Notice that everyone in this clip acts as though what is happening is so very normal. No one seems surprised or disgusted or out of sorts. This is now acceptable behavior.
A cursory Google search on the world-wide-web reveals one incident after another of sub-human behavior by the masses on the high-holy-feast-day of materialism in this post-Christian nation. Really, I did try to find something positive! I searched and searched for just one story of someone acting nobly on this day, because I wanted to post something positive about Black Friday for a change. I couldn't find a single story. I’m sure someone, somewhere did something good in the face of modernism’s barbarity, but I couldn't find it.
The people who re-elected Obama to guarantee unfettered sexual license and government handouts are totally bereft of nobility. Ever more and more people, saturated in sugar-laden food and drink, addicted to television, video games, the internet, and one distraction after another, have forsaken what little humanity is left to themselves as they clamor for more and more stuff to fill the voids of their spiritually empty lives. Reason has been replaced with the mindless dribble of reality television shows and "conservative" radio talk show hosts. A "have-it-now" mentality, that allows for no sacrifice and thinks no luxury too excessive, has driven consumer debt up to its highest level in history, and this even after the "tightening" of credit in the wake of the "Great Recession".
One sobering fact: in the United States there is such a thing as chocolate covered bacon and plenty of obese, ignorant and barbarous people who buy it. Many places that sell this kind of disgusting slop readily take food stamps!
This country and this society are so far removed from the traditional Catholic that we traditionalists simply can not call this country ours anymore. It is time to drop the pretense and lower the flag. This is the country of Obama and deep fried Oreos, and it was probably always destined to be, especially in the wake of the complete collapse of the Catholic Church militant in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. We traditional Catholics are exiles
in a foreign land, and our captors aren't even asking us for songs... they are too busy fornicating and lusting for pizza topped with cheesy fries.
Not all is a lost cause, though. We are still given a divine mission, and the graces to carry it out. However, instead of being worried about "transforming the culture", we have to get back to what we should have been doing all along: endeavoring to save souls, one soul at a time, by bravely proclaiming Christ Crucified. It's a dirty job; it's trench warfare getting out there and standing up for our faith and inviting others to share it, and it might even come to costing us our lives. But I'm convinced that, because of the Traditional Latin Mass and because we cherish the fullness of our Catholic faith, traditional Catholics are up to the task.
Not all is a lost cause, though. We are still given a divine mission, and the graces to carry it out. However, instead of being worried about "transforming the culture", we have to get back to what we should have been doing all along: endeavoring to save souls, one soul at a time, by bravely proclaiming Christ Crucified. It's a dirty job; it's trench warfare getting out there and standing up for our faith and inviting others to share it, and it might even come to costing us our lives. But I'm convinced that, because of the Traditional Latin Mass and because we cherish the fullness of our Catholic faith, traditional Catholics are up to the task.
Was this EVER a Christian country? Is there indeed such a thing?
ReplyDeleteAs our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ said, "My kingdom is NOT of this world." And as St. Paul said, "We have no continuing city here; rather, we seek one to come."
BTW, there's more to being "traditional Catholic" than devotion to the Extraordinary Form, whether celebrated with the 1962 rubrics, pre 1955 rubrics, the 1910 rubrics, or original 16th century rubrics.
Jack says: "BTW, there's more to being "traditional Catholic" than devotion to the Extraordinary Form, whether celebrated with the 1962 rubrics, pre 1955 rubrics, the 1910 rubrics, or original 16th century rubrics."
ReplyDeleteDid someone say there wasn't? How many "Catholics" voted for Obama last time around? The statistics on "Catholics" using birth-control, non-attendance of Mass, visiting a confessional or just accepting that Christ is truly present in the Holy Eucharist is absolutely appalling. That last one was refreshed in my memory by a friend who spent a couple of years at a modernist seminary a few years ago. A bishop at that seminary denied the True Presence. By the Grace of God, that friend left the seminary and found his way to a traditional Mass.
True, Christ said "My Kingdom is not of this world." However, it was supposed to be, and woe to the persons who participate in preventing our world from having Christ as it's king.
I think Jack is referring to something written in the Q&A. I may make a clarification sometime in the future, but I'm busy preparing Dom Guéranger posts for Advent at the moment.
DeleteJack Is referring to your article about "Obama-nation", David. And one cannot blame Obama for the greed and materialism represent by Black Friday shopping mobs. It's not for nothing that the 70's were called the "me-decade" and the 80's were dominated by yuppies--decades noted for Republican administrations. (BTW, if it matters, he didn't vote for Obama.)
DeleteWhy is it nobody thinks of Eastern Catholics when using the phrase "Traditional Catholicism"?
Anonymous:"a modernist seminary...A bishop at that seminary denied the True Presence." Which seminary was this? It would be helpful to know for the faithful men who may now be discerning.
DeleteDo you actually believe that there was a time when the vast majority of people didn't behave like this? History seems to say otherwise. People are and always have been driven to a mob mentality over the chance to aquire material goods at bargain prices.
ReplyDelete"Thy Kingdome come, Thy Will be done NOW as it is in Heaven." So yes, Christ is to rule on earth. Let it start within each of us.
ReplyDeleteI should have quoted the entire portion of the prayer to properly make my point. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
ReplyDeleteI hope what I first submitted did not appear to be flippant. Mea culpa.
Robert, yes. History demonstrates that civilizations tend toward rise due to austerity and civic virtue, and tend toward fall due to effeminacy and corruption.
