Annunciation

 

You can stare, in slack-jawed rightist consternation at the unfolding coup in our country, or you can take time off from the news cycle and reflect on the Annunciation and the Angelic Salutation. Being unhealthily saturated with former, I went down the latter path today. How does the angel address the Virgin?

χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ, which means: χαῖρε - "hail" or "rejoice." κεχαριτωμένη - "O graced" or "favored one." κύριος μετὰ σοῦ? The Lord is with you. And note, the word κεχαριτωμένη appears nowhere else, either in Scripture or any other literature, It's singular to the Annunciation. So is the grace attributed by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, the Mother of God.

She is blessed beyond reckoning for her virtue and the task that God's commanded of her, to bear His Son into the world for our redemption. Jesus, "God Saves," both in Himself and by His actions, will come into the world through the Virgin's agency. The Word will be made Flesh for our salvation thanks to the assent of Mary's fiat, "I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto according to thy word."

Here we find a template or model of the Church writ large, the Mystical Body of Christ which bears the Savior into the world sacramentally. We see, too, a pattern which describes our own lives as Christians. God wants to be born and come alive in us because He loves us, and because He does He asks our permission to do so, as He asked Mary.

She says yes, with purity and humble, obedient, courageous faith. The weapons, when you think on it, which will crush the serpent's head. This is especially relevant now. 

Pray hard that we're given the grace to mirror Mary's quality of soul and for her powerful intercession that evil, darkness and deceit is driven far from us and from this country.

Ave Eva,

LSP

What A Great Week

Some weeks aren't so good but not this week, this is a great week. Here's a short list of victories so far and it's only Thursday.

Two years of the Mueller witch hunt and "Russia stole the election from the most qualified candidate ever in the history of our nation!" collapsed, because guess what? No evidence whatsoever.

Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti, onetime presidential hopeful, gets arrested for extortion, wire fraud, and money laundering. #Basta

AOC's GND (Green New Deal) fails to get a single vote in the Senate because it's so transparently stupid that even the Democrats can't endorse it.

Juicy Smollet gets an unsurprising get outta jail free card, nearly tarnishing the week, but then the Great Commander siccs the FBI and DOJ on the celebrity hate crime hoaxer.

All this and more within the octave of the Feast of the Annunciation. Coincidence? I think not.

Carry on,

LSP

Satanist Calls Virgin Birth Rape

Nice headline. Some kind of sad clickbait excuse to boost your so-called "blog's" laughably small readership, LSP? If that's your real name, which we doubt. Good question well asked, but no, this one's for real.

Associate MSU prof, Eric Spankle, real name, came out swinging on Twitter, saying that Jesus was a rape baby because the virgin birth was non-consensual. Here he is.

Headshrinker sex-prof Spankle's also a Satanist. Have a look at his attractive Antichrist Tree. So festive and full of the joy of the season!

The curiously named Spankle doesn't like Christianity and thinks it oppressive, which is why he sides with Satanism coz it's all a great larf. Like, haha, look at all those stupid people who believe in God, how ignorant and oppressive. So check it out, here's Satan.

How witty, and note, Baphomet's trans.

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Happy Holidays,

LSP

Judgement Runs Out Into Mercy

Listen up, you lot. It's not Christmas yet, it's Advent, and you've probably forgotten this so I'm posting it again. Wisdom, from Austin Farrer:

Our journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgement. As the bird rises from the earth to fly, and must some time return to the earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last. But God does not wait for the failure of our power and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap. He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us. Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head? It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master. Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succour in his hands. He offers us these things while there is yet time.Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer's love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire.

Advent brings Christmas, judgement runs out into mercy. For the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God. We are not, even, condemned by his severity and redeemed by his compassion; what judges us is what redeems us, the love of God. What is it that will break our hearts on judgement day? Is it not the vision, suddenly unrolled, of how he has loved the friends we have neglected, of how he has loved us, and we have not loved him in return ; how, when we came (as now) before his altar, he gave us himself, and we gave him half-penitences, or resolutions too weak to commit our wills? But while love thus judges us by being what it is, the same love redeems us by effecting what it does. Love shares flesh and blood with us in this present world, that the eyes which look us through at last may find in us a better substance than our vanity.

I love that.

LSP 

Liberation Theology

There's a lot of worship at the St. Michael's Conference, and there's a lot of teaching, too, with three classes on various subjects after Mass and breakfast. One of the courses is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I taught the kids that she's the new Eve.

In the garden of Eden, Eve is seduced by an evil angel in the form of  serpent, and eats the forbidden fruit. Her faithless disobedience and pride leads to death. Mary reverses this; her humility and faithful obedience to God's will, as announced by the angel Gabriel, leads to the conception of Christ in her womb and the entry of life into the world.

I reminded the class that an angel, calling itself Gabriel, also appeared to Mohammed. The message of that spirit led, almost immediately, to death. 

One of these angelic messages is liberating and the others aren't. You decide which one is which.  

LSP

Almost Christmas

While you're all recovering from Festivus and getting ready for Kwanzaa, I'm gearing up for the first Masses of Christmas, fortified by Huevos Rancheros, strong coffee, and corn tortillas.

Excuse me?

Here's some Austin Farrer to reflect on before Mass:

“WHEN Mary laid Jesus Christ upon her knees, when she searched him with her eyes, when she fed him at the breast, she did not study to love him because she ought, she loved him because he was dear: he was her Son. His conception had been supernatural, perplexing, affrighting; it had called for faith in the incomprehensible, and obedience beyond the limit of human power. His nativity was human and sweet, and the love with which she embraced it was a natural growth, inseparable from the thing she loved. She was blessed above all creatures, because she loved her Maker inevitably and by simple nature; even though it needed the sword—wounds of the Passion to teach her fully that it was her Maker whom she loved. The Son of Mary is the Son of all human kind; we embrace him with the love of our kind, that we may be led up with Mary to a love beyond kind, a selfless love for the supreme Goodness, when we too shall have climbed the ladder of the cross.”

I love that -- the Farrer, not the random dancing priestess, obviously.

God bless,

LSP