A Moratorium on Trad Inc.

Okay, it is time to talk about Trad Inc., that is not little endeavors like this.  The whole enterprise is generally speaking, in my observation, not holy, edifying, healthy, or truly helping the cause of restoring Catholic Tradition. I end up materially having to reference it from time to time, but there needs to be a moratorium on it. 

It has created a landscape of excessively angry, obsessed Catholics focused on the wrong things.  I’ve been bitten myself by the bug before. There are many salt of the earth contributors of a lesser degree not looking for fame or to capitalize on religion. Yet, this needs to be said. 

Fr. Chad Ripperger.  Ok, it’s good he was formed in the FSSP, and should be praised for starting the Doloran Fathers exorcist society.  But if you follow anything Catholic on YouTube, Trad or not, you’ll keep running into his videos or people referencing him like he is the Arch-Guru of the Catholic Church. 

When you put yourself out there publicly so frequently, you open yourself up to necessary scrutiny.  Fr. R behaves as if his status has gone to his head.  He is often somewhat authoritarian and arrogant in his talks, encouraging a Cult of Personality around him.  There should be a moratorium on all things Fr. Ripperger, that is on the internet. 

Frank Walker of Canon 212.  It has been difficult to follow Church news without viewing his site, but he is beyond obsessed with all things Pope Francis.  He scorns bishops or anyone publicly for being overweight, which is creepy. He has advanced Ann Barnhardt’s ridiculous idea that Pope Benedict didn’t resign the papacy, making rejection of Pope Francis like a dogma. It’s maddening to read.  Recently objecting to anyone praying for the pope. Not healthy material. Better to occasionally check in instead at Life Site News. Or tune out the news cycle, ecclesial and secular. 

Taylor Marshall.  Textbook narcissism and profiteering off of the Faith.  Case in point he lying he didn’t know the Pachamama Dunker but he did, orchestrating the whole thing for clicks, for profit.  His channel breeds religious narcissism. His latest was his argument Joe Rogan should have him on to talk Catholicism since they both have black belts and like guns.

The Gordon Brothers.  These guys are very narcissistic.  The skateboarder Trad starting each “show” DJ’ing Gregorian chant is very odd.  It’s like making Catholicism into a clown show.  He and his wife literally present themselves to be excellent examples of man and wife (a middle aged skateboarder dude and his overbearing, loud wife).  They literally “teach” classes on marriage and hold themselves up as matchmakers.  He was a high school teacher who claimed he was fired for his views, true or not, gaining enough money from donors to buy a gigantic house beyond his means as a YouTuber.   

Kennedy Hall.  I like his views and promotion of Tradition, but let’s be real, it’s another clown show.  Another one man show pundit paying all his bills off of YouTube viewers.  He takes more of a secular, hyper-masculinity view of manhood, focusing more on things like beards, sonorous voices, and physical prowess than on interior masculine virtues like St. Joseph.  And he loves to incessantly stroke his beard.

Mundabor. This guy is so full of vitriol and judgment, what he says comes across bat sh*t crazy. 

Ann Barnhardt. For someone who gave talks about narcissism, she is clearly full of herself for her own fame, domineering, and proud. Nobody should take that woman seriously. She behaves like she has gender dysphoria. 

Anthony Stine. I'll go light on Anthony since we attend the same church and wouldn't want to piss him off.  I will say he is hyper focused on evil in the Vatican and from Pope Francis, and uses too sensational headlines.  Since it is his full time job, I fear it will eventually burn him out.  A lot of his content is triggering, it seems deliberately so, and in my experience not conducive to good mental health when watched frequently.

The Professional Catholics, Trad Inc., they all have things in common. Jeopardizing their long term careers, hire-ability, and incomes to spread obsession about the crisis in the Church and society.   

It feeds a cycle of obsession across Traddom and the mainstream Church. It harms minds and souls. Not all Catholic bloggers or YouTubers, but most of the celebrities.  Not all the time, but most of the time enough to call it out.  The focus is all wrong. 

Give me one day a channel or blog that focuses directly on the good, true and beautiful, like I at least try to do, that when talking about Pope Francis or the state of the Church, puts more time and energy into being optimistic about the good than cynical about evil.   There is a time and place for cynicism, but it shouldn’t be front and center, especially to make people like you or for $$$. 

At the center should be God, the Faith, the perennial Church, faith, hope, and, God forbid, love.

Rise Above, Part 2

Scroll down and read my post “Rise Above.”  This is “Rise Above. Part 2.”  I had talked about how the Eagle rises above crows.  In this post, I will talk more about the crows of our society, as to why it is so important to take the mindset of rising above them. 

This is the second dark age, immeasurably worse than the first, like hell in comparison to heaven. Outside of the minority of still existing traditional societies who still act like human beings, the majority no longer do. We act like zombies, once human, now dead, but still quasi-alive.  Most people deep down are willing to murder if their life depends on it, in extreme circumstances. Most people are ok sometimes lying, cheating, stealing, and intentionally harming the  innocent.  

And therefore very few today, in comparison say to the 1950’s, when having done something objectively wrong, that wrongs others, will ever genuinely apologize, take accountability, or apologize. 

So by crows we are also dealing with monsters who behave like zombies.   Rising above them, then, goes beyond situations like escaping poverty, healing from serious illness, or moving from a communist country to a democratic country.  Rising above now is akin to Christians during the first dark age moving to live near monasteries, to how St. Benedict himself fled decadent Rome to go live in a cave in the wilderness.  It is akin to Mel Gibson’s character in Man Without a Face going late at night to a small grocery store run by an old couple to get his groceries just before they closed.  

If you are like I am, or likely most readers here, then deep down our current society not only hates you to the core, or wants you dead, or to even stop existing, they wish your existence is absolutely wiped from the history books. 

Rise above.  Be very, very selective where you attend Mass, where you work, how you interact with people at work, what friends you make or keep, and even what time of day you shop at Walmart, if you want to avoid for your own peace of mind, year after year, decade after decade, the zombies, the crows. Crows are pests and typically congregate in excessively large groups.  

Rise above.  If you go to confession right down the road at your local Novus Ordo rite parish, as I sometimes do, get there very early to be first in line, to get out of there as quick as possible to avoid those who take 5-10 minutes to confess, girl altar servers setting up the sanctuary, or people hugging and chatting from the pew like the church is their own casual living room rather than a sacred place in which God dwells in as the “House of God.”  

There is great peace after confessing, but that environment will suck it back out of you.  Instead of procrastinating to get to confession late, rise above the material heretics and those committing sacrilege, and give yourself the serenity and freedom of getting in and out before the crows start coming into church. 

Rise above traffic.  It will take years off your life.  Instead of getting mentally entangled hyper studying what cars are driving too fast or too slow, guys with a death wish on motorcycles zooming past you at a shocking 100 mph, or unbridled idiots tailgating you, which will never end, drive like grandma in the slow lane listening to Mozart thinking about hiking trips and God. Not them.  

And rise above your neighbors. Whether you live in a neighborhood or apartment complex, or you are the kind to give a freshly baked apple pie to your neighbor, unless you want to be clinically depressed and in a state of angst about society, don’t.  Statistically, the odds are above 90% they’ll think you’re weird.  Practically speaking, in terms of neighbors, unless you live somewhere like a rural village in Mexico or Tibet, the phrase “nobody cares” is the truth.  

