Far More Serious Charges Await Those Who Arrogantly Defy God's Laws

“They swatted a tsetse fly.”

Thus spoke the late Father Vincent Peter Miceli, who was the son of Italian immigrants and lived in the South Bronx before he began studies for the priesthood with the New Orleans Province of the Society of Jesus in 1936 prior to his ordination in 1949 and went on to earn a licentiate in Sacred Theology and a doctorate in Philosophy, after I had asked him at Holy Apostles Seminary what he thought about President Ronald Wilson Reagan’s decision to send military troops to Caribbean island nation of Grenada to supposedly rescue American medical students there but was actually an American-led coup against Communists who themselves had overthrown the elected Communist.

Father Miceli’s point was that the Reagan went after the Communists in Grenada while leaving those in Cuba alone. The Soviet-back regime of Fidel Castro was the source of Communist unrest in El Salvador, the takeover of Nicaragua, and elsewhere, including in Grenada. Father Miceli was upset that action was taken against the source of the Communist bacillus, Cuba.

In like manner, you see the guilty verdict in the case of First Grifter Hunter Biden for lying about being a drug addict when filling out a Federal form to purchase a firearm was the least of the charges that could have been brought against the Chief Grifter’s bagman who peddled the Biden name with foreign oligarchs, including those who were directly tied to the Chinese Communist Party, for millions upon millions of dollars while making sure that the “Big Guy” (Chief Grifter Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.) cut his cut of the loot. Officials within the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and in the offices of the United States Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, made sure that the statute of limitations on more serious charges against Hunter Biden ran out before any indictments could be brought against him. It was not until two Internal Revenue Services whistleblowers alerted Congressional Republicans to how investigators from the FBI and the United States Ministry of Injustice not only stonewalled the investigation but also alerted Hunter Biden’s attorneys about FBI searches before they took place.

Yesterday’s guilty verdict even on this least of all the things that could Hunter Biden could have been charged with had not the statute of limitations been permitted to expire would not have happened unless the president judge, Maryellen Noreika, had not stopped David Weiss’s sweetheart plea deal with Hunter Biden to indemnify him for any and all Federal crimes he might have committed if he pled guilty to the gun charge:

Hunter Biden’s defense team and federal prosecutors tried to slip the first son’s wrist-slap plea deal past a Delaware federal judge Wednesday, only to see their plan unravel when the jurist called out the agreement as flawed — and possibly unconstitutional.

Hunter, 53, was poised to admit to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income taxes and enter a diversionary program on a felony weapons charge.

However, near the end of the diversionary agreement was a paragraph reading, in part, “The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, for any federal crimes” committed by the first son for which the statute of limitations had not already expired.

One problem: Diversions are granted at prosecutors’ sole discretion. They’re a pledge not to prosecute a specific crime — in this case, Hunter Biden’s gun charge — if the defendant meets certain conditions.

While judges have authority to accept or reject plea deals, they often do not have a say in diversion agreements. US District Judge Maryellen Noreika smelled a rat, complaining that she was not given a copy of the crucial paragraph until just before the hearing began.

“Are you relying on that promise in connection with your agreement to accept the Memorandum of Plea Agreement and plead guilty?” Noreika asked Hunter, who responded: “Yes, your honor.”

“If that provision were not valid or not enforceable, would you accept [the agreement]?” the judge followed up, to which Hunter answered: “No, your honor.”

Moments later, Noreika noted the diversionary agreement did not include a space for her signature, while the plea deal for the tax misdemeanors did.

“You’re saying I don’t even get to accept [the diversion agreement], I guess I’m supposed to rubber-stamp it,” Noreika said. “I am concerned that you’re taking provisions out of the agreement, of a plea agreement that would normally be in there.”

“She was basically caught on the fly here having to say, ‘Well, let’s talk about what this is all about.’ And it became clear that it was not properly thought out,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, told The Post.

Noreika made prosecutor Leo Wise the focus of her ire, asking at one point: “Do you have any precedent for agreeing not to prosecute crimes that have nothing to do with the case or the charges being diverted?”

“I’m not aware of any, your honor,” Wise conceded.

Moments later, Noreika blew a massive hole in the deal.

“To the extent that the agreement not to prosecute is promised, do the parties have some understanding what the scope of that agreement is?” she asked Wise.

