Smoke in This Life Not the Next
August 12 — Bottom Shelf Night, New Moon
A new moon night is not darkness; it is withheld light. The sky keeps its lantern shuttered, and a man sits with a bottom‑shelf pour, letting the quiet settle around him like a discipline he never quite mastered. Smoke rises thin, honest, unadorned. It is the kind of night when the soul feels close to something it cannot yet name.
I kept thinking of the Master’s words about the sister suspended between consolation and completion:
“Until now… she has been worthy to contemplate my glorified humanity… but unless numerous suffrages are offered in her favor, she cannot yet be admitted to the beatific vision, on account of some slight defects in the observation of her holy rules.”
It is always the slight defects that slow a soul. Not rebellion. Not corruption. Just the small slippages—prayers rushed, duties performed without love, promises kept in form but not in spirit. Most men are not held back by wickedness. They are delayed by carelessness.
The sister has tasted glory but cannot yet endure glory. She has seen His wounds but not His Face. She needs suffrages—mercy offered on her behalf, love spent by others, the unseen labor of intercession.
So does every man on a porch at midnight. He rises not by self‑reliance but by the grace others quietly invest in him: a wife’s whispered prayer, a daughter’s steadiness, a grandson’s honor, a saint’s vigilance.
Tonight, under the new moon, offer suffrages for the souls hovering just shy of completion. Offer them for the sister. Offer them for yourself.
AUGUST
12 Wednesday Eleventh Week Pentecost
International Youth Day
Ester, Chapter 4C, Verse 30
Ester
has determined here that she must overcome fear and risk death to save her
people. To enter the Kings Throne room without, being called by him, was a
taboo of the Persian court and to violate it carried an immediate sentence of
death. Ester determined that to save her people she must appear to the King and
risk death for her people.
Queen
Ester and Our Lady of Fatima[1]
Queen Esther is in anguish
because Haman, the wicked aide has convinced the King to issue an order to kill
all the Jews in his Empire. Haman did this because Mordecai, Esther’s cousin
who raised her as a daughter, would not bow down and prostrate himself as Haman
passed as the King had ordered. The date set for destruction was the 13th of
the month of Adar which corresponds to either our month of February. It is also
the very day that the Maccabees liberated Israel after a four-year battle with
the Seleucid Empire. Sister Lucia to whom Our Lady of Fatima appeared died on this date. Our
Lady of Fatima’s first appearance to the three shepherd children was May 13,
1917. Her last appearance was October 13,1917. On May 13, 1981, Pope John
Paul II survived an assassination attempt. He credits Our Lady of Fatima with
saving his life.
Queen Esther clothed
herself in sackcloth and ashes. She fasted from food and water for three
days and asks the Jews to do the same. After the three days, she
approached the King without being summoned. She did this even though she
was aware that the King could have sentenced her to death for doing so. When
the Queen enters into the King’s presence he extends his scepter thus sparing
her life. He was so impressed by her courage and beauty that he promised her up
to half of his kingdom. Instead, she invites him to two banquets and invites
Haman – the man responsible for the order of the genocide of her people. At the
second banquet she pleads for her life and the life of her people. The
King is horrified by what Haman has done and orders him to be hung on the same
gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Persian law did not permit the King
to reverse his decree, but he issued another decree that the Jews could defend
themselves. Instead of being destroyed, the Jewish people were saved and
defeated their enemies in battle. The Jews celebrate this triumph each year as
their Feast of Purim. It doesn’t always fall on the same day. In
2013, the Feast falls on February 24th.
Many see Queen Esther as a
type of Mary and the Book of Esther as a type of the Apocalypse. A figure type
is a person, place, thing or event foreshadowing a New Testament archetype (a
perfect model or type). The New Testament archetype is always greater than its
Old Testament figure type. For example, Jonah’s time in the belly of the great
fish is a type of Jesus in the tomb. Moses is a type of Jesus. The Jewish
people were saved through the intercession of Queen Esther, so Mary intercedes
for her people today. The Apocalypse foretells a great persecution of
Christians at the end of time, but the Book of Revelation speak about the Ark
of the Covenant appearing in the sky and the Woman crushing the head of the
dragon. (Revelation 12) When the Blessed Mother appeared at Fatima she wore the
Star of Esther. In the Old Testament of the Hebrew text, her name was Hádássah
- meaning myrtle, a white, five-pointed, star-shaped flower. In the Hebrew text,
her name was Hádássah - meaning myrtle, a white, five-pointed, star-shaped
flower.
Like Esther, Mary came at
Fatima to spare her children from destruction. She asked people to repent of
sin, pray the rosary, go to confession, and receive the Eucharist worthily. On
July 13, 1917, Our Lady said to the child Lucia: “…I shall come to ask for the
consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation
on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and
there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world,
causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the
Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated.
