Monday, July 13, 2026
Smoke in This Life Not the Next
—Virtue: Penance & Clarity
Cigar: Humble, restrained, workmanlike
Bourbon: Thin, simple, unadorned
Reflection: What small penance clears my vision?
Cheap night is the liturgy of less — the deliberate choice to step away from richness so the soul can hear itself again. After the expansive mercy of July 12, July 13 asks for a narrowing, a tightening, a return to spiritual essentials. The cigar is intentionally modest, a leaf without flourish. The bourbon is plain, almost austere. Together they form a quiet discipline: a reminder that comfort can cloud, but simplicity can sharpen.
Tonight’s smoke is not meant to impress. It is meant to reveal. Each draw becomes a small act of self-denial, a way of saying that the heart is willing to be trained. The thin bourbon follows like a corrective: no sweetness, no depth, just honesty. Cheap night is not punishment; it is purification.
Into this simplicity comes the old warning, spoken with the gravity of a man who had seen too much:
“Ah! My dear Fathers, if we knew the severity of the Divine chastisements, we should never commit sin, nor should we cease to do penance in this life, in order to avoid expiation in the next.”
The quote is not meant to frighten but to awaken. It reminds the soul that penance is mercy in disguise — the chance to carry a small fire now so that the next life burns less. Cheap night becomes a school of holy clarity: the humble cigar teaching restraint, the simple bourbon teaching sobriety, the witness teaching urgency.
On July 13, the question is precise: What small penance clears my vision today?
🔸 Monday Night at the Movies – July 2026
Resistance & Eucharistic Meals
July shifts from prophecy to communion. Where June traced the prophet’s interior purification, July shows how resistance is sustained — not by ideology, but by shared meals, moral nourishment, and the Eucharistic pattern of offering, breaking, and giving. Each film sits beside a feast of courage, where the table becomes the battleground of the soul.
Jul 6 – On the Waterfront (1954)
Theme: The Meal of Conscience Terry Malloy’s awakening begins in small, sacramental gestures — a shared coat, a simple meal, a priest’s presence on the docks. Resistance here is fed by communion: the Eucharistic pattern of standing with the oppressed, breaking silence, and offering one’s life for truth.
Jul 13 – The White Angel (1955)
Theme: The Meal of Mercy Florence Nightingale’s rounds resemble Eucharistic visitation — moving from bed to bed, bringing order, cleanliness, and compassion. Her resistance is quiet but absolute: she refuses to let suffering be anonymous. The meal becomes care itself — the nourishment of dignity.
Jul 20 – Wise Blood (1979)
Theme: The Meal of Judgment Hazel Motes rejects the Eucharist, yet cannot escape its shape. His “Church Without Christ” is a parody of communion, revealing how the soul starves when it refuses grace. The film’s grotesque meals — cheap diners, lonely tables — expose the hunger that only God can satisfy.
Jul 27 – The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Theme: The Meal of Sacrificial Resistance Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty’s clandestine network mirrors the early Church: hidden rooms, shared bread, lives protected at great cost. Every meal in the film is a risk, a covenant, a sign of the Body given for others. Resistance becomes Eucharistic — a total offering of self.
THE WHITE ANGEL (1955) Amedeo Nazzari • Yvonne Sanson • Enrica Dyrell • Alberto Farnese • Philippe Hersent Directed by Raffaello Matarazzo
The White Angel is a cathedral‑bright melodrama of grief, mistaken identity, and the aching human desire for redemption. Matarazzo builds his story like a devotional fresco: suffering at the center, grace at the edges, and the fragile hope that love can still resurrect what tragedy has broken.
Amedeo Nazzari’s Guido Carani is a man hollowed by loss — a father whose children are gone, a lover whose beloved has vanished into the cloister. Yvonne Sanson plays both Luisa (the nun he cannot forget) and Lina (the dancer who bears her face), creating a haunting duality: the woman he loved and the woman he cannot ignore. Their resemblance becomes the film’s moral tension — a reminder that grief often resurrects what we have not yet buried.
The film’s power lies in its revelation: suffering becomes redemptive only when a man stops running from the truth of his past.
1. Production & Cultural Setting
Postwar Italy and the Melodramatic Imagination Released in 1955, The White Angel belongs to the golden age of Italian popular melodrama — films that embraced emotion with operatic sincerity. Italy was rebuilding itself, spiritually and socially, and Matarazzo’s stories offered audiences a place to process wounds that realism alone could not heal.