Rise above family as well, that is any family member who lacks empathy for any struggles you go through, who habitually fail to help you out in life or give support, who have seriously harmed you in some way without showing remorse (example: sexual, physical, or grave mental abuse), or who do not follow your Faith and values, or at all respect you for it.  With the breakdown of marriage and the domestic family, and therefore by extension the extended family, that means most people in your family, even the ones you enjoy drinking beer with at one of the few annual family gatherings, they are almost certainly a crow, a godless wordling, narcissistic, zombie. 

It is, in truth, that bad.  The Church has been flooded with heterodox or heretical people, especially the hierarchy.  The House of God has been taken over by banality and sacrilege, and mainstream society has been taken over by people with dark triad personality disorders. And their enablers.  

So rise above.  As I keep endeavoring to do.  Don’t isolate or reject society.  But retreat, carve out your niche, keep carving out your niche, do  whatever it takes to escape the crows, the spiritual and moral darkness, the flock of annoying crows, and flap your wings upward, soar, do everything you can, with God’s grace, to rise above, and find your place of serenity and freedom. 

Like the Eagle. 

Middle School Basketball. All Saints vs. Marquette. One of the Most Glorious Moments of My Life

I played basketball in middle school grades six through eight for All Saints Catholic school in Broken Arrow.  We had no basketball gym which limited our progress. 

I was tall and a pretty good player, not great but pretty good. Our team was so bad that every year we were either last in the league or second to last, the other worst team in the league being Marquette.  

I did notice a correlation between how nice a school’s gym was, or whether or not they had a gym, and how well they played. The very last game of the eighth grade season came down to us two teams playing yet again competing for who would not place last in the league. 

It was the fourth quarter, with  less than thirty seconds left on the clock. Marquette was ahead by two points, at our end of the court, me top of the lane guarding their point guard. He was so cocky they would win he was laughing and distracted.  He was actually a very rich kid from a very prominent political family in Tulsa.  My father was a simple, unknown postman and my mother a stay at home mother. 

With probably fifteen seconds left, I stole the ball from him, took it down the court scoring two points getting fouled, seconds left on the clock. I went to the free throw line and noticed a man I didn’t know standing off to the side smiling, shaking his head, giving me a look of admiration. 

I looked back at the basketball goal and made a free throw shot winning the game. I looked back at that man and he was ecstatic. Our family end friends went wild. We did not finish last, our own little victory, and my own personal victory.  

And a victory over arrogance and unsportsmanlike conduct.  A victory over evil. A victory for the good.  It was glorious. I remember thinking while guarding that guy, before I took the ball from him, that I wasn’t going to let him disrespect us in the last moment of the game, of the season, and of our middle school basketball career. 

And I didn’t. 

We actually went on to be friends and teammates for the Catholic high school wrestling team, on occasion my dad and I giving him a ride home to his mansion in my dad’s old used car. 

A glorious memory and formative time in my life. 

Why I Really Write this Blog

If I’m honest with myself, and you, it isn’t so much out of affection or friendship to my readership on the individual level, around the world, the nation, or locally.  That is a two way street. 

The fact the donations I received for my health recovery (see upper right hand side of this screen) came from not one reader demonstrates the general lack of gratitude readership has for what I provide for them here, or regard for why I asked for help, which I rarely am want to do.  I don’t resent this, but I point it out to make the point that I do this for the salvation of souls, and as a personal outlet, a hobby.  To set the record straight and deal with the sting of looking at the fundraiser and realizing (from knowing the other actual donors) not one reader has helped. 

So be it. At least I know where we stand. 

There are a few exceptions of a few people locally and online who communicated in the past genuine thanks. This modern society is as a rule individualistic, selfish, self-centered, and self-serving, and traditionalists (generally) are unfortunately no exception to this rule. 

The ultimate message of this work is that everyone should be a Catholic, and every Catholic should be opposed to conciliar modernism and upholding Tradition, attending the true Mass and refusing to accept a false Mass. That said, this as a labor of love, sustained by the knowledge this has no doubt helped countless people either convert, revert, or come to Tradition. That has been my outlook more than preaching to the choir. 

And there is also the knowledge that at least a few of you use the pages for more than your own self gain but have some connection indirectly to me.  For example, back before Blogger for some reason disabled my comment section (perhaps a technical problem, but which I couldn’t fix after many attempts) I got a comment from a disabled man in Oklahoma urging me to not stop bogging because the blog helped sustain him, which at the time I shared with readers I was considering stopping. Sir, if you’re reading this, it is readers like you that keep me going. 

So I continue.  To speak the truth in charity, far and wide, and with ironic humor, for the greater glory of God, and as one activity to keep me sane in this crazy period of the world and Church.  If I make a few friends or acquaintances along the way great; if not, so be it. I know there are probably bishops in the Vatican, priests in different parts of the world, housewives, men on their lunch break, whether here or in Europe, Asia, Australia, or you name it, benefiting from these pages.  I speak to the world knowing we all are called to Catholic Action, and given my background this makes sense as one means to participate in the work of Christ’s Church. 

What Does it Mean to Be Orthodox

The post-conciliar novel view of orthodoxy is only right belief in Church doctrine, in particular what conciliar popes teach especially on issues like birth control, abortion, the Eucharist, or Mary. But traditionally orthodoxy also applies to praxis or Church practice, as to whether liturgical or pious practices are orthodox.  

The post-conciliar novel way to think among “conservatives” is that as long as the pope or local bishop approves of a practice then, regardless of the practice itself, it therefore must be orthodox, that is being in conformity to Church teaching.  This is why traditionalists object to the Novus Ordo as unorthodox, because while not being an explicit rejection of doctrine, in both its approved structure and common practice it is Protestant, and therefore tends to contradict Church teaching on the nature of the Mass. 

Let’s bring back orthodoxy to what it is, to include orthopraxis, or correct worship or conduct, because that is part of what orthodoxy is. If orthodoxy means right belief, then we must have right belief about ecclesial actions.  If I believe the Novus Ordo, even in the official missal, is not at all Protestant, then I lack right belief about what the practice of the Novus Ordo is, or that it can be accepted. 

Also, orthodoxy involves not only dogmas, but a hierarchy of doctrines. There are doctrines at the very top, in the middle, and lower level doctrines.  Examples of lower level doctrines include the constant prohibition of participating in illicit, invalid, heretical, or schismatic forms of worship, even in the  name of ecumenism, or the traditional, pre-conciliar papal teachings condemning the modernist teaching on religious liberty.  

Even if a pastoral Council (Vatican II) or pope gives a lower pastoral or disciplinary level document to be adhered to, if they contain error, then previous higher level documents (ex: doctrinal, not pastoral documents condemning religious liberty and condemning the ecumenical movement) take precedence and are the documents to which, according to right belief, we must adhere.  

True orthodoxy refuses to accept doctrinal errors even if cloaked in authority, adhering to higher authoritative teachings.  This is why in order to be truly orthodox, and therefore faithful to Christ and the Church, you must be a “traditionalist Catholic” today. Because this means being faithful to Tradition, both divine and ecclesiastical, and therefore orthodox in the full and true sense of what that means. 

Fr Stu Movie Review. The Critics Were Wrong

Traditional and conservative Catholic film critics of the movie “Fr. Stu” were, in my opinion wrong.  This is a very good movie.  Somewhere between good and excellent.  

Yes, Whalberg unnecessarily took of his shirt, and perhaps they didn’t need to include as much profanity to characterize the man in real life portrayed by this film. On the other hand, they were portraying the man “before” and “after” his conversion. 

