Catholic Bard 1 Year Anniversary

229 years ago in 1792

• February 20 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.
• April 2 – The Coinage Act is passed, establishing the United States Mint.^[2]
• April 5 – United States President George Washington vetoes a bill designed to apportion representatives among U.S. states. This is the first time the presidential veto is used in the United States.
• April 25
  • Highwayman Nicolas Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine in France.
  • La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.
• June 1 – Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the United States of America.
• December 3 – George Washington is re-elected President of the United States.

Today is

May 10

Saint Damien of Molokai Feast Day

1569 – Saint Doctor John of Ávila dies. (b. 1500-1569)

1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by reducing taxes on its tea and granting it the right to sell tea directly to North America. The legislation leads to the Boston Tea Party.

1838 – John Wilkes Booth, American actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln  is born (1838-1865). JWB is in my family tree.

1886 – Karl Barth, Swiss theologian and author  is born (1886-1968)

1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah with the golden spike.

Here are some highlights of the last year

By the Light of My Prayer May 10, 2020

We Are Writers

I am so thankful for this opportunity to write for Patheos
It is all due to my husband
And a woman named Rebecca who I have yet to meet, even via social media
And yet I am thankful for her

We write differently, Mark and I
I’m the poet though not always a rhymer
I like to reflect
Remembering and showing concern for situations

I thank you Rebecca and my dear husband Mark
Thank God for this page online
I hope my writing is welcomed by other readers and writers
Only so that I do not get thrown off the page

Catholic Bard
Kristin Wilson O.C.D.S.

A Taste of First Peter Five and Patheos Catholic May 21, 2020

As a follow up to my previous post, here are a few examples of quotations from some of the writers from OnePeterFive and Patheos Catholic. They are not necessarily directly taken from either site, but the author is definitely featured on either site. My whole goal in the last post and this one is to show each side that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. If we focus on what divides us will miss what actually unites us. My theological opinion is that we will all be in purgatory (if we make it that far) till we learn to get along and love our brothers and sisters that we find deplorable for their less then perfect way they fail to live up to our understanding of how Catholic faith works. I choose 12 topics and found an appropriate quote for each.  My hope is that these two posts will help us to see each other in the light of Christ and that each is striving to love God and to share that love in the best way that they can.

Cleaning Up After Death June 8, 2020

Pattie Goodale worked as a CNA at a nursing home.  So, she was on the front lines of the whole pandemic war. Her refusal to leave her job for a safe environment caused her to contract the coronavirus.

Covid was not content on spending alone time with Pattie and infected her family as well.  Pattie lived with her mother and brother. She had bought the house they lived in with her mother, not as mother and daughter but as co-equal adults.  Her mother has already passed due to the virus. Pattie was unconscious in the hospital but unexpectedly had a brain bleed which caused a stroke.  She has died at just age 55.

Her brother has also died due to Covid-19.  A whole family wiped out to this disease.  It seems that Mercy is not taken into consideration by Death. Even the hamster died. Snoopy the  Dog is still alive. This makes it clear to me that Tragedy can strike anywhere at anytime. All the cards can fall on the table without a moment’s notice.

The Waiting Room June 24, 2020

It is the biggest waiting room I have ever seen

Full of people, and yet there is much space

I lost track of how many people are waiting

And how many people have had their turn

Some parts are lovely

And other parts of the waiting room seem dangerous

Illness, violence mixed with love, forgiveness

It takes so long for each to have their turn

Yet the wait is fleeting

There is entertainment, responsibility, laughter and tears

While one waits, one many worry about their hair style

The latest and greatest gadget

Others waiting do not know where their next meal is coming from

Some suffer abuse and discrimination in the waiting room

Some in the waiting room do not see that this is just a waiting room

They think fame, fortune and comfort in the now is the only purpose of anything

As for me I want to make the best of the waiting room, seek God’s will

When it is my turn I want my real life to start

My Eternal Life

Getting to Know Patheos Writers Part 1 June 28, 2020

One of my goals as the Catechist at Catholic Bard is to bring Patheos Catholic Writers together.  Several of my posts have brought snippets from different PCWS to form a composite narrative on a particular subject or theme.  I decided that a creative collaboration would be a good idea and so I sent out a bunch of questions and asked our blogging family to answer them. Those who decided to participate in this endeavor, you can read in this post where you will get to know some of our writers and what they write and blog about. Most of the bloggers are current but some are former PCWS and some have recently departed for other cyber fields of green.

What is your favorite Catholic topic to write about?

Dave Armstrong
A tie between the Blessed Virgin Mary and [Newmanian] development of doctrine. Both have in common the fact that they are vastly misunderstood by many (including even too many orthodox Catholics). And both were key to my conversion to Catholicism.

