Yesterday had lunch with the nuns from the hospital.  I tried my best to explain what is happening to me and my desire to promote the Holy Latin Mass.  But as you can imagine, they see me as a priest from out of space.  They are nuns who love Jesus and help the sick everyday.  God bless them for this.  But there is much more to God’s church than the simple daily mass and service to the poor.

Behind all the world’s problems, is the reality that we are just go along with the way things happen to be.  On her great blog, Ann Barnhardt sums up all the problems in the world today to one concept, one word, “Cowardliness”.  We are so much conformers to the way things are and the way things are going that we just go on as if everything is fine.  Few people analyze why we are messed up in the world and in the church.   And even fewer try to do anything about it.  Most just go along with how everyone thinks and acts.

God needs a few holy people who are willing to pray, think and change the course of events starting with ourselves.  Few people want to rock the boat.  Well I want to restore the BOAT, the church.

Are you really that busy that you do not have time to pray and analyze?  We need to take stock of our families, our lives and our soul.

I visited with the patients and told them good bye.  I gave them individual blessings.  It is so important that we take a few minutes to listen to someone, to smile at someone, and to pray for others.

I visited families, went to the chapel and got my prayers done.  I had to start packing and putting things away till next visit here to Malinalco.

Started off this morning with an early Holy Latin Mass and final packing.  We took a taxi to the airport with two other american youth.  Had a great discussion as usual about confession and our souls.

On the plane, one of the stewardesses was Maria who is Irish.  She came up to me and offered anything that she could do for me.  She worked in first class, so she brought myself and the lady next to me a first class meal.  (She didn’t want the lady whom I had been visiting to feel left out).  It made me so happy to be so respected by a stranger.  I showed her my photos from Mexico and told her about my love for traditional catholicism.  She gave me a bottle of wine with a nice note. I gave her my blog.  On the napkin where I wrote the blog I wrote a little thank you note.  She told me she would never loose that simple note.  All I did was to write a little prayer on a napkin.

Then at the end of the flight, I went to the bathroom.  But I never made it.  The other stewardess started talking to me and told me that she was an ex catholic.  But in around 2 minutes, we were deeply discussing catholicism.  She likes art and appreciates the beauty of traditional catholic churches.  She told me she did not believe in confession.  Well I explained how the divine action of God works through the sacraments.  She really caught on fast.

I told her how when you are a holy catholic and confess your sins you make a better friend and become a person who cares about others more than yourself.  She then told me that she could see the goodness in me and appreciated it very much.  She agreed that if we were all pure (holy) people we could be better friends and love each other.  I explained when you are a converted catholic you are not out to exploit others and you tend to be a better person.  Just before the plane was landing, she gave me a hug and we truly understood what was important in life (God, love, good people, beauty).

She also told me about what she saw on the plane today. “A couple wanted food but for some reason could not buy it.  A lady across the aisle from them offered to pay for their food.  She could have given the food for free, but she charged them for one of the meals just so they could have the joy of doing something charitable.”

I also encouraged the lady next to me to become catholic.  She was very kind and we also had great discussions.  I left the plane so full of joy experiencing how God had worked.  Because I wear the cassock it does make a difference.  Because I love it also make a difference.

So we need bold traditional catholics, not conformist progressives.  By being holy, you will be a loving friend to many people who need to find loving, giving, and holy people in a world that is very selfish and cutthroat.  It is so wonderful to be a traditional catholic.  It is a lot of fun traveling and meeting wonderful people.

I leave for California tomorrow from Mexico City.  Will be in the Modesto area till Thursday when I leave for the International Conference on Sacred Liturgy in Rome Italy.  I will be at the Abortion Mill this Tuesday at 9:15 God willing.

Had Lunch with the nuns and said good by to the sick people in the Hospital.

So many catholics will not kneel down to receive Jesus in Holy Communion.  Many bishops and priests will treat them as evil people for having knelt to receive Jesus in Holy Communion.  Many will be refused communion or be yelled at for showing respect to God present in Holy Communion.

