Good Friday And Light From Darkness

 

The Altars are stripped, the Passion said or sung with all its harrowing detail and Christ lies in the tomb. It seems as though darkness has won leaving Hell triumphant, but Satan's own wickedness and that of the people he drove is the making of Hell's utter defeat. Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple (1881-1944) offers us this:

It is out of that uttermost gloom of My God, my God, why have you forsaken me that the light breaks. The light does not merely shine upon the gloom and so dispel it; it is the gloom itself transformed into light.  For that same crucifixion of our Lord which was, and for ever is, the utmost effort of evil, is itself the means by which God conquers evil and unites us to himself in the redeeming love there manifested.

Judas and Caiaphas and Pilate have set themselves in their several ways to oppose and to crush the purpose of Christ, and yet despite themselves they became ministers. They sent Christ to the cross; by the cross he completed his atoning work; from the cross he reigns over mankind.  God in Christ has not merely defeated evil, but has made it the occasion of his own supremest glory.

Never was conquest so complete; never was triumph so stupendous.  The completeness of the victory is due to the completeness of the evil over which it was won. It is the very darkness which enshrouds the cross that makes so glorious the light proceeding from it. Had there been no despair, no sense of desolation and defeat, but merely the onward march of irresistible power to the achievement of its end, evil might have been beaten, but not bound in captivity forever.  God in Christ endured defeat, and out of the very stuff of defeat he wrought his victory and his achievement.

 

It is the very darkness which enshrouds the cross that makes so glorious the light proceeding from it. And what glorious light it is, the unconquerable light of God Himself who turns complete evil to supreme good and death to life.

Do not, ever, surrender, but stand firm in the Faith, confident in the victory won on the cross.

God bless you all,

LSP

A Maundy Thursday Reflection

 

Today is the day of the "Maundy," the mandatum, "the new commandment" of love. Fr. Crouse reflects, via Lectionary Central:

As Aristotle remarks, "When there is a great gap in respect of virtue or vice or wealth, or anything else, between the parties, they are no longer friends, and do not even expect to be so.  And this is most manifest in the case of the gods, for they surpass us decisively in all good things .... when one party is removed to a great distance, as God is, the possibility of friendship ceases." 

In general, Aristotle is right, as he usually is in points of theology.  But Aristotle could not know the unthinkable mercy of God in the Incarnation and Passion of Christ, whereby the distance of man from God is overcome and we are called friends.  In the atoning sacrifice of Christ, God manifests the ultimate good will towards us: "Greater love hath no man than this."  He makes known that good will, and sets it in our hearts; and that is the principle and ground of our friendship with him.  We are friends of God, because his grace makes us so.  He makes us god-like, and grants us the equality of friends, the proportional equality of sons.  "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." (1 John 3.1) 

That is the friendship which Christians call "charity," the very bond of peace and of all virtues.  It is the friendship which binds us to God, and unites us to one another in the new commandment of love, "Fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." (Ephesians 2.19)  And as friends, we must do as friends do: we delight in God's presence, we rejoice in our conversation with him, and find comfort in his consolations.  As friends we care for all that is his.  We seek to do his will as free men, not as slaves. "For we are in love," says St. Thomas, "and it is from love we act, not from servile fear." 

Today is the day of the "Maundy," the mandatum, "the new commandment" of love.  It is the special day of friendship, and the traditional ceremonies of the day - the washing of feet, the blessing of oils for the sick, and so on - all reinforce that thought.  Above all, it is the day of the banquet, the celebration of friends, in which our friend gives himself, that we may dwell in him, and he in us.  It is the moment of friends rejoicing together before the pain of tomorrow. 

Soon we shall remove the trappings of the feast, and leave the altar bare and cold, for tonight is the night of betrayal, and tomorrow is the day of despair.  But he has called us his friends, and we must watch with him, and "not fear, though the earth be moved, and the mountains shake." (Psalm 46.2)  We must watch and pray that the bond of charity may hold us firm as his friends, and friends of one another.  The fruit of the vine is crushed in the press, but we shall drink the wine new with him in the joy of his risen kingdom. 

 

God bless you all,

LSP 

The Center Cannot Hold

 

Imagine, if you can, the field of ruins stretching out from the Palatine Hill in Rome around the middle of the 7th century A.D. It was a city which had declined from over a million inhabitants to less than 30,000 persons in something like 150 years, maybe less.