“Yes, your honor,” he said.

“No, tell me, like specifically what does it include,” Noreika pressed. “You said that there is an investigation, I don’t know what that is, but you must know that if there are particular charges that could be brought based on the facts that are there.”

“I can tell you what I think we can’t charge. I can’t tell you what the ongoing investigation is,” Wise deflected. “So, for instance, I think based on the terms of the agreement, we cannot bring tax evasion charges for the years described in the factual statement to the plea agreement. And I think we cannot bring for the firearms charges based on the firearm identified in the factual statement to the Diversion Agreement.”

“Could the government bring a charge under the Foreign Agents Registration Act?” asked the judge, alluding to what appears to be a federal probe pertaining to the younger Biden’s overseas dealings.

“Yes,” Wise admitted.

Defense lawyer Chris Clark then made a stunning remark: “As stated by the government just now, I don’t agree with what the government said.”

“I mean, these are contracts,” Noreika said. “To be enforceable, there has to be a meeting of the minds. So what do we do now?”

“Then there is no deal,” Wise said.

“As far as I’m concerned, the plea agreement is null and void,” agreed Clark, who had indicated last month he wouldn’t be inclined to accept a deal knowing that additional charges could be forthcoming.

Even as the deal went down in flames, Noreika continued ripping it apart, raising concerns that she would be the one tasked with determining whether Hunter Biden violated the terms of his pretrial diversion agreement, such as a commitment to remain sober.

“I’m concerned that that provision makes me a gatekeeper to criminal charges and puts me in the middle of a decision as to whether to bring a charge,” she said. “That choice as to whether to bring charges is not — that’s the executive branch, not the judicial branch, so is this even constitutional?”

Multiple legal experts commended Noreika’s dissection of the agreement.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told The Post the implosion of such a plea deal is “very rare.”

“This is usually a carefully choreographed hearing with prior and detailed discussions between the parties,” Turley said. “The suggestion was that this was improvisational. I am not so sure.”

“I think it was basically amateur hour on their part,” Kamenar said, referring to the attorneys on both sides. “Thank goodness that this judge didn’t become a party to this plea deal.”

Turley added that Noreika deserved credit for having drawn answers out of both federal prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s legal team that prevented either party from “poisoning the well for future charges.”

Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor and current candidate for Missouri attorney general, also credited Noreika for having sniffed out a blanket immunity clause that both parties “effectively hid” in Hunter’s pre-trial diversion agreement for having lied on a federal gun purchase form.

“That pretrial diversion agreement as written was actually MUCH broader than just the gun charge,” Scharf said on Twitter. “If Hunter were to complete probation, the pretrial diversion agreement prevented [the] DOJ from ever bringing charges against Hunter for any crimes relating to the offense conduct discussed in the plea agreement, which was purposely written to include his foreign influence peddling operations in China and elsewhere.”

“So they put the facts in the plea agreement, but put their non-prosecution agreement in the pretrial diversion agreement, effectively hiding the full scope of what DOJ was offering and Hunter was obtaining through these proceedings,” he pointed out, adding that the first son’s lawyers “blew up the deal” only after prosecutors admitted to Noreika that “Hunter remained susceptible to prosecution under FARA.”

“It was the court that raised FARA,” Turley also told The Post. “The question is whether the Justice Department will now actually treat Biden like other defendants. The hearing was bizarre. It was like a minister at a wedding asking if anyone objects to a union and having both the groom and bride object.”

Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, said his legal team, which submitted a brief to Noreika ahead of the hearing, revealed the plea deal as “a Trojan Horse for global immunity for Hunter.”

“It wasn’t really about the tax or gun charges, it was about letting him off the hook for any crimes that may arise from running a multimillion-dollar international influence-peddling scheme with his father as the product,” Howell told The Post. “They tried to slip it past the judge. We pointed this out to her in our brief to the court and are thrilled she agreed with us.”

“Hunter, his lawyers, and the DOJ came to Delaware to execute that corrupt bargain. They left with nothing,” he said.

Ultimately, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty, a placeholder move while his legal team is expected to meet with the prosecution to hash out their differences.

“What happens after that is either the case is settled, which is done 90% of the time, or they go to trial,” Kamenar said.

