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  Meet Baby Olivia | A Never Before Seen Look At Human Life In The Womb
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 08:54 AM - Forum: Abortion - No Replies

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  An open letter from 7 Canadian PhDs supporting the unvaccinated
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 08:44 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

An open letter from 7 Canadian PhDs supporting the unvaccinated
Do not be intimidated. You are showing resilience, integrity and grit. You are coming together in your communities, 
making plans to help one another and standing for scientific accountability and free speech, which are required for society to thrive.



Thu Aug 19, 2021

(Dr. Trozzi) – You are not alone! As of 28 July 2021, 29% of Canadians have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, and an additional 14% have received one shot. In the US and in the European Union, less than half the population is fully vaccinated, and even in Israel, the “world’s lab” according to Pfizer, one third of people remain completely unvaccinated. Politicians and the media have taken a uniform view, scapegoating the unvaccinated for the troubles that have ensued after eighteen months of fearmongering and lockdowns. It’s time to set the record straight.

It is entirely reasonable and legitimate to say ‘no’ to insufficiently tested vaccines for which there is no reliable science. You have a right to assert guardianship of your body and to refuse medical treatments if you see fit. You are right to say ‘no’ to a violation of your dignity, your integrity and your bodily autonomy. It is your body, and you have the right to choose. You are right to fight for your children against their mass vaccination in school.

You are right to question whether free and informed consent is at all possible under present circumstances. Long-term effects are unknown. Transgenerational effects are unknown. Vaccine-induced deregulation of natural immunity is unknown. Potential harm is unknown as the adverse event reporting is delayed, incomplete and inconsistent between jurisdictions.

You are being targeted by mainstream media, government social engineering campaigns, unjust rules and policies, collaborating employers, and the social-media mob.

You are being told that you are now the problem and that the world cannot get back to normal unless you get vaccinated.

You are being viciously scapegoated by propaganda and pressured by others around you. Remember; there is nothing wrong with you.

You are inaccurately accused of being a factory for new SARS-CoV-2 variants, when in fact, according to leading scientists, your natural immune system generates immunity to multiple components of the virus. This will promote your protection against a vast range of viral variants and abrogates further spread to anyone else.

You are justified in demanding independent peer-reviewed studies, not funded by multinational pharmaceutical companies. All the peer-reviewed studies of short-term safety and short-term efficacy have been funded, organized, coordinated, and supported by these for-profit corporations; and none of the study data have been made public or available to researchers who don’t work for these companies.

You are right to question the preliminary vaccine trial results. The claimed high values of relative efficacy rely on small numbers of tenuously determined “infections.”  The studies were also not blind, where people giving the injections admittedly knew or could deduce whether they were injecting the experimental vaccine or the placebo. This is not acceptable scientific methodology for vaccine trials.

You are correct in your calls for a diversity of scientific opinions. Like in nature, we need a polyculture of information and its interpretations. And we don’t have that right now. Choosing not to take the vaccine is holding space for reason, transparency and accountability to emerge. You are right to ask, ‘What comes next when we give away authority over our own bodies?’

Do not be intimidated. You are showing resilience, integrity and grit. You are coming together in your communities, making plans to help one another and standing for scientific accountability and free speech, which are required for society to thrive. We are among many who stand with you.

Angela Durante, PhD
Denis Rancourt, PhD
Claus Rinner, PhD
Laurent Leduc, PhD
Donald Welsh, PhD
John Zwaagstra, PhD
Jan Vrbik, PhD
Valentina Capurri, PhD

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  Big pharma eyes next childhood vaccine cash cow — mRNA vaccines for RSV
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 08:40 AM - Forum: Health - No Replies

Big pharma eyes next childhood vaccine cash cow — mRNA vaccines for RSV
Now that COVID vaccines have established mRNA technology as the 'new frontier for vaccine development,' pharma giants have set their sights on an
mRNA vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) — which they hope to add to an already overburdened childhood vaccine schedule.

[Image: RSV-Vaccine-810x500.jpg]


Fri Aug 20, 2021

(Children’s Health Defense - adapted, not all hyperlinks included below, see original article) – Over the decades since childhood vaccines began rolling out on a widespread scale, pediatric vaccine injuries have left many parents regretful for forgetting or ignoring a basic history lesson.

That lesson, in the words of Harvard medical historian David Jones, is that “when it comes to vaccines and immunization … there always has been a risk and there always will be a risk.”

Sixty-five years ago, families learned about the risks of medical experimentation the hard way when they allowed researchers to use their infants as test subjects for a vaccine against a newly discovered illness dubbed “respiratory syncytial virus” (RSV), a common-cold-like illness now considered to affect “virtually all children,” mostly uneventfully, by age two.

The disastrous RSV vaccine led to the death of two infants and to hospitalization for the majority of other young clinical trial participants.

Since that time, vexed researchers have continued to deploy “trial-and-error approaches.” But they admit the “road to an effective RSV vaccine is paved with challenges,” in large part because of the tricky problem of “vaccine-associated disease exacerbation” — a problem that has also plagued coronavirus vaccines.

The gist of the “exacerbation” issue, also called antibody-dependent enhancement or pathogenic priming, is that the vaccine “primes” recipients to later develop more severe disease instead of protecting them.

Lured by the prospect of a large untapped global RSV vaccine market, manufacturers are nonetheless setting their sights on RSV vaccine development — and not just for infants but also for pregnant women and the elderly.

By 2019, capitalizing on the proliferation of new vaccine technologies, clinical trials were evaluating an estimated 30 candidate RSV vaccines, and scientists were gleefully announcing that the world “might be on the brink of clinical implementation soon.”

The crowded field of RSV vaccine candidates includes messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. In fact, with COVID injections having opened the floodgates to establish mRNA technology as the “new frontier for vaccine development,” pharma giants appear more confident than ever that they are close to finally producing an RSV winner.

In a nod to these hopes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just granted fast-track designation to Moderna for the company’s experimental mRNA-1345 vaccine against RSV. Although the fast-track FDA review applies only to older adults for now, Moderna’s phase 1 trials of its RSV injection also include children as young as 1 year old.


What about safety?

The 1960s RSV vaccine was a disaster in terms of safety, but researchers engaged in subsequent RSV vaccine attempts have tried to steer public attention away from risks and toward a single-minded focus on effectiveness.

With the help of industry-standard study design tricks — such as monitoring adverse events for only a short while or comparing the vaccine against immune-activating aluminum adjuvants or other vaccines (rather than an inert placebo) — manufacturers have managed to keep potential safety problems in the shadows.

The foundational ethical standards underpinning research on human subjects demand special attention to vulnerable populations, including unborn babies, neonates, pregnant women and the institutionalized elderly.

Yet these are precisely the populations that RSV studies have targeted — all flops, with none leading to a licensed vaccine and a bare minimum of disclosure about safety.


