SIMPLE PLEASURES

It’s 11:00 in the evening and John and I are still sitting outside in the (finally) cool air. The house is closed up because of the heat, and the air conditioning is on, but we can’t stand the thought of going inside. So, here we sit on our newly constructed deck, under our trees. John built it to hold our “coup”, a 12x12 screened-in room that unfolds for the summer and folds up to be put away in storage for the winter. It has a vinyl top which keeps out the rain and allows us to enjoy the summer without the bother of bugs. Usually it is up by now, but John determined to us the old wood from our deconstructed family room and “repurpose” it for a platform to make the coup more stable. I was tired of seeing the pile of old beams in our yard (since 2008) and didn’t think they would really ever find a home. I planned to give John a deadline for doing something with the eyesore, but much to my delight he came up with this idea.

So, here we sit with lightening flashing and a raccoon coming down the tree, not 5 feet from me. I think he was tired of waiting for the old folks to go to bed. As John and I talk we affirm to each other that we are truly blessed and content. Our house is small and still needs some work, which will happen in due time as we put aside the money. But all in all, we are thankful for what we have. Our children are our best friends and our grandchildren have brought us the delight of reliving the experience of raising our own children. Yesterday, John and Ryan spent ½ hour throwing rocks into our local creek which probably meant as much to John as he recalled his own childhood throwing rocks into creeks and rivers and delighting in every splash. It’s funny how having grandchildren triggers memories of one’s own childhood more that parenthood does. It must be a luxury of sorts. We grandparents do not live under the tyranny of the urgent, but can step back and enjoy the process of watching childhood unfold.

And now I have to end this and head inside. The lightening is getting closer and John has left me to blow out the candles. Tomorrow, Lord willing, we will erect the coup. And tomorrow night Lord willing, I hope to spend the night sleeping under the vinyl and enjoying the evening breeze.

POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM

Shrewd and Widespread Propaganda


17. There is another explanation for the rapid diffusion of the Communistic ideas now seeping into every nation, great and small, advanced and backward, so that no corner of the earth is free from them. This explanation is to be found in a propaganda so truly diabolical that the world has perhaps never witnessed its like before. It is directed from one common center. It is shrewdly adapted to the varying conditions of diverse peoples. It has at its disposal great financial resources, gigantic organizations, international congresses, and countless trained workers. It makes use of pamphlets and reviews, of cinema, theater and radio, of schools and even universities. Little by little it penetrates into all classes of the people and even reaches the better-minded groups of the community, with the result that few are aware of the poison which increasingly pervades their minds and hearts

Silence of the Press

18. A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a world organization as vast as Russian Communism. This silence is due in part to shortsighted political policy, and is favored by various occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow of the Christian Social Order.



SAD CONSEQUENCES

Russia and Mexico

19. Meanwhile the sorry effects of this propaganda are before our eyes. Where Communism has been able to assert its power - and here We are thinking with special affection of the people of Russia and Mexico - it has striven by every possible means, as its champions openly boast, to destroy Christian civilization and the Christian religion by banishing every remembrance of them from the hearts of men, especially of the young. Bishops and priests were exiled, condemned to forced labor, shot and done to death in inhuman fashion; laymen suspected of defending their religion were vexed, persecuted, dragged off to trial and thrown into prison.

Horrors of Communism in Spain

20. Even where the scourge of Communism has not yet had time enough to exercise to the full its logical effects, as witness Our beloved Spain, it has, alas, found compensation in the fiercer violence of its attack. Not only this or that church or isolated monastery was sacked, but as far as possible every church and every monastery was destroyed. Every vestige of the Christian religion was eradicated, even though intimately linked with the rarest monuments of art and science. The fury of Communism has not confined itself to the indiscriminate slaughter of Bishops, of thousands of priests and religious of both sexes; it searches out above all those who have been devoting their lives to the welfare of the working classes and the poor. But the majority of its victims have been laymen of all conditions and classes. Even up to the present moment, masses of them are slain almost daily for no other offense than the fact that they are good Christians or at least opposed to atheistic Communism. And this fearful destruction has been carried out with a hatred and a savage barbarity one would not have believed possible in our age. No man of good sense, nor any statesman conscious of his responsibility can fail to shudder at the thought that what is happening today in Spain may perhaps be repeated tomorrow in other civilized countries.

POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM

SPREAD OF COMMUNISM EXPLAINED

Alluring Promises

15. How is it possible that such a system, long since rejected scientifically and now proved erroneous by experience, how is it, We ask, that such a system could spread so rapidly in all parts of the world? The explanation lies in the fact that too few have been able to grasp the nature of Communism. The majority instead succumb to its deception, skillfully concealed by the most extravagant promises. By pretending to desire only the betterment of the condition of the working classes, by urging the removal of the very real abuses chargeable to the liberalistic economic order, and by demanding a more equitable distribution of this world's goods (objectives entirely and undoubtedly legitimate), the Communist takes advantage of the present world-wide economic crisis to draw into the sphere of his influence even those sections of the populace which on principle reject all forms of materialism and terrorism. And as every error contains its element of truth, the partial truths to which We have referred are astutely presented according to the needs of time and place, to conceal, when convenient, the repulsive crudity and inhumanity of Communistic principles and tactics. Thus the Communist ideal wins over many of the better minded members of the community. These in turn become the apostles of the movement among the younger intelligentsia who are still too immature to recognize the intrinsic errors of the system. The preachers of Communism are also proficient in exploiting racial antagonisms and political divisions and oppositions. They take advantage of the lack of orientation characteristic of modern agnostic science in order to burrow into the universities, where they bolster up the principles of their doctrine with pseudo-scientific arguments.