In the end, the judge conveyed sympathy to the first son, but stressed that she needed more information before she could agree to sign off on any deal.

“Mr. Biden, I know you want to get this over with, and I’m sorry, but I do want to make sure that I am careful in my view of this,” Noreika said. “So I do need some more information. And part of that is making sure that your plea gets you what you think it gets.”

(How DOJ, Hunter lawyers tried to sweet-talk judge into accepting sweeping plea deal.)

The rest, as they say, is now history, and even though Grifter-in-Chief Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., has said he will not pardon his son, no one has asked him whether he would grant Hunter Biden executive clemency, which would commute whatever sentence Judge Maryellen Noreika might give him whenever the sentencing is scheduled. The addlebrained senior Biden, whose dementia is now pretty obvious even to those with the highest ranks of the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” as well as to those who have been his critics, including the New York Post (see Pray Joe Biden will freeze, slur and stumble his way to defeat in 2024), which broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, has not said that he would not give his son executive clemency. I think he will do so at some point after the election, whether he wins, which he probably by hook or crook, or loses.

Investigate reporter Miranda Devine summarized the case as follows:

In the end, Hunter Biden and his army of pricey lawyers got tripped up by their own arrogance and overconfidence.

In Joe Biden’s home state, where the Biden name is feared and the Biden family has been royalty for 50 years, a jury of 12 ordinary Delawareans sitting in a courthouse in Wilmington judged the evidence honestly, ignored the intimidating presence of the first lady and found the president’s son guilty on all three felony gun charges.

For once, a Biden has been held accountable, although the gun charges were the least serious of the crimes considered by investigators in the troubled five-year financial probe of Hunter in Delaware.

The first son now faces a felony tax fraud trial in California in September but even there, the charges just skim the surface of the evidence and the links to Joe Biden’s corruption that investigators were blocked from pursuing.

Can’t cover it up

Hunter, 54, assumed his father’s power would protect him, as it has all his life.

But he could have avoided the jury’s verdict and the collateral damage to his father’s presidential campaign if only he had accepted for once some minimal responsibility for his wrongdoing, if he had not instructed his lawyers to demand blanket immunity and threaten prosecutors with “career suicide.”

Hunter still has not admitted ownership of the laptop that formed the backbone of the prosecution case as Government Exhibit 16.

That’s the same laptop Joe Biden lied about when he told the American people before the 2020 election that it was a “Russian plant,” the same laptop that the “Dirty 51” former intelligence officials lied was Russian disinformation, the same laptop that Facebook and Twitter tried to hide by censoring the New York Post.

They went to such lengths because they knew that what was on that laptop was so detrimental to candidate Biden that it would cost him the election.

Now they refuse to admit their lies because that would mean admitting that they interfered with that election.

But now that the evidence has been laid bare in court about Hunter’s chaotic, crack-addicted life during his father’s vice presidency, it is impossible for the president’s protectors to avoid the truth of why the Chinese and Ukrainians paid his son millions of dollars.

They weren’t paying for Hunter’s business acumen.

They were paying for his father’s favor.

Whistleblowers win

There would have been no guilty verdict, no gun trial, no indictment on tax fraud, and not even last year’s ill-fated sweetheart plea deal if two IRS whistleblowers had not risked their livelihoods to do the right thing.

For IRS Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley, it was a bitter irony to hear special counsel David Weiss thanking Attorney General Merrick Garland Tuesday for giving him the “independence” to pursue the investigation into Hunter.

That independence only came after Shapley and his fellow IRS whistleblower Joe Ziegler lawfully told Congress last year about the obstruction and slow-walking of the investigation under then-Delaware US Attorney Weiss. Garland testified to Congress that Weiss had full authority to pursue charges against Hunter, but that wasn’t the case.

Weiss passively allowed Biden appointees in California and Washington, DC, to refuse to partner with Delaware to bring charges, and then he allowed the statute of limitations to run out on the most serious allegations from 2014 and 2015.

Only when Shapley and Ziegler blew the whistle did Weiss and Hunter’s lawyers stitch together an absurdly generous plea deal that fell apart under the scrutiny of an honest judge in Delaware.

Only then did Garland grant Weiss the independence of special counsel status so he could do damage control.