For example:
  • With no comparison group, Lederle Laboratories (later acquired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, then Pfizer, and now known as New York Center for Innovation) tested a recombinant (genetically engineered) subunit vaccine on three dozen chronically ill institutionalized persons (mean age=87) in the mid-1990s, half of whom, at baseline, “required assistance with walking or used a wheelchair.” Five died within five months of injection, but investigators reported “All deaths were due to medical conditions unrelated to the study.”
  • Wyeth administered an aluminum-adjuvanted subunit RSV vaccine or an aluminum phosphate adjuvant “control” to several hundred children ages 1-12 years with cystic fibrosis (late 1990s). Cystic fibrosis is a condition characterized by immune system defects, and aluminum adjuvants can make the immune system go haywire.
  • In the early 2000s, in a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, Wyeth gave three dozen healthy women in their third trimester of pregnancy its aluminum-adjuvanted subunit RSV vaccine or a saline placebo, operating under the premise (contradicted by considerable evidence) that pregnant women “respond well to vaccines.” The manufacturer monitored local and systemic reactions in the mothers for just seven days. The researchers reported no noteworthy differences in outcomes for the two groups of infants during their first year of life, although two of the vaccinated babies developed RSV anyway.
  • Between 2015 and 2018, Novavax gave more than 4600 healthy pregnant women (28-36 weeks gestation) a “fusion protein nanoparticle vaccine” or a buffer formulation (used to stabilize proteins and generally understudied for toxicity). Fifty-seven (1.2%) of the 18- to 40-year-old participants, more than half recruited in South Africa, did not progress to a live birth. Four in 10 women in the vaccine group, versus one in 10 in the placebo group, reported injection site reactions.
  • In June 2020, Pfizer launched a phase 3 trial to vaccinate pregnant women with a subunit RSV vaccine (placebo unspecified). The study design involves monitoring serious adverse events in infants for 24 months, but for only six months in mothers. The trial is ongoing.
One of the RSV vaccines entering clinical trials in recent years — including planned phase 3 trials with a “target population” of two-month-olds — is a viral vector vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that, like the AstraZeneca COVID shot, uses a chimpanzee adenovirus as the vector.

Interestingly, the researchers who identified RSV in the mid-1950s initially found it in chimps, not humans, and called it “chimpanzee coryza agent.” [Note: RSV’s origins will be discussed further in an upcoming article in The Defender].


The gold rush is on

Globally, the highest burden of RSV-attributed illness is in low- and middle-income countries, where 99% of fatalities occur.

For the majority of American babies for whom RSV plays out as a short-lived cough or runny nose — just like any other winter sniffles — an RSV vaccine will offer no benefit. Nor are vaccines likely to help the subset of infants who do go on to develop more serious lung inflammation (bronchiolitis) or pneumonia, children who tend to have comorbidities or weaknesses stemming from prematurity, congenital problems, neuromuscular disorders or a compromised immune system.

Yet, as the calamitous COVID injections are illustrating, virus fears — helped along by propaganda and manipulation of social psychological concepts such as social influence — can persuade parents to adopt and promote measures that run counter to their children’s interests.

To ensure ongoing panic, the media and hospitals are now reporting a summer outbreak of RSV-plus-COVID. Ironically, experts explain the “unusually high” number of RSV cases as “the result of children being largely quarantined last fall and winter, hindering them from building up an immunity.”

Unfortunately, accounts of this “wicked one-two punch” are bound to send some parents into the waiting arms of manufacturers dangling salvation in the form of an RSV vaccine, even if the injection, such as Moderna’s likely forthcoming mRNA shot, uses a technology that mRNA’s creator is warning is risky.

GSK candidly admits in materials shared with the World Health Organization that the company’s vision for its two-dose infant RSV shot is for “co-administration with routine paediatric vaccines” — in other words, incorporation into already overburdened childhood vaccine schedules.

In the U.S., the vaccine schedule for children and adolescents currently includes as many as six dozen doses through age 18: up to 27 doses of 10 vaccines (14 antigens) through 15 months of age, another 13 doses of 8 vaccines (11 antigens) through age 18, plus one to two annual flu shot doses.

The U.S. also just launched its first six-in-one shot for infants despite worrisome safety signals in Europe.

Shocked by the scale and severity of COVID vaccine injuries in their adolescents, some parents are pushing back against the “one in a million” narrative, reminding the world that there is no accountability or liability for injuries caused by any experimental or licensed vaccine.

With roughly 400 adverse events documented in the package inserts of existing childhood vaccines, other parents might do well to consider whether the risks of either RSV or COVID injections are worth the tenuous benefits.

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  Georgia Guidestones Meme
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 01:41 PM - Forum: General Commentary - No Replies

[Image: Capture.jpg]



Taken from Wikipedia's page on the above Georgia Guidestones:

Quote:A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones[8] in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion—faith—tradition—and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the Earth—Leave room for nature—Leave room for nature.

[...]


Interpretations

Yoko Ono said the inscribed messages are "a stirring call to rational thinking", while Wired stated that unspecified opponents have labeled them as the "Ten Commandments of the Antichrist".

The guidestones have become a subject of interest for conspiracy theorists. One of them, an activist named Mark Dice, demanded that the guidestones "be smashed into a million pieces, and then the rubble used for a construction project", claiming that the guidestones are of "a deep Satanic origin", and that R. C. Christian belongs to "a Luciferian secret society" related to the New World Order. At the unveiling of the monument, a local minister proclaimed that he believed the monument was "for sun worshipers, for cult worship and for devil worship".[5] Conspiracy theorist Jay Weidner has said that the pseudonym of the man who commissioned the stones – "R. C. Christian" – resembles Rose Cross Christian, or Christian Rosenkreuz, the founder of the Rosicrucian Order.


The whole wikipedia webpage is rather interesting as it related to these stones astronomical orientation, etc.

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  Powerful: Dr. Sean Brooks, PHD, Oxford on Vaccines
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 09:30 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines - No Replies

DR SEAN BROOKS, PHD, OXFORD, 48 PUBLICATIONS, 23 BOOKS. “GETTING THE VACCINE WILL CAUSE YOUR DEATH”.


https://www.bitchute.com/video/mP16jszuEKog/

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  August 19th – St John Eudes, Confessor
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 08:14 AM - Forum: August - Replies (1)

August 19 – St John Eudes, Confessor
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwp-media.patheos.com%2F...f=1&nofb=1]

Saint Jean Eudes, forerunner of devotion both to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was born in 1601, some time after France had been torn apart by the revolt of the Huguenots. The rebels were calmed but relegated to western France by King Henry IV, after he himself returned to the Catholic faith. It was in that region that this young Saint spent his childhood, at Argentan in Normandy, and was educated with the Jesuits of Caen. The father of this first-born of a family of solid and profound virtue, had himself desired the sacerdotal life, and he did not long oppose Jean’s desire to consecrate himself to God as a priest. At eighteen years of age Saint Jean had already composed a treatise on voluntary abnegation, which his confessor obliged him to publish. He was ordained in Paris as a member of the recently founded French Oratory of Saint Philip Neri; his teachers there were Fathers de Berulle and de Condren, two unsurpassed spiritual directors. The governing theme of his meditation, his preaching and his writings was the importance of the redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God, through the intermediary of His Immaculate Mother. Controversy was not lacking in those days, when the Mother of God had been relegated to a very secondary if not insignificant role by the reformers, and Saint Jean did not fear controversy. He chose to study both theology and what we would call debate, as essential preparations for his calling. In those days seminaries were scarce; aspiring future priests themselves sought out the instruction they needed.

