture (CCC 1396). This communion is the antidote to the divisions that fuel violence. It is also the source of the courage required to resist evil without imitating it. The Shoah reveals what happens when humanity forgets communion; Easter reveals what happens when humanity receives it.

The call of April 13 is therefore stark and simple: confront evil with the weapons Christ gives—truth, mercy, justice, sacrifice, and love that costs something. Anything less is sentiment; anything else is surrender.

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)[3]

The Holocaust Remembrance Day, (Yom Hashoah, Hebrew: יום השואה), seeks to commemorate the Holocaust, a systematic and state-planned program to murder millions of Jews and other minority groups in Europe. This program of mass killing was run by the German Nazis in the 1930s and 40s during the Second World War, where Jews and minorities were brought into concentration camps and murdered at the hands of Nazi officials. This observance seeks to remember and honor the victims of the Holocaust, including six million Jews and thousands of Russians gypsies, homosexuals, disabled persons and other minorities.

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Facts

· Yom Hashoah is an Israeli Festival, as opposed to an ancient Jewish festival. Yom Hashoah was inaugurated in 1953. It was instituted by the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and the President Isaac (Yitzchak) Ben Zvi. The Ancient fast of the Tenth of Tevet (December) is the day on which the siege of Jerusalem commenced, prior to the destruction of the Holy Temple. Many Jews commemorate the Holocaust on this day.

· In Israel, on the Eve of Yom Hashoah, a siren is sounded, followed by an official memorial service headed by the Prime Minister, President, Army Officials and Holocaust survivors. The service includes speeches, Kaddish and El Maleh Rahamim (memorial prayers) and the Hatikvah (Israel National Anthem). Another siren is heard in the morning, followed by various memorial services.

Yom HaShoah Top Events and Things to Do

· Many communities read a list of those who perished in the camps and Ghettos. One way to commemorate the Holocaust is to browse the names in the Yad Vashem (Israel's Memorial to the Holocaust) names Database.

· Watch the mini-series Holocaust starring Meryl Streep. It depicts the story of a Jewish family's struggle to survive the Nazis.

· Attend a local memorial service. Tip: find one in your community by doing an internet search for Yom Hashoah.

· Donate to a charity that serves holocaust survivors or promotes education about the holocaust.

· Watch a movie about the Holocaust. Some popular picks: Schindler's List (1993), Auschwitz (2011), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008), Life is Beautiful (1997) and The Pianist (2002).

Fourth Reich[4]

American writer Jim Marrs claimed that former Nazis and their sympathizers had been continuing Nazi policies worldwide, especially in the United States.

Conspiracy theorists often use the term "Fourth Reich" simply as a pejorative synonym for the "New World Order" to imply that its state ideology and government will be similar to Germany's Third Reich.

Conspiracy theorists, such as American writer Jim Marrs, claim that some ex-Nazis, who survived the fall of the Greater German Reich, along with sympathizers in the United States and elsewhere, given haven by organizations like ODESSA and Die Spinne, has been working behind the scenes since the end of World War II to enact at least some principles of Nazism (e.g., militarism, imperialism, widespread spying on citizens, corporatism, the use of propaganda to manufacture a national consensus) into culture, government, and business worldwide, but primarily in the U.S. They cite the influence of ex-Nazi scientists brought in under Operation Paperclip to help advance aerospace manufacturing in the U.S. with technological principles from Nazi UFOs, and the acquisition and creation of conglomerates by ex-Nazis and their sympathizers after the war, in both Europe and the U.S.

This neo-Nazi conspiracy is said to be animated by an "Iron Dream" in which the American Empire, having thwarted the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy and overthrown its Zionist Occupation Government, gradually establishes a Fourth Reich formerly known as the "Western Imperium"—a pan-Aryan world empire modeled after Adolf Hitler's New Order—which reverses the "decline of the West" and ushers a golden age of white supremacy.

Skeptics argue that conspiracy theorists grossly overestimate the influence of ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis on American society and point out that political repression at home and imperialism abroad have a long history in the United States that predates the 20th century. Some political scientists, such as Sheldon Wolin, have expressed concern that the twin forces of democratic deficit and superpower status have paved the way in the U.S. for the emergence of an inverted totalitarianism which contradicts many principles of Nazism.

[1]https://news.diocesetucson.org/news/five-ways-to-make-holy-week-more-holy

Bible in a year Day 283 Mattathias Attacks

Fr. Mike clarifies the meaning behind Mattathias' zealous attack against the Greeks and his fellow Jews who were not obeying God's laws. From our reading of Sirach, Fr. Mike reminds us to remember the needs of the poor, and to be careful when forming friendships. Today's readings are 1 Maccabees 2, Sirach 4-6, and Proverbs 22:1-4.

Thomas Jefferson[5] born this day 1743.