Matarazzo’s Signature: Emotion as Architecture Raffaello Matarazzo directs with a priestly seriousness. His films are not subtle; they are sacramental. Every tear, every confession, every reunion is framed as a moral event.
Sanson & Nazzari: The Great Pairing Yvonne Sanson’s dual role is the film’s beating heart — purity and worldliness in one face. Nazzari’s Guido is a man torn between memory and possibility, guilt and desire.
Titanus Studios and the Italian Popular Film Tradition Produced by Titanus, the film reflects a studio committed to lush, accessible storytelling — cinema for ordinary people carrying extraordinary burdens.
2. Story Summary
The Wound Guido Carani has lost his children and the woman he loved. His life is a shrine to absence.
The Double He meets Lina, a dancer who looks exactly like Luisa — the nun who once loved him but chose the convent. This resemblance shakes him, reopening grief he thought sealed.
The Moral Crossroads Lina is not Luisa. She is flawed, worldly, and yearning for dignity. Guido must decide whether he is pursuing a memory or encountering a new grace.
The Convent and the Streets The film moves between sacred and profane spaces — cloisters, prisons, dance halls — showing how human longing refuses to stay in one realm.
The Revelation Guido confronts the truth: redemption cannot come from replacing the past but from accepting it.
The Resolution The film closes with Matarazzo’s signature blend of suffering and hope — not triumph, but tenderness.
3. Moral & Emotional Resonances
A. Grief Creates Ghosts Guido’s longing for Luisa blinds him to the humanity of Lina.
B. Identity Is More Than Resemblance Lina’s struggle reveals that dignity is not inherited — it is chosen.
C. Love Must Be Honest to Be Redemptive Guido’s healing begins when he stops trying to resurrect what is gone.
D. Holiness and Humanity Intertwine Luisa’s vocation and Lina’s vulnerability show two paths toward the same longing: to be seen and loved rightly.
E. Redemption Is a Slow, Human Work The film insists that healing is not dramatic — it is patient.
4. Hospitality Pairing — A Night of Italian Melodrama
Drink: A ruby Chianti — earnest, warm, slightly rustic. Plate: Polenta with braised beef — humble, comforting, deeply Italian. Atmosphere: Candlelight, soft shadows, a quiet room — the emotional hush of a confessional. Symbol: A veil folded on a table — the tension between the life chosen and the life desired.
5. Reflection Prompts
Where have I mistaken resemblance for reality. What grief still shapes the choices I make. Who in my life carries a story I have not taken time to understand. Where have I tried to resurrect what God has already asked me to release. What new grace is waiting for me if I stop clinging to the past.
If you want, I can also create this same format for Nobody’s Children so you have the full paired structure of Matarazzo’s melodramatic diptych.
JULY 13 Monday Seventh Week of
Pentecost
Fatima July
13
Tobit, Chapter 4,
Verse 8
Tobit
here is instructing his son Tobiah in the three virtues characteristic in his
own life: Truth (fidelity), righteousness, and almsgiving. The instruction to
almsgiving is the lengthiest. Tobit tells his son to care for his burial just
as his father has cared for the burial of others. He instructs Tobiah to pay
servants wages immediately to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked and to
give alms in proportion to what he has. Almsgiving will be for him a protection
from death and will be a worthy offering, a worthy worship to God.[1]
Tobit[2]
Later on he washed, but he still decided
to spend the night in the courtyard. Even though he had no problems
polluting himself by having contact with a corpse, he was considerate of others
and maintained his distance until the time of purification was over.
That night, swallow droppings fell into
his eyes and a white film formed, impairing his vision.
The more he sought medical help, the worse
his eyesight was until one day he was totally blind.
The irony is sharp. His misfortune
occurred on Pentecost because he wanted to share his provisions with the
homeless, to dutifully bury a Jewish body, and to keep the law regarding
purification. Those “good works” led to blindness. Yet, there is no
evidence that he railed against God or even lamented this misfortune.
For the first two years of Tobit’s
blindness, Ahiquar supported him, but then he was transferred to Elymais, which
scholars think was located south of Media.
This transfer meant that Ahiquar’s
financial support ended, and life became very difficult for Tobit and his
family.
