A corporal work of mercy.

A corporal work of mercy.
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Showing posts with label All about Vox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label All about Vox. Show all posts

Wednesday 22 November 2023

Some thoughts on Michael Voris

As you probably know by now, Michael Voris has been ousted by St. Michael's Media/Church Militant for violating a "morality clause." Voris released a video which can be found on his X account as did Christine Niles who apparently left the company a few weeks ago. 

I first met Michael in 2012. I was the Cantor at a traditional Latin Mass community where he had heard about the pastor and had him visit Detroit and appear on a video for a chat about the traditional Mass. Michael would visit the parish and there were at least two fundraisers organized by people there for what was then Real Catholic TV, later renamed. I knew him from these visits and fundraisers as well as conferences in Toronto. During that time, I did not suspect anything untoward about him. 

For those newer readers, in February 2015, a papal spokesman, head of Salt + Light Television, and Basilian priest Thomas J. Rosica launched a lawsuit against me for alleged defamation.

Vox Cantoris: YOUR BLOGGER VOX CANTORIS IS THREATENED WITH A LAWSUIT BY VATICAN OFFICIAL AND PAPAL ADVISER - FATHER THOMAS ROSICA, CSB

The Priest vs. The Blogger: A Case in Canadian Conflict – Catholic World Report

Vatican Spokesman Threatens to Sue Catholic Blogger (breitbart.com)

Uneasy Truce: Vatican Spokesman Will Not Sue Canadian Blogger for Public Criticism| National Catholic Register (ncregister.com)

That evening, after hearing it from a mutual friend, Michael Voris contacted me to help. Michael and I, my wife, and that loyal friend collaborated on a plan. He was instrumental in creating pushback from bloggers all around the world in multiple languages. The publicity generated and the legal strategy that followed forced Rosica into a humiliating public retreat. Funny enough, it still appears on his Wikipediathough not with the bold sub-heading, as previously.

A year later, I defended Voris against the advice of someone dear to me. He had made the decision to "out" himself before an expected public outing regarding his sodomitical past that was about to break. There was an effort then by some associated with St. Michael's Media to have him leave quietly and prevent the scandal. Voris refused. He was media savvy and understood how one had to get out in front of a story. He did and it worked. I owed the man my thanks and I stood by him. I remember the day specifically and the telephone call tipping me off to what was coming. I do not regret standing by him. I have a sense of loyalty. After all, while not suffering from the sins of his past, I have my own, we all do. 

But, it was not long after that I saw and became aware of certain other matters. Some were public, such as his irrational and almost pathological attack on the Society of St. Pius X, notwithstanding any failings by specific clerics. In addition to that, there was a falling out of any sense of cooperation and camaraderie with other Catholics in the new media. Nobody seemed good enough for Michael. The laudable goal by Michael Matt to "unite the clans" fell on deaf ears in Detroit. I stopped following Voris, removed links from here to there, and stopped any communication. Simon Rafe and others associated lacked any sense of loyalty to me in communications. It was time to permanently cut my ties. 

But there is more that cannot be discussed other than this.

I am keenly aware of something greater here and I see the hand of Almighty God in it. One of God's servants had been terribly persecuted and lied about and in this, Voris had a hand, a very big hand. I am angered by what he did. Niles and Rafe were his minions when I approached them about it and they were cultlike in their defense of him and attacked me for daring to question their motives.  There was an attempt to destroy a good man. I am still upset by it all. Yet, this man bore this persecution with faith, love, patience, humility, and personal suffering. throughout. His steadfastness has now been rewarded as he is restored in every way, no; in even better ways. God is good and has reached down and picked up his servant and washed him in the salve of love and mercy and set him on a new road to carry out His work. 

At the same time that this restoration was underway, another had begun - the humiliation of Michael Voris is a result of his own hubris, arrogance, ego, and narcissism. It is the same with the aforementioned Thomas Rosica who through his "plagiarism" (this writer was the first to expose it here), was brought down low. Both of these men despised each other as the record shows. Both of these men have had their public reputations degraded by their own actions. Both of them unjustly attacked innocent men. As God was not finished with that good man and restored him, and protected me and my family God is not finished with Thomas Rosica or Michael Voris. May their well-deserved humiliation and degradation work for their salvation.

Pray for all involved. 

Wednesday 10 May 2023

It seems that the Pope said something nasty again about those that adhere to the Tradition. This is more important!

