Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 49

A Sonnet for Christmas

by Yr. Obdt. Svt., over at the Catholic Weekly.

The House of Christmas by G.K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth Out of an inn to roam; In the place where she was homeless All men are at home. The crazy stable close at hand, With shaking timber and shifting sand, Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand Than the square stones of Rome. For men are homesick in […]

The Best Man and the Least

The last in my series on John the Baptist for The Catholic Weekly: John the Evangelist’s gospel is chockablock with nuptial imagery.  He begins his gospel by carefully drawing our minds back to Genesis with the words “In the beginning” (John 1:1).  He then audaciously takes us back not merely to the beginning of creation, […]

Since it’s that time of year again…

Here’s an old perennial that responds to another old perennial of the season, the “Everybody knows that Christmas is really just a warmed-over celebration of the Feast of Sol Invictus” chestnut. Guess what? Everybody’s wrong! Another little excerpt from my book Mary, Mother of the Son (sans footnotes, but trust me, the citations are all in order): […]

It’s not a secret that I admire Bp. Robert Barron

I’m strongly motivated by the Church’s call to evangelize. I think Pope Francis is the bee’s knees because he has tried very hard to place before the Church the imperative to evangelize. That’s why he launched his papacy by issuing Evangelii Gaudium. I have said since the start of his reign that you can basically […]

How Cults Function

As the walls close in on Trump, his Foundation is subjected to the corporate death penalty, his thieving kids are punished, his cronies go to jail, his crime syndicate, subjected to 17 investigation, his stupid wall unfunded, and his promised shutdown collapses like a house of cards, only one demographic could be stupid enough to […]

The Doubts of John the Baptist

The third in my four-part series on John the Baptist for Advent: Back in my agnostic days, I used to think that one good solid miracle would make a lifelong believer out of the most hardened atheist.  I myself was never able to embrace atheism since the world was simply too mysterious and strange a […]

The Rest of the Gun Cult’s Victims

As you read this, Sandy Hook Elementary has been evacuated following a bomb threat on the anniversary of one of the most horrific mass shootings in US history.  Because the Gun Cult is satanic.  But this is not about that.  This is about the terrible reality of yet another massive evil for which the Gun […]

Meme Lisa Simpson is Right and Eupocrisy is Real, Thank God.

Today I ran across a little meme starring Lisa Simpson declaring, “If you claim that morality is subjective, then your moral condemnation carries no weight.” She’s partly right, you know. But she’s also partly wrong. Because Eupocrisy. What is Eupocrisy? The opposite of hypocrisy. A hypocrite is worse than his best word. A eupocrite is […]

Something fun for you

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 9th Century Chant: