St. Michael's Conference Southwest

One of the best things I get to do is help staff the St. Michael's Conference Southwest, which is a week long Anglo-Catholic event for young people held at Camp Crucis, in the Diocese of Fort Worth. 

Say the Mass the Right Way 'Round

Our primary focus is worship, and not the useless kind either, with goofy clowns, dancers and a sappy crew of frustrated pop musicians banging their amplified way through the "Yewkrist." No, none of that, just the power of the ancient Western Rite, as seen through the lens of Anglicanism. To help us do that, we have to fix up the chapel a bit, from this:

Before

To this:

And After

A marked improvement. We have incense too and it's strange to see that no one's weirdly allergic to it; odd, eh?

Kindly Old LSP

I was MC this year, which meant I had to coordinate the worship, and I enjoyed that. Quite hard work though, as there's a Solemn High Mass every day, along with the Offices (Morning Prayer, Solemn Evensong, Compline) and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and Exposition on Wednesday and Thursday. You can see photos on Facebook here.

The Last Gospel

Almost all faculty and students make their Confession and Christ moves with great converting power during the week. It gives a huge boost to my vocation and the faith of all who go; a testament to catholic Christianity practiced unashamedly and without compromise. 

More of that, please.

God bless,

LSP

Lavinia Byrne, Devil's Disciple?

Devil's Disciple

Lavinia Byrne is a former nun who was kicked out of the religious life by the Vatican for obstinate, persistent heresy, notably advocating for priestesses. She used to be a panentheist, maybe she still is. 

Church Builder

Panentheism is a Hindu doctrine that says God evolves with the universe but is somehow beyond it. It was big in the '80s and '90s, making for good academic book fodder: Oh! you're a Professor who teaches philosophy of religion and you're a Christian, but you're also a Hindu! Whoa. Here, sign this publishing contract. 

Whatever, Lavinia was into it. I know, she told me.

She also argued, like they always do, that unless the church ordains women, it'll shrink and die, because no one will go to church. She champions the Anglican experiment. George Weigel has this to say, via Let Nothing You Dismay:

Hard experience should have taught us by now that there is an iron law built into the relationship between Christianity and modernity. Christian communities that know and defend their doctrinal and moral boundaries (while extending the compassion of Christ when we fail to live within those boundaries, as we all do) survive in modernity; some actually flourish and become robustly evangelical. Conversely, Christian communities whose doctrinal and moral boundaries are eroded by the new orthodoxy of political correctness, and become so porous that it becomes impossible to know if one is “in” or “out,” wither and die.

But Where Are The Women?

That is the sad state of Anglicanism in the North Atlantic world today: even splendid liturgical smells-and-bells can’t save an Anglicanism hollowed out by the shibboleths of secular modernity. Why British Catholics like Lavinia Byrne can’t see this is one of the mysteries of the 21st-century Church."

Mystery? I don't think so. They see what they're proposing perfectly well and it isn't the advance of Christianity, or anything like it. Empty pews are precisely part of the plan; they're after an entirely new religion and the destruction of the church. They've nearly got it too, with Anglicanism.

Just. Say. No.

So what does that make Lavinia Byrne? The Devil's Disciple.

Just in case you wondered what I really think,

LSP

Just a Bit of Berdyaev

Sometimes, please don't laugh, I get to read books. I'm especially enjoying Berdyaev's The End Of Our Time. He was writing after World War I:

European man strode into modern history full of confidence in himself and his creative powers, in this dawn all seemed to depend on his own power of making, to which he put neither frontiers nor limits; today he leaves it to pass into an unknown epoch, discouraged, his faith in shreds - that faith which he had in his own powers and the strength of his own skill - threatened with the loss for ever of the core of his personality. No, this man does not shine.

And again:

In the present century, the apex of the humanist era, European man stands amid a frightening emptiness. He no longer knows where the key-stone of his life may be found, beneath his feet he feels no depth of solidity. He gives himself up to a surface existence and lives in two dimensions as if he occupied exactly the surface of the earth, ignorant of what is above him and what below. 

Prescient words, unless you think everything's fine with the collapsing modern age. Interestingly, Belloc, and perhaps Berdyaev too, argue that the end of the secularist experiment leads inevitably and paradoxically to slavery.

I stand against that and for the Faith.

LSP

Mass on the Beach

A catholic Chaplain administering the Sacrament of the Altar on Omaha Beach, D Day. The real thing.

Respect.

LSP 

D Day

I once, more than a bit stupidly, asked a retired Wing Commander "what was it like?" We were having a pint in a pub in London at the time and he'd flown Mosquitos during the war, as a pathfinder. After a longish silence he replied, "We had to do things no one should ever have to do," though he added that he "enjoyed the tracer."

tracer

We must thank God for the success of the D Day landings and pray for those who gave their lives.

God bless,

LSP

Margaret Sanger. Devil Witch

When I'm not cleaning guns or polishing knives, I like to get on the highway and visit the sick in hospital. This often takes me to Providence, in Waco. To get there you have to exit Hwy 6 onto Sanger Ave. There it is, Sanger Ave., the road that takes you to a Christian hospital. Named after Margaret Sanger, obviously.

Margaret Sanger was an atheist leftist who married big money. She was also a devil witch eugenicist racist, an abortionist and the founder of Planned Parenthood. As a sexual libertine she had countless affairs, not least with sex-magician Havelock Ellis. Did she know Aleister "Mark of the Beast" Crowley? The Havelock Ellis connection suggests that she did.