... In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will
consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and an era of peace will be
granted to the world.” Had her requests been heeded the world would have been
spared the horrors of World War II in which over 50 million people died and
countless other wars and persecutions provoked by Communists throughout the
world. In 1920, Russia was also the first country to legalize abortion. In
1913, Communist leader Vladimir Lenin demanded “the unconditional annulment of
all laws against abortions or against the distribution of medical literature on
contraceptive measures.” Great evils threaten our world. Sin increases. So many
hearts are hardened. We need to call on Our Lady in prayer. Heed her
requests at Fatima and Lourdes. Do penance, do the Five First Saturday
devotion by going
to confession, receiving the Eucharist, praying the rosary and meditating 15
minutes on the mysteries for five first Saturdays of the month in a row.
Queen Esther asked her people to do pray and do penance with her. We must
listen to the Blessed Mother today and ask her to intercede with her Son that
he might spare us, our nation and our world.
Copilot’s Take
Fear is never merely an
emotion in Scripture; it is a spiritual choke point where the human heart must
decide whether it will trust God or collapse inward. Esther’s cry—“deliver me
from my fear”—is the cry of every believer who stands before the powers of
darkness. The Catechism teaches that humanity lives within a “dramatic
struggle” against the forces of evil (CCC 409), a conflict that touches every
nation and every generation. America is not exempt from this drama. The
hardening of hearts, the contempt for human dignity, the corrosion of truth,
and the rise of ideologies that treat the human person as disposable are not
simply political trends; they are manifestations of the deeper spiritual battle
the Church insists is always underway. Esther’s courage becomes a mirror for our
own moment: fear must be confronted, not obeyed.
The Church teaches that evil
is not an abstraction but a personal reality—“a person, Satan, the Evil One”
(CCC 2851)—who seeks to distort, divide, and destroy. When Mary appeared at
Fatima, she did not offer political strategies or cultural commentary; she
offered weapons for spiritual combat: repentance, prayer, penance, the Rosary,
the Eucharist, and consecration. These are not pious accessories but the
Church’s frontline armaments. The Catechism affirms that prayer is a
“vital necessity” (CCC 2742) and that conversion is the first movement of
spiritual warfare (CCC 1430). Esther fasted for three days; Mary asked for
reparation and the First Saturdays. Both point to the same truth: evil is
confronted first on the knees.
The CCC warns that sin does
not remain private; it metastasizes into “structures of sin” (CCC 1869) that
deform society. America’s crises—violence, contempt, abortion, addiction,
corruption, ideological extremism—are not isolated failures but symptoms of
deeper wounds. The eclipse of God leads inevitably to the eclipse of man. The Catechism
calls this practical atheism (CCC 2124), a way of living as though God does not
exist. When a nation forgets God, it forgets the meaning of the human person.
Esther confronted a decree of death; Mary confronted a century of ideologies
built on the same premise. The Church confronts these realities not with
despair but with the confidence that grace is stronger than any political or
cultural darkness.
Truth is one of the most
endangered goods in America. The CCC teaches that bearing witness to truth is a
moral duty (CCC 2471) and that conscience must be formed, not merely felt (CCC
1783–1785). Esther spoke truth to the king with courage and clarity; Mary spoke
truth to the world with maternal urgency. Christians today must do the same.
Confronting evil does not mean mirroring the rage of the age. It means speaking
truth without hatred, resisting injustice without becoming unjust, and refusing
to let fear dictate our moral posture. The CCC calls this fortitude—“the moral
virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of
the good” (CCC 1808). Esther embodied it; Mary magnifies it.
The Eucharist stands at the
center of the Church’s confrontation with evil. The CCC calls it the “source
and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). A nation cannot be healed by
people who are spiritually starving. Esther approached the king’s throne at the
risk of death; Christians approach the throne of the King of Kings in the
Eucharist, receiving the very life that conquers death. Mary’s call at
Fatima—to receive the Eucharist worthily, to make reparation, to adore—was not
devotional ornamentation but a summons to the heart of spiritual combat. Evil
is not defeated by human strength but by divine life.
In the end, the CCC teaches that God’s victory is assured (CCC 1042–1050). Fatima echoes this with luminous simplicity: “My Immaculate Heart will triumph.” Esther’s people were saved; Mary’s children will be protected. The question is not whether God will triumph, but whether His people will cooperate with the grace offered to them. America stands at a threshold where fear, anger, and division threaten to define the future. But Esther shows the path of courage, and Mary shows the path of intercession. The Church shows the path of conversion, truth, sacramental life, and hope. Evil is confronted not by panic but by holiness. Not by rage but by repentance. Not by despair but by trust. And like Esther, we stand before the King—asking Him to deliver us from fear and to spare our nation.