GiveSendGo - Supporting Andrew Rivera and Son: The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site.



As for what the Bishop of Rome said:

[Francis:] I wouldn’t know how to answer that theoretically, but I certainly know that the Council is still being applied. It takes a century for a Council to be assimilated, they say. And I know the resistance to its decrees is terrible. There is incredible support for restorationism, what I call “indietrismo” (backwardness), as the Letter to the Hebrews (10:39) says: “But we do not belong to those who shrink back.” The flow of history and grace goes from the roots upward like the sap of a tree that bears fruit. But without this flow you remain a mummy. Going backwards does not preserve life, ever. You must change, as St. Vincent of LĂ©rins wrote in his Commonitory when he remarked that even the dogma of the Christian religion progresses, consolidating over the years, developing with time, deepening with age. But this is a change from the bottom up. The danger today is indietrismo, (backwardness) the reaction against the modern. It is a nostalgic disease. This is why I decided that now the permission to celebrate according to the Roman Missal of 1962 is mandatory for all newly consecrated priests. After all the necessary consultations, I decided this because I saw that the good pastoral measures put in place by John Paul II and Benedict XVI were being used in an ideological way, to go backward. It was necessary to stop this indietrismo, which was not in the pastoral vision of my predecessors.

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Saturday 6 May 2023

The fundraiser for the single dad

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for any donation you made. Andrew has a long haul ahead of him. I am trying to respect his privacy as much as possible so if you decide to mouth off in the comments about why I am not telling every detail, you can just decide now to pass by and forget about leaving a comment. Rather, you can find in your heart a little Christian charity and perform a temporal work of mercy rather than being a jerk.

The situation is best described as watching an episode of House (Watch House Episodes at NBC.com). One thing seems to lead to another as they try to determine the cause of a number of maladies that do not seem related, just like an episode of House.

We have broken $20,000.00 and that is wonderful. 

We need to double that and add $10,000.00. His hospitalisation will be months and months of recovery at home. 

I am asking this as a personal favour to me if you have ever found this blog to be edifying, or not.

Please find it in your heart to give any amount.

PRAY.

DONATE.

SHARE!

CLICK BELOW.

Vox Cantoris: SUPPORTING A SINGLE DAD IN CRISIS

Thank you and may the Lord bless you.

David A. Domet

Tuesday 8 February 2022

Saturday 11 January 2020

Every once in a while God sends you a helicopter - get on it!


With the above in mind, let me tell you how I almost refused all three out of stubborn manliness and pride. This is also a lesson gents in something more profound:


"ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR WIFE!"

I had been feeling great, on vacation working around the house. On the 19th of December something hit me like a ton of bricks and given my usually well-controlled asthma, hit my lungs. Breathing was a struggle, my heart was racing, pain across my chest and shoulders, I almost thought I was having a heart attack. But wait - I don't need a doctor, I just had a treadmill stress test ECG and echocardiogram as a routine thing and at 63, and not too skinny, I got to 94% of maximum heart rate, no restrictions or hypertension and when I started my blood pressure was 120/78. I had been a runner for about 30 years of up to 30km a week. Of course, I ignored it and struggled through. It was a Thursday and the Fox was concerned over the weekend. "Go to the doctor!" Well, finally she said it again on Monday the 23rd. I said no and then lay down. Suddenly a little voice said, "Listen to your wife." It was late 7PM and we found a walk-in clinic and obtained an anti-biotic. It was just before they closed.

God sent a truck, you see. He sent it through my wife, whom I should have listened to earlier, but I eventually got in it.

On the 27th, I felt bad and called the Respirologist, the office was closed and I left a message. On the 30th, the Fox said, "Are you going to call?" Well, I hesitated, after all, I left a message. Again the Fox said, "Call!" I did and it turned out they had over 100 messages and the secretary had not yet gotten to mine. If Fox did not insist, I would not have called and gotten in and checked and things would have gone from bad to worse. I explained the situation and my Jewish doctor with a picture of St. Pio of Pietrelcina on his wall saw me right away. He did not like what he heard and sent me for an xray and had the result on his computer before I got back to the office. Cardial effusion of an unknown cause and ordered into the hospital. I was admitted until January 2 and sent home with treatment and the pericarditis is resolving itself. It turns out, whatever bug I had, latched itself on to the pericardial sac and wreaked havoc.