The center, my friends, of the mighty Western Roman Empire most certainly didn't hold. Why? For many reasons, not least an increasing rottenness of currency manifesting in huge inflation and the ineluctable transfer of power to major landowners.

Put simply, a very few very wealthy people controlled everything and with that the state, Res Publica, was fractured. To put it another way, the center was bust. Fast forward to today. Here we are in the midst of American Imperium and guess what?

Our money's worthless, it's a note of debt at interest which can never be repaid, ever. And as it was in the days of ancient Rome, more and more power subsumes into the hands of a very few select men. You'll notice our ongoing presidential contest is an affair of wealthy plutocrats jousting for position. 

We have, if you care to step back and reflect, already Balkanized, and the process will continue; the center has not held and the Beast slouches towards Nazareth in all its degeneracy. Our task, gentle readers, is to stand steady and keep the Faith.

Your Old Friend,

LSP

Just Look At This Two-Bit Satan

 

Check it out, just a two-bit degenerate poster they/them for Anheiser Busch. Did you know that Busch comes in at a handy 115B$ market cap? Whatever, take that, all you Bud fans, now your fave beer's trans. Or to put it another way, Bud Light was already bad and now we really hate it.

Are we at peak degeneracy? Getting there, but here's Kid Rock.

Cheers,

LSP

Like A Boss

 

45 went to New York today

To be indicted by corporatist Bolsheviks. No one's fooled or are they?

Your best friend,

LSP

A Cautionary Tale

 

Now look here, you lot. It's all very well to get out in the field with a rigful of weaponry, well done, but here's the thing. After the shoot you have to clean the guns because if you don't they don't work, and if they don't work what use are they?

Caveat in mind I set to work on the front porch, starting with shotguns. Some people think shotguns don't need to be cleaned and that's an error, they do have to be cleaned otherwise they turn into  filthy, rusty, seized up, malfunctioning beasts. 

Dirty

Perhaps you've been there. You're out in the country on a shoot and guess what, your friend's miserable gun, typically a pump which someone's been too idle to look after, won't feed or eject. Utterly useless except as some kind of club.

Still, some weapons are easier to keep in good order than others. The AR 15, for example, is annoyingly fixy, there's all these little bits which get filthy dirty because of the wretched thing's direct impingement system, annoying.

Filthy

On the other hand, the gas piston system of, say, a ChiCom SKS is simpler, runs cleaner and I seem to remember the same held true with the FN. Mind you, we had to polish those things to the extent of harming the rifle itself, same with gas masks. You can bull a gas mask? you ask in bemused consternation. Yes, yes you can. I tell you, they shone like glass.

Ole Rascal

Other people think the lowly .22, pronounced "Tutu" or "Desmond" in the Sceptred Isle, doesn't need cleaning. This too is a mistake and I congratulated myself this evening on sticking to bolt action rimfire, Ruger American.

Clean

Some say they're more accurate than their semi brethren, and that's as maybe. But one thing's for sure, they're easy to look after. Remove bolt. Clean bolt. Run rods and patches through the barrel, replace bolt, oil the whole thing up and there you go, easy.

Then, job well done, sit back on the porch and watch lightning flash across the sky. Draw the moral of this cautionary tale as you will.

#2A,

LSP

Palm Sunday Reflection

 

The Masses went well at the Missions yesterday as we celebrated our Lord's entrance into Jerusalem and there it is, Palm Sunday, the gateway to Holy Week. The first part of the liturgy, with its blessing of palms and procession is jubilant, hosanna! Salvation rides into Jerusalem in fulfillment of prophecy to establish his sovereignty in the Holy City. 

I always feel this part of the liturgy, with its victorious joy, has the feel and tenor of Easter but the mood swiftly shifts to Good Friday as we hear the awful story of the Passion. Judas' betrayal and suicide, the weakness of Pilate, the mockery of Herod and his degenerate court, the brutality of the soldiery, the wickedness of the High Priests, and the torture and execution of Christ. Hosanna! has moved to Crucify! But note this.

