That Pride Thing (and Sports)

During this Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, activists and people with disordered conditions have tried to turn it into a month to celebrate and promote those conditions. Businesses, local governments, organizations all jumped on the bandwagon.

The steam has begun to go out of that effort. But, alas, some sports teams persist, pledging their support and calling for celebrating.

Recently, my favorite Major League Baseball team and my favorite National Football League team posted their support on social media.

I don’t really believe for a minute that either team really cares about the issue or the people with those conditions. I suspect a majority of their fans also don’t care. What teams care about is public relations and avoiding being targeted by a small group of loud-mothered, confrontational activists and their supporters.

What they really care about is money.

Never mind that they are helping to support and to promote these disordered conditions, and to help the confused, the lost, and the young astray.

Alas, like sheep, fans are so caught up in supporting their teams they keep quiet. By their silence they are complicit.

This is also an instance in which a word that might be positive is twisted by the propagandists who seek to normalize what is wrong or abnormal. Look what’s happened to words like “choice” or “gay.”

So here are a few quotations that help to restore order.

“It was pride that changed angels into devils.…” - St. Augustine

“Pride makes us artificial.…” - Thomas Merton

“Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.” - Daniel Defoe

“Where pride begins, love ceases.” - Johan Kasper Lavater

“With pride, there are many curses.” - Ezra Taft Benson

“Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt.” - Benjamin Franklin

“Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals.” - Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

“Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.” - William Hazlitt

“Pride and excess bring disaster for man.” - Xunzi

“When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely.” - King Louis XI of France

“Pride goes before destruction.” - Aesop

“Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.” - Andrew Murray

“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” - Sophocles

Maybe the fans need to consider what “pride” really means, and maybe they need to let their teams know they are just interested in watching and enjoying a game, and not in having propaganda shoved down their throats.

As for me, I notified the Mets and the Bills about my displeasure with them bringing woke nonsense into their marketing.

And maybe I’ll find better things to do with my time than watching or going to their games. Write. Practice guitar and sing. Take a walk with my wife. Read a book.

Pax et bonum

Some Recent Science Fiction and Horror Poetry

though in a coma
he was aware as doctors
harvested organs

Once,
twice,
and then
a third time
he heard the footsteps
of it circling his hiding place.

He
left
home to
travel to
Mars happy that he
might never see his wife again
not knowing she was
thinking the
exact
same
thing.

Two
robots
stood rusted
with batteries
dead.

The
dragon
hungrily
watched as the knight
neared.

First
arrest
for the clone
repeats source’s
crime.

we watched as the four
looped the dark side of the moon
so did other eyes

Cro-Magnon father
neanderthal mother
the story of us

they learned a diet
of garlic deters vampires
but not werewolves

the first warning sign
the shadows began moving
independently

he quickly learned
not all dreams are just dreams
teeth marks on his leg

how ironic -
we discover the werewolf
is Joe the barber

after a feasting
gave him a disease vampire
practices safe sucks

Pax et bonum

May 29 In Catholic History: Welcome G. K. Chesterton

On May 29, 1874, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London.

A 1922 convert, Chesterton was a noted for his voluminous output of essays, poetry, plays, novels, debates, speeches, and spiritual works. He might be best known in the popular mind for creating Father Brown and the Father Brown mysteries. But his spiritual works include acclaimed biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas, and two works often listed as spiritual classic of the 20th Century: Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. 

Chesterton, who died June 14, 1936, influenced later writers, including J. R. R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, and, most famously, C. S. Lewis, who acknowledged that reading Chesterton helped to convert him from atheist to Christian. 

  

Pax et bonum

May 27 in Catholic History: The Future Cardinal O'Connor

On May 27, 1979, Pope St. John Paul II consecrated John O'Connor as a bishop. On May 19, 1984 he was installed as Archbishop of New York, and the following year, on May 25, he was elevated to Cardinal. He remained as Cardinal Archbishop of New York until his death on May 3, 2000.

Cardinal O'Connor was a staunch defender of life - opposing abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, human trafficking, and unjust war. He created what was to become the Sisters of Life. The Sisters take a vow to "protect and enhance the sacredness of human life."^[  

Pax et bonum

Are They Watching Us?

The U.S. government has been releasing UFO files. Okay, they now call them UAPs - “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”. Seriously? I'll stick with UFOs.