Last night, January 10, at about 5, I felt week and took my temperature, it was 99.5. As Fox arrived home, it was 100.6 at 5:40 and I suddenly realised, we are not waiting for the helicopter, we're getting into the truck. "Take me to the walk-in" said I. "Don't you think the hospital would be better given the situation?" said Fox. Well, guess what. The walk-in had a sign up that they were taking no more. I asked the receptionist to ask the doctor, the doctor said "No." Well, that was the Holy Spirit. Why? Because, it turns out that I am a fluid kind of guy - the heart is clearing up but now it is in the lungs but caught at the early stage so now, I have influenza and on Tamiflu and they only ascertained this after another xray and various blood tests and ultrasounds - the walk in clinic would have given me a useless anti-biotic and sent my on my way. As an aside, the doctor at the urgent care centre of the hospital said that at the sister hospital where I had been, there was an outbreak of influenza and they had no doubt that that is where I got it. In my case, this was caught early enough that Tamiflu should knock this demon back to Hell. I can already feel some relief - Laus Deo!

I was in this hospital on the 31st of December. Fifteen years to the day that my brother died in that very same hospital of pneumonia of a bug he caught there on the 28th. He had leukaemia and was susceptible to anything and everything. He had gone for a minor matter but it would become the death of him.

Is my point becoming clearer?

As I look back on all of this, there was no doubt in my mind now that I was sent a truck and then a boat and I was turning them down out of my own manly pride.

I have no doubt, none whatsoever in my mind and in my bones that God sent me that truck and that boat. Finally, he sent me a helicopter. My wife was the truck driver, was in the boat and was flying the helicopter.

Thank you Lord for the helicopter piloted by my beloved. Thank you for waking me up and hitting me hard enough to get on it. I'm glad I got on.

To you, dear readers and friends, thank you for your prayers.

And above all:

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS!


 
I.  Praise to the Trinity
We praise thee, O God: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.
To Thee all Angels cry aloud: the Heavens and all the powers therein.
To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy Glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles praise Thee.
The godly fellowship of the Prophets praise Thee.
The noble army of Martyrs praise Thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee;
The Father of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true, and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost: the Comforter.
 
II.  Praise of Christ
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting  Son of the Father.
When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man: Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints in glory everlasting.
 
III.  Prayers
O Lord, save Thy people: and bless Thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify Thee; and we worship Thy Name, ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us: as our trust is in Thee.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.

Monday 23 September 2019

Monday 31 December 2018

Blessings this Christmastide

Dear Friends, 

Yes, I write "friends." My readers have been and remain extremely loyal to this writer and this little blog. Your comments edify me and often amuse me. I dare not name any of you, lest I forget one, but you are all very special to me, very appreciated. I've never really put any severe restrictions on the combox, though on a few occasions I do admit to not approving a few. To all of you, thank you, God bless you and let us pray for one another.

Blogging has been very light this last two weeks, a few posts on music most of which I did at one sitting the week before Christmas and then used a schedule setting to post them. I hope you've enjoyed the music and found it helpful. I felt it important for my own needs to leave the filth of the corruption of the Church behind for a while and focus on Christmas and home. There will be much more to come in Anno Domini MMXIX, to be sure. Even this very day.


It's been a very hard year around here. As some of you know, we lost our little Roxy. She came here on September 12, 2001 and was about six months old at the time, a rescue from a puppy-mill by the Ontario SPCA. She entered into our hearts and took part of it with her when she died in September. In November 2017, she was diagnosed with third-stage kidney disease. Yet, with two great veterinarians, one who specialized in holistic treatments, her kidneys barely deteriorated, but it took a lot of work and attention. In the end, it was a brain tumor to which we can look back and see the signs that were similar to dementia and coordination loss. Unless one has had a dog or a cat of course, one cannot understand that the sense of loss is profound. It is not like the loss of a child, the dog is not human. But it is the loss of one's greatest and most loyal companion who does not understand betrayal and only wants to love. Roxy rests in the garden under the watchful gaze of St. Francis of Assisi and a little Christmas tree.

May you be blest by the Christ Child, the Word Made Flesh, in this holy Christmastide and in the coming year. 

Friday 14 December 2018

The Devil is dividing and people are blind to it. Wake up and stop it now!

Last night on the Facebook of Steve Skojec of OnePeterFive, I read a comment of his to a post by Ann Barnhardt. The comments back were deplorable and shameful. I won't quote them or link them but they are degrading to Ann, notwithstanding her original post.