All throughout the Bible we have adoration, prostration and kneeling to show respect for God.  After St. Peter experiences the miraculous catch of fishes, he gets down on the ground in front of Jesus.  Luke 5:8 “Which when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

We see this prostration, kneeling and adoring over and over again.  Before Jesus ascends into heaven in Matthew 28 the apostles fall in adoration before him.  The Magi prostrate before the baby King Jesus. The Samaritan who was healed from leprosy prostrates before Jesus in gratitude and recognizing that only Jesus being God could have healed him.  St. Paul shows us how to pray in Acts of the Apostles 20:36 “And when he had said these things, he knelt on his knees and he prayed,”.   This is when St. Paul is leaving his beloved disciples.

Most of us want to help our church and convert the world.  So how do we do this.  I think we need to concentrate on doing what God wants or in other words completing God’s will.  I say this because it can seem impossible to restore tradition in the church and help change the world.  But if each one of us are truly trying to do God’s will, than He will have to do the rest.

Mary was just one person.  Yes she had a very special vocation and received special graces to carry out her mission.  But nevertheless she was just one woman in a huge and difficult world.  She was open to God and to complete what ever He asked of her as a slave of the Lord.  I am sure she went through times where she wondered if her small part was going to make a difference.   But she never gave up.

Without Mary’s yes, we would not have the birth of the Savior of the world, Jesus.

She went through great suffering to support her child Jesus in His mission.  So we need to see how much she suffered to remember we too will suffer greatly to bring about the restoration of catholic traditionalism.

Vatican II open the church  and the people have exited (what the cartoon says).

We are doing our small part.  Let us get on with what God is calling us to do.

Today was asked to bless a restaurant and two homes.  I do it gladly, but I give a talk before to everyone to see if they want to be really good catholics.  This take so much time and effort.  I could just bless the places, but the people who live in them are still the same. Devils and evil spirits, who cause trouble in the homes, come from the people living in them and their sins. First the conversion of the people and then God’s blessing will come and stay.

The families who are some what converted have at least one person who has gone on a retreat.  So I am planning on starting to give traditional catholic retreats where ever I can.  That will include the Holy Latin Mass, and an explanation of traditional spirituality.  Maybe you who are reading this can organize one too in your area with a traditional priest.

As the Our Father says “thy will be done”, may we make an effort to do the will of God even when what He is asking of us seems very difficult like it was for Mary and Jesus.

It is never easy to know what is the will of God.  One way of trying to do it is getting out of our little worlds and opening our hearts to hear God’s spirit calling us to do great things.  Prayer helps us too to listen to find out what Jesus would like us to do.

When we have an inclination of what God may be asking us to do, we cannot let fear or other people stop us from trying to do what God wants.  We try.  If we keep trying and it all fails, maybe it is not the Will of God.  Just trying to be open to God’s will and doing it, makes God and Mary very happy.

You can stay with the world and the crowd.  You can be one in 7 billion +, but where is the joy of trying to do something special, beautiful, sacred and great for God?

This man Don Thomas is blind and tries to do God’s will.  He prays and tells his family  what is good and bad.   He directs his steps by the ropes you see in the picture and a cane.  He is 92 years old.  Maybe we need to blindly follow the rope that God is offering us.

This old lady tries her best to do prayers and encourage her family to be good catholics.

Jesus says very clearly we are not to charge money for the Holy Sacraments and other things like catechism classes for the children.  ”Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: freely have you received, freely give.” Matthew 10: 8.

Much damage took place when Luther protested about selling indulgences.  But in this aspect he was right.  The problem still exist in the church today. The sin of Simony.

“Simony is usually defined ”a deliberate intention of buying or selling for a temporal price such things as are spiritual of annexed unto spirituals”. While this definition only speaks of purchase and sale, any exchange of spiritual for temporal things issimoniacal. Nor is the giving of the temporal as the price of the spiritual required for the existence of simony; according to a proposition condemned by Innocent XI (Denzinger-Bannwart, no. 1195) it suffices that the determining motive of the action of one party be the obtaining of compensation from the other.”  Catholic Encyclopedia New Advent

Here in Mexico the priests normally do not receive a salary so they charge for everything.  There is a high price for a mass intention, for a private mass, for a wedding, for a baptism, and for any other of the sacraments except confession and anointing of the sick.

