In 1999 my mum was dying of brain cancer. She had slipped into a coma on the Thursday and the doctors said that she would die that evening. Her brother had a flight booked the following Monday; the earliest he could get. He would miss her.
After 3 days unconscious, on the Monday she sat up in bed, made lucid conversation with us and received her brother. They spent about 2 hours talking together. He said all he had hoped to say, so did she. She slipped back into a coma that evening and died soon after.
The merciful killer may have sought to put my mum out of her misery before her natural end. God, the merciful life giver, had other plans.
‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’ Jeremiah 29:11
In preparation for my upcoming conversation with Calvin Robinson I read about his thwarted ordination, to which he responded;
‘No person can get in Gods way, no matter how wicked or woke’.
He is absolutely right. Calvin has since been ordained.
On Friday I watched Bishop Barron interview the Hollywood star, mired in controversy, about his new role as Padre Pio. Shia LaBeouf spoke about his becoming a Catholic with an honesty and rawness that one doesn’t often see or hear. So what was it that brought him home to Rome? A BLM inspired liturgical dance? A Helter Skelter from which the priest delivers a homily about climate change? A rainbow flag draped across the Altar? No. It was his experience of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
For those unfamiliar with what is happening in the church today, there are attempts to suppress the TLM; but God will get His way. God always gets His way. He’s God after all. There will be suffering along the way, but God will use this suffering and bring forth new wine in fresh wineskins.
As my friend Mark Lambert observed: “Bishops are blind, Pope promulgated Traditiones custodes, so God gets crazy film stars and converts them and they shout from the tree tops about the Latin Mass instead”
We are often in danger of forgetting who we are in relation to Him. It’s easy to feel consumed sometimes by the confusion around us; but we must always be ready to give an account for the hope that is within us. Therefore, we must keep our eyes fixed on Christ, He will not let us drown and the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church.
La Beouf, who declares that he is no academic and not an intellectual, expresses something that is, (like many things) not too complex for us to see, but too simple - unless we let God open our eyes, minds and hearts. The way into Pio was through the mass. Such is the way to Jesus.
“Pio was a very emotional guy and Mass is very technical. So technical I spent most of my time not even studying Pio. I just studied Latin Mass….it would be like playing Bob Dylan and not knowing how to play guitar. If you want to play Dylan, you don’t just read Dylan biographies…..The way into Padre Pio was through the Mass”
Shia LaBeouf
As my friend Mark Lambert observed:
“Bishops are blind, Pope promulgated Traditiones custodes, so God gets crazy film stars and converts them and they shout from the tree tops about the Latin Mass instead” ... I love this comment from Mark Lambert! I first started following him on Twitter years ago and found his observations both amusing and accurate. He never disappoints :)
a lovely article, it would be helpful I think if the authors name was on it, I assume this one is Katherine?