Voris once again recently called the Society of St. Pius X schismatic. Voris and Skojec have enmity. Verrecchio and Voris have enmity. Skojec and Voris. Skojec and Verrecchio? Michael Matt and The Remnant seem to be hated by everyone. Hilary White detests everyone.

The SSPX is not the problem. 

Sedevacantists, whom I allow to comment here, are not the problem. They have reacted to a scandalous situation the best way they know how. I have more in common with my sedevacantist friend in South Africa than with the Catholics in my diocesan territorial parish. 

The SSPX and Sedes are the least of the problem. 

This writer has for months been hearing "rumours" now confirmed, of gossip, calumny and detraction against him here in my own Archdiocese. I have put up with at least seven years of public defamation. I have gone to priests to seek remedy who have done nothing to help, but I am thankful to the three who were not cowards, who did and I thank them.

On a personal note, the worst part is that these people ate my food, enjoyed my drink and the hospitality of my wife and me all the while sharing in defamation and calumny. I've been called divisive, toxic and diagnosed as suffering from a "messiah complex." I am somehow responsible for all the failures of the Latin Mass in Toronto to thrive and grow (neither are true." It is allegedly the fault of this writer that certain priests no longer "offer" the Holy Mass publicly and that one wanted out of the "circuit" and back into a novus ordo pastorship. This writer and his wife have been publicly accused of adultery by a certain blogger and another group of so-called Catholics tried to discredit my name with the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce which included slandering my character and good name to the entire Governing Council. One youngster even demanded that I remove myself from any work as I was accused of "being a bad example" to youth, though nobody could tell me how. This blog has been accused by all these of being "polemical" and discrediting that Latin Mass and traditional movement. I was even accused by some ecclesiastical officials in Toronto of deceiving a priest by booking a church for a concert and substituting, surreptitiously, with a Latin Mass. To this day, the priest who brought this accusation to me in his own accusatory manner has yet to confirm if he corrected the calumniators nor apologize for his own rash judgement.

I'm now accused of being a "Neo-Trad!" what that means.

More? My support of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States and Douglas Ford as Premier of Ontario gives a bad name to the Latin Mass movement and shows that I'm really a modernist and closet Freemason because I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press. My wife has been looked down upon for applauding Kelly Ann Conway and told she was supporting a "feminist." Did I write that this Catholic "wife" is a freelance "journalist" who deplores "freedom of the press" because it is masonic and whose very abode is dependent on the Crown worn by a Monarch who is head of schismatic and heretical sect? I am allegedly "toxic" which is what the person declared in public regarding me.

Yet, in spite of all of this sorry defamation, notwithstanding Rosica's frivolous and vexatious lawsuit and more behind the scenes, notwithstanding a certain episcopal leader pounding his fist on the desk at the mention of my name; in spite of it all, I'm still here. Still working, still chanting in two dioceses and still organising Latin Masses for the faithful who can come if they want or not. I am still training and teaching those who want to learn to chant in spite of the fact that others in a disgraceful show of snobbery, don't think the neophytes good enough. 

The Devil hates you, he hates me. He hates Christ and His Church and he hates the Latin Mass and the work needed to carry out its growth.

Skojec, Voris, Barnhardt and the others all do good, they could all do better if they laid down their swords. Those people that have undermined this writer and my work (and they know who they are). They are shameful, cowardly and deceitful and they have been told. All of this proves that the Devil does not want peace. All those that have done the above are the ones who are divisive. These people have segregated Catholics into Conservative or Neo-Cath, or Neo-Trad or Rad-Trad, Mad-Trad and Glad-Trad and it must stop. They are the divisive ones. They are the ones bringing shame upon the movement. Not this writer.

Now, I am off my for my therapy for my delusions of grandeur and messiah complex and then make mincemeat which the above calumniators and gossipers will not enjoy this Christmas. 

No, not one!


Thursday 15 November 2018

You can suspend Vox Cantoris from Twitter, but you can't suspend "Me" from Twitter

Vox Cantoris has been suspended from Twitter. It took place not long after I called @pontifex a liar over his heretical and blasphemous comment that the Holy Spirit brings confusion. I suggested that he read the Pentecost Sequence, Veni, Sancte Spiritus. Then again, I tweeted to him over his continued cover-ups of homosexual perverts in the clergy asked @pontifex if he was, therefore, a "homosexual."