Before the Mexican catholic would go along with what ever had to be done so that they could have a mass said or receive a sacrament from a priest.  But things are changing quickly as more and more are becoming protestants or Jehovah Witnesses or Mormans or Evangelists or atheists.  Besides this you find many catholics here who just are catholics and never practice their faith.

When I went to the radiator mechanic, he said he did not go to church because they charge a lot for everything and because of church politics.  I totally agreed with him about the sin of charging for masses and sacraments.  I also totally agreed with him about the politics.  But what I did not agree with was not practicing the catholic faith.  I told him that if every catholic in the world was wrong, I would still never leave the true faith of Jesus Christ.  But in no way does that change the immoral behavior of charging for holy sacraments and catechism classes.

But it is not just in Mexico, but in the United States as well.  We priests receive salaries in the United States.  So priests are not as demanding for money as here in Mexico.  But nevertheless if you go to almost every parish in the USA you will be quoted a price for a mass intention, wedding, and some times even funerals.  Just call an ordinary parish and ask.

Canon Law allows for a stipend for mass intentions.  The normal stipend for a mass intention is now $10.  But when I was pastor,I always told the secretary to say the suggested donation was $10.  You may say that is the same thing as charging and in a way it seems that way.  I should be just what ever donation someone would like to give.

The same was done for weddings and 15era’s.  We said the suggested donation was $200 if they would like to give that.  But never was it set or asks for.  My cathedral charges a very high price for weddings.  Yes they include other things like music, coordinator and priests stipend.  But still there is a price for the Holy Sacraments.

Non catholic Non-denominational churches may not charge you, but many of them ask for a copy of you W-2 tax form. Then you are expected to tithe 10% of your salary.  This is so wrong too.  Yes we should tithe 10%.  But we should not oblige anyone to give to the church.  Some people are not allowed to come to these churches if they do not tithe.

Also here in Mexico the sects begin by giving you money and clothing and help you get work if you convert away from the catholic church.  But later on they start asking for money too.

What is the root of all this?  Lack of faith and running churches and dioceses as if they are businesses.  If only dioceses, parishes, priests and parish workers would trust in God to take care of the bills instead of charging for everything.  Diocese invest in the stock market which exploit the poor and make money from immoral practices.  The German church was getting money from a publishing company that publish pornography until it came out in the news.

Mother Theresa taught and practiced to never have fund raisers or charge money to take care of the poor.  She said “if you do God’s will you will have enough money to serve God, the poor and others”.  I took her advice seriously when I started the St. Francis Catholic Kitchen in Santa Cruz California.  We always had plenty of money.  I did at one point do a fundraiser for the Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s Home for homeless mothers and children that I started too.  But really I should never had done that.  I regret that still today.  God would have come up with the $300,000 it cost to buy it (I think it was in 1987 when we purchased it).  And the fundraising only came up with a very small portion of it anyway.  We ended up paying cash for it and remodeling it.  Some people lent me money at no interest and for as long as I needed to have it.  I paid them back very quickly.

In the 10 years as pastor of St. Patrick’s in Ripon California, the same thing was true.  We never charged for anything and just gave a suggested amount for the donation.  Money would just come in and come in.  The collection was always very good.

I never talked about money at church, except when I was obliged to for the Bishop’s Ministry Appeal.    If we priests and bishops are doing God’s will, we will have more than enough money.  Look at all the money that was invested and now is lost to law suits.  Billions of dollars that belonged to the catholic people have been lost.  That money could have helped the poor, built more churches and schools.  But we keep on charging money, asking for more money, and investing money in the stock market.

But also we need to not work on Sunday.  Many people do not go to church because the work on Sundays.  Why, because they think they need the money.  Cannot God provide the money we need if we obey keeping the Lord’s day holy?  My Uncle had a grocery store in Corralitos California.  He worked on Sundays too.   My dad and myself told him it was wrong.  He always used the excuse that he had high expenses.  Finally he closed on Sundays.  In the end he made just as much money in 6 days as he did before in 7 days.

The psalms say it well;  Even if a man works from dawn till night fall he can still be broke, while another man while he is sleeping, God pours out financial blessing on him.