This film is simple, down to earth, heart felt, and most of all really hits you deep in your soul about Christ and what a priest is.  The character’s meekness in the face of his degenerative disease, his devout ex-girlfriend standing by his side, the grace of ordination despite becoming severely disabled, all of this was Godly and authentically Catholic.  Definitely worth watching. 

Well done Mark Whalberg.  Well done Mel Gibson. 

About to Watch "Fr. Stu." Will Write a Review.

It popped up as free in my Amazon prime video,  I expect to have to fast forward through a scene or two from what I read.  I'm not expecting much based on Catholic reviews, but I'll form my own impression.  Stay tuned.

Zelensky Displays His Psychopathy. Ends Hope of Peace.

I just watched the fantastic, arguably historical clash between Zelensky and Trump.  Trump invites him to DC to discuss a plan to make PEACE, and instead the psychopath keeps repeating the false main stream narrative how much a threat Putin is, for the US to keep helping Ukraine to fight him. 

And when I call him psychopath, I do not mean it as an insult, but that I think he is board certified a literal psychopath. along the lines of Hitler or Stalin. 

His demeanor and body language betrayed a deeply disturbed personality so fixated on himself, this person is literally escalating the world even CLOSER to WWIII.  This person has pathological levels of pride and vanity.  And Trump can only “make a deal” IF Zelensky will make a deal, which after today’s fiasco certain to go viral is certain will never happen. 

Therefore, it all came down to these two men today.  That’s the reality.  

And praise to J.D. Vance who, in my opinion, was the most bold standing up directly to Zelensky for his disrespect and ingratitude, even before Trump did. 

Now, it is certain Trump will not be able to make a deal, not because he lacks diplomacy, or the excellence to make it, which today he clearly exhibited, while Zelensky acted like an entitled, teenage, punk, but because the leader of Ukraine madly refuses to make a deal. He cannot accept defeat (the Donbas, a small region in eastern Ukraine, that is practically Russian), so he brings us all even closer to global war.  

Putin is watching today.  He knows this conference in the Oval Office was literally history unfolding before our eyes.  It was prophetic of what now will unfortunately unfold in Eastern Europe. 

On one hand is a man trying to make peace;  on the other hand is a psychopath sending hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to certain death and escalating the world to nuclear war, while personally profiteering off of the war.  All that can happen is that Trump arranges a peace summit inviting Putin, European leaders, and Zelensky, and give this person single-handedly threatening the whole world an ultimatum.  

Tell him to accept defeat or else the West will withdraw support, and in turn Putin makes concessions that will satisfy the West.  I was confident Trump will bring an end to the immediate risk of WWIII, now I see things better.

Zelensky will not make peace.

Trump will get us out of that immediate conflict, but since this psychopath will literally never stop the war, then Russia will be forced to conquer (and practically destroy) all of Ukraine.  This will mean a perpetual conflict between Russia, Europe, and the US.  

A perpetual conflict threatening the world, in which any unfolding of conflict which “crosses the red line” can end in mutually assured destruction. 

The West will surely stick to its false narrative that it is the defender and Russia is the offender (yet truthfully that dynamic has become reversed since the 1990’s, with the expansion of the US/NATO empire).  Therefore, I think we should all not put our hope in world peace anytime soon, but keep preparing for the unfolding Great Chastisement through prepping, etc. 

All because of one entitled mad man, a comedian and actor with zero integrity to lead a nation, brainwashed by western narcissism and purchased by the globalist elites.  Despite all of this miracles do happen, so I pray Trump can make the best deal he can to at least protect the US, even though next Western Europe will have escalated itself into a very hot situation once Russia is forced to take Ukraine. They will spin that into Russia being a threat of taking over all of Europe, beginning with Eastern Europe.

All over a small region equal in size to northeastern Oklahoma.

Thoughts on Forgiveness

One central lesson I have learned recovering from psychosomatic pain disorder, which is very much rooted in past trauma, is the imperative to forgive those who caused or contributed to that trauma.  In fact, as a general rule I think most experience a pattern of trauma throughout their life on some level, if not in a severe way, such that the longer it is unresolved, especially through forgiveness, the longer it affects your physical health and consequently your whole state in life. I imagine this accelerates aging for many people.

The mind is so powerful that a mindset of peace and confidence (in God), and positive thinking, carries the person far, whereas a mindset of inner turmoil and doubt, engulfed in negativity, leads a person downhill.  Lack of full forgiveness causes unresolved memories which can cause illness and bad habits, whereas good, healthy thoughts to heal those memories conversely restore health and better habits.  Life only gets better. 

There are two levels of forgiveness, moral and psychological.  Moral forgiveness must happen as soon as possible after harm is done, and can be done quickly. It is a singular choice. But psychological forgiveness is a longer process of inner healing, yet still moral in so far as you commit yourself to that process.  Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean reconciliation, but letting go of undo anger and resentment that automatically swells up in us after being injured, because of original sin. Note this  does not mean having zero anger ever again to that person, as anger is the emotion the causes us to avoid evil and defend ourselves and others.  So as long as said person persists in their ways and should ever cross your path again, having a modest degree of anger for that purpose is not evil, though perhaps usually it is wiser to be so mentally detached from them to be stoic. 

There are ways to work on psychological forgiveness.  One, every time past memories of your past enemy resurface, pray for them.  Two, write letters of forgiveness to past enemies, being brutally honest what they did but also your own mistakes, but never send it or show to others. Instead do a ceremony of burning the letter as a symbol of letting go, praying to God saying “I forgive them.”  Three, include  in your prayers each night “and for past and present enemies.”  For a moment think on those who most come to mind who need your prayers that they have conversion on some level.  

Not yet achieving forgiveness is typically because of chronic obsession, not just about past difficult people but about life, which can be one form of demonic influence.  The devil uses your past trauma to torment and sew seeds of doubt and despair, at least emotionally if not willfully.   

So if you struggle with obsessing about past enemies and what they did to you, or any obsession, you have to do spiritual warfare against this every day, invoking St. Michael, praying daily for deliverance and to achieve a state of peace, and rising above it all through daily mental prayer, like an eagle soaring upward in the sky. 

Forgiveness means “letting go” of everything related to the trauma of what that person did, becoming totally detached from them and the nitty gritty details of those memories (though not forgetting the basic fact of what they did to prevent it from happening again), healing, and therefore being transformed, all of which will happen when done through Christ, the sacraments, a daily schedule of prayer, and the clear intention daily to forgive your enemies.  

In the end God will deal with them in a perfect way of divine justice, and your new tranquil state of “having forgiven” will show you the way to freedom from the evil they cause.  In the end you will win and prosper from it. You do this by rising above and beyond your enemies through the power of forgiveness, imitating Christ. 

The Next Pope. I Pray it is Cardinal Sarah

On the human level, it is practically certain the next pope will be a Pope Francis II, carrying on what Archbishop Vigano in a recent article called the “Bergoglian revolution.” My money is on them electing Cardinal Tagle of the Philippines, described as the Asian version of Pope Francis. 

They will want to elect another non-Italian and minority to promote diversity. And they certainly don’t want an African.   Yet, on a supernatural level, miracles are possible. The election of Cardinal Ratzinger in 2005 approached that. 

On one hand, we must be pragmatic and look at the moral certainty that the suppression of Tradition and the TLM, and the deepening of modernism, will continue under a Pope Francis II.  On the other hand, right now is precisely the time to offer up our daily crosses and prayers God might spare us, the way he spared the USA Kamala Harris.  Miracles do happen. 