Since Tobit was completely blind, his wife
went out to do “women’s work.” This is not specified, but most think she
would have been working in someone’s household.
Surely this was a blow to Tobit’s image
and esteem. After all, this was the person who had a big position in the
king’s court. Now he was disabled and unemployed.
One day in addition to paying her for her
services, Hannah’s employers gave her a goat to take home. It might have
been for an upcoming feast day, which would suggest that she was working for a
Jewish family.
When the goat started to bleat, Tobit
assumed she had stolen it and accused her of doing so. It highlights his
inability to see; he didn’t know it was there until it started making
noise. Scholars don’t know why he did this. Nothing in Hannah’s
character suggested she’d be the person to steal something. So maybe this
was yet another affront to his ego and lashing out was his poor way of handling
things. It shows how tense things had become and the stress they were
under.
Hannah yelled back saying, “And look what
your good deeds have gotten us!”
There was little that Tobit could say to
that. He prayed deeply, asking for forgiveness for himself as well as the
nation. Then he asked God to take his life in order to end his suffering.
On the very same day in Ecbatana, another
righteous person was praying – Sarah.
The distance between Nineveh and Ecbatana
was about 185 miles.
Sarah’s name means “Mistress.”
At that moment, one of her servant girls
was insulting her because she had been given in marriage to seven men, but each
night the demon, Asmodeus, killed them off before the marriage could be
consummated.
If it’s a Hebrew word, Asmodeus means
something like “Destroyer.” He was known as the demon of lust. The
idea was that he loved Sarah and would not allow any other man to be
with her.
The servant didn’t know about the demon,
so she assumed that Sarah was doing the killing.
Sarah thought about hanging herself, but
she was an only child and couldn’t imagine bringing such shame to her parents.
So she also prayed that God would take her
life and put her out of her misery.
At this point, these two incidents seem
totally separate, though both people are of the tribe of Naphtali. Later,
readers will find out that they are close kinsmen.
Nonetheless, both of their prayers were
heard in the glorious presence of God.
God decided to send the angel, Raphael, to
heal them both.
Raphael, the angel’s name, means “God has
healed.”
God’s plan was to give Sarah in marriage
to Tobias and to heal Tobit’s blindness.
This information is given to readers but
not to any of the characters in the story.
As Tobit prepared to die, he remembered
the money he had given his cousins in Media for safekeeping.
He called Tobias and started by counseling
him on the major issues of life.
First, he was to provide a proper burial
for Tobit, and then he needed to take care of his mother. He was also to
follow in Tobit’s footsteps, always doing good and being true to the
Lord.
There is some irony here because of the
fact that Tobit’s life had not been blessed despite all of his good works. This
comes at a time in Jewish history when they believed good works would be
rewarded with great blessings. Tobit’s life had not turned out that
way. Still, he expected integrity and faithfulness from Tobias, which
indicates that Tobit was a very righteous man.
Only after he had counseled him in all
these aspects did Tobit mention the ten talents awaiting him in Media.
His final counsel was: “You have great
wealth if you fear God, flee from all sin, and do what is good in the sight of
the Lord your God.” Obviously, Tobit believed that God really was going
to end his life.
Copilot’s
Take
Tobit’s
instruction to his son reaches its deepest clarity in the command to give
without fear. “Do not be afraid to give alms even of that little.” This is not
financial counsel but spiritual formation. Tobit teaches that truth,
righteousness, and almsgiving are the architecture of a holy life. The
Catechism affirms that almsgiving is a work of mercy that participates in God’s
own compassion (ccc2447), and that generosity becomes worship when it is rooted
in trust rather than calculation. Charity, for Tobit, is not a strategy but an
act of fidelity.
The
irony of Tobit’s life sharpens the lesson. His fidelity leads to blindness. His
charity leads to poverty. His obedience leads to humiliation. Yet he does not
curse God or lament his misfortune. He prays, repents, and entrusts himself to
the Lord. The CCC teaches that suffering united to righteousness becomes
purification rather than defeat (ccc618), and that God permits trials to draw
the soul into deeper conversion (ccc1508). Tobit’s blindness becomes the
crucible where hope is refined, not extinguished.