Thank you to all you that are reading this for all your generous gifts of money and time to your parishes, to the poor and others.  Instead of investing money, the church needs to trust that everyday enough money will come from you generous catholics.  Thank you so much for all you have done.  God is never out done in generosity. But it does take a great deal of faith.  Please Lord give us faith that you will take care of us.  Many of you reading this may be going through a hard time financially.  Please have faith that God will take care of you eventually.  Also live simply and only buy what you need, not what you want.

Never get in debt if you can help it.  Never Never.  Buy only what you have saved up for and can pay cash for.  Buy used things.  Make sacrifices to not have everything.  The poor here in Mexico get by with what ever they have.  Very very few have a car.  Most cars are old and junky.  But they are just fine.  The poor do not have credit so they do not owe on their tiny homes.  But sad to say the banks are making more and more loans to the poor and they charge them very high interest.

Talk about catholic tradition.  The church condemned taking interest.

This morning when I was in the chapel at my house to pray, I decided to shake out the rugs because some kid had spilled bread crumbs on the carpet.  So I did the first one.  Then I decided to clean the second one so that God’s room would be clean.  I found a scorpion under the rug and stepped on it and killed it.  St. Anthony helped me find it and kill it before the people kneeling in the Holy Latin Mass were someone could be stung by it. 

St. Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon Portugal of a noble family.  As so many saints, he gave up his position and wealth to follow the poor carpenter’s son, Jesus Christ.  He wanted to give his life as a martyr for Jesus at the hands of the muslims in Morocco. But God had other plans and he ended up in Italy preaching to catholics and heretics.  One great story is this one:

“The militant St. Anthony is the authentic one, depicting the way he lived on earth in his times and the way he is now in Heaven. But today his true moral physiognomy, which the Church presents as a model, has almost completely disappeared. The figure that replaced him is a sentimental one only concerned about giving graces and favors. There is a fundamental difference in the physical figure, but most of all, there is a fundamental difference in the moral figure of St. Anthony.

In addition to being honored with the aforementioned titles – Ark of the Covenant and Hammer of the Heretics – St. Anthony is also the Patron of the Army. The reason for that is linked to two incidents where, from Heaven, he intervened in a militant way.

The first was when a Spanish fleet was besieging the Muslim city of Oram and facing a long and fruitless siege. In such circumstance, the Spanish Admiral went to a statue of St. Anthony to ask his intercession. He told St. Anthony that he, the Admiral, could do nothing more without some extraordinary help. Then he turned over his insignias of command to the statue and placed his Admiral’s hat on its head. Then he asked St. Anthony to take command of the siege against Oram and conquer the city.

Soon after this, the Moors suddenly left the city. Some who were captured and interrogated related that they had seen a Friar coming from Heaven with an Admiral’s hat on his head. He threatened the Moors that he would send fire from Heaven upon them unless they left the city. In face of this peril, the Muslims found it more prudent to leave.” Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira

Another great true story is that he was challenged to make a donkey kneel down before the Holy Eucharist to prove to an unbeliever that Jesus truly is in the Holy Communion.  The owner starved the donkey for three days and offered food to it at the same time St. Anthony showed the Blessed Sacrament.  The donkey ignored the food and got down on all four knees and adored Jesus.

Again when heretics would not listen to his preaching at Rimini, he went to the sea and preached to fish who put their heads up to listen to St. Anthony telling them about the greatness of God.

When challenged to drink a liquid containing poison by heretics, he blessed the drink and drank it without any effect.

Another time in Rio de Janeiro the heretics where attacking the city.  A franciscan put the statue of St. Anthony on a pedestal in the city square.  This motivated many young men to begin to be involve in the battle and Brazil was saved from being taken over by the heretics.

When I was young I went to Brazil to work with the poor.  The nun Irma Dulce, was so devoted to St. Anthony.  All her places were named after St. Anthony.  There was St. Anthony Hospital and St. Anthony Orphanage.  I hear that they are in the process of canonizing Irma Dulce.  Working with her and the poor in Salvador Bahia had a lasting effect on my life.

Today I went to another pueblo to bless a chapel.  