I don't know if there are aliens out there sending those objects. It's an interesting idea.

The release comes weeks after Artemis 2 flew around the moon, and, in fact, flew further into space than any crewed mission before.  

Which got me to wondering: Besides the humans on earth watching, could some of those possible aliens been watching? And if so, what were they thinking?

I was reminded of a classic science fiction movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still. The 1951 one, not the terrible 2008 remake. Klaatu, the alien, arrives with a gift, but it gets destroyed because of a trigger-happy human. Klaatu later notes that his people have been watching us with growing concern. We were too warlike and violent, we had nuclear weapons, and we were beginning to move out into space. We were viewed as a potential threat, and the implication is that if we continue our warlike ways and we do move into out space they might have to take action against us for the sake of interplanetary peace.

Now they may have been monitoring us by sending down UFOs. Maybe they were also monitoring our radio and television signals. Which is one of the plot devices for another science fiction movie, a comedy: Galaxy Quest. In that 1999 movie, a favorite of mine, the aliens had been watching television signals from earth, believing what they depict is true. They particularly like a science fiction show, Galaxy Quest (a parody of Star Trek) and not only built a working version of the ship in the show but modeled their culture on the culture depicted in the show. They also felt pity for Gilligan and his fellow castaways. Faced with attack, they come to earth to recruit help from the crew depicted on the show, bringing the actors up to their ship. Naturally, the actors, using their characters to help guide them, save the day.

A third movie could be taken as a warning, but also a sign of hope: Enemy Mine.

The 1985 movie has humans going into space and encountering an alien race, the Dracs, and promptly going to war with them. A human fighter pilot, Willis, and a Drac fighter pilot, Jariba (Jerry), crash on a planet, and gradually overcome their mistrust and hostility. They become friends. Jerry teaches Willis his family line - in the Drac culture that is important, and in doing so he is bestowing an honor on Willis.  Then Jerry becomes become terminally ill, but not before revealing he is carrying a child. He asks Willis to promise that he will take the child back to the Drac home world and recite for him his Drac family line.  Jerry dies, and Willis delivers the Drac child, Zammis. Willis raises Zammis, who calls him "Uncle". Then evil humans arrive to mine on the planet using Drac slave labor, brutally mistreating the Dracs. Zammis is captured by them, and Willis is shot and left for dead by the evil humans. Instead, he is rescued by other members of the space force, and when he recovers, he seeks out Zammis to rescue him. He does so, and takes him back to the Drac world, reciting the family line, and is honored by having his name added to it.

That movie showed the dark side of humanity - the warlike ways, the prejudice, and the cruelty of those who enslave the Dracs. But it also shows that human and Dracs can live together as friends.

So, if there are any aliens out there watching us, I'm hoping that they will see what is good in the human race, and that we can find ways to live peacefully and as friends.

Maybe we can bond over concern for those poor folks marooned on Gilligan's island.

Pax et bonum

May 26 in Catholic History: Massachusetts Bans Priests

On May 26, 1647, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law banning priests - specifically Jesuit priests - from entering or residing in the colony. Penalties included banishment, and for second offenses, possible execution - though no priests were ever executed.

The Puritans of Massachusetts regarded Catholicism as "idolatrous blasphemy." They viewed the Pope as the Antichrist.

It wasn't until 1780 when the Massachusetts constitution was amended that Catholics were free to practice their faith. It took until 1788 for the first public Mass to be celebrated in Boston.   

Pax et bonum

May 25 in Catholic History: St. Padre Pio

On May 25, 1887, Francesco Forgione - St. Padre Pio - was born in Pietrelcina, Italy. He was a Franciscan priest, mystic, sometimes called a "Miracle Man", who manifested the Stigmata, the wounds of Christ. 

He began to experience visions and ecstasies as a child. In 1918, he experienced the Stigmata with physical pain and the wounds visible on his hands and feet. He continued to experience the Stigmata for the next 50 years. Not only were the wounds visible, but blood also flowed from them. That blood reportedly had an odor like perfume or that of flowers. There are many pictures of him with the Stigmata.

As a priest he sometimes heard confessions for 12-15 hours a day. He reportedly could read the hearts of penitents, telling them about sins they had forgotten, or failed to confess. He also reportedly had the gift of bilocation, appearing in different places at the same time. 

Just before he died September 23, 1968, the Stigmata disappeared. 

Pax et bonum