Even the demons and the people they drive are forced to acknowledge Christ's kingship, in derision for sure but they do so nonetheless. Jesus is given a royal robe, imagine the sneers, a reed for a scepter, he's crowned, but with thorns, and his throne is a cross at the top of which reads a sign, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

Even Hell in its twisted scorn calls Christ a king but the moment of Satan's seeming victory turns to utter defeat as Jesus rises triumphant from the grave, turning the Devil's mockery into the glorious regalia of kingship over death and Hell itself.

So we find ourselves back at the beginning, at Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem. If the crowds had known the unfathomable extent of his sovereignty they would have cried out all the louder, for the Savior had indeed arrived. 

He rides to us now, today, into the Jerusalem of our souls. Meet him with joy, spreading the garments and palm of our lives before him as we follow the King in humble repentance to the Cross so that in dying to sin we too, in Christ, will rise to everlasting life.

INRI,

LSP

Rebel Yell

You will notice, readers, that the Rebel Yell was like a game call, and then some.

I'll leave it at that,

LSP

 

Raise The Black Flag

 

Maybe it's about time, eh? Your call.

As always,

LSP

All Hail The Power

 

Two soldiers walked through the door last night and I sent them off into the wild with shotguns and an SKS. They did well, apparently, and today we went out for a shoot. First up, shotguns, a no-name O/U 12 and a CZ SxS. Two guns up on one thrower, how'd it go?

A slow start because everyone was rusty and then we moved into the zone, smoking those clays like so many F 190s over Falaise, result. Next up? An Anderson 7.62 x 39, AR platform, Sov bullets, and it failed to fire TulAmmo consistently. Perhaps a primer issue because the beast shot fine with Federal brass, nice little barker.

Tellingly, a ChiCom SKS swallowed up some nasty TulAmmo like it was going out of fashion, which is good because the cheap and dirty rounds are just that, cheap. Big fun and time to move on from Warsaw Pact tomfoolery to 7.62 NATO. After a few ranging shots we discovered the rifle was pretty much on and lined it up against Tannerite. BOOM, more of that please.

The shoot finished with my eldest's Glock 45 9 and it was pleasing to see my amateur gunsmithery worked out, the RDS didn't fly off, in fact the system performed surprisingly well in the hands of the soldiers. Me? Not bad but not up to their level, rusty you see.

And that was that, a great shoot under a clear blue Texan sky and I was genuinely impressed by the marksmanship of the young 'uns. They shoot front on, curiously and hey, the stance works. The Tannerite was cool too. More. please.

#2A,

LSP

Rain Books Dog

 

You never know what our Old Enemy the Weather will throw at you. Today it launched rain and for a time the heavens opened and there it was, sky water, beautiful. In the midst of it all a call came through, "Padre, can you help load up some shelves for the food bank?"

Sure I could and did, especially as it was right across the way from the Compound. Lo and behold, this good deed came with an unexpected benefit, as is so often the case, notably a set of medium sized bookshelves, "All yours, LSP."

Benzinger

Good, I needed these because of a recent influx of books from my dad's library. He was a a bibliophile and we've only just, after a decade, got around to moving the books from Dallas to the Compound. Net result? Many boxes of books on the floor of a guest room waiting to be shelved, a nightmare of unfinished business.

But after a few shelvish hours it was nightmare over and books off the floor, what an affordable result. In the meanwhile, the climate had changed too, bizarrely, our enemy is so unpredictable, and the sun shone from a clear, big, blue Texan sky.

Where is the dog? I asked myself. Downstairs, on the porch, in the bathroom, in a guestroom, in my room, going den behind the couch? No, none of these, Blue Veteran was nowhere to be found. So I climbed in the rig and drove around the area looking for the pup, and found him a couple of blocks away, grinning like a dog.

He was happy to be lifted into the truck and happier still for the adventure of it all. OK, he's an old dog, blind and deaf, but he still enjoys life. I feel I should take him out to the range to roam about and feel free, he'd like that. Is this overly sentimental?

On topic, do you think that those who read and keep libraries will be the kernel of civilization when our current demonic babel implodes?

Ex Libris,

LSP

Here We Go Now

 

Here we go now, looks like President Trump's been indicted.

Does that make him the undisputed warlord of Manhattan?

More seriously, will it, they/them be brought to justice? Don't hold your breath.

Your Old Pal,

LSP