We are so fortunate to be of the same catholic faith as St. Anthony and be at the Holy Latin Mass that St. Anthony offered everyday of his priesthood.  Also don’t forget to thank St. Anthony for all the times he has found things for you when you prayed with faith.A frog that we caught.

I now have met three catholics here in Mexico (from the USA) who are here studying indigenous religions like the Aztec Religion.  Why is there such a respect for ancient pagan religions and such adamant objection to ancient catholic religion?

When St. Patrick went to Ireland to convert the pagans there, it was so difficult and dangerous.  The druids and witches were powerful and possessed.  Did you know that when the Irish would go to war they would get possessed and go at it killing the other clan.

Here in Mexico, when Cortez arrived, they found a long wall of skulls of those who were sacrificed.   Literally rivers of blood flowed down the pyramids from the human sacrifices.  Most people will discount this and say it was very rare.  No, it was real and we have a great deal of historical writings from this time in 1530.  It was only less than 500 years ago.

If you practice the Wiccan religion or the Aztec religion, you can do what ever you want to do because there is absolutely no religious structure or hierarchy left that one would have to follow.  There’s no 10 commandments.  There are no prohibitions still in effect today.

Believe me, before it was not like that.  The Aztec society enforced many strict rules and religious practices.  So today people return to a false concept of the Aztec and Wiccan religion.  It was not a joy when your most loved family member was sacrificed to demons.  These pictures were taken by archeologist in Mexico.

When you believe in pagan religion with many gods and rituals, you open yourself up to evil spirits and fear.  If others can do what you are doing, than maybe someone will do evil spells on you too.  Where there is witchcraft here in Mexico, the people are afraid of it very much.  We who believe in Jesus, do not have to be afraid of witchcraft and other superstitions.  We are protected by Jesus.  His religion is a religion based on Love and on the Divine power of Goodness.

Now, when it comes to ancient catholicism, it is not attractive, because it is still actually being practiced in the same way it was centuries ago.  Yes, everything changed in the catholic church since Vatican II 50 years ago, but there still are a great deal of traditional catholics like the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) and the Society of St. Pius X who never changed.  So you can get a personal experience of it right now.  There are many other groups of traditional catholics too who are continuing to practice the traditional catholic faith.  Since Summorum Pontificum you can experience at least the Holy Tridentine Mass in many places around the world now.

But you can not go and find a living group of Aztecs practicing what they did centuries ago.  People try to re live what has been dead for centuries.  They can make up any rule they want, like using any kind of drug they want for recreational religious experiences.

So I propose introducing traditional catholic religion as an interesting religious study for the young people who are interested in going back.  I also clearly speak of the horrors of human sacrifice.

In the psalms we pray in the divine office, we read about the Israelites sacrificing their sons and daughters to demons.  It was real.  It is horror.  Some people say that is what abortion is today, sacrificing our pre-born babies to the demons.

Today I went to another city to try to fix one of the car’s radiators.  I then went to visit some carmelite nuns.  I heard confession of one of them who is 93 years old.  In this city of Tenancingo the people are all so interested in talking with me because I am a catholic priest and can tell it because of my cassock.  I kept blessing strangers and smiling at them.

I got the radiator mechanic to let me take down all his calendars of half nude women.  I am working on another electrical mechanic to let me do the same in his shop.  I work on women dressing modestly and with dresses and men taking down their bad pictures.

So let us keep on praying and working for the rediscovery of the Ancient Roman Rite of the Tridentine Mass.  Then maybe not so many of our catholic youth will go back to the ancient pagan rites like the Wiccans, Aztecs and satanists.  Doesn’t it make you content that you are leading the youth to the wonderful faith of the ancient christians.  We are so fortunate to know all this.  The traditional catholic counter revolution is being carried out mainly by young catholics.  B. S. of the old liberals will eventually be replace by Y. T. C.  The biological solution of the old liberals dying off, will eventually be replaced by the young traditional catholics.

When a priest is trained in the Novus Ordo Mass and Rites, it is an overwhelming task to try to start changing over to the Traditional Mass and Rites.