At Caen a pestilence broke out and soon decimated the populace, often deprived of spiritual assistance. Jean Eudes offered to care for them in person, and while the scourge lasted slept outdoors in a field, in an old barrel, to protect his brothers in religion from contagion. In 1639 he was named Superior of the Oratory of Caen by Father de Condren, although the Superior General feared that office could interfere with his missions, from which they hoped for great renovation in western France. Nonetheless, from 1638 until 1642, Saint Jean, with his brethren in religion, was engaged in preaching missions in the dioceses of Bayeux and Lisieux, where the bishops encouraged him and soon were praising him highly. The fruits of these missions were rich and long-lived. Father Eudes was a follower of Saint Vincent de Paul in his ardent desire to evangelize the poor folk, so long neglected, and it was to the people that the preaching of the Oratorian missionaries was addressed. Their missions lasted for several weeks. “Otherwise,” said Saint Jean, “we put a bandage on the wound, but do not heal it.” Processions, hymns, little religious plays, special conferences for specific groups, organization of leagues against duels and blasphemy, and visits to the sick occupied the missionaries’ very full days.

Saint Jean Eudes left the Oratory, a Society of priests which he loved sincerely, like other founders who have been in a similar position, because he was called by God to break new ground in establishing a group of priests without religious vows, destined to occupy posts in the new seminaries of France. The Council of Trent had commanded these establishments everywhere, ordaining that priests be formed to head parishes and to establish in each of them a school. Already in 1658 Saint Jean himself had founded four seminaries in Normandy,—at Caen, Coutances, Lisieux and Rouen. Before the Revolution in France, the Eudists had accepted the responsibility for sixteen seminaries or minor seminaries. This required a foundation in depth in theology and all pastoral duties. Some of his former brethren turned against him when he left them, and he met obstacles also when founding in Caen a Congregation of women to raise up poor girls led astray by ignorance or need. The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity founded by Saint Jean, parent body of the Good Shepherd nuns, have done an immense good in many countries. The Congregation of Jesus and Mary has sent missionary priests to several countries, all over the world. Saint Jean Eudes, who died in 1680, was beatified in 1909 by Saint Pius X, and canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925.

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fs3.t...f=1&nofb=1]

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  The Unexpected Pilot
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 08:08 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors - No Replies

The Unexpected Pilot


Two religious of the Order of St. Francis were sailing on the Sea of Flanders. All at once there arose a tempest so furious that the vessel was swallowed up, with all on board numbering more than 300 persons.

[Image: H211_Shi.jpg]
A disastrous shipwreck

The two Franciscan monks were so fortunate as to get hold of a fragment of the wreck, to which they clung. For three days and three nights they were exposed to the fury of wind and waves.

What a fearful situation! Their strength began to fail and at last they could scarcely keep their hold on the planks of safety. At this moment they began to invoke St. Joseph, for whom they had always had a particular devotion.

On that third day, a strong and dignified man with white hair and a beard appeared before them. He deigned to take his place in their rough craft and to unite his efforts with theirs, while sharing their danger.

[Image: H211_Jos.jpg]
St. Joseph directs the shipwrecks to a secure shore

He graciously saluted them, and that very salute seems to revive their failing courage and give them new strength. Very soon he took the direction of their singular craft, and brought them safe and sound to shore.

The good religious first thanked Heaven for having saved them; then, turning to the unknown pilot, they begged him to tell them his name.

"I am Joseph," he replied. "I am he whose heart was overwhelmed with seven joys and torn by seven swords of sorrow. My protection is sure to all those who shall make a remembrance of them on earth. Profit by this advice, and make others do so likewise.”

He then disappeared, leaving the monks full of joy and gratitude.


The Sorrows of St. Joseph

1. His doubts about the Virgin Mary.
2. His pain at the lowly poverty of Jesus' birthplace.
3. Watching the circumcision, the first blood of Christ spilt for us.
4. Hearing the prophetic message of Simeon.
5. Taking the Holy Family into exile in Egypt.
6. The arduous trip back from Egypt.
7. The loss of Jesus for three days.

The Joys of St. Joseph

1. The Angel's message of the mystery of Christ's Incarnation.
2. The Savior's birth.
3. The honor of naming Jesus.
4. Hearing Simeon foretell Jesus as the light to Gentiles & glory of His people.
5. Seeing the idols of Egypt fall before the Infant Jesus.
6. The holy life lived with Jesus and Mary.
7. Finding Jesus in the Temple after three days of loss.

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  Federal Judge: Vaccine Mandate at Louisiana College Violates Religious Liberty
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 07:55 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual] - No Replies

Federal Judge: Vaccine Mandate at Louisiana College Violates Religious Liberty

[Image: Religious-Liberty-Cross-AP-640x480.jpg]


Breitbart | 18 Aug 20210

A federal judge struck down the vaccine mandate at a Louisiana medical school, holding that it violates religious liberty rights under the Louisiana Constitution, and issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the school

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, issued the order after Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) students Lynn Magliulo, Matthew Shea Willis, and Kirsten Willis Hall alleged the school’s policy infringed on their freedom of religion.

On June 30, 2021, VCOM sent out an email to students notifying them that the school was requiring all students to receive a full coronavirus vaccination to enroll in fall 2021 classes. The email also said religious and medical exemptions, which the college limited, would be heard on an individual basis. However, VCOM later contradicted itself by saying it would not recognize religious or medical exemptions, according to court documents.

The three students dissented and requested exemptions based on “deeply held religious beliefs.” According to the temporary restraining order, the students objected to the vaccine because they believed them to be “devised from aborted fetal tissues, violating their religious beliefs.” They also dissented because the vaccine is approved for emergency use only “and is therefore experimental.”

The students alleged that their exemption requests were subsequently denied, and Magliulo said she was given a deadline via email of July 19, 2021 to either defer school for a year or get a coronavirus vaccine.

After it became clear the students were pursuing legal action against the school, VCOM changed its exemption policy three times, approved the students’ religious exemptions “for the current time,” and ultimately created what Judge Doughty found to be burdensome restrictions that would interfere with the students’ ability to graduate.

One of the school’s excessive restrictions included barring unvaccinated students from participating in Standardized Patient Examinations and Early Clinical Experiences “which are required to advance or graduate,” according to court documents.

Doughty said VCOM further “placed a “Scarlett Letter” type list of requirements on the “unvaccinated,” in which students would be required to disclose their “unvaccinated” status to other students “in order to obtain the other students’ consent to work with the “unvaccinated.”’

The religious exemption was time-limited until one or more of the vaccines currently under Emergency Use Authorization receive full FDA approval. Unvaccinated students were also threatened with suspension if they were caught without a face mask on.

Judge Doughty said the “threat to religious freedom was imminent” when referring to the students’ case, and he said the “potential harm of a constitutional violation, ability to complete their education, ethics charges, and possible expulsion outweighs VCOM’s interest.”

He further noted that restrictions on students’ ability to dissent from the mandate which keeps them from being able to graduate “defeats the purpose of having the right of dissent.”

Louisiana law does not provide a method for institutions to restrict dissent. VCOM would be authorized to exclude unvaccinated students until the end of the disease incubation period or until they present evidence of vaccination. However, that mechanism requires a recommendation from the Louisiana Office of Public Health, which the school does not have.

“Therefore, under Louisiana law, students at VCOM are not subject to VCOM’s mandatory vaccine requirements if the student provides a written statement from a physician that the procedure is contraindicated for medical reason or presents a written dissent from a student or student’s guardian,” the judge ruled.

Solicitor General Liz Murrill, on behalf of the Attorney General, worked with the plaintiff students and their attorney in achieving a “favorable outcome.”

“Even during a pandemic, we must protect the rights of our citizens,” said Attorney General Jeff Landry. “I’m pleased with the court’s decision and glad these students can focus on what’s important: their education.”

“This is a win for the people of Louisiana who have sincerely held religious convictions and other reservations about these vaccines,” added Solicitor General Murrill. “The bottom line is that the law and constitution still apply. We are grateful to Judge Doughty for protecting their rights and upholding the rule of law, and we will continue to work toward an acceptable resolution.”