Carl McColman
Really the topics I mentioned above. But if I had to just pick one, it would be mysticism — and especially how the wisdom of the mystics can inform our spiritual lives today.

Mark Shea
Anything that interests me.  The faith is about everything.

Mark Wilson
I like making lists of quotes of different wise things people say, because. “I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.” ― Marlene Dietrich

Kristin Wilson
Spirituality.  Poetry.  Life and Death.

JoAnn Wuland
Catholic teaching regarding working mothers, and how women balance their dual vocations, or balance careers with childrearing.

Rene Albert
I tend to write about Marian doctrine since the Virgin Mary is someone who is close to my heart. Aside from her, I find worship and liturgical issues fun to write about. There are few topics that cause Christians to put their guards up like the role of Mary, and few things that stir emotions among Catholics like in what manner we ought to worship or receive Communion.

Theresa Zoe Williams
The saints!

Will Duquette
Dunno. These days I mostly write fiction, and I like to make people laugh, but not in a satirical way. I suppose I focus on The True, on the notion that all that is true is part of the One Truth, and that what is is true. But that’s kinda hifalutin’, so I’m going to say that I like to make people laugh.

David Mills
The nature of our discourse: why and how we write and speak; how people argue (well and badly); the personalities, personal experiences, ideological commitments, and sociological contexts that shape what we say; how Catholics (especially) and other groups divide along ideology and how that’s expressed in their rhetoric; the calling and the craft of writing. Which may sound pretentious but I can’t think of a better way to put it. Basically: Who we are and how that expresses itself in what we say.

Eve Tushnet
I love writing about humility and humiliation–the ways a spirituality of humiliation can be misused, and the beauties and ecstasies it nonetheless offers.

Emily Schmitt
I like writing about the questions that challenge my faith, such as the role of women in the Church. I also like to write about the tension between being an artist and being a person of faith.

Rejected Patheos Catholic Blogs July 5, 2020

Catholic and Excited About It

Welcome to my blog.

It’s going to be exciting.

We will talk about Stuff.

Catholic stuff probably.

Like stuff about Jesus.

He is God, I guess.

I like to write stuff.

It’s what you do with a blog.

Yeah.

Emm. That’s all for now, I guess.

Hope you like stuff, cause that is what will talk about.

Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious Interview July 10, 2020

In his first ever interview about the show, Jimmy graciously let the Catholic Bard know the secrets of the Mysterious World podcast. The day this is posted the MW podcast will be about a 1971 (the year I was born) event that exposed some of the darkest secrets of the FBI and changed the history of the bureau forever! WHEW!

Also check out Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious Poem 

CB: What is the Mysterious History of Mysterious World? Where did it begin?

JA: About 15 years ago, I was taking a road trip around the desert Southwest, and I visited Roswell, New Mexico. I started thinking about writing a book called Jimmy Akin’s Book of the Weird, which would look at things like UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Kennedy Assassination and evaluate them from the perspectives of faith and reason. Because of various factors at the time, that didn’t come together, but it was the core concept of what became Mysterious World.

By 2018, I had gotten into podcasting and been invited to join the board of the StarQuest network. The network was at a turning point at the time, and we had some big decisions to make if we were going to continue podcasting. Among other things, we needed ideas for new podcasts that would be popular and that would allow us to fulfill our mission of evangelizing the culture. I mentioned the idea of doing one that looked at mysteries from the faith and reason perspectives. The board was very enthusiastic, and so we set to work.

Souls of the Unfaithful Departed, July 29, 2020

Do unfaithful souls spend more time in purgatory even if they never knew there was such a place?
Think of the most horrible person in history.
Do you want them in heaven or hell?
I want them in heaven, not because I agree with their sins,
but because forgiveness is real if they ask for it.
If we ask for it.

Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner.

Gaining Faith in College  AUGUST 01, 2020 

by Jackson Werner

Mark invited me to share in his life — to share authentic friendship. This is what Jesus did. It is true that Jesus’ many sermons, healings, exorcisms, etc. changed many people’s lives. However, Jesus only invested deeply in 12 men.

the difficult moments as well. Most importantly he invited me into his interior life — into his life of faith. He was very subtle. He would invite me to say grace before eating, to pray the Divine Office at night, and sometimes to attend Mass on Sunday.

He didn’t hit me over the head with apologetics. He left the grace of conversion up to the Holy Spirit — in God’s timing. Both Mark and Kristin know tons of theology, but they were patient with me. They asked questions at opportune times but never tried to overwhelm me. I knew I could ask Mark and Kristin anything because I trusted them.

I think some Christians get so focused on winning the argument that they lose the soul. The problem is that when one is hammered with apologetics, it just makes the person defensive and creates physiological flooding. How are you supposed change someone’s heart when their veins are pumping with adrenaline and their cortisol level is through the roof? This same principle holds true in marriages, when couples spend years arguing about fundamental differences.