The first challenge is to learn the complexes gestures that have to be learned when starting to say the Tridentine Mass. Then there is learning Latin and it’s pronunciation.  Besides this we need to memorize latin prayers that have to be said where there is no card or missal to read from (like the prayer you say when showing the host to the people before you give communion).  The Requiem Mass is quite difficult too.

Then there are all the details, rubrics or actions involved with the Latin Baptism.

There are still many parts of the traditional rites I still have not learned.  But I believe it is all worth it to please God.  For this reason alone I am willing to do all I have to to learn.

Many people who are not priest know a great deal too or you can look it up in books on how to properly do all the rites.

To offer the Holy Latin Mass you also need a missal, vestments, chalice vails, bells and a berreta.  You can not do it half baked, you have to do it exactly as prescribed.

Praying the Divine Office or Breviary in Latin is again a great feat to accomplish.  When I wanted to start praying the Latin Breviary, priest who were already praying it suggested I begin with Laudes and Vespers from the Breviary.  But beginning with Lent, I decided to do it all.  But it is definitely overwhelming at the beginning.  The time it takes, the long prayers and the latin.  Many times I wanted to give up and go back to the Liturgy of the Hours in English.  But eventually you will begin to like it.  One thing I have noticed is that when praying in Latin you do realize you are keeping this language only for God.  Praying the Breviary takes me 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day, at least.

Every part of the Traditional Latin Rites is much much more work.  Prepare for that.  It takes so much more time and work.  Everything, literally everything, is so so much more complicated.  I am lazy.  It is only because I love God that I am willing to do all this work.

Maybe if a priest knew how difficult it all is, he may never want to embark on this path.  But when I began, I really just started with the Holy Mass and that was very difficult for me at my age, but was interesting and challenging for me.  There was something very intriguing about it’s order.  Every rubric has a logical reason behind it.  It is a very masculine prayer because it is all so logical and cerebral.  Then I went from there.

Once you begin to do the two masses together, you will be all the more convinced that the church had it right before and you are on the right path.

All the precaution given for the protection of God in the Sacred Host and Precious Blood in the Tridentine mass becomes very obvious.  Then comes the crisis in your priesthood.  You are living in two liturgical worlds and feel torn internally.  You will begin to know what it means to be a priest who offers sacrifice to God for all the people.  Your priestly identity will become clearer.

Then comes the time when you want to only offer the Tridentine Mass.  At this point more than likely no one will understand you.  You have discovered a great treasure and deep spiritual experience in offering the Latin Mass.  But everyone else, except for a few traditional people in your parish, will not understand you and will probably dislike you and deeply criticize you.

Now you have so much experience and knowledge that they do not, but in their eyes you are the one that is wrong because the pope only says the Novus Ordo Mass and you are bad to criticize or not want to offer the mass that the church ordinarily does.  But you can not help it because you have been offering the two masses day after day and see the total difference.  You have been reading a great deal about the inorganic development of the Novus Ordo and that knowledge can not be suppressed.  The truth you have lived and studied can not be denied anymore.  You then come to what I call, traditional loneliness.   Your priests friends no longer agree with you, the parishioners think you are extreme, and many other will strongly criticize you.  This will be the most difficult time in your priestly life.  But it will also be the most meaningful time of your priestly life.

The important thing to do is to remember you are offering the Holy Latin Mass and other Latin Rites because you love God.  You will no longer be able to be a priest who pleases people.  People will hate you, will look down on you, say you are mentally unbalanced, and will in general dislike you.  But that is good, because now you have to do everything you do in your priesthood because you love Jesus and His Holy Church.  No more will you get adulation.  But this is spiritual maturation.

In order to not get totally overwhelmed you need to find some other traditional priest who understand what you are going through.  Probably there will not be any around the diocese you belong to, so you will have to find some elsewhere like in the FSSP.  When I was in the difficult traditional loneliness, I reached out to other traditional priests, but they didn’t help me that much.  God and good traditional lay people help a lot.

Whatever level you are at in becoming a Traditional priest, just remember why you are suffering so much.  It is because you have discovered the treasure of the ancient liturgy.  You have discovered such a deep priestly spirituality and morality.  But all this goes against the world, modernism and progressivism.