But neither Twitter nor any who do their bidding can ban "me" from Twitter. While the nearly 4,000 followers are gone and cannot follow me there, they can surely still find me here - at least until Blogger shuts all of us down.


I have been blocked by many on Twitter. Tom Rosica, Austen Ivereigh, Antonio Spadaro, Rocco Palmo, Cardinal Napier and many more too numerous and silly to count. I consider it, as with the Twitter suspension, a badge of honour. 


What these clericalists and their minions can't seem to comprehend is that it is quite easy to have one or even multiple Twitter accounts under multiple email addresses. How else can we keep monitoring what they do?


I am not going away. 


The attempt to stop me has happened before, attempted lawsuits, nasty emails, interference with my work as a Cantor, ostracising me in my Archdiocese, slandering me with the former President of Una Voce, Leo Darroch and then his joining it to defame me to the whole Governing Council of FIUV and even attempts to attack my income and my employment.


They have lost everytime they have come at me and they will continue to lose.


They have their reward.

I have mine.

Monday 16 October 2017

It was Martha - the story of a woman who sought the pearl of great price

For twelve years now, I've republished this memorial to my late mother. How terrible of me, I had totally forgotten until early this afternoon, around the time of her passing, I saw a Tweet referring to the fact that today is the Feast of St. Hedwig and for reasons you will discover shortly, that made me recall this day. There are no coincidences.

Putting aside the insanity of Rome, may this lift your heart as it continues to life mine.

+++




On October 16, 2006 in her 92nd year, my mother was called home to the LORD. She was a woman of great faith in God and taught many lessons to all those who came into contact with her. This was especially true in her last few years. She suffered the loss of her first grandson and then her first son from cancer and bore much physical suffering with faith, trust and humility.

October 16 is, according to the calendar for the Traditional Latin Mass, the Feast of St. Hedwig a medieval Polish duchess; she died on October 14, 1243. She was also maternal aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, incidentally my maternal grandmother's name. So it was then for me a serendipitous moment when at the Mass that morning, the Epistle from the First Letter of Blessed Paul the Apostle to Timothy was read:


Dearly beloved: Honour widows that are widows indeed. But if any widow have children, or grandchildren, let her learn first to govern her own house, and to make a return of duty to her parents: for this is acceptable before God. But she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, let her trust in God and continue in supplications and prayers night and day. For she that liveth in pleasures is dead while she is living. And this give in charge, that they may be blameless. But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Let a widow be chosen of no less than threescore years of age, who hath been the wife of one husband having testimony for her good works, if she have brought up children, if she have received to harbour, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have ministered to them that suffer tribulation, if she have diligently followed every good work.

The Gospel was the parable about the "pearl of great price." Martha spent her life auctioning all for that pearl and I believe she found it.

A few days before she died it was my 50th birthday. We sat at the kitchen table eating dinner. I was feeding her and told her that 50 years ago we were in the same kitchen and at the same places at table except she was feeding me and now I was feeding her. We had a conversation and she told me that she was ready to go whenever God was to call her. Often we hear or read of those things that are “unexplained” except by coincidence, of course. To those who know and love God, “there are no coincidences.” Not even the fact that the Epistle read that day was one of the two options from the "Common of Holy Women."

That day started as many others. I woke my son for school, I got ready for work and before dashing out the door and bidding her adieu the home care assistant was there to help her get ready for the day and stay with her whilst I was at work.

I had gone to Mass at the Oratory on my lunch hour. I had just gotten back to work around 1:00 PM as the second aid arrived for the shift-change back at home. Her name was Bridget and as she arrived she went into the family room. My mother had only moments earlier complained to Cora, the morning aid, of difficulty breathing and then closed her eyes. Bridget yelled out her name, “Martha, Martha!” and gently slapped her. She stirred and let out a long breath.

My mother Martha, died.

I got the call moments later and on the way home it was clear from speaking to the paramedics that she was gone. She suffered a merciful cardiac arrest, yet because I refused to post a Do Not Resuscitate as experience taught me that would include choking to death, the paramedics were working on her with Adrenalin and heart paddles but were not having any success. I spoke to Bridget and told her that a priest from the local parish was on his way (the Sacrament of the Sick, what we used to call Extreme Unction had already been administered by one of her faithful Oratorian Priests a few weeks earlier.) I asked Bridget to go to my mother’s bedroom and retrieve the sick visit Crucifix from the wall above her bed. (This is a Crucifix which slides off and is placed in a stand; on either side are then candle holders and some of the necessary items for the Sacrament).