Doughty further ruled that the school is not allowed to retaliate or discriminate against the students for filing proceedings. The temporary restraining order will remain in effect pending the final resolution of the case, or upon further orders from the same court or higher courts.

“We’re very happy with the decision,” said Michael DuBos, the attorney representing the VCOM students. “We feel it is important to respect individual rights, especially in a time of crisis. If not, it sets a dangerous precedent.”

This case is Magliulo v. Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, No. 3:21-cv-2304 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

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  Pope Francis on the Ten Commandments: ‘I observe them, but not as absolutes’
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 07:30 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - No Replies

Pope Francis on the Ten Commandments: ‘I observe them, but not as absolutes’
About whether he 'disregards' the Ten Commandments Pope Francis said, 'No. I observe them, but not as absolutes, because I know that what justifies me is Jesus Christ.'

[Image: pope-francis-10-commandments-810x500.jpg]

Wed Aug 18, 2021 - 12:17 pm EDT
ROME (LifeSiteNews) – “I observe them, but not as absolutes,” Pope Francis said of the Ten Commandments at a general audience on August 18, 2021.

Pope Francis made the statement in the context of how Christians live a moral life. He began the discourse by asking the audience a rhetorical question. “How do I live?” he said.

He responded to his own question by saying, “Do I live in fear that if I don’t do this or that I will go to hell? Or do I also live with that hope, with that joy of the gratuitousness of salvation in Jesus Christ? That’s a good question.”

The Catholic Church teaches that anyone who dies not having repented of just one mortal sin does indeed go to hell.

The Holy Father continued his message with a second question about the nature of the Commandments. “And also a second question: do I disregard the Commandments?”

The answer Pope Francis gave to this question addressed whether or not he views the Ten Commandments as binding moral laws. About whether he “disregards” the Ten Commandments he said, “No. I observe them, but not as absolutes, because I know that what justifies me is Jesus Christ.”

The audience applauded as the Pope finished speaking.



The Catechism of the Catholic Church states about the Ten Commandments: “They were written ‘with the finger of God’… They are pre-eminently the words of God” (CCC 2056).

The Catechism also states that “in fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with the example of Jesus, the tradition of the Church has acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue [the Ten Commandments]” (CCC 2064).

This is not the first time Pope Francis has offered his own catechesis on the Ten Commandments. In November 2018, he also suggested that the Ten Commandments are not an absolute or binding for Christians.

He said the Law was formerly seen as “a series of prescriptions and prohibitions,” but according to the Spirit it “became life.” The Pope explained that this meant that the Ten Commandments were no longer norms but that “the very flesh of Christ who loves us, seeks us, forgives us, consoles us and in His body recomposes communion with the Father, communion that was lost through the disobedience of sin.”

In a general audience on August 11, 2021, the Holy Father spoke again of the Ten Commandments, as well as the Mosaic Law. The Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law are not the same thing, although the Commandments were of course revealed to Moses. Pope Francis said, “When Paul speaks about the Law, he is normally referring to the Mosaic Law, the law given by Moses, the Ten Commandments.” In the opinion of the Pope, when Saint Paul speaks about the Law, it includes the entirety of the legal realities associated with the revelation given to Moses.

This led the Holy Father to say in the same audience, “According to various Old Testament texts, the Torah – that is, the Hebrew term used to indicate the Law – is the collection of all those prescriptions and norms the Israelites had to observe by virtue of the Covenant with God.”

In his estimation, it was not only the Laws of Moses applicable to the Old Covenant, but also the Ten Commandments themselves that were part of the norms for the Israelites at the time.

He continued by asking a rhetorical question, “But one of you might say to me: ‘But, Father, just one thing: does this mean that if I pray the Creed, I do not need to observe the commandments?’”

He then answered, “No, the commandments are valid in the sense that they are ‘pedagogues’ [teachers] that lead you toward the encounter with Christ.” He concluded the audience by telling those in attendance that “the encounter with Jesus is more important than all of the commandments.”

Jesus Christ said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). In addition, in Canon XX of the 6th session of the Council of Trent states: “If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments; let him be anathema.”

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  High-ranking US bishops order priests to refuse religious exemption letters for COVID vaccines
Posted by: Stone - 08-18-2021, 01:14 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual] - Replies (1)

High-ranking US bishops order priests to refuse religious exemption letters for COVID vaccines
The growing list of often dissident US bishops pushing back on exemptions for vaccine mandates includes Cardinal Blase Cupich and Archbishop José Gomez.

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Tue Aug 17, 2021
(LifeSiteNews) – A growing number of prominent, and often dissident bishops in the U.S. have rejected allowing Catholics under their charge to obtain religious exemptions from the abortion-tainted COVID-19 injections, with Archbishop José Gomez and Cardinal Blase Cupich among those seeking to prevent Catholics from avoiding mandated vaccines.


The USCCB president leads the way in denying freedom of conscience

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, is perhaps the most high-profile name to protest vaccine exemptions, having written to clergy in his archdiocese ruling out the provision of exemption letters for the experimental COVID-19 gene-therapy injections. 

In the statement, obtained by Catholic News Agency (CNA), Archbishop Gomez “recommends that all members of the Catholic community who can receive a COVID-19 vaccine should do so.” Furthermore, he ruled out any offering of religious exemption letters for the abortion-tainted injections, stating that they were not “morally objectionable:” 

“The Archdiocese is not providing individuals with religious exemption letters to avoid vaccination against COVID-19. Please see the information and links below to understand why the Archdiocese does not consider the COVID-19 vaccine to be morally objectionable and why it encourages all the faithful to get vaccinated.”

CNA reported that the letter referred to three documents in support of its “terse” message, notably the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) December 2020 note, which argued that “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available … it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.” (emphasis in original).

However, the CDF note also defended the voluntary nature of such injections, stipulating that “practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”


Bishop McElroy of San Diego attacks ‘problematic’ exemption letters

Gomez’s statement had been pre-empted by San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, who issued his own letter forbidding priests to sign any vaccine exemption letters.  

McElroy’s August 11 letter, sent to his clergy, was in reaction to requests made by parishioners in the diocese, asking for religious exemptions as per the template laid out by the Colorado Catholic bishops on August 5

Colorado’s bishops, headed by Archbishop Samuel Aquila, had written that a Catholic might judge it either “right or wrong to receive certain vaccines for a variety of reasons, and there is no Church law or rule that obligates a Catholic to receive a vaccine — including COVID-19 vaccines.” 

“If a Catholic comes to an informed judgment that he or she should not receive a vaccine, then the Catholic Church requires that the person follow this judgment of conscience and refuse the vaccine,” read the template exemption letter from Colorado.

However, McElroy called the letter “particularly problematic,” adding that “the Holy See has made it clear that receiving the (COVID-19) vaccine is perfectly consistent with Catholic faith, and indeed laudatory in light of the common good in this time of pandemic.”

McElroy claimed the Colorado letter detrimentally prioritised the individual over society, alleging it presented an “incomplete picture of Catholic teaching.”

The bishop, well known for his opposition to traditional Church teaching on a number of issues, said priests who were asked to sign such an exemption letter were placed in an “impossible position” of holding that “‘Catholic teaching may lead individual Catholics to decline certain vaccines’ when those priests recognize that Catholic teaching proclaims just the opposite.”