St. John Vianney—ordained
on August 12, 1815, at the Couvent des Minimes in Grenoble—embodies a quiet,
stubborn holiness that reshaped an entire village and still steadies fearful
hearts today. Born amid the chaos of revolutionary France, he struggled
painfully through seminary, nearly failing out because of Latin. Yet the very
weakness that almost barred him from priesthood became the soil of his
sanctity: he learned to trust God more than his own abilities. When he arrived
in Ars, a spiritually indifferent hamlet, he transformed it through prayer, fasting,
and endless hours in the confessional, sometimes up to sixteen a day. Miracles,
discernment of souls, and a fierce devotion to Mary and St. Philomena marked
his ministry until his death in 1859. Canonized in 1925, he remains the patron
saint of parish priests.
His life is a living
commentary on fear and its defeat. He overcame the fear of inadequacy by
surrendering to God’s will rather than his own competence. He endured demonic
harassment with humor and courage, insisting the devil could bark but not bite.
He met rejection—from villagers and clergy alike—with patient charity. And he
embraced suffering as a path to heaven, teaching that our greatest burden is
not the cross itself but the fear of carrying it. In every trial, Vianney
answered fear with faith, humility, and love, turning a small French village
into a beacon of grace and leaving the Church a model of courage rooted not in
strength, but in surrender.
International Youth Day[2]
International Youth Day seeks to raise awareness to the cultural and
legal issues faced by youth throughout the world. The United Nations defines
youth as people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, although locally, youth
can be interpreted in a more flexible manner. In 1995, the General Assembly of
the United Nations (UN) adopted the World Program of Action for Youth with the
intention of establishing guidelines and policies for action and support that
would lead to a brighter future for tomorrow's youth. The World Program of
Action for Youth, which consists of 15 priority areas, including education,
employment, hunger and poverty, health, environment
and drug abuse, paved the way for the UN's declaration of International Youth Day in
1999. Since its inception on August 12, 2000, International Youth Day has
served to increase the quality and quantity of opportunities available to the
youth to actively participate in society. In 2009, the UN Economic and Social
Council further expanded each of the 15 youth priority areas by developing
goals and targets for monitoring youth progress, an expansion that now serves
as the basis for International Youth Day's annual theme. Each year, the
theme is selected based upon immediate and relevant issues that youth are
facing today.
International Youth Day Facts
& Quotes
Of the 1.8 billion youth in the world today, half survive on less than $2
per day.
Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation.
Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be
impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to
participate fully in the lives of their societies. - Kofi Annan,
Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Check out the United States
Congresses program for youth: www.congressionalaward.org
Elvis Week Continues till August 16
Five Catholic Facts About Elvis[3]
I have a grave confession to make. I own some Elvis CDs. In fact, I used
to be quite keen on his music, and one has to admit that, despite his
unedifying lifestyle and tragic final years, he was a talented musician.
Many people around the world are marking the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death.
Here are five top Catholic facts about the 'King':
one of Elvis' early performances (1955) was at the Catholic Club, Helena,
Arkansas. However, his unorthodox performance did not impress the parish
priest, Fr Keller, especially when the singer autographed a female fan's leg.
'You are a disgrace to manhood', he was allegedly told, 'don't come back
anymore'. Read more about it here.
It is well known that the beautiful Dolores
Hart, the niece of Mario
Lanza who starred alongside Elvis in Loving You (1957) and King
Creole (1958), left Hollywood in 1963 to become a Benedictine nun at the
Abbey of Regina Laudis, Bethlehem, Connecticut. There have long been rumours
that Dolores previously had romantic attachments to Mr Presley. 'I'd done two
movies with Elvis Presley', she later said, 'I'd been around Hollywood for a
while - and saw how needlessly competitive and negative it could be. It never
held my interest'. She eventually became Prioress and Mother Hart now holds the
unique distinction of being the only nun to be a voting member of the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I've mentioned before Elvis' last feature film, Change of Habit
(1969), in which he plays a doctor working alongside three sisters 'on
placement' (see picture at top of post). The unique finale, showing Elvis as
part of a folk group at an interim, pre-Novus Ordo Mass, can be seen here.
Elvis recorded a song called 'The Miracle of the Rosary' in 1971 (issued
on the 1972 album, Elvis Now), with the lyrics: 'O Blessed Mother we
pray to thee/Thanks for the miracle of your Rosary/Only you can hold back/Your
holy son's hand/Long enough for the whole world to understand/Hail, Mary full
of grace/The Lord is with thee/Blessed are thou among women/And blessed is the
fruit of thy womb, Jesus/O Holy Mary dear mother of God/Please pray for us
sinners/Now and at the hour of our death/And give thanks once again/For the
miracle of your rosary'.