When I arrived home my mother’s eyes were open and she seemed semi-conscious but staring straight up to the ceiling, she was unresponsive. The priest arrived a few moments later and anointed her. She was transported to “St. Joe’s,” where my father also died, and she did not regain consciousness again. I sat with her and prayed the rosary and sang the Divine Mercy Chaplet to her. After a priest from the Oratory visited and prayed, and then after consulting with him, I instructed the medical staff to remove the respirator and all the intervention they forced upon her in my earlier absence, it was around 5:00 PM. Just after 8:00 I went outside for some air and a few minutes later my sister came to get me that our mother had died. She had just gone out of the room to the nurses desk to make a phone call. My sister was not out of the room a half-minute and no more than 5 metres away and mother passed. It was as if she could not let herself go whilst we were with her.

So, what does this have to do with coincidence?

The next day I called Bridget and asked her to stay on for a few more days to be at the house to tidy and answer the phone and assist with guests. Bridget was quite upset to be sure. She had been with my mother daily for the last year and often spoke of how well she was always treated and “their little talks.” She came to me with apprehension that she really needed to talk to me about something.

The paramedics, with all of their intervention, “brought her back.” It took 14 minutes from the time they began to get a pulse. What was disturbing Bridget was that there was no reaction to their work; nothing, until my car screeched in the driveway.

“I have a pulse!” exclaimed the paramedic. It was simultaneous with the screeching of my tires, said Bridget.

But there is more. Bridget was shaking and in tears.

“David, I had a dream Sunday night," my mother having died on Monday.

She went on to say that she as typical she had forgotten the dream; until at least she went to my mother’s bedroom to get the Crucifix. Upon seeing Jesus on the Cross the dream came back to her for just a moment and then again, it was gone. The house after all was a mass of confusion, police, fire-fighters, the paramedics, and eventually me, and the Priest; Bridget was now a bystander.

After we left for the hospital, Bridget was alone and tidying up and it was what happened then that she was so desperate to tell me.

At that singular moment in time something happened to Bridget that she will never forget. Nor will I.

Bridget recalled for me her dream.
“I was standing on a street-corner in small town with other people. We were laughing at this man dressed in a robe and with long-hair. He said his name was Jesus and we were making fun of him. Just then a young beautiful woman stepped off of the curb and started to cross the street; she turned around and looked at us, she had tears in her eyes, tears of overwhelming joy, she was happy, really happy. It was then that Jesus took her hand and walked across the road with her.”
That was Bridget’s dream, but I didn't understand.

She went on to say that when she woke up from it she was aware that she needed to be more like the woman who walked across the street. That she needed to have “more faith in Jesus.”

I told her that it seemed like a pretty plausible conclusion.

“Wait” Bridget said, “There is more, you don't understand."

I waited and listened as she started to cry.

“David, I remembered the dream only for a moment when carrying the Cross.”

“When I was tidying up I put the Cross on the end-table over there.”

“Yes, it looks nice there” I replied.

“No, David, you don’t understand, the picture, the picture beside the Cross.”

“Yes, Bridget, what is it?”

“That picture of your mother at graduation.” Bridget started to cry.

“It was her; she was the girl in my dream, it was Martha!"




http://voxcantor.blogspot.com/2006/10/getting-back-to-blogging-and-funeral.html



Sunday 13 August 2017

Quo Vadis, indeed!

A blessed Lord's Day to you all.

Another blogger wrote yesterday that blogging this past week was slow. That was the case here too, but it was not because there was nothing to blog about or I was going through kind of self-doubt. On Wednesday, my 8 year old Lenova Thinkpad R61 fried, it truly did its best with Windows 10. Now that I have my fancy new Lenova Ideapad, we're back on track.


Image result for blogs

When I began this blog back in February 2006, it was to post the music list and liturgical information for the choir and any interested parishioners at my territorial parish in Toronto where I had begun a choir. After a while, as I read a few other blogs, Father Z and the New Liturgical Movement specifically, I came to realise more about how blogs worked, how we could communicate and learn from one another, and on a personal level, how a blog could also be an outlet for ones thoughts about the issues facing the Church and the broader culture. The nature of my posts and writing gradually took on a different theme. To be truthful, it also provided an outlet, if the Catholic paper would not print my letters, then I would. If the call or email to the bishop was ignored, there was another option.