One great danger is to become so disenchanted that you want to stop being part of the organized catholic church.  You are tempted to become part of the Society of St. Pius X.  You are tempted to become an independent priest with your own church.  It is especially tempting when your bishop and parishioners are persecuting you for what you have discovered.  But do not give into these temptations.  Stay in the church and restore the church.  You may have to end up only saying private masses isolated away from all the people you love and who use to support you.  Just saying the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass all by yourself is still doing an infinite amount of good.  Again it is not us who are saving the world, but it is Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that saves souls.  All we priests have to do is offer the Holy Mass.  The infinite value of one Holy Mass is never to be forgotten said in a parish or all alone.  We priests, with Jesus, are so so important in the economy of Graces.

If you have read the lives of the saints you know what is to be expected, suffering and joys and meaning.

If you are in the stage of discouragement, prayer and pleasing God are the two most important things you can do.  But also, just looking on the internet, you really see that all over the world, the Holy Spirit is raising up priests like ourselves to offer the Holy Ancient Mass of all Ages.  You are isolated and persecuted, but God is with us and working mightily.  We are so fortunate to be in this era of rediscovering the great treasure that has been buried and recovered.

When ever you priests or lay people get discouraged, just look at the new church since Vatican II.  The lack of vocations to the religious life and priesthood.  The empty churches.  The Sex scandals.  The youth masses and the way that people come dressed to mass.  The closing of catholic schools.  All our relatives leaving the catholic church and going else where.  The starting up of thousands and thousands of new churches. The amount of catholics using birth control and aborting their babies.

Now you see why it is worth while what we are trying to help God do.  The restoring of the catholic church.  We traditional catholics believe in the 1980 years of the church’s teachings and what the Bible teaches.  We are not in the dark.  We have the light of tradition to guide us to Heaven.

How can we as priest or lay people help restore the Holy Catholic Church?  Last night I was visiting a family and they had a Novus Ordo mass from the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on their TV.  For most people they would have just seen it as another ordinary Mass.  But for me, it is so uninteresting.  Yes God is working through the Word of God and the Consecration of the Host and Precious Blood.  But when you have experienced the Tridentine Mass which truly is the “Most Beautiful Prayer this side of Heaven”, you see the deficiency of the Novus Ordo Mass.  Simply and in love show people the difference.

What struck me first was the presider seated in center where the Tabernacle use to be.  Then the difference in the vestments which all the priests were wearing.  Then watching the people receive Holy Communion.  They were squished and had to squeeze in to receive.  There was no paten to catch the pieces of the Host that may fall.  And of course there was no one kneeling to receive the King of King’s in Holy Communion.  

Of course my enemies who constantly criticize me for criticizing the Novus Ordo, see nothing wrong with all this.  In fact they see it as an improvement of the out of date Tridentine Mass.

But you who love the Sacred, the Beauty, the Reverence know exactly what I felt when seeing the Mass on Television.  There is also a Mass broadcasted from Los Angeles here in Spanish.  Again when I see it on TV, I just feel it is such a poor way of worshipping the Great God we believe in.  The Vestments, the Altar, the Music, it is lacking.

The greatest evidence we have, is what Pope Benedict said: “fabricated liturgy…a banal on-the-spot product,” which has divorced itself from the proper “organic, living process of growth and development” that takes place “over centuries.”  (Ratzinger, J., The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp. 165-6.  San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.)  This is not what I am saying.  I know that he is correct from all the hours and hours I have studied about the the two Masses.  Pass on this quote to everyone you can.

You can hate Pope Benedict for saying this.  You can have your own opinion, but that will never change the truth.  Truth is truth is truth.  Please, everyone, study all you can about the two masses. Study all you can about Vatican II and the other Councils.  It all does matter and deserves prayer, time and study.

So we can try to talk to bishops, priests and lay people about what we have studied and experience.  We can pray that God will begin to help us in our mission of pleasing God with the Best liturgy.

So as we pray we believe.  As we believe we act.  Has anyone seen anything wrong in how we catholics are behaving lately.  I was at the gas station today and a young man was putting gas in the car with a bracelet with the marijuana leave on it.  Here is a catholic promoting marijuana.  So many people here in Mexico who are catholics have the marijuana leave on their shirts, hats and coats.

