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Christ’s Commission and Obama’s Mandate: A Teachable Moment

The big news in American Catholic circles is the Obama administration’s “contraceptive mandate.” This latest unethical intrusion of big governmnet stipulates that employers, including religious institutions, provide their employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and specific abortifacients such as Ella and Plan B.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle summarized the situation: “If this unprecedented aggression against the religious freedom rights of Catholics is allowed to stand, then virtually all Catholic institutions — colleges, universities, secondary schools, hospitals, charities, service providers, fraternal orders, and advocacy organizations — will be forced to pay for procedures, devices, and chemicals abhorrent to the consciences of Catholics.”

by Brother André Marie February 4th, 2012

Color Flyer of Chapel Project


View the new color PDF flyer on our IHM Chapel building project.

chapel_color_pdf.jpg


Brother André Marie to Speak in Louisiana


The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

On Wednesday, February 8, 2012, Brother André Marie will be speaking at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Lacombe, Louisiana. The title of his talk is “Penance and the Conversion of America.” It will begin at 6:30 PM.

The talk is sponsored by the Mysterium Fidei Latin …


Mystic Monk Coffee



Obama Says Social Policies Motivated by Bible and Teaching of Jesus


Brian Kelly

When most of our foreign aid goes to the militarization of bogus allies and population reduction of African nations through so-called health care, one is again stunned to hear the president ignore these facts and pretend that the purpose of foreign aid is to help feed the poor and the refugees and provide medicines for the sick.


Temporary Fruits of Ecumenical Reflection


Brother André Marie

From the Holy Father’s Address to the Participants of the Plenary Session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
Also the study documents produced by the various ecumenical dialogues have great relevance. Such texts cannot be ignored, because they are an important, though temporary, fruit of the common reflection matured throughout the years. Nevertheless, they are to be recognized


Obama and Administration Wage War Against Pro-Lifers Freedom of Conscience


Brian Kelly

By imperial edict, and as a dark insult to pro-lifers who were preparing their annual march to the Capitol to protest Roe v Wade and the ensuing murders of the pre-born, President Obama and self-deluded “Catholic” Kathleen Sabelius of the Department of Health and Human Services  have given new meaning to the word dictatorial. Genuinely Catholic and pro-life employers have been issued an ultimatum. They have one year to decide if they will serve God or the leviathan state. What boldness! What injustice!


Is There Fight Left in Hungary?


The Philosopher

We hope so. Daniel McAdams exposes the reheated communist apparatchiks and their fellow revolutionary travelers who run the European Union, and who are trying to bring the nation of Saint Stephen to its knees. Now the Hungarians are taking to the streets to insist that their government not be cowed by the threats of a despotic EU leadership.
Are the Hungarians at it again? Fifty-six years ago Hungarians landed what was ultimately the fatal blow to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.


Multiracial Protest against SPLC ‘Bigots’


The Philosopher

Said one black pastor to homosexual activists: “how dare you compare your wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior to our beautiful skin color.” What merited such a lambasting? The SPLC’s smearing pro-family organizations as “hate groups” for opposing the homosexual agenda.

Wouldn’t it be good to hear Catholic priests speaking with such conviction?


Agribusiness vs. Agriculture


Brother André Marie

Do you know the difference? If not, I suggest a glance at a blog I’ve just come across: Catholic Land Movement. In reply to our question, there is a posting on that site called “An Authentic Agriculture.” Here is the first paragraph:
Today we refer to what the giant monoculture farmers do as agriculture. This is actually a misnomer. What the vast majority of farmers do today is in actuality agribusiness. This is an important and essential distinction.


Hungary Capitulating?


The Philosopher

This, from RT: “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promised to revise the constitution that Europeans say has breached EU rules. The European Commission earlier this week mentioned curbs on the independence of the Hungarian central bank, the early retirement of judges and supervision of the country’s data …


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Literature and Poetry

Works of poetry and literature, works on poetry and literature — whether they be classical, medieval, Renaissance, baroque, etc. — If they are on this site, they are in this section.

The word “literature” is taken from the Latin word littera, which means “letters,” not as in the alphabet, but as in the words that letters spell. Latin also has the word verbum, which means “word,” not as in the material definition: the four-letter monosyllable, w-o-r-d, but as in the formal definition, what the term means. Verbum, in its formal sense, can be translated as “idea.” When you predicate one idea or concept of another, you have a proposition, or judgment. When man reasons, he is always linking propositions in order to arrive at conclusions. That’s logic, not literature.

Literature is written composition. It is the telling of a story on paper. The story can be either fiction or non-fiction, a novel, history, or drama. Bad writing can never qualify as literature, no matter how moving the story line. Good writing can never qualify as literature if there is no story in the writing, no development of a theme, no touching of the soul, just facts. Scientific writing is not literature, but science fiction certainly can be. Historical composition is not literature, but when the author brings adventure and great events to life, as in an inspiring biography, or a saga, that certainly can be classified as literature — that is, if the writing flows in style and grace.

It is hard to define the word literature. We all know what a well written book is, or a well written article, or essay, but we often differ when it comes to explaining what exactly it is that makes a book “a good read.”

Poetry, on the other hand, is easier to define. There must be meter and rhythm in the composition, and the composition must be divided into lines, verses, and stanzas. Poems do not necessary have to have rhyming verses, but usually they do. Epic poems, on the other hand, all have meter and rhythm, but not all have rhyming verses. A poem is a painting in words. Poesis, the Greek word for poetry, means “something made.” So, in the Greek tradition, poets did not just tell a beautiful story, they built it with the symmetry and harmony of meter and rhythm.

THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW, Feb, 1944.

THE LEONARD FEENEY OMNIBUS. A Collection of Prose and Verse Old and New. New York, Sheed and Ward, 1943. Pp. xiv + 399. $3.00. Read More »

I count my pygmies, one by one,
The nearly finished, half-begun,
Bedraggled poems I have written,
Companioned by a clock and kitten,
On littered desk, by candle-light,
Locked in my chamber late at night, Read More »

Aug 26
Father Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M.

Finale

by August 26th, 2011

When the Angel has blown on his trumpet a rat-a-tat-tat,
And the final encounter of armies is finished and fought; Read More »

Three soldiers rose up from their tents
And went to join their regiments.

And one said: “Captain, I report
Because I think the war is sport!” Read More »

Aug 5
Father Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M.

Miserere

by August 05th, 2011

One’s faith has little nightmares
It easily survives: —
Divorcing lust and Luther,
Henry and lots of wives. Read More »

Jul 21
Father Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M.

The Duel

by July 21st, 2011

One of us must surrender
Ere this affair is done.
I beg You — for it could not be —
That You be not the one. Read More »

Think you, if this were I,
You would be let to cry?

Were it I, for your sake,
Think you I would not wake? Read More »

There are three persons I admire tremendously and love the most,
And these are God, The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost.

I admire them the most because beyond all others they are Read More »

May God be kind to captive fish
Who dwell in little bowls and wish
To swim, and can’t, and have no notion Read More »

Jun 23
Father Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M.

Good News

by June 23rd, 2011

The night before Our Lord was born
Saint Joseph went about forlorn,
Knocking at doors from left to right,
Knocking at every door in sight, Read More »