Under Pope Benedict XVI (I do not accept the title, "Emeritus"), blogging was pretty straightforward. We had a Pope we loved and whom we saw working on a restoration,  We accepted his "hermeneutic of continuity." and we went about our work. I wrote about liturgy and other matters and stood with the Pope and the Bishops in the matter of the new Missal for the modernist rite and worked to promote the "extraordinary form." In fact, I worked weekly in both, as some of you will recall.

In February and March 2013, all that changed. Two years later, in 2015, I faced a major challenge because of my work here and that is recalled permanently to the immediate left. With the prayers of you, a certain Cardinal, a certain Bishop and many priests, I emerged from that scandalous and repugnant episode. People offered thousands of dollars to aid my fight. Make no mistake, the persecution against me has continued behind the scenes, but they will not succeed.

There has been a cost to this blog. There has never been a request for money, unlike some others.  I've been threatened with a lawsuit, received countless harassing emails, other threats of which I cannot speak and the loss of friendships from hypocrites who ate my food, accepted my hospitality but can't stomach the truth.

My job here has been to wake up Catholics and through that, in whatever small way, help people understand and get through this dark crisis in the Church.

Image result for throwing in the towelSome may take an approach that we should no longer report on the harrowing episodes of those who have infiltrated the Church to destroy Her and your faith. They would rather now take a more passive approach and speak of butterflies and meadows and all things bright and beautiful as if doing otherwise has played in to the hands of the enemy. I understand the emotions that lead one to want to walk in the meadow. I do not accept that it is what we need to do. I won't be throwing in the towel, I will use it to wipe the sweat from my brow and trust that God will give me the fortitude to get in for another round.

No doubt, the enemy is well pleased at the throwing in of the towel by those who have such an incredible reach. After all, hundreds of thousands of visitors a month can now just look at little kittens, they're so soft and furry.




Friday 3 March 2017

Hold your peace

Holy your peace with me,
and let me speak.
Then let come to me what may.
Come what may.
Why do I take my flesh
in my teeth?
And put my life in His hands.

For He shall be
My life and my salvation.

And though he slay me.
Though he slay me.
Yet, shall I trust.
Yet, shall I trust.
Yet shall I trust.
In Him.

A lament written in two parts for soprano and bass based on Job and the Psalms

Thursday 2 March 2017

For David himself

Ps. 34 Judica, Domine, nocentes me. David, in the person of Christ, prayeth against his persecutors: prophetically foreshewing the punishments that shall fall upon them.

[1] For David himself. Judge thou, O Lord, them that wrong me: overthrow them that fight against me. [2] Take hold of arms and shield: and rise up to help me. [3] Bring out the sword, and shut up the way against them that persecute me: say to my soul: I am thy salvation. [4] Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and be confounded that devise against me. [5] Let them become as dust before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord straiten them.

[6] Let their way become dark and slippery; and let the angel of the Lord pursue them. [7] For without cause they have hidden their net for me unto destruction: without cause they have upbraided my soul. [8] Let the snare which he knoweth not come upon him: and let the net which he hath hidden catch him: and let the net which he hath hidden catch him: and into that very snare let them fall. [9] But my soul shall rejoice in the Lord; and shall be delighted in his salvation. [10] All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like to thee? Who deliverest the poor from the hand of them that are stronger than he; the needy and the poor from them that strip him.

[11] Unjust witnesses rising up have asked me things I knew not. [12] They repaid me evil for good: to the depriving me of my soul. [13] But as for me, when they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer shall be turned into my bosom. [14] As a neighbour and as an own brother, so did I please: as one mourning and sorrowful so was I humbled. [15] But they rejoiced against me, and came together: scourges were gathered together upon me, and I knew not.

[16] They were separated, and repented not: they tempted me, they scoffed at me with scorn: they gnashed upon me with their teeth. [17] Lord, when wilt thou look upon me? rescue thou my soul from their malice: my only one from the lions. [18] I will give thanks to thee in a great church; I will praise thee in a strong people. [19] Let not them that are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: who have hated me without cause, and wink with the eyes. [20] For they spoke indeed peaceably to me; and speaking in the anger of the earth they devised guile.