Despite the majority of Cardinals being appointed by Pope Francis, many actually are from more conservative parts of the world, in particular Africa and Eastern Europe.  So if the Holy Ghost, moved by our own prayers and sacrifices precisely at this moment, were to bring the cardinals to their senses, to avoid even more division in the Church caused by the radical progressive program of “Francis-Church,” I think they would seriously consider electing a conservative African who would in their mind be a balancing force for unity between conservatives and liberals, while in reality he would be objectively a force for at least moving the Church in the right direction of restoration. 

Those who say Sarah won’t get elected cite Sarah’s criticisms of Pope Francis, yet in fact he, in contrast to Cardinal Burke, Mueller, and Zen, has not been directly confrontational to the pope but more diplomatic in his criticisms, whatever that is worth.  This would make him a trustworthy “counter-weight” in their eyes, plus he is very popular and well respected, and most of all, in their mind, would represent expanding the diversity of the papacy (even though the pope should generally be Italian for all the good reasons the Church always had an Italian pope).

Therefore, while we must prepare ourselves for the high probability of a Pope Francis II, I am praying and offering up my own crosses right now it is not, and more specifically that it is Cardinal Sarah, who is, in a general way, a traditionalist, and would be a breath of fresh air and sign of hope for those who adhere to the orthodox Faith and liturgy. My first pick would be Bishop Fellay of the SSPX, or Bishop Athanasius Schneider (Vatican diplomat to the SSPX, who judged that the Society was not incorrect in its criticisms of Vatican II or the New Mass), but that’s not realistic. A Cardinal Sarah is much more realistic. 

Double Your Prayers for Pope Francis

Until one day a pope, or ecumenical Council ratified by the pope, declares Pope Francis to have been an invalid pope, I accept him as the pope and pray for him as the pope, which is a special duty of Catholics regardless how bad he is.  The media is now reporting he is in critical condition. I would say it looks very possible he will pass soon.  Let us pray the pope is converted on his death bed, to renounce his errors, to have remorse for his errors and what he has done to the Bride of Christ.  Let us pray he has a holy and peaceful death, if this is his time to go.  And pray by some miracle the next pope is not another Pope Francis but at least heading in the direction of restoring the Church.  Interesting time in which we live. 

The Latin Church has Been Split into Two Latin Churches

It is not an easy task to conceptualize the Crisis in the Church, to break down what has happened since the Council, and the division the conciliar reform has caused.  Prior to the Council there was little or no political spectrum dividing the Church of traditionalist, conservative, moderate, progressive, and liberal.  

But that is sadly the reality now.  It is likewise no small thing to break down the different sub-movements within the Latin Mass movement, that is the Ecclesia Dei groups (FSSP, etc)), the SSPX and like-minded independents, and the sedevacantists.  

And coming to terms with how faithful Catholics have been treated by the hierarchy since the Council, and how to view our relationship to that hierarchy, is like trying to climb a high mountain.  But I propose that it all boils down to a de facto state of the Latin Church being divided into two Latin Churches, the traditional one verses the modernist one.  

While the eastern Catholic Churches have succumbed somewhat to conciliar modernism, for the most part they haven’t in comparison to the Latin Church (i.e. the western Church).  One point of view is to view us traditionalists as the “true Church” in the vain of what St. Athanasius declared during his time, “they (the Arians) have the churches, but those Catholics faithful to Tradition are the true Church of Jesus Christ.” 

Yet it isn’t that simple today.  Many within the mainstream are truly Catholic, and the mainstream still is a valid, licit hierarchy that represents the true Church of Jesus Christ.  So the ecclesiology of the Crisis gets complicated.  

We should not view the Novus Ordo mainstream literally as a false Church, even though there is a de facto false religion of modernism within the structure.  On the other hand, we should not view ourselves in practical reality as part of the same Latin Church, because a particular Church is defined by its liturgy and praxis. 

Tridentine Catholicism and conciliar Catholicism are so different that de facto they have a different liturgy and praxis.  Therefore the two are not in reality the same particular Church, but practically speaking two particular Churches, or at least like two particular Churches, that is two deferent Latin Churches, both united to the pope and Rome, but in reality largely separate communities.  

Latin Mass Catholics of all stripes rightly largely avoid the Novus Ordo mainstream because, besides the fact it embraces modernism whereas we reject it, remaining faithful to Tradition, we are in reality two different communities.  This would be the same de facto reality if say the Greek Catholic Church adopted a Protestantized form of its liturgy and accompanying system of novel devotion.  Whereas a remnant of Greek Catholics, however small or marginalized, retained their ancient liturgy and tradition, yet they would retain formal unity and membership in the Catholic Church, in union with Rome, and only from a great distance in union with each other.  

In that very plausible scenario, the two communities would practically be two distinct Greek Catholic Churches.  I think this is what Bishop Fellay of the SSPX was once getting at when he proposed that there be a universal structure throughout the Latin Church for the Tridentine rite, beyond particular traditionalist societies of priests, with its own canonical structure, jurisdiction, and bishops, what ideally would be an “apostolic administration.”  The reality was and is that traditional Catholics are somewhat separated from the rest of the “reformed” Latin Church, in our liturgy and entire outlook.  

We follow the Tradition, whereas the 99.9% of Catholics who identify as Latin rite Catholics as a matter of fact do not.  There is in reality the traditional Latin Church, and the Novus Ordo Latin Church, while both formally remain united to the Faith and the papacy. On one hand, I think coming full circle to accept this as the hard raw reality helps give clarity and peace of mind.  Accepting the fact that “we” are not “them,” that we are two different communities, helps alleviate the strain of navigating our relationship with the authorities, that is our local bishop and those presently in control of the Vatican.  

On the other hand, it creates relative peace between us and “them” by acknowledging the reality, so that our differences can be once and for all soberly discussed. The SSPX itself heroically had tried many times to do this with the authorities in Rome, especially in their 2012 formal, sit down doctrinal discussions with authorities in Rome, which would later rightly be characterized as a “dialogue of the deaf” on the side of the Roman authorities. 

They simply could not or would not even directly acknowledge the central doctrinal problems raised by the Society.  Instead of working to address contradictions between conciliar and pre-conciliar texts, their method was to, using circular reasoning, or shallow argument from authority alone, argue there are no errors simply because the authorities say there are not.

It is time to face the reality.  Besides the sad fact, truth be told, that most professed Catholics in the hierarchy and the laity are either heretics or heterodox, therefore to be avoided, per Scripture, they represent an altogether new version of the Latin Church.  

They have split the Latin Church into two Latin Churches, not we.  We simply maintaining the practice prior to the Council is to like being a large granite rock, while they are a divisive, torrential current.  

If you belong to the Novus Ordo rite, you are of this new Latin Church, and must, for the sake of your soul and sanity, leave and join the traditional Latin Church, which, despite its own internal flaws on the human level, is, compared to the mainstream, preserving the Catholic Faith and therefore the Catholic Church.  Coming to that conclusion will bring you peace and confidence in the face of the modernist bullies forcing new depths of modernism and liberalism on us.  

Step outside of the torrent and into solid ground.  If you are in eastern Oklahoma, seek out the ancient Mass at Most Precious Blood or Sts. Peter and Paul in Tulsa, Holy Cross in Wagoner, or at Clear Creek abbey near Hulbert.  If closer to Oklahoma City, check out St. Michael’s chapel (SSPX) in the suburb of Bethany, or St. Damien’s in the suburb of Edmund.