When Elvis died in his Graceland bathroom thirty years ago today, he is
said to have been reading a book about the Holy Shroud of Turin - normally
identified as A Scientific Search For The Face Of Jesus (1972) by Frank
O. Adams, which argues that the Turin Shroud really is Our Lord's Shroud. It
has since become eagerly sought after by Elvis fans. Less impressive is the
other book he was allegedly reading - Sex and Psychic Energy. Hmmmm, we
better move quickly along.
NB There really was a Celtic saint called St
Elvis, who was a bishop of the Irish See of Munster and may even have baptised
St David, Patron of Wales - so it is a valid baptismal name!
Let
Freedom Ring Day 37 Freedom from Sloth
To fight this deadly sin, we must look to the cardinal virtue of justice.
Justice helps us to assume our responsibilities and to give to others what it
rightfully their due. Justice provokes us away from a slavish devotion to
comfort and provokes to use the God given abilities and talents we have to the
greater good. It provokes us to treat those tools God has given us (body, mind,
and soul) in such a way as to be able to fulfill whatever it is that God has
set for us to do. It helps us take care of those tools. Justice helps us be
wise and diligent stewards of God's gifts in our lives and helps us be diligent
in the duties and relationships we are called to live in. The purpose of our
exercise in prayer, fasting, and abstinence is to detach ourselves from worldly
comfort, looking to another and higher goal.
At the end of these 40 days, let us remember the motto of Bl. Pier
Giorgio Frasatti, 'verso l'alto' (to the heights) and let the good habits we
have engaged in lead us to a greater holiness and life in Christ.
Around the Corner
10 coolest summer getaways in Arizona:
Mountains, lakes and a chilly cave trek
Foodie: Beef Stroganoff with Wild Mushrooms
Bucket List: Vineyard World Tour:
Black Dog Vineyard, Carlton, Or.
Spirit Hour: Angelica
Daily Devotions
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: Holy Priests,
Consecrated, & Religious
Religion in the Home for Preschool: August
Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus
Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus
Rosary
THE ST. LOUIS BANK ROBBERY (1959)
Steve McQueen • Crahan Denton • David Clarke Directed by Charles Guggenheim & John Stix • Produced by Charles Guggenheim A Semi‑Documentary Descent into Real Crime, Real Men, and the Cold Geometry of a Heist
The St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) sits in the hard‑edged corner of late‑period noir where the romance has drained out and only procedure remains. Shot with semi‑documentary grit, using actual participants from the real 1953 Southwest Bank heist as consultants, the film trades shadows for stark realism. Steve McQueen, still early in his career, plays the young getaway driver caught between loyalty, fear, and the gravitational pull of men more desperate than he is.
This is noir stripped of glamour. No smoky femme fatale, no neon‑lit seduction — just planning rooms, cheap apartments, and the cold arithmetic of crime. The tension comes from watching ordinary men convince themselves they can outthink fate.
🎞️ Film Card — The St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959)
The St. Louis Bank Robbery
Sources:
1. Production & Cultural Setting
Post‑War Realism By 1959, noir had shed its romantic fatalism. America wanted facts, not shadows. This film delivers procedural truth.
McQueen Before Stardom He plays the driver with coiled restraint — a man who knows he’s in too deep but lacks the will to climb out.
The Heist as Anatomy Lesson Planning becomes ritual; timing becomes theology. Crime is treated like engineering.
Documentary Grit Real cops, real locations, real tactics — noir grounded in civic reality rather than existential dread.
Score Minimal, tense, functional — silence becomes the soundtrack of fear.
2. Story Summary
A Young Driver Pulled In McQueen’s character is not hardened — he’s impressionable, trying to prove himself.
A Crew of Desperate Men Their motives vary: money, pride, boredom, bravado.
The Plan Meticulous, rehearsed, brittle.
The Fracture Pressure exposes fear; fear exposes betrayal.
The Heist Executed with documentary precision — and unraveling inevitability.
3. Moral & Emotional Resonances
A. Crime Requires Self‑Deception Men must lie to themselves before they lie to anyone else.
B. Competence Without Wisdom Is Dangerous A perfect plan is still a foolish life.
C. Loyalty Has a Breaking Point Fear tests every bond.
D. Realism Is Its Own Kind of Horror No shadows needed — truth is bleak enough.
E. Fate Favors the Clear‑Sighted Survival belongs to the man who sees the trap before he steps into it.
4. Hospitality Pairing — Asphalt & Nerves
Drink: Bottom‑shelf bourbon — sharp, fast, unpretentious.
Plate: Salted peanuts — the snack of stakeouts and long nights.
Atmosphere: A bare room with a single lamp — functional, tense.
Symbol: A stopwatch — precision that cannot save you.
5. Reflection Prompts
Where does competence mask danger.
Where does loyalty bend under fear.
Where does realism strip away illusion.
Where does planning become self‑deception.
Where does the heart learn the cost of stepping into another man’s scheme.
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