16. If we would explain the blind acceptance of Communism by so many thousands of workmen, we must remember that the way had been already prepared for it by the religious and moral destitution in which wage-earners had been left by liberal economics. Even on Sundays and holy days, labor-shifts were given no time to attend to their essential religious duties. No one thought of building churches within convenient distance of factories, nor of facilitating the work of the priest. On the contrary, laicism was actively and persistently promoted, with the result that we are now reaping the fruits of the errors so often denounced by Our Predecessors and by Ourselves. It can surprise no one that the Communistic fallacy should be spreading in a world already to a large extent de-Christianized

I AM TRULY BLESSED

Mother’s Day isn’t that big a deal to me and I try to keep it all simple for the sake of my kids. I don’t want anyone spending more money than they can afford. Since this is the time of year when I tend to splurge on flowers for the garden, I usually tell John NOT to buy me anything. I would rather indulge myself at a nursery. In the last few years I have told the kids to each buy me one flat of white impatiens. This makes it easy and cheap for everyone and just about covers what I will need for the various beds. John couldn’t resist, and bought me an IPod. I have been talking about getting one for two years in order to access all of my music more easily. I was thrilled and relieved to finally have one.

Today my girls each spent the day with their in-laws, with my encouragement, since I see them all the time. John, David, Matt, Maggie and I attended church, went out for lunch, and the boys picked up the flats for themselves and my older girls. Maggie didn’t contribute this year because she had chosen a gift for me prior to returning from college. She is gaining a reputation within the family for being a very thoughtful gift-giver and today she surprised me with I think the most memorable gift I have ever received. One thing that characterizes most of the students at Hillsdale College is their respect and even love for their professors. Many of the textbooks used at Hillsdale are written by faculty members. For my Mother’s Day gift, Maggie presented me with a signed copy of American Cicero: the Life of Charles Carroll, authored by her history professor Bradley Birzer. Charles Carroll was the only Catholic signer of The Declaration of Independence and Birzer’s book “rescues Carroll from unjust neglect.” Even more special is the fact that Maggie asked Professor Birzer to sign my copy and he did so in a most special way – making this mother very proud of her daughter.

I have always been, and continue to be, thankful to Jesus for my family and the life we have all been so blessed to have together.

POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM

COMMUNIST SOCIETY


12.What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word, the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a “humanity without God”.

13. When all men have finally acquired the collectivist mentality in this Utopia of a really classless society, the political State, which is now conceived by Communists merely as the instrument by which the proletariat is oppressed by the capitalists, will have lost all reason for its existence and will "wither away." However, until that happy consummation is realized, the State and the powers of the State furnish Communism with the most efficacious and most extensive means for the achievement of its goal.

14. Such, Venerable Brethren, is the new gospel which bolshevistic and atheistic Communism offers the world as the glad tidings of deliverance and salvation! It is a system full of errors and sophisms. It is in opposition both to reason and to Divine Revelation. It subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations; because it ignores the true origin and purpose of the State; because it denies the rights, dignity and liberty of human personality.

I HAVE BECOME MY GRANDMOTHER

Last week I made my usual Friday trek up to my daughter’s home to babysit toddler Ryan so that Rachel could attend her Bible study at church. The weather was good, so grandson and I went outside for some sunshine and fresh air. I opened up his plastic sandbox and turned on the hose for him to occupy himself while I started weeding and planning a rearrangement of Rachel’s garden.

As I began attacking Rachel’s Lilies of the Valley – it seems to be my main gardening task these days – I noticed that Ryan preferred to follow me around with the gardening spade imitating my every move. It wasn’t long before his hands were fully immersed in the dirt. This was progress for Ryan who, up to now, has been a little fussy about getting slimed by organic elements.

I was thoroughly enjoying the morning when I started to get that déjà vu feeling. I thought of those years of my childhood when I would spend the weekends at my grandmother Josephine’s home. The summer days were very much like my day at Rachel’s. My grandmother would have her shovel in hand as she moved plants or pulled weeds. I would be playing in a sandbox or the wading pool in her very long front yard. It was long because her small two bedroom house, actually her parent’s house, was built all the way at the back of the lot. There was no back yard.

As I recalled the few photos we have of me toddling around the Brucellaria yard at 6757 S. Hermitage, I realized how much I now resemble my grandmother. In some of the photos, soon to be retrieved from my sister, I recall her in her black “peddle-pushers” which we now call Capri pants. Her hair was salt and pepper and at about the same length of semi-curls that mine is now.

When I was a young woman I could not imagine being a middle aged grandmother. Most twenty-something women are too busy enjoying the combination of youth and adulthood to think about the stage of life when one’s body begins to experience the wear and tear of life. I knew I did not want to “let myself go” like so many of the moms of my childhood, but I also knew that I loved and admired my grandmother so much, I would want to be to my grandchildren what she was to me.

Pope Pius XI on Atheistic Communism

MAN AND FAMILY UNDER COMMUNISM

10. Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .

11. Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.