What AI Says About the Novus Ordo Mass

If you hold the position that the Novus Ordo Mass is heterodox, that is that it officially deviates from Catholic teaching, consider that even AI considers this an objective fact beyond subjective opinion, and secondarily that Church teaching itself directs us to avoid it.  

I asked it questions, and it gave statements it said, when asked, are not opinions or its own opinion, but objective facts.  Here is the syllogism based on facts (major and minor premises):

If a liturgy, even if approved by a pope, inverts the ends of the Mass, making the sacrifice and transcendental worship secondary, and the communion and memorial aspects primary, then  that is heterodox, that is it deviates from Church teaching (fact).

The Novus Ordo in its prescribed structure, prayers, and rubrics emphasizes communion  and memorial as primary, and the sacrifice and transcendental  worship as secondary (fact). 

Therefore, as politically incorrect it is to conclude this, logic dictates that the Novus Ordo is heterodox, it deviates from Church teaching   The inversion itself is as a matter of fact, not subjective opinion, Protestant and heterodox. 

AI also quoted many Catholic theological sources including Vatican sources that instruct the faithful to avoid liturgies that have liturgical abuse.  Yet inverting the order of the Mass is objectively an abuse of the liturgy, therefore generally (and ironically) the Church herself in essence instructs us to avoid, and excuses us from attending, the Novus Ordo, even if it is celebrated with great reverence and solemnity and there is no accessible Latin Mass.

This is most what the liturgical debate is about, not about esthetics and liturgical traditions like chant, Latin, or ad orientem. 

This is ultimately why faithful Catholics must attend the Latin Mass and not the Novus Ordo. 

This question comes down to us admitting that 1+ 1 = 2, when the current authorities are telling us to believe that 1 + 1 = 3.  It goes against our God given conscience, common sense, and sanity to accept something that is false to be true, in the name of obedience, which is only absolute with regard to the divine law.

It is ironic that even AI admits the facts, within the context of the Catholic Faith.  AI isn’t God, but it is incredibly informed and logical. 

Pray for Pope Francis

He's in the hospital.  The media is portraying this as more urgent than a routine hospitalization. Pray he repents from his modernism and liberalism and for what he has done to faithful Catholics.  Our God is the God of miracles and can restore his faith to its integrity before his time comes.  And besides, regardless of how bad a pope he is, we should love him because he is the pope, our Holy Father, Christ's Vicar on Earth.

Rise Above

It is time for us seekers of  goodness and truth to rise above all the nonsense of the majority of people of this modern world, and that representative, dominating minority that is the face of our current society.  I am talking about people who behave like pests, who drag down Salt-of-the-Earth people with them, who can wear us down into a chronically bad state. 

I am talking about the bullies and elites in every sector of society, and their enablers, those whose minds are in a default state of subjectivism, personal bias, prejudging everyone around them, ready to willingly assassinate peoples’ character and erase them from the group, to harm the innocent when expedient and self-serving.

These are the people who not only contracted the virus of narcissism, which is an epidemic, of outright pathological levels of pride and vanity, but sought it out in the first place to get infected.  They wanted self-glory, to dominate others, to sell their soul to the world to be accepted, and to live a life devoted to pleasing the self (hedonism). 

These are the people who measure themselves and others primarily in terms of money, career advancement, influence, social status, and fitness (physical and psychological), and secondarily, or not at all, in terms of wisdom and virtue, character, faith, authenticity, let alone being Christ-like.  

AKA being meek and humble.  Which they reduce to weakness. 

The evidence that this is the reality is the historical record of popular culture since the 1960’s.  It is undeniable. This culture has only exponentially unfolded one decade after another.

These are pests, and we must rise above them, just like an eagle rises above crows. Crows are pests that harass eagles. They often resort to harassment, prejudice of all kinds, rashly and idiotically judging people as if they are a blank slate of little value until proven otherwise, or by skin level surface features, resorting to slander, detraction, and calumny, ostracization, and psychological and social murder.  They do this while lacking self-awareness that this is precisely what they are doing, or that it is ultimately causing  self-harm. 

If the eagle  took its time to fight the crow, it would win because it is a more excellent creature, smarter and stronger.  But the eagle usually doesn’t because if it did, while it would win, it would get fatigued and have to land on ground.  

Instead the eagle’s  power is the ability to fly at very high altitudes, and higher than the crow.  So to beat the crow, all it has to do is fly to an altitude at which the crow is incapable of flying.  That’s what we must do.

I confess I’ve not always dealt well with the crows in my past. I’m still to this day trying to finally rise above them all in my mind, as a strong habit. And I’m not absolutely innocent of their ways.  I can let them get to me sometimes, wear me down, fatigue me, and make me land on ground instead of soar.  

It is merely an illusion that their worldly success is the real measure of success in this life, on this planet, in this one life God gives us, by which God determines our eternal destiny, chiefly by how much we love Him and every person He puts in our life.  How we treat others.

Sadly, there are crows even among us, that is people who profess Roman Catholicism, orthodoxy, and devotion to tradition. Or people who identify with  politically and socially conservative Christianity opposed to the culture of death and the culture of lust. 

But those crows are not hard to identify.  They act just like the worldly, secular narcissists who thrive on being superior to others, except they carry around rosaries or Latin Mass missals, and treat the parish not as much as the Catholic Church at the most local, public level, but as a country club for the supposedly elite. 

The key is to stand your ground, fraternally correct if necessary, if at all, and as soon as possible rise above them.  Leave them in the past and below you for good, since they are trouble makers and scandalous to the community of believers, by giving misleading bad example.  Like those singled out by St. Paul in the New Testament.  

The crows (again the majority, which are the wordlings, and truth be told also the worldly religious Pharisees masked as good Christians) want you fit, well dressed, and good looking.  Primarily because it feeds their ego, and your presence in their lives serves to elevate their own social status.  They want you to have hard core street smarts, a lot of money, or to see you at a level of ambition aimed at a lot of money.

They walk the common, wide road to turmoil, frequent conflict, existential uncertainty, discouragement, and despair. They will become addicted to alcohol, work, abusing others, and excessive self-care. Externally their lives may be abundant, but internally they reduce themselves to shallow shells of inner turmoil.

But we do not, and cannot walk down that popular path.  We take the narrow road, the path lest travelled, one that is harder, more rocky, more vertical, and challenging, but one that leads upward to beautiful mountain meadows, metaphysical reality itself, being tuned into nature and human nature, and tranquility. To true friendship with God and with true friends, that is those truly loyal to lasting friendship. 

We have to rise above the crows of this world, like an eagle does.  Look the temptation in the eye to fly at the altitude of the crows, to keep fighting those in your way, to fit in with them.

And then tell that temptation to get lost and turn your back on it, and ascend to a higher level.  Ascend to that level where plain, good, authentic, virtuous people dwell, the saints, the angels, and the Holy Ghost.  This is also the place of our pets who are innocent and pure, created to showcase God’s glory, and for our good use.  

Dogs are not impressed by bling, sixty inch flatscreen TVs, a thirty-two inch waist, six figure salaries, or how many friends you have.  They are impressed by humans who are safe, loving, and giving.  They take refuge in people like that, not the crows of this world. 

And again, the crows are those indoctrinated into our narcissistic culture, or who have yet to shed that culture, who would look down on people who are simple-minded, overweight, struggling, poor, nerdy, or shy as odious losers to be avoided like lepers. They are clouded by a dark mind and limit themselves to lower things. Their view of reality is inverted and cloudy. 