A Non-Practicing Catholic Reviews The Exorcist AUGUST 08, 2020

by David Patten

I was eating dinner with an old college friend earlier tonight (that would be the Catholic Bard Catechist) and he told me that he finally seen the film The Exorcist  on Friday night. Now, my friend Mark is a devout Catholic and I have been telling him for many years that he should consider giving the film a viewing. I understand completely that the graphic content the film could prove to be highly offensive to a lot of people. I mean there are just some people who will not even today some 46 years later sit down and view that particular film.

For the purpose of this post I’m going to assume that most of us if not all of us whether we love the film or hate the film know what the basic plot is. 12-year-old girl gets possessed by demons; her desperate mother turns to the Catholic Church after modern medicine fails completely.

Over the years I have viewed this film several times and I will say that it is one of the movies that sparked my interest writing and film production. The Exorcist is in part a study in contrasts. As you watch the film you see the battle between good and evil, as well as a brilliant balance between scenes shot in the dark versus scenes shot in the light. This cinematic dance of light and shadow acts as an unconscious (or maybe it was a conscious decision?) representation of the struggle that is about to ensue.

The Immaculate Connections August 15, 2020

Around 70 posts ago, The Catholic Bard first began its mission to provide the world with more uplifting and engaging Catholic relevant spiritual content.

70 years ago, the dogma of Assumption of Mary was first promulgated by Ven. Pius XII

The feast of the Assumption is usually celebrated in the papal basilica, Saint Mary Major. It is sometimes refereed to as Our Lady of the Snows. The celebration of the dedication of the Saint Mary Major basilica is on August 5th.

The Assumption is celebrated  the day after the feast day of martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe on August 14^th. St. Maximilian had a very deep devotion to the Blessed Mother. He was living in Poland at the same time St. Faustina was receiving her divine Mercy revelations and Karol Józef Wojtyła (St. Pope John Paul II) was working and attending secret seminary. Both Sts Faustina and Maximilian would be canonized by SPJP2.

The year this Polish Saint was born in 1920, another Polish Saint died.  St. Zygmunt Gorazdowski (Nov 01, 1845 – Jan 01, 1920)

Popular Catholic writer Catherine Doherty (August 15th, 1896 – December 14th, 1985) founder of the Madonna House Apostolate was born on the feast of the Assumption.

Blessed Óscar Romero (August 15th, 1917 –March 24th,1980) the Archbishop of San Salvador, who was assassinated while saying Mass was also born on the feast of the assumption, during the year that Mary appeared as Our Lady of Fatima.

Unreal Cinematic History September 9, 2020

Someday 2020 will be history. Sometimes while living history it’s important to forget about it for awhile and get to know past history, because it is important to know our history.  Knowing our history tells us where we have been, where we are now and where we might go into the future. This is important if you ever get a time machine. Here are some important historical events that have influenced the lives of people everywhere across our globe. Also, probably across time and space. As fantastic as these events are, it is important to remember that truth is stranger than fiction and that in another universe these events might be considered non-fiction, but here I present the stark reality that these events are in and of themselves. I decided to pick one decade to unpack this historical treat.

1981
It is discovered that the Ark of the Covenant was found in the 1930’s by professor and archaeologist Dr. Henry Jones.

A young boy named Kevin teams up with a gang of fugitive dwarfs who are on the run from the supreme being. They travel through time doors to go to different points in history to steal treasure. They also eventually have to stop a malevolent being named Evil from destroying reality.

A time door gets left open and several people claim to have seen the clash of many titan gods and goddesses battling and fighting. Winged horses, mechanical owls and snaked haired women are seen in this conflict.

St. Therese and the Hidden Life Exposed  OCTOBER 01, 2020

On May 17, 1925 

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face or St. Thérèse of Lisieux or St. Thérèse the Little Flower was canonized  by Pope Pius XI.

St. Maximilian Kolbe offered his first Mass for the intention of the beatification and canonization of then-Sister Therese. He also dedicated his Asian missions to St. Therese.

 In the last post, Preserved in God’s Memory I talked about how God will not forget you and how He can take an obscure hidden life and expose it to the world. It was Pope Leo XIII that she begged to let her enter that hidden world, the cloistered Carmel convent at age 15.  He said to her “Well, my child, do what the superiors decide…. You will enter if it is God’s Will” and he blessed Thérèse.  She actually had to be carried out of the room away from the pope she refused to leave his feet.

God allowed  that young nun Thérèse Martin who was  living and praying in that cloistered Carmelite community in Lisieux, Normandy to be known to the greater world. She is now considered a saint and has films, music, and books made about her. She is admired by several popes.

The Keys of Doing the Father’s Will  OCTOBER 23, 2020

by Deacon Joshua Klickman.