ReplyDeleteOne can not ignore general historical trends by pointing out the episodic. There are, after all, always exceptions to general trends due to free will. However, to deny that the United States of America (and I would argue western civilization in general) is trending toward catastrophic decline, and to ignore it by pointing out the historically episodic, is to ignore the obvious downward trend in social behavior.
When the "holiday" of Thanksgiving was proclaimed by Lincoln, who was, let us not forget, a fallen-away Catholic (and was always in bed with the huge financial interests and oligarchies of New York), it is evident that he meant it not only as a sop to the religious feelings of the citizenry but also as a method of upstaging Christmas. He was every bit the dictator and a strong supporter of a powerful, centralized government. The contempt he often showed for even the most innocuous of religious sensibilities was very well known at the time and his ideas on the meaning of Christmas were more economic than religious.
ReplyDeleteIn his mind it would be his all-powerful State that would dictate what would or would not be an acceptable day of religious sentiment, hence his rather meaningless "Thanksgiving Day" (thankful for what? to whom?) No organized Church was going to interfere with life in the USA. So his created holiday was nebulous enough that it could mean virtually anything. And since then this State holiday has quite inevitably morphed into a prelude to scenes such as the one you have shown us.
I am aware that my arguments re Thanksgiving are open to civilized debate but I must say they are not original arguments since many of them were made during Lincoln's lifetime - not, sadly, by the thoroughly Americanized US Bishops of the time, who were more interested in being good Americans than good Churchmen. That attitude eventually led to Leo XIII's condemnation of the new heresy, which he described as "Americanism". That this pervasive evil is still very much with us can be illustrated by the spectacle of the recent Al Smith Dinner.
It is not necessary to try to Catholicize an essentially Deistic holiday like Thanksgiving, by pointing out the several historical instances of Catholic celebrations of thanksgiving to Christ which occurred from time to time in America's history. These were isolated and noble efforts in themselves but had nothing whatsoever to do with the Lincoln proclamation for the last Thursday in November. His motives were entirely different. Never forget that he really, truly enjoyed flaunting religious convention; indeed he thought nothing about shocking Catholics and others by openly attending a stage show on Good Friday, 1865. Perhaps the aftermath of that fateful day was God's way of making a point.
This is why we don't celebrate "Thanksgiving" in our household. Instead, our time is spent trying to prepare for Advent first. If our children on their day off wish to prepare a family meal on this day, well and good, and we will happily join them. But our thoughts are not on the rather disgusting banalities proclaimed that day by secular and religious alike (vide Archbishop Listecki's idiotic thoughts for "Thanksgiving" expressed the other day on a video - it is enough to turn one's stomach). Advent comes first in this house.
America indeed is falling apart, and has been for two centuries. It is only now becoming more obvious as scenes like this well show. My humble advice to my fellow Catholics is to try hard to concentrate on the coming of the Christ Child and not worry too much about the national holidays which have effectively obliterated our preparations for the Great Feast that is coming. More than that I cannot do.
Lincoln was never a Catholic. His family was Baptist, but he himself never asked to be baptized.
DeleteAnd the notion that Thanksgiving was invented to upstage Christmas has no evidence to support it. Episcopalians, Lutherans, and even Orthodox Christians observe both.
I seem to recall Washington, not Lincoln, inaugurating the Thanksgiving holiday.
ReplyDeleteI cannot, as an American, understand the horrible scenes. My family does not exchange Christmas presents and has not for years and years. I tend to think that the present frenzy is not as bad as the media, which hypes everything. It is odd, for example, that the only store to experience such nonsense to the point where a friend of mine's friend was trampled and had a broken arm as a result was in a neighboring town in the WalMart. Other stores in the metro-area, which is half a million people experienced no such exhibitions. Maybe it is a large store phenomenon. But the point of greed missed the bull's eye. I think people are very lonely and trying to buy love. They do not go to Church, they do not know God or understand the Beauty of the Mass and the sacraments, so they think they can buy love.
ReplyDeleteSad days...what will happen when the financial depression hits and they can't buy love or much else?
This is very Good. I want to add that Traditionalist need to not be silent againt Sodomey and Sodomites. I'm tierd of there silence on this subject. Especilly the SSPX.
ReplyDeleteLincoln was never a Catholic, and his support for a powerful, centralized federal government was based largely on wartime necessity. His institution of Thanksgiving Is actually praIsworthy, gIven that It can be Interpreted In the CatholIc sense as a day of graItude for the blessIngs bestowed on us by our Heavenly Father. Let us not forget that the orIgIns of ThansgIvIng can be traced back to the SpanIsh colonIsts, who gave thanks to God for theIr prosperity the New World through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The greed on display in the video is an
ReplyDeleteunsettling depiction of the greed that has been brought about by the commercialization of Christmas and our overly consumeristic culture, but is in no way attributable to the the celebration of Thanksgiving itself.
Also, disowning the United States as our homeland serves no good purpose, spiritual or civil. We can still honor the flag and pay homage to our nation while deploring and working to overcome the elements that weaken it, among them the greed and gluttony mentioned in the commentary. The first Christians were proud to be Romans, obeyed civil authority when it did not contradict the Faith, and worked and prayed for the conversion of Rome. In the end, through the grace of God, they succeeded. We too can love and pay homage to our nation while aiming to convert it, in conformity to the dictates of true, Catholic patriotism.
This was a very good article. Well said. Right next to the disgusting video of Black Friday should be the video of Cardinal Dolan dining on lobster and rare beef with Obama and Romney at the Al Smith dinner. Bread and circuses. Utter failure of Catholic leadership to lead. The Pope becoming a salivating lap dog of the UN and global socialism. Vatican II. The only thing that will save us is when they consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart.
ReplyDelete