As such, McElroy told his priests to “not venture down this pathway that merges personal choice with doctrinal authenticity, and to daringly decline such requests from your parishioners to sign the Colorado statement or other public declarations concerning the actions of specific individuals rejecting vaccine mandates on religious grounds.”


Cupich places pressure on National Bioethics Center

Meanwhile, Chicago’s Cardinal Blaise Cupich, is reportedly “leaning hard” on bishops and board members of the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), located in Philadelphia. CNA reported that board members of the NCBC had been putting pressure on certain unnamed members of the board to change the guidance issued by the center against mandatory injection for COVID-19. 

In a July 2 statement, the NCBC had protested against mandatory vaccination, referring to the CDF’s December 2020 note, and declaring that due to the link to abortion with the injections “there is no universal moral obligation to accept or refuse them, and it should be a voluntary decision of the individual.” 

The center defended religious, medical, and conscience exemptions, and a few days later issued an exemption letter template, which provided the basis for the Colorado letter some weeks later.

This stance has reportedly angered Cupich, who is also known for his widespread deviation from Church teaching on a variety of issues. Speaking anonymously to CNA, one of the NCBC board members revealed that Cupich had been putting “a tremendous pressure” on the organization to retract its statements allowing for religious exemptions. 

While advocating for widespread vaccination, the board member defended personal liberty, saying “the conscience of religious people should be respected.” CNA wrote that it believed the NCBC would not be changing its statement.

LifeSite reached out to the Archdiocese of Chicago for comment, but did not receive a reply by publishing time. 

The NCBC’s board is populated by a number of clerics and laity, with New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond as chairman, and Louisville’s Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz as vice-chairman. Among the other prominent names on the board, are Cardinals Daniel DiNardo, Timothy Dolan, and Sean O’Malley, while Archbishop Gomez is also a member. 


Diocese of Monterey follows example of New York and Pope Francis

Bishop Daniel Garcia of Monterey has imitated some of his brother bishops in telling his own clergy not to issue vaccine exemption letters

In a letter dated August 13, Garcia appealed to Pope Francis’s reception of the injection, and description of such an action as a benefit to the common good. “For these reasons, I will not issue, and I have directed our clergy not to issue, any Letters of Religious exemption because it would contradict the clear objective teaching of the Catholic Church and the Holy See on this matter,” wrote Bishop Garcia.

His brief letter ended by advocating those in the diocese to receive the injection, providing they had “no medical impediments.” 

Similar scenes have been noted in the Archdiocese of New York, where priests were instructed to refuse to sign religious exemption requests submitted by Catholics who object to using the COVID-19 gene-therapy vaccines despite their abortion-tainted nature. 

Drawing on the statements of Pope Francis as well as Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Chancellor John P. Cahill, a layman, wrote to pastors, administrators, and parochial vicars: “There is no basis for a priest to issue a religious exemption to the vaccine.” 


South Dakota supports Colorado in defending freedom of conscience

While the number of bishops clamping down on vaccine exemptions appears to be growing, so also does the number of prelates who are defending the right of personal liberty and freedom of conscience. Shortly after Colorado’s Catholic bishops issued their statement, South Dakota’s Catholic bishops followed suit

“Consistent with the above, a Catholic may, after consideration of relevant information and moral principles, discern it to be right or wrong to receive one of the available Covid-19 vaccines,” wrote Bishops Donald E. DeGrood and Peter M. Muhich. “If he or she thus comes to the sure conviction in conscience that they should not receive it, we believe this is a sincere religious belief, as they are bound before God to follow their conscience.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, has previously spoken out against vaccines using aborted babies: “it must be clear that it is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses. The thought of the introduction of such a vaccine into one’s body is rightly abhorrent.” 

The cardinal, currently in critical condition in hospital with COVID-19, attacked mandatory injections, saying “it must be clear that vaccination itself cannot be imposed, in a totalitarian manner, on citizens.”


For respectful communications:

Archdiocese of Los Angeles – Archbishop Gomes 
Media Office: mediarelations@la-archdiocese.org or phone 213 637 7215  
Address: Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 3424 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241

Archdiocese of Chicago – Cardinal Cupich 
Fr. Robert Fedek, the Administrative Secretary to the Archbishop 
Email: rfedek@archchicago.org or phone 312 534 8219 
Address: Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, PO Box 1979, Chicago, IL, 60690-1979 
Tel: 312.534.8230 
Fax: 312.534.6379 

Diocese of San Diego for Bishop McElroy  
Bishop McElroy: 858 490 8300 
Diocese of Monterey for Bishop Garcia 
Email: bishop@dioceseofmonterey.org  
Address: Bishop Garcia, 425 Church Street, Monterey, CA 93940

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  Lab founder shows damage COVID jab’s spike protein inflicts on vital organs
Posted by: Stone - 08-18-2021, 11:12 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines - No Replies

Lab founder shows damage COVID jab’s spike protein inflicts on vital organs
"I kind of like my brain cells to be where they are and not be blown apart."


Wed Aug 18, 2021 
SAN ANTONIO, Texas – (LifeSiteNews - adapted) An independent lab founder and seasoned pathologist has graphically displayed the inflammatory damage to vital organs inflicted by the COVID jab-created spike protein.

During a one-year anniversary White Coat Summit on vaccines, Dr. Ryan Cole emphasized the finding that the spike protein created by injected mRNA spreads throughout the body, and itself causes disease – and he had the lab images to show it.

Cole presented these images, which showed post-COVID jab inflammation in organs such as the heart, lungs, and kidneys, as corroboration of lab studies in which injecting the spike protein “with no body of the virus” in animals “induced the same disease” that COVID-19 causes.

Cole supported the finding by other scientists that the spike protein doesn’t remain in the shoulder area, but “circulates in your blood” and “lands in multiple organs in the body,” where ACE2 receptors allow the spike protein to bind to organ tissue.

Cole kicked off his visual evidence of spike protein-induced damage with images displaying the spike protein’s effects on mitochondria, the “engine” of our cells. The microscopic image showed that post-COVID jab, one person’s mitochondria became abnormally disjointed and fragmented.

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Cole went on to show that the image of lung tissue of a jabbed individual appeared dramatically different than normal, healthy lung tissue, with denser pigmentation that Cole said indicated inflammation.

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“That’s all inflammation,” said Cole. “Why?”

According to Cole, the spike protein bonded to the ACE2 receptors in the lung, provoking an inflammatory response in which the immune system “attack[s] your own body.”

Cole then pulled up a study demonstrating that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 crosses the blood brain barrier in mice, backing it up with scans showing that the jab’s spike protein took a similar path.

“I kind of like my brain cells to be where they are and not be blown apart. So why in the world would we put a toxin into the human body that’s going to disrupt the blood vessels in your brain, allow the spike in there [to] cause inflammation,” said Cole.

“The brain fog you hear about in the COVID patients? Guess what, you hear about it in the post-vaccinated damaged individuals as well,” he continued.


Cole also displayed a post-COVID jab image that appeared to show the swelling of heart tissue. “See those blue arrows around the white? That’s inflammation in the heart. That’s not normal. That’s after a shot. That’s a spike protein landing there. That’s your immune system attacking your own tissues,” said Cole.

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“Once you have heart damage, the heart does not heal itself. So tell me you want to give a 12 year old, a 5 year old, a 13 year old, an 18 year old a shot. Let’s give a kid a toxin, ruin his heart for life. Stop and think about what we’re doing. We need to stop the insanity immediately.”