Her war cry was "No Gods, No Masters!" No Gods? Are you sure?

The Episcopal Church and its allies are enthusiastic supporters of Sanger's multi-million dollar abortion industry. I'll leave you to figure out what divinity they worship.

God bless,

LSP

Liturgical Dance. How Very Awesome.

The best thing about liturgical dance is its awesomeness, you think. But not so fast! What does the Church say? Team LSP has been hard at work, bringing you the truth.

Oh Yeah.

Here's what the Vatican has to say, in Dance in the Liturgy:

For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: That would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements, and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.

Tanking

And again, "psuedo-ballet" is also condemned, in case you wondered:

Neither can acceptance be had of the proposal to introduce into the liturgy the so-called artistic ballet because there would be presentation here also of a spectacle at which [only] one would assist, while in the liturgy one of the norms from which one cannot prescind is that of participation [by all].

Thanks, Congregation for Sacraments and Divine Worship.

Disaster

Now, let's see that enforced, please. Go on, don't be shy, you'll get some numbers back.

Carry on,

LSP

Our Ruler

We have a ruler.

They have a ruler.

And I won't bang on about the Taliban 5, but I will post a rather good picture of some bears.

God bless,

LSP

Archbishop Welby and the Nunn

It seems that the Archbishop of Canterbury's Correspondence Secretary, Rev. Andrew Nunn, has been blocking heterosexual calls. Shock, horror, dismay and surprise. 

According to Virtueonline: (Viz. the repellent Stonewall)

“After a couple of months I emailed Lambeth Palace to check for a response. What I received was a curt email from Dr. Welby's correspondence secretary stating that no meeting could be arranged and that my concerns would not be considered. When I emailed to explain my concerns, from personal experience, I discovered that the gentleman who replied to me was not only openly gay but also aggressively anti-ex-gay. (VOL has since learned that the man in question is Andrew Nunn). My letter and the preview of the Acception Course had not even reached Dr. Welby or his team because his correspondence secretary had deemed it unsuitable - despite it dealing with all bullying and being closer to both the science and the position of the Church of England.”

Unh Hunh.

And here's an excerpt from one of Nunn's sermons:

"February I’ve just discovered is ‘Queer History Month’ a bit like October is‘Black History Month’. The LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community are encouraged to celebrate their history and it’s good that this month began in Southwark with ‘Queer Question Time’ at the new Council Offices just down the road in Tooley Street.

"And I’m proud that when that history is celebrated the name of this Cathedral is written within it."

Some Bloke and Andrew Nunn

Make of that, readers, what you will. Vicious rumours that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is "ring-fenced" by a privileged "pink mafia" of senior faerie queenes straight clergy are entirely without foundation.

Cheers,

LSP

Ukraine War

There's something pretty close to a full-fledged civil war going on in the Ukraine and the U.S. is backing one side, the pro-West, pro-NATO, IMF side. Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin, is backing the other side, obviously.

Now, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the anti-Christian, socialist, gay West attacking the Christian, traditional values, anti-comsymp East, why aren't our media reporting this war?

Seriously, there's a war firing up on Europe's threshold, people are dying, helicopters are being shot down, the Vostok Brigade's in motion, cities are under siege. VERY BIG NEWS.

Why isn't our media reporting? Maybe lying about the VA scandal and releasing terrorists is more important? Or covering Pride rallies and Carbon Footprints?

Not Newsworthy, Not At All, Move Along

Or maybe there's just nothing to see and we should all just move along peacefully into the paradise prepared for us by our Overlords.

And remember, the government is your friend.

God bless,

LSP

So Where is the Anglican Church of Canada?

Where is the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC)? With notable exceptions, such as the excellent Mad Padre, no one seems to know. But thanks to Anglican Samizdat, our news hounds have learned that Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, popularly known as "Ole Rascal", has visited Alberta's oil sands.

Ole Rascal

Ole Rascal called the oil patch "filth", while remaining silent about the source of the jet fuel which was burned to transport him from South Africa to Canada's economic powerhouse:

“The fact that this filth is being created now, when the link between carbon emissions and global warming is so obvious, reflects negligence and greed,” stated the Anglican Archbishop to an enraptured audience.

Operation Overlord

Our ruler, President Obama, is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a believer  in raising taxes and crony capitalism in global warming.

Make of that what you will and stay tuned for Equinox in Austin or, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

LSP

Wittgenstein, Mahler, Detroit

Farsighted readers will recall that my old friend "Red", who lives in Detroit near Wayne State, had an issue with a shotgun a couple of years back. He cranked off a few rounds in an empty house to celebrate Easter and, long story short, was let off with a warning by LE. 

Red's House

Now he's taken to listening to Mahler at the DSO and posting things like, "Mahler 3. Gonna try not to weep like a baby."

Wittgenstein Hated Mahler

Wittgenstein had this to say about Mahler.

If it is true that Mahler's music is worthless, as I believe to be the case, then the question is what I think he ought to have done with his talent. For quite obviously it took a set of very rare talents to produce this bad music. Should he have written his symphonies and then burnt them? Or should he have done violence to himself and not written them?
          Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (67)

Detroit's population has declined from a peak of 2 million in 1950 to less than 700,000 today. Some 25% of its houses are derelict and awaiting demolition. Wild dogs roam its streets and empty highways.

I will visit the Motor City in August.

LSP