The business of enemies

St. Peter's Church - the graffiti is visible on the grey wall

Matthew Bellisario has reported a physical attack on the FSSP Chapel of St Peter Apostle in Guadalajara, Mexico, by a priest and members of the SSPX base in the same town. In the Comments Box Fr. Puga of the SSPX is named as leading the "mob". Catholics don't attack Catholic churches, that is the business of Her enemies.

Septuagesima Season

We do not now deserve
To sing the Alleluia forever;
Guilt forces us
To dismiss you, O Alleluia.
For the time approaches in which
We must weep for our sins.
[Ancient Hymn]

Brief visit to Rome

This last week Fr. Michael Mary and Fr. Anthony Mary visited Rome and the Vatican as reported by Orbis Catholicus Secundus yesterday. Above Fr. Michael Mary offers the Holy Sacrifice at St. Gregory's altar in the church of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.

The Passing of another Confessor, Bishop Yao of China

Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A. —

Underground Catholic Bishop Leon Yao Liang 姚良主教,

the auxiliary bishop of Xiwanzi 西灣子 in Hebei 河北, died on December 30, 2009. He was 87. We have not yet learned of any funeral arrangements for his burial because the news of his death appears to have been tightly controlled by the Chinese authority..

Bishop Yao was born in 1923 in Gonghui Village 公會村, Zhangbei County 張北縣 . He was ordained a priest in 1946. After ordination, he was assigned to various churches as assistant pastor. He was restricted in the region of Xiwanzi for his priestly duty by the Communist regime in the early 1950's, earning his livelihood from vegetable farming and from selling fire wood. In 1956, he was forced to enter labor camp, and in 1958, was sentenced to life imprisonment. His "crime" was to be in communion with the Pope and with the universal Catholic Church. He was finally released from the prison in 1984 after 28 years in labor camps and prison. He was ordained a bishop on February 19, 2002 under a mandate from the Vatican.

In the meantime, we learned that three underground Catholic priests from Xuanhua 宣化, Hebei, Fathers Zhang Cunhui 張存惠 age 46, Zhang Zhanglin 張章林 age 45, and Liu 劉 (??) age 32 disappeared in June 2009. They are believed by the local Catholic community to have been kidnapped by the Government's agent and are now detained in an unknown location. Underground bishop of Xuanhua, Bishop Zhao Kexun 趙克勛, is now hiding under a government arrest warrant. Other priests are under intense pressure form the government to join the Catholic Patriotic Association, which is an independent government sponsored religious agent independent from the Vatican.

Bishop Yao, pray for us!

Epiphany, Feast of His Manifestation

Apertis thesauris suis*
obtulerunt Magi Domino
aurum, thus et myrrham, alleluia.
Opening their treasures*
the Magi offered the Lord,
gold, frankincense and myrrh, alleluia.

Rejoice in the Lord, my dearly beloved brethren;
again I say, rejoice.
For it is but a few days since the solemnity of the birth of Christ,
and the world is already illumined by the feast of His manifestation.
On this day the world acknowledges
Him who was born of a Virgin on the former feast.

known to believers

The Word made flesh so ordained His manifestation
that as a newborn Infant He would be known to believers,
but hidden from persecutors.

hidden from persecutors

Already on Christmas
the heavens were resplendent with the glory of God,
and the sound of His truth went forth to all the earth
when an army of Angels
appeared to the shepherds as messengers of the newborn Saviour,
and the guiding star began leading the Magi to adore Him.

Then it was that the birth of the true King shone over the world,
from the rising of the sun even to its setting.
For, through the Magi
both the East learned the truth of this great event,
and the Roman Empire was not left in ignorance.
[Sermon 2, Pope Saint Leo the Great]

Blessed Feast of the Epiphany to All!

MMX

Partial Lunar Eclipse
Photographed on Papa Stronsay,
First Vespers of the Octave of Christmas,
[7.00 p.m. New Year's Eve 2009]

At the Gate of the Year
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
"Give me a light
that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied,
"Go into the darkness
and put your hand into the Hand of God
that shall be better to you than a light
and safer than a known way."

[Quoted by, H.M. King George VI
Christmas Message 1939]

Into the Darkness
A Lunar Eclipse
stands as a solar landmark
at the Gate of the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ
MMX
and at the opening of the second decade of the century.
More we cannot say!
Let us put our hands into the Hand of God.