[21] And they opened their mouth wide against me; they said: Well done, well done, our eyes have seen it. [22] Thou hast seen, O Lord, be not thou silent: O Lord, depart not from me. [23] Arise, and be attentive to my judgment: to my cause, my God, and my Lord. [24] Judge me, O Lord my God according to thy justice, and let them not rejoice over me. [25] Let them not say in their hearts: It is well, it is well, to our mind: neither let them say: We have swallowed him up.

[26] Let them blush: and be ashamed together, who rejoice at my evils. Let them be clothed with confusion and shame, who speak great things against me. [27] Let them rejoice and be glad, who are well pleased with my justice, and let them say always: The Lord be magnified, who delights in the peace of his servant. [28] And my tongue shall meditate thy justice, thy praise all the day long.

Thursday 19 January 2017

My cousin Gerald

This is my cousin, Gerald. The photo was taken on December 17, near Hong Kong.




Gerald lived and worked in Moncton, New Brunswick, one of Canada's Maritime provinces. He was from a little hamlet just outside of Saint John. Gerald was my first-cousin, once-removed; that is, his grandmother, Sittoo in Lebanese, and my mother, were sisters, his mother being then, my first cousin. He was also half Irish, and seemed to become, through his friends and his cooking, an honourary Filipino.

I've not seen Gerald since we were young, my not travelling to New Brunswick in too many decades and Gerald not to Toronto. But we kept in touch on Facebook and mostly, he just let me win the argument. 

Gerard's funeral was held yesterday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Rothesay. 

Gerald died on December 21. He was on vacation in Asia and was in the Philippines on a beach in Casiguran with friends. A storm came up and a woman in the water was in crisis, struggling and drowning in rough water. 

Bearing more the physical resemblance of Vox, than an Olympic swim champion, Gerald ran into the water in spite of the protests of his friends. I am told that he shouted, as he ran to the water, "well somebody has to save her."

Both perished. 

Gerald's body was finally returned home to New Brunswick and to his beloved parents Dolores and Frank a few days ago. May they, and Gerald's siblings, be comforted at this time by the words of Our Lord:


"Greater love hath no man than this;
that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Eternal rest, O Lord, grant unto the soul of Gerald and may perpetual light shine upon him. 


May he rest in peace. Amen.



Friday 1 January 2016

A new year and may God bless you

The secular new year 2016 is now upon us. As Catholics, we know that the real "new year" began five weeks ago on the First Sunday of Advent. 

What can we expect moving forward? Given the situation in the Church and the world, I think we can expect more of the same. The faith is under attack from outside and worse even, from within.  

From this blogger, you will expect more of the same - defense of the faith and the Church. A year ago, this blog had 600,000 readers after ten years. Since then, almost 1,1 million have been added to that. While still "obscure" compared to the great Rorate Caeli or Father Z, you have put this blog into a new category. You are from all over the world, not just Canada and the United States. 

The last year cannot go by without mentioning Thomas J. Rosica, CSB. The disgusting action on his part to threaten me with a lawsuit was unbecoming of a priest. It was an arrogant attempt to intimidate this writer into silence on the local and international scene. He failed and he failed miserably. He brought ill-repute upon himself and revealed himself for all to see beyond what those of us knew about him previously. This priest took money out of my pocket, out of my family by forcing me to hire a solicitor to assist in rebuffing him and his injustice whilst he bragged that one of Toronto's most expensive law firms did the deed for him "pro-bono!" How the corporate donor that continues to float the failing television project keeps the funds flowing is beyond me. Is a "blessing" that important because if so, it won't work. Truly, Tom  Rosica has his reward. As one who was abused by priests of the Basilian Congregation at the age of 13, for which I have already held them and their Order to account, it was even more galling that another Basilian, knowing it, would do what he did. That Basilian Congregation will be gone in twenty years. Their era of abuse will die with them. They will not be allowed to do it again to me or anyone else.

However, what Rosica did by his action was to bring you to this blog so at the end of the day, we should all thank The Rosica Effect for bringing us together. According to our Alexa analytics, you have turned this blog into the most widely read Catholic blog from Canada and the most-widely read Catholic blog in Canada. The stats below are from the First Sunday of Advent to this posting from our StatCounter.

May the Lord bless you and keep you safe this year. We must join together friends in common cause to defend our Blessed Lord and Holy Mother Church and our Faith from those inside and outside who would undermine the Truth.

"God bless us, everyone."

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