Everything But the Kitchen Sink!

Volume XXVIII, Number 8
June 28, 2024

Arrgggh! With work piling up everywhere, I've been knocked sideways for a week by that nasty bug that's going around—and it's literally also going around to different parts of my body.

Last night it was hours of vomiting, whole-body shaking, and what seemed like two gallons of cold sweat. Throwing up is the worst!

It reminds me of what poor Gabriel and I suffered through in Oklahoma last year during Operation True Cross. I offered last night's minor suffering for the family emergency I mentioned in my last message. So far, you're prayers are being answered, so please keep them coming.

Carry the Cross with Me in South Bend

Final reminder—if you're in driving range, meet me in South Bend to carry the True Cross into Notre Dame on July 5th during the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Details here.

And Here We Go!

It's been a while since I've done an "Everything But the Kitchen Sink" message. For newer readers, that's when I provide bite-size nuggets on topics or recommendation that have been rattling around the attic of my (sickness-induced brain-fogged) mind.

The Viganò Show Trial

Archbishop Viganò should have been lionized for exposing the corrupt tolerance in the highest echelons of the Church involving that pervert Cardinal McCarrick. Instead, he was forced into hiding, and is now being put on "trial" for schism. Here are the commentaries of my favorite writer, John Zmirak, and the always reliable T.S. Flanders from 1 Peter 5.

The Highest Spiritual Good

According to Father Ripperger, the main purpose for Lucifer, had he not chosen to rebel, was to illuminate the "highest spiritual good" for man. His name does mean "light bearer."

As a result of his fall, it is especially difficult for us to see the highest spiritual good in general and amidst our individual circumstances. With grace and meditative prayer, of course, we can know the highest spiritual good. What is the highest spiritual good for you to pursue on a daily basis?

Catastrophic Failure

Many things have gone kerplooey around here. Big problems. Major distractions. Last week our website suffered a catastrophic failure for the better part of a day—which we were able to fix in an almost miraculous fashion. Now we're several weeks behind schedule in publishing our Introduction to Mental Prayer book by Saint Francis de Sales, despite working nonstop to bring it to print.

Nothing will deter us. It should be available in August. These barriers are a reliable indication that many, many souls are at stake.

Best 16 Minutes Ever for Hope!

For hope in these dark times, I refer you to one of the best, briefest, and most riveting video explanations of why the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is coming soon (and will consist of a complete "renovation of the world" through divine intervention). Turns out it's all right there in the Our Father!

It comes from the fearless John-Henry Westin and Dr. Daniel O'Connor, whose voice alone consoles me. It's only sixteen minutes.

Avoiding World War III

I don't comment on the specifics of geopolitics here, but it is no secret that powerful factions within the corrupt elite who manipulate our nation and Europe would rather risk or start a world war than give up power. The foundations for these events have been laid over hundreds of years.

Our Lady warned us at Fatima, and again at Akita, Japan, in the 1970s. Saint Padre Pio warned us. Multiple contemporary apparitions confirm the danger. Even non-religious conservative political commentators are warning us.

The divine intervention that will be granted through our Operation True Cross prayer movement cannot come too soon. "For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!"

Why Did Jesus Suffer?

Jesus speaks very clearly in his lengthy John 17 discourse, an outpouring to his Father just before his passion and death. "So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the foundations of the world."

It gets to me that Jesus uses the phrase "so that" nine times during the entire discourse. Effectively, Jesus is explaining why he is about to suffer with every so that. My son Jude, a doctoral student in theology who got me into this, says the early Church fathers equated this "glory" with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus wants me to understand that He suffered, died, and rose from the dead so I could know this "glory." So I am asking Him for it. I cannot say now that I know it, except by faith. Have you felt, sensed, or known this glory?

Thank Your Priest

At the behest of our longtime benefactor, Mike M., just a reminder to go out of your way to thank every priest you know for sacrificing his entire life to serve you. Just be sincere and use the words the Holy Spirit provides you. It can have a huge positive impact—I see it in their eyes when I do it. (You can also give them a card or a letter.)

A Way to Pray for Priests

During the Divine Mercy Chaplet portion of the Daily Prayers to Save America, I pray for all the priests—past, present, and future—who have heard or will hear my Confessions, including those in Purgatory. This way I can tell each priest at the end of all my Confessions that I pray for him every day when I thank them for their lifetime sacrifice. You can add this intention to your daily Rosary, too.

A Nice Way to Not Say Yes

When I'm in an everyday situation wherein it would be wrong or imprudent to agree with something that I don't agree with or disappoints me, I often use the phrase, "I understand." When I get a lame excuse from a contractor for not showing up? I text back, "I understand." It does not signal my approval.

How to Tell the Truth

Ever find yourself in a social situation where someone voices support for abortion or some other moral depravity, obviously fishing for confirmation? As a wise priest taught me decades ago, state the truth directly and simply, then disengage from the conversation. "I understand. Abortion is the intentional murder of an innocent human being, and it should be illegal everywhere on this planet. It can never be tolerated, justified, or rationalized." Then walk away.

The World's Largest Diocese

As a Marine, the Archdiocese of Military Services—the largest diocese in the world, serving countless Catholics in our armed forces and their families—is very important to me. Many of you serve, have served, or have family members in the military. They need priests. They need everyone's financial support and prayers. Get involved here.

Use those Little Free Libraries!

Most of you have seen those cute little book-exchange boxes on lawns. There are a handful at residences and churches in my suburb of Cleveland.