He proceeded to show pictures of inflammation in the kidneys, liver, and testes that occurred after injection with the mRNA jab, adding that a Japanese study showed that the lipid nanoparticle surrounding the mRNA concentrates in the ovaries.

During his talk, Cole underscored the glaring absence of medical literature on the COVID-19 jab effects, and pointed out that of at least 11,045 post-vaccination deaths in the U.S., the first investigational autopsy had only occurred a month prior to Cole’s talk.

“Where are the autopsies? Crickets. They’re not there,” said Cole. “One cannot find that for which they do not look.”

Noting that autopsies are costly, Cole asked why “billions” are being spent on advertising the COVID shot “to children who don’t need it,” but almost nothing is being invested in autopsies to investigate the safety of the COVID shots.

“When an unapproved new drug, therapy, vaccine is put onto the market, we need to use the French legal system. Guilty until proven innocent. So if there’s an adverse reaction, if there’s a death, it happened from that therapy, until you prove that it didn’t,” said Cole.

Cole also pointed out that experiments are showing that the COVID jabs “dysregulate your immune response,” citing a Netherlands study that Cole said shows that immune cells are being “paralyzed” after injection with the COVID jab.

Cole suggested that CD8 “killer T-cells” that “keep cancer in check” are among the immune cells being dysregulated.

“I have seen a 10 to 20 fold increase of uterine cancer in the last six months in my laboratory, and I keep data year to year in the last six months. When did we start the shots? January,” said Cole.

“What’s the real answer?” Cole continued. “We don’t know. And sometimes that’s the most honest answer in medicine, is we don’t know. A doctor that tells you he or she knows everything — don’t believe them. Find a new doctor.”

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  WEF video: 5 Ways The Pandemic Could Reshape Our Lives In The Long-term
Posted by: Stone - 08-18-2021, 08:19 AM - Forum: Great Reset - No Replies

Notice most of these would be needed in a heavily restricted future, e.g. ghost kitchens, everything within 15 min so you don't have to travel too far from home, etc: https://www.weforum.org/videos/23444-5-w...-long-term


An then of course, this got thrown in for good measure:

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  August 18th – Fourth Day Within the Octave of the Assumption & St. Agapitus, Martyr
Posted by: Stone - 08-18-2021, 08:07 AM - Forum: August - No Replies

August 18 – Fourth Day Within the Octave of the Assumption & St. Agapitus, Martyr
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

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In the eternal decrees Mary was never separated from Jesus; together with him, she was the type of all created beauty. When the Almighty Father prepared the heavens and the earth, his Son, who is his Wisdom, played before him in his future humanity as the first exemplar, as measure and number, as starting-point, center and summit of the work undertaken by the Spirit of Love; but at the same time the predestined Mother, the woman chosen to give to the Son of God from her own flesh his quality of Son of Man, appeared among mere creatures as the term of all excellence in the various orders of nature, of grace, and of glory. We need not then be astonished at the Church putting on Mary’s lips the words first uttered by Eternal Wisdom: “From the beginning and before the world was I created.”

The divine ideal was realized in her whole being, even in her body. To form out of nothing a reflection of the divine perfections, is the purpose of creation and the law even of matter. Now, next to the Face of the most beautiful of the sons of men, nothing on earth so well expressed God as the Virgin’s countenance. St. Denis is said to have exclaimed on seeing our Lady for the first time: “Had not faith revealed to me thy Son, I should have taken thee for God.” Whether it be authentic or not to place it in the mouth of the Areopagite, this cry of the heart expresses the feeling of the ancients. We shall be the less surprised at this, if we remember that no son ever resembled his mother as Jesus did; it was the law of nature doubled in him, since he had no earthly father. It is now the delight of the Angels, to behold in the glorified bodies of Jesus and Mary, new aspects of eternal beauty, which their own immaterial substances could not reflect.

Now the unspeakable perfection of Mary’s body sprang from the union of that body with the most perfect soul that ever was, excepting of course the soul of our Lord her Son. With us, the original Fall has broken the harmony that ought to exist between the two very different elements of our human being, and has generally displaced, and sometimes even destroyed, the proportions of nature and grace. It is very different where the divine work has not thus been vitiated from the beginning; so that in each blessed spirit of the nine choirs, the degree of grace is in direct relation to his gifts of nature. Exemption from sin allowed the soul of the Immaculate One to inform the body of his own image with absolute sway, while the soul itself, lending itself to grace to the full extend of its exquisite powers, suffered God to raise it supernaturally above all the Seraphim, even to the steps of his own throne.

For in the kingdom of grace, as in that of nature, Mary’s super-eminence was such as became a Queen. At the first moment of her existence in the womb of St. Anne, she was set far above the highest mounts; and God, who loves only what he has made worthy of his love, loved this entrance, this gate of the true Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob. It was indeed impossible that the Word, who had chosen her for his Mother, should, even for an instant, love any creature more, as being more perfect. Throughout her life there was never in Mary the least want of correspondence with her preventing graces; so great perfection could not brook the least failing, the least interruption, the least delay. From the first moment of her most holy Conception till her glorious death, grace operated in her without hindrance, to the utmost of its divine power. Thus, starting from heights unknown to us, and doubling her speed at each stroke of her wings, her powerful flight bore her up to that nearness to God, where our admiring contemplation follows her during these days.

Our Lady, moreover, is not only the first-born, the most perfect, the most holy, of creatures and their Queen—or rather she is all this, only because she is also the Mother of the Son of God. If we wish only to prove that she alone surpasses all the united subjects of her vast empire, we may compare her with men and with Angels, in the order of nature and of grace. But all comparison is out of the question, if we try to follow her to the inaccessible heights, where, still the handmaid of the Lord, she participates in the eternal relations which constitute the Blessed Trinity. What mode of divine charity is that, whereby a creature loves God as her Son? But let us listen to the Bishop of Meaux, not the least of whose merits is, to have understood as he did the greatness of Mary: “To form the holy Virgin’s love, it was necessary to mingle together all that is most tender in nature and most efficacious in grace. Nature had to be there, for it was love of a son; grace had to elect, for it was love of a God. But what is beyond our imagination is, that nature and grace were insufficient; for it is not in nature to have God for a son; and grace, at least ordinary grace, cannot love a son as God: we must therefore rise higher. Suffer me, O Christians, to raise my thoughts today beyond nature and grace, and to seek the source of this love in the very bosom of the Eternal Father. The divine Son, of whom Mary is Mother, belongs to her and to God. She is united with God the Father by becoming the Mother of his only begotten Son, who is common to her and the Eternal Father by the manner of his conception. But to make her capable of conceiving God, the Most High had to overshadow her with his own power; that is, to extend to her his own fecundity. In this way, Mary is associated in the eternal generation. But this God, who willed to give her his Son, was obliged also, in order to complete his work, to place in her chaste bosom a spark of the love he himself bears to his only Son, who is the splendor of his glory and the living image of his substance. Such is the origin of Mary’s love: it springs from an effusion of God’s heart into hers; and her love of her Son is given to her from the same source as her Son himself. After this mysterious communication, what hast thou to say, O human reason? Canst thou pretend to understand the union of Mary with Jesus Christ? It has in it something of that perfect unity which exists between the Father and the Son. Do not attempt any more to explain that maternal love which springs from so high a source, and which is an overflow of the love of the Father for his only begotten Son.”