Shapley and Ziegler went back to Congress again after Hunter testified to the Biden impeachment inquiry in February, providing the House Ways and Means Committee with evidence that the first son lied under oath at least three times.

Their evidence formed the basis for a criminal referral to the DOJ last week by House Republicans recommending the prosecution of Hunter and his uncle James Biden for lying to Congress. Another test for Garland.

‘The right thing’

“This is what happens when people do the right thing,” said Shapley of Tuesday’s guilty verdict.

“This is what happens when you shine light on the darkness. But it shouldn’t have required two people to risk their livelihoods.”

Hunter’s tax trial in September, just weeks before the election, poses a greater political risk to the president because the indictment includes evidence from 2014 and 2015, which covers the Burisma years when Hunter was paid $1 million a year by the corrupt Ukrainian energy company while his father was vice ­president.

It covers Joe ordering the Ukrainian government to fire the honest Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.

The pressure on Hunter to take a plea deal will be enormous.

The president will likely spin Hunter’s gun conviction as a testament to his own integrity and humble acceptance of the jury verdict, in contrast to Donald Trump’s complaint that he is the victim of a two-tiered justice system.

But nobody buys Joe’s claim that he will not use his power to pardon his son. If his presidency has taught us anything, it is that his “word as a Biden” is ­worthless. (Big Daddy Joe Biden couldn't save Hunter this time around. Also see: Hunter Biden is guilty but don't expect his arrogance to end and Arrogant Hunter Biden has never been held accountable — until now.)

This is all very true. However, we should also remember that far more serious charges await those who arrogantly defy God's laws and remain unrepentant in their defiance until they die. 

No matter the open and shut case took concluded yesterday in Delaware, the real story of the Biden Family Crime Syndicate is that its capo di tutti capo has long believed that “nobody [messes] with a Biden.” This means that Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, believes that he is above the eternal laws of God and the just laws of men, something that he has demonstrated by his arrogant, aggressive support for baby-butchery and for perversity with respect to God’s eternal laws and his arrogant, aggressive efforts to penalize his opponents and to stonewall legitimate investigations of a coordinate branch of the Federal government. The capo di tutti capo has taught his children to be as arrogant as he has been throghout his whole life.

In this regard, therefore, Biden’s arrogant belief about his own and his family’s immunity from the consequences of his—and their—actions, is responsible for his failing to raise his children to live virtuously as befits redeemed creatures. After all, he has not lived virtuously, starting with the fact that he has always been a serial plagiarist, pathological liar and a fabulist without peer who has refused to accept God’s Holy Will in his life, most notably with the tragic death of his first wife and their daughter as a result of an automobile accident for which she was responsible but which “Joey Baby” blamed on the truck driver who hit her car after she ran a red light:

The worst moment of Joseph R. Biden’s life — the 1972 car crash that killed his wife and baby daughter — has drawn renewed attention over a falsehood that the former vice president repeated for years: that the other driver was drunk.

From 2001-07, Mr. Biden indicated at least twice that the tractor-trailer driver who hit his wife’s car had been drinking, even though the state official who oversaw the investigation and the driver’s daughter said that wasn’t true.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Pamela Hamill, the daughter of driver Curtis C. Dunn, called on Mr. Biden to apologize publicly after he told a crowd that her father “drank his lunch” before the accident, according to a 2008 article in the Newark [Delaware] Post.

“A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly — and I never pursued it — drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly and killed my daughter instantly and hospitalized my two sons,” Mr. Biden said in 2007.

In a 2001 speech at the University of Delaware, he referred to an “errant driver who stopped to drink instead of drive” and “hit my children and my wife and killed them,” according to a 2008 report in NewsBusters, citing a 2001 “Inside Edition” report.

Mr. Biden apparently stopped making the claim after a burst of media attention.

In a January article in Politico, Ms. Hamill said that Mr. Biden called her to apologize following a 2009 CBS report on the discrepancy.

“He apologized for hurting my family in any way,” she said. “So we accepted that — and kind of end of story from there.”

Mr. Dunn, who died in 1999, hit the station wagon driven by 30-year-old Neilia Biden as she drove to buy a Christmas tree with the Bidens’ three young children: Beau, 4; Hunter, 3, and Naomi, 13 months.