We must be Christians first, just like St Paul was a Roman citizen who was a Christian, first. And look what he did to that title “Roman.” In his day it was the Romans killing Christians. Roman authorities used the death penalty to kill Christians, now, you cannot imagine Christianity without the culture, language, and even the city of Rome. St Paul was certainly that son who said “no” to the father but then repented.

This is how we will be judged at the end. Did we receive love from God and give this love to others? Did we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned, and support life from conception until natural death? This gospel today is also perfect to reflect on as we consider our own stewardship. One of the best ways to be involved is to get involved with parish ministries. As Father Greg reminded us these past few weeks, work and prayer are the key to renew our interior lives and to restore our parish life. There are a plethora of opportunities to do the will of the father right here in our parish.

Understanding God the Father NOVEMBER 17, 2020

You love your kids no matter what.
You give them instructions on how to live well and they don’t listen.
Not only do they not listen to you they completely ignore you and even direct anger at you.
No matter what you do in love for them, their only response is ingratitude, contempt and apathy.
But you keep reaching out anyway… just because their yours.
They want to do their own thing no matter what.
No matter how hurt they get.
No matter how miserable and unhappy they are.
They insist on having their own way all the time.

If they would only listen to you and trust you, you could help them out.
You could save them from the predicament they got themselves into.

This is God’s relationship with sinful humanity.
This is our relationship with our  daughter.

The Fountain of John of the Cross DECEMBER 14, 2020

First I think of the Dark Night, as written about by Saint John of the Cross.  The feeling of being far from God where really He lets us feel that way even though we are so close.  God is taking care of us even if it does not feel like it.  We are all the more closer to Him when we are suffering and thus things seem dark.

Near the end of this poem I think of the Eucharist, and of receiving the Body, Blood Soul, and Divinity in the forms of bread and wine.  God loves us always.  We need to love Him too.  We should always offer up our suffering but also find pleasure in waiting, pining for Him who died for us and wants us to be with Him in heaven forever.

Reflections on 11 Years of Marriage January 2, 2021

Holy matrimony
To death due us part we’d be each other’s only

Be quick to say sorry and quick to forgive
Be thankful for one another as long as you live

Disagreements happen handle them with care
When your spouse is in need do your best to be there

Love in marriage is about giving, accepting, receiving and giving again
Pray together and stay together keep each other safe dear woman and men

Remember it is not the two of you but three
My God, my husband and me

In Defense of Fr. Casey Cole February 4, 2021

Recently a video appeared in social media feeds by a youngish looking Catholic Franciscan priest called

‘Abortion is Not that Important”.

WHAT!

How can a religious say such heretical anti-Catholic things?

How dare he…

Why?

Wait a minute and calm down.

He is very pro-life and his open life on social media proves that.

Please read on and be educated about who this young man is and what he is about. Get to know him before you excommunicate him from the church.

Joe Biden is Not a Heretic February 13, 2021

commentary by Deacon Steven D. Greydanus.

 Be particularly careful with words of criticism, accusation or condemnation, especially when talking about matters of faith.

For Catholics, many things are defined in our faith, but many more are not. One reason the faith develops over time is that new generations ask new questions and face new situations calling for new answers and new solutions. In our ever-changing world there are wide-open areas where Catholics may permissibly explore different approaches to many unanswered questions about the implications of our faith in the world today.

Saying something you disagree with does not make one wrong.

Even being wrong doesn’t make one a dissenter or a cafeteria Catholic.

Even being a dissenter doesn’t make one a heretic.

Even being a heretic doesn’t make one an apostate.

Zeal For Your Prayer Consumes Me March 16, 2021

Something was missing

And God was listening

It was time to pray and my time to hear

God wanted me, but where?

So, I did what all Catholics have done though all of history

And looked on the internet to help solve this mystery

To make a long story short I fond a Carmelite’s name on this contraption

Called her up and took some action

It’s the highlight of my life 12 times a year

And everyday by action and in prayer.

TABERNACLE: A Poem April 1, 2021

I wonder if I am the only one who ever saw
The dent upon the Tabernacle door.
It is not a great miracle or any such thing
Just something I noticed while praying one spring.

But why ought I be taken by a slight dent in the box
Or a bit of discolored metal, some slightly faded marks?
For what ought to impress me more
It’s what is behind the Tabernacle’s dented door.

It is not your basic bread or dough
Of this fact I’m sure you know.
It is someone who I adore.
And I’ve come to visit Him again. What for?

For He is the joy of my soul, my heart
And He loved me from the very start.
He holds me tight when I am sad,
And mercifully forgives me when I’ve done bad.

He suffered so much for love of me
And met His death upon a tree.
What is it that I desire,
As I write these words and my pen runs drier?