Rise above.  Rise above this low class, immoral, self-centered dominant group that has set God and His moral law in the margins, instead of at the center.

It is time to put the crows behind us and below us.  Ascend above and beyond them through the wisdom and grace of God, building upon the nature He gave us, including those divine gifts ingrained into each unique person. 

Rise above the crows.  No longer let them haunt your dreams or subconscious neurotic thoughts in the background, that are like little monkeys on your shoulders filling your ears throughout the day with annoying, toxic chatter.  Chatter that is tempting you to dwell on the evils of the world, of the world of crows.

And again, who are the crows?  Crows are walking, living contradictions, often seemingly correct at mere surface level, since health and a modest degree of prosperity are godly things to aspire to, but focusing on worldly goods, especially social status and popularity in whatever community they belong.   

Even in church circles, which is an unfortunate oddity.  They represent the evil heresy unfortunately alive in Catholic and Protestant circles called “prosperity theology.” that is the false ideology or theology that one’s faith and character, one’s overall value, is measured by how wealthy and healthy you are, as if the poor with serious health conditions are therefore to be deemed on the outer edge of the Church community and God’s esteem.

Whether it is the idiocy of this, or the present pervasiveness of this, it is baffling.

These were the popular kids in high school who stuffed nerds into lockers, or looked up to those kids, or aligned on some level with them, and equated virginity or sobriety or plain dress with psychological weakness and poor social fitness, and still to this day play that high school cafeteria game of superiority.  

They also fill the ranks of those who rise to the level of management, business ownership, and gaited communities, who rise to that level not as much by merit and honesty as by favoritism and dishonesty, of resorting to inhumane treatment of others when necessary to get ahead.

They will be the same ones to hire and promote more based on a cool surface appearance than on competence, hard work, business ethics, or professional integrity.  They do not value professionalism because they do not value treating others by the golden rule.  

The crow is also someone who ends up looking up to and enabling these people. Most crows are this kind of crow. 

Rise above the dark, perpetual complexities and conflicts of this dominate group, however universal and popular, and ascend to the level of divine simplicity, peace, and true love (which is charity and self-sacrifice).  The love that is felt at the very core of your being, and does not go away, whether the romantic love of marriage, true, lasting friendship, or charity,

Dwell instead in bright, heavenly realms of beauty, freedom, creativity, joy, inspiration, and transformation. Of reality.  Heal from all the traumas inflicted by crows. Forgive them, and leave that trauma behind and below you, as you ascend beyond the pests.

Rise above it all, above all the nonsense. God did not create us to be like crows, but like eagles.  To soar, to fully express our nature and talents, to the best of our ability, to dwell with the elect, to be the elect, that is  those who instead chose the way of grace and truth.  The way of eternal salvation.

Ultimately, the crows seeing you ascend may even want themselves to transform into an eagle so they can also soar to heavenly heights. God wants everyone to rise above and soar like an eagle. 

As St. Paul said, “Onwards and upwards.”  Upwards.  One day at a time.  Rise above. And see yourself transform. In Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And that is my own present and ongoing journey. 

My Dog Thinks the Word “Pray” Means “Play”

My dog Lizzy always starts to play when we sit down to pray the evening rosary. She always brings her little orange ball over to me to play fetch.  We did not realize it until just recently that when one of us calls out “It’s time to pray,” she must think we’re saying “It’s time to play.”  I’d like to think the Good Lord Himself looks down on this with humor.  

The Power of Neural Habituation and Neural Plasticity in Dealing with Adversity

One of the hard facts of life is that throughout our lives we run into circumstances that seem intolerable, unacceptable, and beyond coping. The circumstance seems overwhelming and dooming.  It tempts one to despair, and sins to deal with despair. 

A child gets covered in poison ivy and wonders how long their body will be full of itchiness.  During a high altitude backpacking trip, your tent caves in from ice cold rain leaving you drenched shivering, sitting below a tree counting the hours until daylight. You find your work shift absolutely intolerable, expecting a transfer to another shift next month when your manager tells you it won't happen for another six months...possibly longer.

A person is born without arms.  A devout Catholic wife has to put up with her faithless, godless husband full of vice (or vice versa). A person is born into the lowest Hindu caste system in India, raised in the darkest section of the slums. A young woman suddenly develops severe, crippling rheumatoid arthritis. 

A new high school graduate, a devout conservative Catholic, goes to a gigantic liberal university that is essentially a mosh pit of rebellion, lost in a foreign world, those like him being rare, facing four daunting years there.  A young pretty woman suffers permanent scars across her face after being burned in a fire. 

At age 60, you have to cash in your entire 401K for an emergency, reduced to working until you die.  An elderly person living independently winds up in the hospital, and then suddenly is placed in the nursing home, and one that smells of urine with screaming up and down every hall, like an insane asylum.

At a glance these situations at first seem insurmountable, like looking up at Mount Everest from base camp.  

Yet, one thing God has given us in our nature to cope and overcome extreme adversity, is how the brain can adapt and literally, continuously program and re-program itself.  Habituation is one process.  For example, annoying sensations like pain or itchiness can become so habitual that the mind knows how to tune it out, to a level of zero or something in the background that no longer oppresses us.

This happens especially well when we use will power day after day  to force our minds to think optimistic thoughts and subdue pessimistic thoughts, but habituation in the brain happens even if we do not consciously choose for it to happen.  Given enough moments in a day in which we perform and use our minds in all sorts of ways, eventually the neural pathways get rearranged where they need to be, and then you either feel no pain or far less pain. You adjust.  You “get used to it.”

It is neural plasticity that is so powerful, that is the fantastic, unimaginably ingenious set of neural mechanisms that create constant shaping of neural pathways, and literally new sections of nerves organized to cope with a particular situation.

This happens after every brain injury, whether it is from a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or concussion. It happens after every traumatic event that results in shock, anxiety, or depression.  And it happens every time we learn something new or go through some kind of personal growth, which happens even when we are old.  

I think there is an implicit philosophical error some devout Catholics fall into, and that is a simplistic, dualistic view of human nature.  The person is viewed as a body and a soul, but “the body” itself is not distinguished between the brain and the rest of the body.  That is, it is like our spiritual soul alone is what controls the body, instead of also the vast network of neural pathways and structures in the brain. God has created us such that the soul and the brain are harmoniously one. Just as we must take care of the body, so we have to take care of our brains.  So as long as we are alive in our bodies, our lives or behaviors result in part from what is happening in the brain.  This is why mental illness is real, working on mental health so important, and why cultivating our cognitive state is integral to dealing with life and the sufferings of life, that is adversity.  Prayer is supreme in doing this, but psychological meditation and mindfulness practices arw also important to re-frame our minds to avoid evil and seek the good, and to tune into reality.

This takes time, reading, reflection, and daily practice alongside prayer.  Meditative walks, reading, journaling, clearing the mind sitting listening to classical music, grounding yourself in your physical environment (ex: walking in the grass barefoot), all these kind of things will help a person habituate to and accept their adversity or cross no matter what kind it is.  The brain absolutely will then re-shape areas of the frontal and temporal lobes that process thought, memory, emotion, choice, orientation to space and time, etc.