Palestrina, the ancient Preneste, sends a representative to Mary’s court today, in the person of its valiant and gentle martyr, Agapitus. By his youth and his fidelity, he reminds us of that other gracious athlete, the acolyte Tarcisius, whose victory, gained on the 15th August, is eclipsed by the glory of Mary’s queenly triumph. During the persecution of Valerian, and just before the combats of Sixtus and Laurence, Tarcisius, carrying the Body of our Lord, was met by some pagans, who tried to force him to show them what he had; but, pressing the heavenly treasure to his heart, he suffered himself to be crushed beneath their blows rather than “deliver up to mad dogs the members of the Lord.” Agapitus, at fifteen years of age, suffered cruel tortures under Aurelian. Though so young, he may have seen the disgraceful end of Valerian; while the new edict, which enabled him to follow Tarcisius to Mary’s feet, had scarcely been promulgated throughout the empire, when Aurelian, in his turn, was cast down by Christ, from whom alone kings and emperors hold their crown.

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Prayer
Lætetur Ecclesia tua, Deus, beati Agapiti Martyris tui confisa suffragiis: atque ejus precibus gloriosis, et devota permaneat, et secura consistat. Per Dominum.
Let thy Church rejoice, O God, relying on the intercession of blessed Agapitus, thy martyr; and by his glorious prayers, may she remain devout, and be securely supported. Through, &c.


As we return from Palestrina to the Eternal City, we pass on our left the cemetery of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, where were first deposited the holy relics of the pious empress Helena, who entered heaven on this day. The Roman Church deemed no greater honor could be given her, than to mingle, so to say, her memory on the 3rd May with that of the sacred Wood which she restored to our adoring love. We shall not then speak today about the glorious Invention, which, after three centuries of struggle, gave so happy a consecration to the era of triumph. Nevertheless, let us offer our homage to her who set up the standard of salvation, and placed the Cross on the brow of princes who were once its persecutors.

Prayer

Domine Jesu Christe, qui locum, ubi crux tua latebat, beatæ Helenæ revelasti, ut per eam Ecclesiam tuam hoc pretioso thesauro ditares: ejus nobis intercessione condede; ut vitalis ligni pretio æternæ vitæ præmia consequamur. Qui vivis.
O Lord Jesus Christ, who unto blessed Helena didst reveal the place where thy Cross lay hid: thus choosing her as the means to enrich thy Church with that precious treasure: do thou, at her intercession, grant that by the price of the Tree of Life we may attain unto the rewards of everlasting life. Who livest and reignest, &c.


But let us return to the empress of heaven, for Helena is but her happy handmaid and the martyrs are her army. Adam of St. Victor offers us this sweet Sequence wherewith to praise her and pray to her in the midst of this stormy sea.

Sequence

Ave, Virgo singularis,
Mater nostri salutaris,
Quæ vocaris stella maris,
Stella non erratica;
Nos in hujus vitæ mari
Non permitte naufragari,
Sed pro nobis salutari
Tuo semper supplica.

Hail, matchless Virgin, Mother of our salvation, who art called Star of the Sea, a star that wandereth not; permit us not in this life’s ocean to suffer shipwreck, but ever intercede for us with the Savior born of thee.


Sævit mare, fremunt venti,
Fluctus surgunt turbulenti;
Navis currit, sed currenti
Tot occurrunt obvia!
Hic sirenes voluptatis,
Draco, canes, cum piratis,
Mortem pene desperatis
Hæc intenant omnia.


The sea is raging, the winds are roaring, the boisterous billows rise; the ship speeds on, but her swift course what fearful odds oppose! Here the sirens of pleasure, the dragon, the sea-dogs, pirates, all at once menace well-nigh despairing man with death.


Post abyssos, nunc ad cœlum,
Furens unda fert phaselum;
Nutat malus, fluit velum,
Nautæ cessat opera;
Contabescit in his malis
Homo noster animalis:
Tu nos, mater spiritalis,
Pereuntes libera.

Down to the depths and up to the sky does the raging surge bear the frail bark; the mast totters, the sail is snatched away, the mariner ceases his useless toil; our animal man faints amid so great evils: do thou, O Mother, who art spiritual, save us ere we perish.


Tu, perfusa cœli rore,
Castitatis salvo flore,
Novum florem novo more
Protulisti sæculo.
Verbum Patri cœquale,
Corpus intrans virginale,
Fit pro nobis corporale
Sub ventris umbraculo.


The dew of heaven being sprinkled on thee, thou, without losing the flower of thy purity, didst in a new manner give to the world a new flower. The Word co-equal with the Father, entering thy virginal body, took for our sakes a body in the secret in thy womb.


Te prævidit et elegit
Qui potenter cuncta regit,
Nec pudoris claustra fregit,
Sacra replens viscera;
Nec pressuram, nec dolorem,
Contra primæ matris morem,
Pariendo Salvatorem,
Sensisti, puerpera.


He who rules all things in his power, foresaw and elected thee. He filled thy sacred bosom without breaking the seal of thy virginity. Unlike the first mother, thou, O Mother, didst feel neither anguish nor pain in bringing forth the Savior.


O Maria, pro tuorum
Dignitate meritorum,
Supra choris angelorum
Sublimaris unice:
Felix dies hodierna
Qua conscendis ad superna!
Pietate tu materna
Nos in imo respice.


O Mary, by the dignity of thy merits, thou alone art raised far above the choirs of Angels: happy is this day whereon thou didst ascend to such heights! Oh! in thy motherly love, look down upon us here below.


Radix sancta, redix viva,
Fios, et vitis, et oliva,
Quam nulla vis insitiva,
Juvit ut fructificet;
Lampas soli, splendor poli,
Quæ splendore præes soli,
Nos assigna tuæ proli,
Ne districte judicet.


O holy root, O living root, O flower and vine and olive, no ingrafted energy made these fruitful; light of the earth and brightness of heaven, thou outshinest the sun in splendor; present us to thy Son, that he judge us not sternly.


In conspectu summi Regis,
Sis pusilli memor gregis
Qui, transgressor datæ legis,
Præsumit de venia:
Judex mitis et benignus,
Judex jugi laude dignus
Reis spei dedit pignus,
Crucis factus hostia.


In presence of the Most High King, be mindful of the little flock, which, though it has transgressed the law given it, dares to hope for pardon; the Judge, who is mild and merciful, Judge, worthy of everlasting praise, becoming the victim of the Cross, gave to the guilty the pledge of hope.


Jesu, sacri ventris fructus,
Nobis inter mundi fluctus
Sis dux, via et conductus
Liber ad cœlestia:
Tene clavum, rege navem;
Tu, procellam sedans gravem,
Portum nobis da suavem
Pro tua clementia. Amen.


O Jesus, fruit of a holy Mother, to us amid the world’s billows be a guide, a way and a free passage to heaven: take the helm and guide the ship: and stilling the tempest, do thou in thy clemency lead us to a pleasant harbor. Amen.

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  August 17th – St. Hyacinth, Confessor
Posted by: Stone - 08-18-2021, 08:00 AM - Forum: August - No Replies

August 17 – St. Hyacinth, Confessor
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

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One of the loveliest lilies from the Dominican field today unfurls its petals at the foot of Mary’s throne. Hyacinth represents on the sacred cycle that intrepid band of missionaries who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, faced the barbarism of the Tartars and Mussulmans which was threatening the West. From the Alps to the Northern frontiers of the Chinese Empire, from the islands of the Archipelago to the Arctic regions, he propagated his Order and spread the kingdom of God. On the Steppes, where the schism of Constantinople disputed its conquests with the idolatrous invaders from the North, he was seen for forty years working prodigies, confounding heresy, dispelling the darkness of infidelity.