At the
same moment, Sarah also prays for death. Two souls separated by miles, yet
united in anguish. Their cries rise together before the throne of God. Heaven
responds not with sentiment but with intervention. Raphael is sent. Healing
begins. Tobit’s blindness and Sarah’s torment are not ignored; they are
confronted. This mirrors the pattern Mary revealed at Fatima on July 13, where
she showed the children the reality of sin, the danger of the destroyer, and
heaven’s decisive response to evil. Fatima is not a gentle reminder but a
summons to spiritual battle.
Fatima’s
warning intensifies the urgency. Mary revealed that sin is not theoretical and
that the consequences of unrepented evil are catastrophic. She called the world
to prayer, penance, and fidelity (ccc1435), insisting that grace must be
welcomed and evil resisted. Tobit’s world mirrors this battlefield. Asmodeus
destroys marriages; pride destroys households; despair destroys hope. The CCC
teaches that the faithful must oppose structures of sin (ccc1888) and confront
evil with truth, courage, and mercy. Charity without courage is powerless
against the destroyer.
Tobit’s
counsel to Tobias reflects this Fatima clarity. He commands burial, care for
his mother, fidelity to the Lord, immediate payment of wages, and generosity
proportionate to one’s means. Only after forming his son in righteousness does
he mention the ten talents in Media. Wealth is secondary; virtue is primary.
“You have great wealth if you fear God, flee from all sin, and do what is
good.” The CCC teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
(ccc1831) and that moral life is grounded in choosing the good and rejecting
sin (ccc1809). This is the wealth heaven recognizes.
July 13
becomes a single thread woven through Scripture and Fatima. Generosity without
fear, suffering without despair, fidelity without compromise, and courage in
the face of evil. Tobit teaches his son what Mary teaches the world — that
righteousness is costly, charity is confrontational, and holiness requires the
courage to stand against the destroyer. This is the almsgiving that heals
nations. This is the hope that purifies souls. This is the path that leads to
the Holy Face.
Fatima: How July 13, 1917 “changed”
the Church[3]
What Our Lady of Fatima did that day inspired many to convert, but
provoked others to reject the faith.
What she did that day inspired many to convert but provoked others to
reject the faith out of hand. It made some people a little nutty and won the
begrudging respect of others.
July 13 was the day Our Lady scared the daylights out of three shepherd
children by showing them hell and sternly warning them about a second global
war and a new age of martyrdom.
But the surprising — and surprisingly harsh — July 13, 1917, apparition
changed the faith of the Church in our time.
First: July 13
returned hell to the center of Catholic consciousness.
Little Lucia dos Santos was 10 when Our Lady of Fatima began to appear to
her every 13th of the month starting in May, 1917, along with her cousins
Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 8 and 7.
But in July, instead of just exhorting the children to say the Rosary and
pointing them to heaven, she showed them a terrible sight.
“We saw as it were a sea of fire,” Lucia wrote. “Plunged in this fire
were demons and souls in human form … amid shrieks and groans of pain and
despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.”
To give Our Lady of Fatima credit, the vision of hell only happened after
a year of preparation, including visits by an angel and much reassurance about
heaven. But the vision so badly rattled Jacinta, especially, that it seemed to
change her personality utterly.
The only thing that would make this vision okay, and not an example of
emotional abuse, is if hell were a real place and we were in eminent danger of
ending up there if we don’t do something drastic.
It is. We are.
Second: She
reiterated the most unpopular — and most important — message of Christianity.
The messages of Jesus (Mark 1:15), John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-2) and
Peter (Acts 2:38) were all the same: “Repent!” Jesus defined the Church’s
mission as preaching “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47).
Yet every pope from Pius XII to Francis has said “the sin of the century
is the loss of the sense of sin.”
The refusal to repent — the belief that sin doesn’t really matter — is at
the heart of the major moral disasters of our time, from abortion to human
trafficking, from the pornography epidemic to the urban violent crime rate.
Those who see no wrong do terrible things.
Our Lady of Fatima’s vision of hell is an absolutely necessary corrective
to the presumptuous expectation that we are all going to heaven no matter what.
It is true that God wants to forgive everybody. But one thing stops him: We
don’t repent.
Third: Our
Lady of Fatima de-romanticized war.
“This war will end,” Our Lady of Fatima told the children in July, “but
if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will
begin.”
Whatever they understood about the particulars, the general sense of this
message was clear to the children: War isn’t an occasion for God to reward
victors, but to punish sin.