I went to bless another house today because people had broken in twice recently.  Who broke in, more than likely a catholic.  I told the family that they need to obey God’s laws too because stealing is breaking God’s law, but so is living together as they are not married.  It all counts.  As we pray we believe.  As we believe we act.  

We are so fortunate to know what is pleasing to God in our action and our beliefs.  We can help others by letting people know about what is good, pure and holy.  We tell people because we love God and love them.  Sin, liberalism hurts people.  Traditional truths and values heals people and protects them.

Traveled yesterday evening to a tiny town called Monte Grande (Large Mountain) to pray and exorcism prayer for a young woman who acts as if she is possessed.  I now know why this town is call that, because to get there, you had to drive up up up and up on a terrible road.  I have my parents very old chevy station wagon.  It has been using water in the radiator.  I had added water in the morning, but had used it a lot before we went.  I had not added more water.  So as we were driving up it started heating up up and up.

As I was noticing this, a lady, who went with us, began telling us a great story about St. Tarcisius.

Her husband had a cancerous tumor that was growing very quickly. They were told that they had to go to Mexico City to operate on it and it would be very expensive and dangerous.  In desperation she went to the Blessed Sacrament to pray.  While praying, a little boy came up to her and told her that all would work out well and that she would be a living witness to tell others what was to happen.  The little boy called her Tia (aunt).  He told her that he had been stoned to death.  His hands were very bony and scared.  He kept telling her to have faith and that all would work out.  There were many more things he told her, but I do not remember them right now.

Well, her husband had the operation and lived eight more years.  Now she has a small sanctuary for St. Tarcisius in her house.

Well after this great testimony, and as the car kept on heating up more and more, and the road kept on being steeper and rocky, I just kept praying and saying I need to have faith.  I would never had gone in the old car if I had know how high the town was.  But what do you do but keep on praying and driving.  The gage kept getting higher, and reached very close to the red mark, but never actually went on the red mark.  After an hour of driving like this, we made it without the car breaking down.   There were no towns or stores on the way up.  

Then we prayed for the young lady who seems possessed and blessed another house where they are seeing a black shadow that calls them to come to it.  These young women are living with two brothers who are now in Fresno California.  I told them I can bless the house, but living in sin is what is inviting the devil into their lives and home.

By then the car had cooled down, and I started it and put water in the radiator.  We headed back down the road.  I put the car in low and tried to not ride the breaks.  Things were fine until the break pedal started going down to the car floor.  I pumped it up and we had brakes again.  But it kept getting like that and we had miles of steep incline still to go.  Again I got everyone to start the Rosary.  I kept asking God for more faith.  I said something about the brakes, but did not explain the real danger I was experiencing.  We would just drive over the cliff if the brakes failed.  Well by God’s grace, St. Tarcisius and the Rosary I am alive and able to write this blog.  So I just am telling this so you all will have more faith.

The Carmelites, who have a convent near Malinalco, have raised money to build these simple houses for the poor.  This is something wonderful that is happening.  Thanks be to God for some good.  Others are just Augustinian religious are charging money to the poor for masses and sacraments, like here in the parish of Malinalco.  When I was pastor we never charged for the sacraments or catechism.  We did have a suggested donation for weddings and 15 eras of $200.  But it was always explained that they did not need to pay anything if they wished.  Jesus says, what is received freely should be given freely.  It is a great scandal that the catholic church charges for everything.  We need to be generous and God will be generous with us.  Mother Theresa taught me that if you are doing God’s will, there will always be enough money.  The question is are we doing God’s will?  You can tell if you do not charge money for holy things and you still have more than enough money.  While at St. Patrick’s parish in Ripon Ca. there was always so much money.  It just would come and come.  We need to please God and He will take care of us.

Here is the man who is like a child and only has one leg.

Here is a photo of the blind lady and her daughter who I have visited and who has an alcoholic husband.  Pray for her.

We are so fortunate to know God and to know traditional catholic teaching.  We are also so fortunate to have faith in God.  We are so fortunate to be able to see and walk and have a house to live in.  Thank you God for everything.