The consecration of martyrdom was not wanting to this, any more than to the first Apostolate. Many were the admirable episodes where the Angels seemed to smile upon the hard combats of their earthly brethren. In the convent founded by Hyacinth at Sandomir on the Vistula, forty-eight Friars Preachers were gathered together under the rule of Blessed Sadoc. One day the lector of the Martyrology, announcing the feast of the morrow, read these words which appeared before his eyes in letters of gold: At Sandomir on the 4th of the Nones of June, the Passion of Forty-nine Martyrs. The astonished brethren soon understood this extraordinary announcement; in the joy of their souls they prepared to gather the palm, which was procured for them by an irruption of the Tartars on the very day mentioned. They were assembled in choir at the happy moment, and while singing the Salve Regina they dyed with their blood the pavement of the church.

No executioner’s sword was to close Hyacinth’s glorious career. John, the beloved disciple, had had to remain on earth till the Lord should come; our Saint waited for the Mother of his Lord to fetch him.

Neither labor nor the greatest sufferings, nor above all the most wonderful divine interventions were wanting to his beautiful life. Kiev, the holy city of the Russians, having for fifty years resisted his zeal, the Tartars, as avengers of God’s justice, swept over it and sacked it. The universal devastation reached the very doors of the sanctuary where the man of God was just concluding the Holy Sacrifice. Clothed as he was in the sacred vestments, he took in one hand the most Holy Sacrament and in the other the statue of Mary, who asked him not to leave her to the barbarians; then, together with his brethren, he walked safe and sound through the very midst of the bloodthirsty pagans, along the streets in all flames, and lastly across the Dnieper, the ancient Borysthenes, whose waters, growing firm beneath his feet, retained the mark of his steps. Three centuries later, the witnesses examined for the process of canonization attested on oath that the prodigy still continued; the footprints always visible upon the water, from one bank to the other, were called by the surrounding inhabitants St. Hyacinth’s Way.

The Saint, continuing his miraculous retreat as far as Cracow, there laid down his precious burden in the convent of the Blessed Trinity. The statue of Mary, light as a reed while he was carrying it, now resumed its natural weight, which was so great that one man could not so much as move it. Beside this statue Hyacinth, after many more labors, would return to die. It was here that, at the beginning of his apostolic life, the Mother of God had appeared to him for the first time, saying, “Have great courage and be joyful, my son Hyacinth! Whatsoever thou shalt ask in my name, shall be granted thee.” This happy interview took place on the Vigil of the Assumption. The Saint gathered from it the superhuman confidence of the thaumaturgus, which no difficulty could ever shale; but above all he retained from it the virginal fragrance which embalmed his whole life, and the light of supernatural beauty which made him the picture of his father Dominic.

Years passed away: heroic Poland, the privileged center of Hyacinth’s labors, was ready to play its part, under Mary’s shield, as the bulwark of Christendom; at the price of what sacrifices we shall hear in October from a contemporary of our Saint, St. Hedwiges, the blessed mother of the hero of Liegnitz. Meantime, like St. Stanislaus his predecessor in the labor, the son of St. Dominic came to Cracow, to breathe his last sigh and leave there the treasure of his sacred relics. Not on the Vigil this time, but on the very day of her triumph, August 15th, 1257, in the church of the Most Holy Trinity, our Lady came down once more, with a brilliant escort of Angels, and Virgins forming her court. “Oh! who art thou?” cried a holy soul who beheld all this in ecstasy; “I,” answered Mary, “am the Mother of mercy; and he whom I hold by the hand, is brother Hyacinth, my devoted son, whom I am leading to the eternal nuptials.” Then our Lady intoned herself with her sweet voice: “I will go to the mountain of Libanus,” and the Angels and Virgins continued the heavenly song with exquisite harmony, while the happy procession disappeared into the glory of heaven.

Let us read the notice of St. Hyacinth given by the Liturgy. We shall there see that his above-mentioned passage over the Dnieper was not the only circumstance wherein he showed his power over the waves.

Quote:Hyacinth was a Pole and born of noble and Christian parents in the town of Camien of the diocese of Breslau. In his childhood he received a liberal education, and later he studied law and Divinity. Having become a Canon of the church of Cracow, he surpassed all his fellow priests by his remarkable piety and learning. He was received at Rome into the Order of Preachers by the founder St. Dominic, and till the end of his life he observed in a most holy manner the mode of life he learnt from him. He remained always a virgin, and had a great love for modesty, patience, humility, abstinence and other virtues, which are the true inheritance of the religious life.

In his burning love for God he would spend whole nights in prayer and chastising his body. He would allow himself no rest except by leaning against a stone, or lying on the bare ground. He was sent back to his own country; but first of all on the way there, he founded a large house of his Order at Friesach, and then another at Cracow. Then in different provinces of Poland he built four other monasteries, and it seems incredible what an amount of good he did in all these places by preaching the word of God and by the innocence of his life. Not a day passed but he gave some striking proof of his faith, his piety and his innocence.

God honored the holy man’s zeal for the good of his neighbor by very great miracles. The following is one of the most striking: he crossed without a boat the river Vistula which had overflowed, near Wisgrade, and drew his companions also across on his cloak which he spread out over the water. After having persevered in his admirable manner of life for forty years after his Profession, he foretold to his brethren the day of his death. On the feast of our Lady’s Assumption in the year 1257, having finished the Canonical Hours, and received the Sacraments of the Church with great devotion, saying these words: “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” he gave up his soul to God. He was illustrious for miracles in death as in life, and Pope Clement VIII numbered him among the Saints.

Great was thy privilege, O son of Dominic, to be so closely associated to Mary as to enter into thy glory on the very feat of her triumph. As thou occupiest so fair a place in the procession accompanying her to heaven, tell us of her greatness, her beauty, her love for us poor creatures, whom she desires to make sharers, like thee, in her bliss.

It is through her thou wert so powerful in this thy exile, before being near her in happiness and glory. Long after Adalbert and Anscharius, Cyril and Methodius, thou didst traverse once more the ungrateful North, where thorns and briars so quickly spring up again, where the people, whom the Church has with such labor delivered from the yoke of paganism, are continually letting themselves be caught in the meshes of schism and the snares of heresy. In his chosen domain, the prince of darkness suffered fresh defeats, an immense multitude broke his chains, and the light of salvation shone further than any of thy predecessors had carried it. Poland, definitively won to the Church, became her rampart, until the days of treason which put an end to Christian Europe.

O Hyacinth, preserve the faith in the hearts of this noble people, until the day of its resurrection. Obtain grace for the Northern regions, which thou didst warm with the fiery breath of thy word. Nothing thou askest of Mary will be refused, for the Mother of mercy promised thee so. Keep up the apostolic zeal of thy illustrious Order. May the number of thy brethren be multiplied, for it is far below our present needs.

Akin to thy power over the waves is another attributed to thee by the confidence of the faithful and justified by many prodigies: viz., that of restoring life to the drowned. Many a time also have Christian mothers experienced thy miraculous power, in bringing to the saving font their little ones, whom a dangerous delivery threatened to deprive of Baptism. Prove to thy devout clients that the goodness of God is ever the same, and the influence of his elect not lessened.

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  Prayers are asked for a young mother of 3 children
Posted by: SAguide - 08-17-2021, 12:55 PM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer - No Replies

Prayer request from a family in Connecticut asking prayers for a young mother of 3 children.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph please bring help to all who are in need.

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