The shadow of the Holy Cross hung over the cave in Bethlehem even as the shepherds who had been called by angels from the nearby fields adored the Infant King alongside the Mother of God and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph.

Holy Mother Church directs our attention to this fact today as we focus on the truth that the Birth of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in Bethlehem on Christmas Day was to make possible our own spiritual rebirth in the Baptismal font and our birth unto eternal life at the moment of our deaths if we persist to the very end in states of Sanctifying Grace. The path to our salvation runs directly through the Holy Cross and it requires us to be willing to sacrifice riches and honors and pleasures and human respect and even our very lives to bear witness to Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to men exclusively through the Catholic Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr was willing to lay down his life as he preached the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer in an attempt to convert the Jews who were listening to him and engaging him in disputation. He exhibited the Virtue of Fortitude as he proclaimed the Gospel in the midst of insults an threats. And Saint Stephen the Protomartyr exhibited the Virtue of Charity as he prayed for his executioners, one of whom was the fire-breathing anti-Catholic zealot named Saul of Tarsus.

Saint Stephen's prayers at the time of his martyrdom and from eternity thereafter won the conversion of Saul, who became the Apostle to the Gentiles, Saint Paul the Apostle. Saint Stephen wanted to effect the conversion of his executioners. He did not seek to reaffirm them in their act of murder or to reaffirm them in the practice of Judaism. Saint Stephen did not dismiss or denigrate the gravity of their crimes. He simply did not hold those crimes against his persecutors as he prayed for their conversion.

We must pray always for those who hate us, for those who calumniate us, for those who have done us some injury in the past, for those who have rejected us for one reason or another. Praying for and forgiving those from whom we are estranged is not an option for a Catholic. It is an obligation of the interior life imposed directly by the God-Man Himself in the Sermon on the Mount.

If He forgives us so readily in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, why are we so slow to forgive others who owe us but an infinitesimally small portion of what we owe Him for our own forgiven sins?

As the late Father John Hardon, S.J., noted in a 1996 conference in Sterling Heights, Michigan, at which I gave two presentations, "God permits us to sin so that we can forgive each other. Let me repeat myself here: God permit us to sin so that we can forgive each other."

A sinner who is contrite and thankful to God never withholds forgiveness from his fellow sinner. Saint Stephen teaches us that lesson today.

Are we going to learn it once and for all?

A continued merry and most blessed Christmas to you all.

A new article should be ready for posting by tomorrow, the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

The conception and birth of a child changes the life of his parents forever. The death of a husband or a wife ends the sacramental bond of Holy Matrimony. Neither the death of a parent or his child ends the bonds between them that were forged at the moment of the child's conception.

This is the third of four republished reflections for Christmas Day.

This is the second of four republished Christmas reflections. 

Once again, a blessed Christmas to you all!

Our Lady, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Rejoice! Venite Adoremus! Our Saviour has been born for us of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Midnight in piercing cold. Venite Adoremus!

Surrounded by the host of Heavenly angels, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity Who was made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, at the Annunciation nine months before is born for us this night. The long awaited Messiah comes as a helpless Infant, born in anonymity, poverty and humility. Bright radiant beams shine forth from His Holy Face, a Face that would be marred beyond all recognition by our sins as He walked on the Via Dolorosa on Good Friday to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross and thus make possible for us eternal life in Heaven in the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, Himself, the God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

Those bright beams that shone forth from the Newborn Baby Jesus this morning are meant to shine forth from our own souls as we grow in the graces that He won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. There is no Holy Mass, where Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is born under the appearances of bread and wine every time a true bishop or a true priest utters the terrible words of Consecration, without this holy night. Just as Our Lord obeyed His Heavenly Father to become Man, so does He obey mere men when they, whose immortal souls have been conformed to His Priesthood and Victimhood, utter the words of Consecration over the mere elements of this earth, making Him Incarnate to feed our bodies and souls unto eternal life.

There is no regeneration of souls in the Baptismal font or in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance without this holy night.

There is no hope for mankind without this holy night.

There is, as the first Pope, Saint Peter, teaches us, no "salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4: 12.) Only Christ the King is God. None other. Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. None other.

We gather around Our Lady, out of whose Virginal and Immaculate Womb the Newborn Babe passed as light through crystal this morning, and her Most Chaste Spouse, Good Saint Joseph, to adore Our Saviour, the very Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world, including yours and, most especially, mine!