In conclusion, I think it is good to be aware of our brains, the need to work on mental health (in addition to spiritual health), and continuously re-frame how we think about whatever adversity we have not fully come to peace about.  That might be chronic pain in a knee that still depresses you mentally, obsessions with some past injury done to you by a harmful person in your life, or any adversity big or small that still dominates you, rather than you dominating it.

If you are still trying to figure out how to cope with a heavy burden in your life, and I think most of us are still trying to do that about some kind of adversity, you can be assured, in addition to God’s grace we receive through the sacraments and prayer, God has given us in our natures, in our brain, the capacity to be resilient and conquer any oppressive situation.  It just takes time and daily effort and steps, and before long you will habituate and permanently change for the better. 

Thoughts on RFK Jr.

When I first heard about him fighting the clot shot I cautiously appreciated him despite being a Democrat who believes in some legalization of abortion.  When he was running for President as an Independent, I was concerned he’d pull away too many Trumpers and jeopardize the election.  But I was glad he joined Trump and the MAGA movement.

There is the question of how his mind works about problems in health care.  He once suffered from severe temporary dementia years ago thinking a worm had entered his brain and caused brain damage.  I support his antipathy to the health care system and food industry and zeal for reform in those areas.  I think any zaniness in his thinking on science will be checked by scientific experts on his team.  

There is the problem of his distant past of philandering, which today indirectly he admits as a problem in his past when he admits to a wild youth leading to wildness in his young adulthood.  The man was for a while a drug addict.  But now this man has since lived a very clean and healthy life.  He has the frame of a young professional athlete and is a good role model in his new role to Make America Healthy Again.  He has a big task ahead of him, and I trust he will do a lot.  It will be exciting to see. 

And then there is the question of his status as a Catholic.  It is true he is too steeped in social justice Catholicism, but part of that is simply being a traditional Democrat. He has been married three times, divorced, but I think is living a single life.  He attends Mass daily which says a lot.  Yet it is a problem since he has publicly supported legalized abortion.  I think this is his main flaw as politician.  Yet truth be told he has publicly affirmed he supports and will support Trump’s pro-life policies as I trust he will. 

So this leaves us with a man who is flawed like Trump now in a position to make major changes, to take on Big Health, Big Pharma, and the Food industry.  He is a very likeable guy.  A truth teller, authentic, outside of the mainstream controlled by the elites, a voice of the people.

Hopefully we can get him to oppose legalized abortion and drop any other socially liberal beliefs he might have.  At any rate, I am behind him 100%.

The Power of Accepting Your Cross

Crosses, or sufferings and hardship of all kinds, are a fact of life.  God allows it to redeem us.  Each person suffers for their own sins and that of others.  Certain crosses may be mainly to help “make up for what is lacking in the Body of Christ,” as Scripture says, that is to save souls and bring about the good through God’s grace granted because of faithful people accepting and offering up their crosses for others.   

The hard fact is when you are given any cross, you have the choice to not fully accept it and not offer it up, stuck in a state  of being disgruntled, or you can fully accept and offer it up.  And the hard fact is if you do not you will suffer perpetual torments, whereas if you do that torment will be eventually extinguished and replaced by a state of peace and hope.  

A soldier gets his leg blown off during battle.  If he mentally fights the fact of what happened he falls into a state of depression or even despair.  If he gives up that fight against it, the faster he does, the faster he is okay.  He’ll have to do PT and learn how to walk with a prosthetic leg, and re-frame how he thinks about and approaches his daily life in light of the reality he now only has one leg. 

Prayer is the main means to do this.  We cannot do it on our own, our fallen natures being too weak to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps without help.  And since the greatest help we can receive is from God, and since our access to God is first and foremost through prayer, then when hit with a new cross that seems impossible to carry, the solution is to turn hard core to prayer.  Not simply external prayer, but intense conversation with God and continuously, repeatedly throwing yourself on God for his mercy with repeated acts of faith, trust, and hope.  Every morning when you get out of bed.  Every morning when you sit down in your living room to pray.  That is where you get transformed from a state of bewilderment and reluctance to suffer, to a state of humility, meekness, willingness to bear the cross, and sustained tranquility.  

You really only have one choice if you don’t want to lose your mind and sink into despair.  Total acceptance is the portal out of the horror and shock of every major new cross.  There is no other way.  We have to face that absolute, inescapable fact.   

One day you wake up with floaters in your eyes and later the eye doctor says to expect they will never go away.  While a very small percentage of people get these, many still do, and many who do adjust and live happy and productive lives despite that cross.  Just imaging floaters floating around your visual field.  

One man might sink into chronic shock and anger, holing himself up into a dark room closing his eyes, drinking himself into despair.  Or he, like others, can grab that bull by the horns and ride it, to reclaim and continue his life.  Perhaps the cross could even transform his life.  Through spiritual counsel, psychological counseling, advise from his eye doctor, and say an online community of people coping with floaters, he regains hope, learns how to re-frame it in his mind to essentially accept the floaters as benign and ignore them.  Perhaps they force him into a very structured daily schedule of prayer and meditation, journaling, and self-growth, just to cope, but in doing so he becomes a renewed or new man, later to ironically thank God for his cross of getting floaters.

The list of crosses is innumerable since there are so many individual, unique situations in people’s lives.  Being born with a serious disability, someone close to you dying, losing your job, becoming destitute, finding yourself very alone in life, your doctor telling you you have a fatal illness that will be excruciating.  Just imagine you know how hard the cross is for someone dying from ALS, which causes total paralysis including gradual loss of the ability to breath, and one day your doctor tells you that you have ALS.

You do have a choice in that situation. It is an illusion that you only have the choice to panic and emotionally go against it, that you can only react that way, that the situation is outside of your control.  You have a choice to not panic, to not  emotionally go against it, but rather to deep breath, pray, meditate to remain calm, such as simply taking a walk to clear your mind, and making acts of total acceptance. Total acceptance. Literally saying the words to God over and over  “Ok God I accept this.”

Neurological adaptations then happen in the psychological part of the brain, and can happen relatively fast.  Negative neural pathways associated with obsessive, panicky thoughts and emotion become subdued or even turned off.  New neural pathways are created associated with this state of total acceptance in which the very concept of the cross you are dealing with (ex: an ALS diagnosis) becomes subdued and put in its proper place.  The conscious mind is no longer focused on sensory inputs or images of the cross, such as symptoms associated with ALS or visually obsessing looking at your body all day imaging your eventual paralysis.  Those concepts fade away to the background, your mind putting them on the back burner.  Total acceptance has the power to do that. 

There really is no other way to deal with a major cross, as nature itself compels us to remain calm and adjust our outlook continuously to cope.  

And after all, as horrible as ALS sounds, and is experienced by some ALS patients, that will not necessarily happen to each one, considering that the word “horrible” means “able to evoke horror.”  And as radical as this sounds, the newly diagnosed person with ALS is able to control their mind and emotions to avoid ever entering into a state of complete horror. They would likely have at least a fleeting taste of it, but with free will and pre-established good habits of the mind, it can be only fleeting. This is not to say that those who do fall into horror are always morally responsible if they do, or that everyone can avoid this, but rather because we are made in the image and likeness of God, with intellect and free will, which are literally divine-like powers, and because of God’s grace, we certainly do have the capacity to never fall into that horror. 

I do not have to research this to know that I am certain that on this planet there are people living with ALS, despite all the pain and discomfort, actually never through it all ever falling into a state of horror, panic, or despair, but are able to maintain calm and inner peace until their time comes.  This is not to say there must be ALS patients completely devoid of mental or emotional suffering dealing with their illness, as certain negative human emotions are natural and God given, such as a moderated amount of grief and sorrow.  