Thomas Jefferson (d. 1826) was – besides being a founding father of the United States and president – one of the most learned figures of his age. His education, through Episcopalian and Huguenot schoolmasters and then at William and Mary included a comprehensive classical approach in the Enlightenment tradition and fostered in him an appreciation for mathematics, philosophy, architecture, botany, science, music, and law. Philosophically, he was a dedicated Deist, meaning that he rejected the need for revelation and repudiated all forms of established or institutional religion beyond the obvious limits of reason. As such, he declared himself a Christian – chafing against charges that he was an atheist or infidel – but he had little patience with dogmas, finding especially unacceptable the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless, he did not oppose organized religion, insisting that all religions be treated with toleration within the pluralistic society established by the Constitution. The best source for appreciating Jefferson’s self-identification with Christianity (again from the standpoint of the Deists) was his work The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French, and English, compiled a few years before his death. Called also the Jefferson Bible, it contains no personal writings by Jefferson, save for the Table of Contents. Rather, it is a collection of nearly 1,000 verses from the Gospels (Matthew and Luke chiefly), offering Jesus’ comprehensive moral philosophy, as Jefferson saw it. He thus omitted all references to the divinity of Jesus, the primacy of Peter, the Eucharist, comments by the evangelists, and miracles; in effect, Jefferson drained the Gospels of any form of mystery. The selection reveals Jefferson’s belief in God, the Commandments, practicing the virtues, and an afterlife in which the just are rewarded and the evil punished.

Deism:[6]

The term used to certain doctrines apparent in a tendency of thought and criticism that manifested itself principally in England towards the latter end of the seventeenth century. The doctrines and tendency of deism were, however, by no means entirely confined to England, nor to the seventy years or so during which most of the deistical productions were given to the world; for a similar spirit of criticism aimed at the nature and content of traditional religious beliefs, and the substitution for them of a rationalistic naturalism has frequently appeared in the course of religious thought. Thus, there have been French and German deists as well as English; while Pagan, Jewish, or Moslem deists might be found as well as Christian.

Because of the individualistic standpoint of independent criticism which they adopt, it is difficult, if not impossible, to class together the representative writers who contributed to the literature of English deism as forming any one definite school, or to group together the positive teachings contained in their writings as any one systematic expression of a concordant philosophy. The deists were what nowadays would be called freethinkers, a name, indeed, by which they were not infrequently known; and they can only be classed together wholly in the main attitude that they adopted, viz. in agreeing to cast off the trammels of authoritative religious teaching in favor of a free and purely rationalistic speculation. Many of them were frankly materialistic in their doctrines; while the French thinkers who subsequently built upon the foundations laid by the English deists were almost exclusively so. Others rested content with a criticism of ecclesiastical authority in teaching the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures , or the fact of an external revelation of supernatural truth given by God to man. In this last point, while there is a considerable divergence of method and procedure observable in the writings of the various deists, all, at least to a very large extent, seem to concur. Deism, in its every manifestation was opposed to the current and traditional teaching of revealed religion.

Is there any truth to deism?[7]

· Deism is the belief that a supernatural entity created the universe, but that this being does not intervene in its creation. The Church describes it like this: “Some admit that the world was made by God but as by a watchmaker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself (CCC 285).”

· It’s fair to say that many people today identify with this viewpoint, in that they believe there was some supernatural cause to the universe, but we have now been left to our own devices. This idea extends back to the beginning of human thought, but it developed significantly during the Enlightenment as critiques of religion, and Christianity in particular, became more prevalent. Many English deists placed considerable doubt on the supernatural character of miracles and prophecy, arguing that they were inconsistent with reason.

· What emerged from this epoch was the notion that all religions were products of human invention, and that many Christian beliefs were farcical. God was no longer seen as a divine entity that interfered in the world but was instead, merely the first cause underlying the universe, being both unknowable and untouchable. The universe was defined as self-operating, self-regulating and self-explanatory and comprised of unvarying and inviolable physical laws.

· While some deists believe that the creator of the universe is an abstract force, others hold that the entity is personal – that it has a mind, but simply has no interest in the endeavors of human beings. This is radically different from the Christian conception of God, which holds that God is not only personal, but created us so that we could know and love him.

· What distinguishes deism and theistic religions like Christianity the most is the idea of God’s intervention in history. While deists hold that the creator is far away, Catholics believe that God is with us at all times, can hear us, and even answer our prayers. The Church refers to the creator as a “living God” who gives life and reveals himself to the world. This is perhaps best conveyed in the Incarnation, where Jesus became human, walked among us, and died for our sins.

· “Creation is the foundation of ‘all God’s saving plans’, the ‘beginning of the history of salvation’ that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the mystery of Christ casts conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end for which ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’: from the beginning, God envisaged the glory of the new creation in Christ.” (CCC 280) While deists hold that God is apathetic towards his creation, Catholics rejoice in the fact that God interacts and truly cares about us.

· Of course, there is common ground between deists and theists in that both believe in a creator of the universe. This mutual belief can act as the starting point for a conversation about who God is, and whether it’s plausible to believe that he intervenes in the world.

THIS WE BELIEVE

PRAYERS AND TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Prayer to Jesus Christ Crucified[8]

Here I am, good and gentle Jesus, kneeling before you. With great fervor I pray and ask you to instill in me genuine convictions of faith, hope and love, with true sorrow for my sins and a firm resolve to amend them. While I contemplate your five wounds with great love and compassion, I remember the words which the prophet David long ago put on your lips: "They have pierced my hands and my feet, I can count all my bones." (Psalm 22/17-18).

Gabriel’s Corner

· Eat waffles and Pray for the assistance of the Angels

· Spirit Hour: Palmetto Cocktail for Palm Sunday

· Bucket List trip: Glenburn Tea Estate, India

· 30 Days with St. Joseph Day 26

· Monday: Litany of Humility

· Try Sauna Sausage [9]

Daily Devotions

· Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: Today's Fast: Virtuous Politicians and Leaders

· Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

· Make reparations to the Holy Face