May the Joyful Mysteries we continue to pray during this Octave of Christmas help us to be ever thankful for the great, incomparable gift that Our Lady gave to us this night as she brought forth her Divine Son so that He, Who stretched out His holy arms in the Crib this night, could stretch out this holy arms on the wood of the Cross to embrace all men to lift them up to the Heavenly Father in Spirit and in Truth.

On behalf of my wife Sharon and our daughter Lucy, I wish each of you a most Blessed and Joyous Christmas. This greeting is extended to all who access this site. No matter the difficulties of the present moment as false ecclesiastical officials deny the Sacred Rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King and esteem the symbols of false religions that are hideous and loathsome in His sight, the peace of Christ the King that He has entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother is something that a believing Catholic must will for everyone, praying fervently for all whom God's Holy Providence has placed in his path over the years, including those, of course, from whom various events have estranged us.

May each of us, united to the Merciful Heart of the Divine Redeemer that was formed out of us and is united yet to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, help us to pray for each other as we pray for the day with all Catholics will speak with one voce (una voce) and will think with but one mind, that of the Catholic Church, she who teaches the unchanging truths of the Immutable Triune God.

A blessed Christmas to you all.

Holy Mary, Mother God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is nigh today. He comes to us in Midnight in piercing cold in Bethlehem.

Have we prepared to "make haste," that is, to flee from the world and its false attractions and promises and "saviours" to welcome Him in our hearts and souls by means of Holy Communion?

Have we asked His Most Blessed Mother, Who brought Him forth miraculously in the cave when there was no room for Him in the inn, to help us to make room for Him in the "inns" of our hearts and souls.

Have we asked the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, Good Saint Joseph, to protect and to guide us as we seek out His Divine foster-Son as He is born for us on Altars of Sacrifice in the Catholic catacombs?

Are we prepared to celebrate this Christmas with joy and with thanksgiving as the Word Who was made Flesh in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost beckons us to adore Him in His Real Presence day in and day out?

Make haste, the Lord is nigh. Midnight is coming.

Are we ready?

Make haste.

Prepare well.

Our Saviour is to be born for us!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

A judge in Ireland haso sentenced a sixty-six year-old woman who refused to a mask in public places to eighteen months in prison by denouncing her "absurd selfishness."

This is a brief commentary on the absurdity of the judge and the paganism of these times.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Today is the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Saint Thomas did not believe that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had risen from the dead on Easter Sunday. Our Lord told the doubting Apostle to press his finger into His nail marks and to press his hand into His wounded side. Saint Thomas believed. Along with the other Apostles, including the one who replaced Judas Iscariot, Saint Matthias, Saint Thomas became a bold proclaimer of the Catholic Faith, going to India, where he sacrificed his life for the Holy Faith. Saint Thomas the Apostle touched the flesh of the Risen Saviour with his own hands. He then went on to touch the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of that same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with his own priestly hands as he uttered the words at Holy Mass that made the Messias incarnate under the appearances of bread and wine. The very words Saint Thomas uttered after he had touched Our Lord on Low Sunday, Dominus meus et Deus meus, are what we pray every time a true priest utters these words at Holy Mass: "Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum." As we prepare the celebration of Christmas Day four days from now, we should ask Saint Thomas to help us reverence Our Lord in His Real Presence with greater fervor as we grow stronger in the Faith with every passing day, consecrated as we are to Our Lord through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. 

Also, Sin: More Deadly Than the Coronavirus, part fifteen was published yesterday, Monday, December 20, 2021, the Vigil of Saint Thomas.

Remember to check out my books for Christmas gifts. One that is particularly timely in light of the conciliar Vatican's shutting down the Summorum Pontificum and Ecclesia Dei Adflicta spigots is G.I.R.M. Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship. I will write about the latest restrictions soon.  

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

With apologies for the delay in completing part fifteen of this series, I trust that you will understand that I did as much as I could in the hospital after the surgery on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, the Octave Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Commemoration of Ember Wednesday in Advent, to repair the four fractures in my right hip that I had suffered in a fall on Tuesday, December 14, 2021. A great part of this commentary, however, was written on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2021, after my return home from the hospital the previous today to commence the three months of recovery that my body will need to heal from the surgery to repair the injuries. Thank you for your patience.

I may have another original article before Christmas. I did, however, want to complete this commentary but must be prudent in my expenditure of energy by taking breaks now and again from the computer.

Republished reflections will be posted tomorrow, Tuesday, December 21, 2021, the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, and on Wednesday, December 22, 2021, the Feast of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini here in the United States of America.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.