But I am saying it is certainly possible to avoid ever falling into a dark place with any cross no matter how big.  For me, I can say I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, responding with shock and anxiety to certain crosses, to be stuck in a state of worry and frustration.  Knowing myself, for the most part, I can say that fortunately it seems I wasn’t sinning, or at least gravely, not entirely in control of my will to choose to frame the situation in the most hopeful light.  This was because I was not strict about a daily schedule of prayer as I blogged about the other day, which if it had been in place, surely I would have been more resilient and not delay as long as I have total acceptance of my crosses and surrender to God’s will.

We should all strive to cultivate in ourselves that pious devotion that builds in us a level of fortitude that will withstand any wind no matter how strong or violent, but nonetheless throw ourselves immediately onto God, literally to put our soul into His with total surrender and reliance on Him, especially the more overwhelmed we get.

God knows how to orchestrate the rehabilitation of the mind in crisis.  A woman suddenly paralyzed after a car accident, which happens every day, must reorganize her mind to be as much in a stable state as it was before the accident.  And no matter how much fortitude she lacks, or weak her faith, it only takes a small amount of faith genuinely given, what the Scriptures call “faith the size of a mustard seed” to achieve the goal, which is peace of mind. 

This is the power of total acceptance of our cross, through continuous prayer. I talk about this actually as a meditation to help me totally accept my current crosses, and also to help those readers who right now may be struggling not only with a major cross, but with reaching total acceptance.

The human mind is by design resilient, able to continuously re-frame itself to every new challenge, and also, as Scripture says, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengtheneth me.”

I do hereby give total acceptance of every one of my crosses and offer them up to God, in reparation of my sins, and for others.  And so I receive the peace of God that sustains me.  

The Final Re-Framing of My Mind About My Psychosomatic Pain Condition

To summarize again, I am recovering from psychosomatic pain disorder, also called somatic symptom disorder, somatic disorder for short.  The symptoms are nerve and muscle pain in both arms and legs, fatigue, heaviness, and weakness.  Several specialists and a neurologist combined ruled out any serious physical condition, two doctors concluding this is the diagnosis.  I cannot be absolutely certain I have this and not something else, or that I will ever fully recover.  

However, based on many tests, several specialists, my own medical history, common sense living with this, as well as a series of clear miracles confirming the diagnosis, my conscience demands I fully accept the diagnosis and expect an eventual full recovery, which clinically is the prognosis in the first place. 

At the same time, nobody absolutely knows the future or the mind of God, so I cannot say it is theoretically impossible I don’t recover.  On the other hand, I can and must consider it as a practical certainty, especially in light of the miracles revealing this is a temporary condition. 

But to accept this full circle is incredibly difficult.   For the most part for many months I’ve been in acceptance, but there have been many challenges for several months which have caused me some days to question everything again and feel anxious if I’ll ever recover.  

In the Fall I was assaulted, and the police doing nothing about it, resulting in all my symptoms returning at the scene, to this day.  And then shortly later the hospital system I was receiving charity care from for counseling, and the counselor themselves, suddenly discharged me without cause or direct explanation, except obviously because my symptoms had returned needing more counseling, which is the main treatment for this, and because they were not making money off of me. 

Another crisis situation unfolded weeks later but I won’t go into details about it here.  

The good news is there was a period of four months of near total recovery, then later for one month, and still now in January there are days my symptoms are subsiding to a very low level indicating I’m coming out of it.

But I have to admit all of this still from time to time racks my brain, the distress and saga of it all.  The pain and other symptoms actually are mostly tolerable.  My main cross is letting go of the fear, by now largely irrational, that this never resolves.  And I’m very aware now that this fear all along started when the symptoms suddenly started with an outburst of pain and weakness.  

Regardless of what name you call it, what the person really is afraid of is it ending life as they know it, resulting in permanent disability and misery.  For me that was the question and fear that ran through my head that Friday morning way back when when I woke up one morning with muscle and nerve pain through all four limbs.  The day before I had seen our stolen car recovered by the police at the impound lot all trashed.  Days before we had bought a new used car I discovered might have a $3000 repair expense.  And there had been several other crises around that time that created a perfect storm.

An important fact is that in 2017 I had the same outbreak of symptoms during a perfect storm, from which I eventually fully recovered.

So now my task is to come to full and total peace about my condition, that is the uncertainty of when I will recover, and the possibility in theory that God never allows me to recover.  It is a mentally strange task since on one hand I am fully accepting the practical certainty of an eventual full recovery; on the other hand, I am having to fully and radically accept that in theory I could not recover.  It is like God telling me I will recover, but that I have to take a leap of faith and trust in Him as the Divine Physician and in His Divine Providence.  

For everything there is a time, including a time to be sick and a time to heal, as Scripture teaches.  God is saying to surrender to the mystery of the timeline.

So what I am working on is re-framing the residual uncertainty of it all that still surfaces once in a while from a situation of anxiety to a situation of ongoing personal transformation.  I can let this get the best of me, or I can conquer it and benefit from the silver lining of it.  That is the choice I have to make, and I choose to grab this bull by the horns and let the good overcome evil, rather than evil overcome the good.  

But since this condition is very much rooted in thought, the longer I let the anxious worries persist the longer I delay recovery, whereas the faster I come to full terms with this the faster is my recovery.  And I see now after all of this time, this is the central task remaining.  

To surrender to God in trust and give uncertainty totally to Him, while, in my case, cultivating a child-like trust I will in good time fully recover.  I have been trying to do that all along but I feel it in my bones now, in addition to the rehab protocol I am following, this is the area that most needs to be accomplished.  

God gives many people, most people at different points in their life, an extraordinary, existential dose of suffering, that challenges them to the very core of their being. And what I have learned more and more in my own case is how much we must see the positive in suffering, to learn and grow from it.  On a practical level there is only one choice to fully accept and offer up the cross, because doing so gives peace of mind, and not doing so gives a state of perpetual torment.  But on a spiritual level doing this is transformative, redemptive, and elevating to a higher state.  

There is the case of astronaut Chris Hadfield who in 2013 had to re-frame his thinking about an annoying sound on the space station, so it wouldn’t drive him crazy.  One day he started hearing an annoying, moderately loud humming/buzzing sound from the ship.  After much effort, he could not identify the source or cause of the sound.  Some of the crew heard it but for them it was a minimal background sound they barely thought about.  Other members didn’t even hear it.  But he did constantly, and it was moderately loud.  Later he theorized he heard it more than others since he was the crew chief whose five senses, including hearing, were more alert and tuned into potential problems with the ship.  But this annoyance left him not only distracted but anxious.  And this is where his training set in, and he used deep breathing and psychological meditation to cope. 

Finally he figured out what to do, and that was to completely overhaul and re-frame how he thought about the sound, to minimize the negative and maximize the positive.  So he compared the sound to the idle of a diesel truck parked with the engine running, a familiar sound he found soothing.  So as he kept associating the two similar sounds, he was able to stop thinking of the sound as annoying and instead think of it as soothing.  By the end of his time on board, it had become a pleasant part of the ambient sound around him.

So that has been my task.  Instead of focusing on the theoretical uncertainties about my recovery, associate the symptoms themselves as communicating what God through various means has already communicated to me, and that is that I will recover and one day thrive, and above all else, that is through trust in Him.  

Hence the prayer, “Jesus I trust in thee.”