The “reward” paradigm had existed for a long time in Christian history:
From Charlemagne to Joan of Arc, from Notre Dame des Victoires to the
Conquistadores. Every Christian culture had their Robin Hood and King Arthur
figures: Heroes of the unconventional virtues of clever violence. But Our Lady
of Fatima poured cold water on all of that. Martial virtues are real, but they
are an example of God bringing good out of evil — not of God’s will being won
by violence.
Finally, July 13
de-romanticized martyrdom.
For that matter, Our Lady of Fatima also level-set our understanding of
martyrdom.
In the at-home movies era, many of us are only now watching Silence by
Martin Scorcese, which follows a Jesuit’s disillusionment as he looks for glory
in the persecutions of Japan and finds soul-numbing horror instead.
The children saw a vision of the pope “half trembling with halting step,
afflicted with pain and sorrow,” praying for the corpses he stumbled past until
he was himself shot. Our Lady knows that in heaven martyrdom is glorious — and
that on earth, it is painful and sad.
The meaning of all of this was not lost on the three shepherd children.
They learned that it was absolutely urgent that they console Jesus,
convert sinners and commit to Mary.
July 13 is only part of their story — a story that includes far more consolation than condemnation and was meant for every generation, including ours.
The First Cat Show[4]
Have you ever noticed that some
people may be very, very good at lying with their lips; yet by their gestures
or body language you can always see the truth? This may be the reason we have
such a great affection for pets who bodily speak the truth of their own
likings. Let us ask our Lord whose hands were nailed to the wood and can no
longer gesture---to allow us to be His hands thus making our own gestures speak
His language of love.
A
British man, Mr. Harrison Weir, got the idea for the first cat show. He was a
Fellow of the Horticultural Society, and artist, and a cat lover. He developed
a schedule, classes, and prizes for the show. He also created the "Points
of Excellence" -- a guideline for how the cats would be judged.
The
Crystal Palace, in south-east London, was chosen for the site of the first
show. (Dog shows had already been held there). A man named Mr. F. Wilson was
appointed manager of the show for setting up the Crystal Palace. The judges
were Mr. Weir, his brother John Weir, and the Reverend J. Macdona.
The
show was held on July 13, 1871. Nearly 160 cats were shown. The cats were
mostly short-haired and were divided into different color groups. Pedigrees
were not around at this time. It wasn't until 1887 that the National Cat Club
formed in Britain and began tracking the parentage of cats. The prize cats did
not have their photos taken but were drawn by an artist to record them.
The
show attracted a great deal of interest. Cat shows soon became fashionable in
Britain, particularly because they were patronized by Queen Victoria, who owned
a pair of Blue Persians. In the 1870s, larger and larger cat shows were held in
Britain. In 1895 the first official cat show was held in Madison Square Garden,
New York.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Around the Corner
He
restores my soul. He guides me along right paths for the sake of
his name. Psalm 23:3
Let
Freedom Ring Day 6 Freedom from Envy
Understanding and
Managing Envy in Modern Life[5]
Envy
is a universal emotion. Virtually every discovered civilization—past and
present—contains artifacts that record its presence through human history,
permeating virtually every aspect of our lives. From ancient scriptures to
modern social media feeds, the narrative of envy has evolved, yet its core
remains unchanged: it is the discomfort and longing provoked by others'
possessions or successes. This post delves into the multifaceted nature of
envy. Beginning with an exploration of envy in Greek and Biblical sources, we
turn to examine how it is an emotion of utmost social importance—relating to
how we find ourselves within our own tribes. We then turn to modern,
psychoanalytic understandings of envy before discussing ways to remedy its
often-corrosive effects on our mental health.
Beans Month bursts into
July with a celebration of one of the world’s favorite and most versatile
ingredients—beans!
Start Total
Concentration to the Virgin Mary July 13 to end on August 15, the feast of
the Assumption
Bucket List Trip: Around the
World “Perfect Weather”
Eat waffles and Pray for the assistance of the Angels
Foodie: Qi
guo ji in honor of the first cat show
Harrison Ford,
born on July 13, 1942
Monday: Litany of Humility
Spirit Hour: Mai
Tai
Daily
Devotions
Unite
in the work of the Porters of St.
Joseph by joining them in fasting: Victims
of clergy sexual abuse
Novena
to Our Lady of Mount Carmel-Day 7
Litany
of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
Rosary
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