Rest assured that I stock them often with Mary Foundation materials—especially The Warning, Daily Prayers to Save America, our booklets, and even my novels. And so should you!

It's very easy to find these Little Free Libraries using a zip code or town search at the link that follows. In less than an hour of driving around the towns near your home, you and the Holy Spirit can influence many, many souls!

Find Little Libraries Near You

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Saint Paul Time-Travels to 2024

"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them." Romans 1:28-32

My Goal in Heaven

Since I was in my twenties, I have told many people that I believed with calm certainty that I would live a long life. I do not know the source of this certainty. I have just plain known it—that I would not die in a car accident (I've survived a few wrecks with no injuries!), or die from murder, disease, or drowning (which should have happened when I got pulled over a mile out into the ocean by a rip tide—completely alone—one night when I was twelve).

Some of you might recall how God miraculously intervened to save me from certain death when I slipped into a freezing cistern in New Hampshire many years ago.

This knowledge—if you can call it that—did not release me from my responsibility to avoid foolish or reckless behaviors, nor protect me from being injured or maimed. I was ever-vigilant while following our safety protocols during those hundreds of dangerous Operation True Cross walks.

Now that I'm turning sixty-two in a few months, I believe that I have now lived a long life—after all, sixty used to be a long life when I was a kid. All bets are off. And it's almost a relief. Frankly, I look forward to death. Until I keel over, I intend to keep working in the vineyard of souls.

More Good in Heaven

Our lives are but a single exhale in the lungs of our eternities. I will tell you something else I believe, if God grants me eternal salvation:

I will do much more good in heaven than on earth.

My peaceful intention is to be one of the greatest intercessors ever. If you have lived a life of intercession, maybe it is your eternal destiny, as well.

In heaven, I would like to be the kind of dude you ask to intercede for anything—from the tiniest favor to the Impossible Beyond Impossible Absolutely-Need-a-Miracle stuff. A "shake-your-head" kind of saint, as in, "How could such a not-very-holy mediocre guy like him be such a powerful intercessor?"

I share this interior sense not out of ego or ambition, but out of gratitude. I ask for the intercession of saints constantly, especially Saint Anthony, and I am so grateful. He does everything for me! He is like my brother, my father, and my uncle all wrapped into one perfect friend.

I want to be like him. I want to be like the Poor Clares all over the United States right now (who I write to regularly begging for help), who unceasingly prostrate themselves before the Throne of the King.

God designed me to be peacefully persistent. To fight. To "ask" so that others can "receive."

If God put me on this earth to influence tens of millions of people so far—and to do so without being particularly holy—then surely when I am in heaven, and therefore am actually holy, God can easily set me up doing there what He is having me do here—but for countless people in billions of ways.

If my patron saint Thérèse of Lisieux sends roses, then I'll send lilies. Or something. Maybe a bird, like a cardinal. Or diet colas. I'll take special care to the conversion of the hardest of hearts among your friends and relatives.

Somebody will have to work up a novena to Saint Bud, Patron of Walkers.

Nothing matters except that souls go to heaven and not hell. So if you ever hear of my passing from this mortal coil, have Masses offered to get me outta Purgatory so I can get back to work.

Quotations

"It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you."
- Jesus

"Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians you see today—you shall never see them again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still."
- Moses, Exodus 14:13

"If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it."
- Jesus

"Life is loss."
- Varro, Stargate Universe television series

"I feel in me the vocation of the Priest. I have the vocation of the Apostle. Martyrdom was the dream of my youth and this dream has grown with me. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places... in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love... my vocation, at last I have found it... My vocation is Love!"
- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

"Nothing is so hard that it does not yield to that which is harder."
- Saint Bernard

"Torture us, rack us, condemn us, crush us. Your cruelty only proves our innocence. That is why God suffers us to suffer all this."
- Tertullian

Awesome Power of a Loving God

And so, tens of thousands of us together, with our prayers being perfected and presented by Immaculate Mary to the Holy Trinity, and along with all of our angels, let us begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, show me the glory
you shared with the Father
before the foundations of the world.

O My Savior, you are the source and cause of love for you,
so grant me this grace to love you more, and then, more.

O Holy Spirit, give me the power to love you as you love me.

O Father, may thy will be done, to me, and everyone I love,
on earth as it is in heaven.

O Immaculate Mary,
be with me every minute of this day,
and every day, for all my days,
until the days that are no more.

Saint Anthony, pray for us.
Little Flower, pray for us.
Amen.
Last Pot in the Kitchen Sink

For all of you who stuck with this whole message today, this is from a May 2001 CatholiCity Message, back in the days of Pope Saint John Paul the Second the Great:

POPEMOBILE BUMPER STICKERS
Question Authority. Ask Me Anything.
Infallibility on Loan from God
God Really is My Co-Pilot
Honk if You Pray the Rosary
Choose Eternal Life
All Roads Lead to Rome
Say Mass, Not War
Give Me Confession or Give me Death
I Brake for Souls
Bible On Board
Livin' the Vida Papa!
Hang Up and Pray
Sin Happens
Make My Day. Kiss My Ring!
I'd Rather Be Saying Mass

Enough? Enough. Until next time, keep praying the Daily Prayers, stay frosty, and remember...

...you guys are the best! Thank you for being a part of our work and our lives. Please, please let me not vomit tonight.

With All the Saints,

Bud Macfarlane
King of Upchucking

 

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