The rig overturned as Mr. Dunn swerved to avoid the collision, but he “ran to the wrecked car and was the first to offer assistance,” the Post reported.

Now-retired Delaware Superior Court Judge Jerome O. Herlihy, who oversaw the investigation as chief deputy attorney general, told Politico, “She had a stop sign. The truck driver did not.”

In 2008, he told the Post that rumors about alcohol playing a role in the accident were “incorrect.”

This is awful. Did you know for years  told people his wife and 13-month-old daughter were killed by a drunk driver, when in fact the accident was tragically her fault. The truck driver was haunted by the accident until he died — Rosie memos (@almostjingo) 

Townhall’s Guy Benson called the vice president’s inaccurate references to drinking, which first appeared in 2001, “bizarre and disturbing.”

“The whole situation is sad enough, why embellish it with what amounts to be an unsupported smear of a man who — according to the authorities — was not drunk, did not cause the accident, and immediately sought to ‘render assistance’ to the victims?” asked Mr. Benson in a Thursday op-ed.

An extremely difficult and sensitive topic to cover. 

Mr. Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential primary front-runner, has been criticized for embellishing his speeches with exaggerations and inaccuracies, such as his claim that he met with Parkland students at the White House after the 2018 shooting, even though he left office in January 2017.

RedState’s Elizabeth Vaughn said Mr. Biden’s “mischaracterization of this accident doesn’t surprise me.”

“It’s part of a pattern of behavior that we’ve come to associate with Biden,” she said in a Thursday post. “He has a history of embellishing events which have occurred and occasionally inventing entire stories out of whole cloth if it serves his purpose. Put another way, this man’s word is not to be trusted.”

The Biden boys recovered from injuries sustained in the crash, which happened six weeks after Mr. Biden was elected to his first term in the Senate. Beau Biden died in 2015 of cancer.

In the 2008 article, Ms. Hamill said she worried that without a Biden rebuttal, the “drunk driver” angle could eventually take root in the public narrative. The claim had already appeared in several articles about Mr. Biden leading up to the election.

“Suppose he becomes the next vice president,” she told the Post. “Movies could be made about him and books could be written about him, all falsely portraying my father as a drunk driver. We need to set the record straight and clear my father’s name right now before this goes any further.” (Joe Biden's false claim about drunken driver draws renewed scrutiny. Also see Whoa: Did Joe Biden Falsely Smear the Truck Driver Involved in the Car Crash That Killed His First Wife and Daughter? Biden Covered for Brother Frank Over Fatal Hit-and-Run Even After Own Wife, Child's Tragic Car Deaths: Book.)

I, for one, am amazed that anyone finds the pro-abort, pro-perversity, pro-open border, pro-everything bad grifter Biden’s mendacious behavior in the White House to be in any way extraordinary. The man has lived his entire life lying with impunity, and he is also a greedy, slimy, transparent crook as well:

Crooks lie.

Crooks lie all the time.

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is a thief, a crook, a bum, a deranged demagogue, a thug, and an enabler of George Soros-sponsored harassment of Democratic Party opponents, including United States Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) and Joseph Manchin (D-West Virginia), of his $3.5 trillion budget and $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill (see George Soros-Linked Group Behind Public Harassment of Kyrsten Sinema).

A Catholic father who can shirk his responsibility to advance the salvation of his children’s immortal souls and, quite indeed, is their accomplice in acts that are tantamount to, if not actually, treasonous by selling one’s family name and the influence it brings to the Chicoms, who are enemies of Christ the King and of all mankind in addition to be enemies of the legitimate national security interests of the United States of America. The unvirtuous who remain unrepentant will one day have to face Christ the King at the terrible moment of his Particular Judgment:

Beloved Christians, of all the goods of nature, of fortune, and of grace, which we have received from God, we are not the masters, neither can we dispose of them as we please; we are but the administrators of them; and therefore we should employ them according to the will of God, who is our Lord. Hence, at the hour of death, we must render a strict account of them to Jesus Christ, our Judge. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 'proper things of the body as he hath done, whether it be good or evil"--II. Cor., v. 10. This is the precise meaning of that "give an account of thy stewardship", in the gospel of this day. "You are not," says St. Bonaventure, in his comment on these words, "a master, but a steward over the things committed to you; and therefore you are to render an account of them". I will place before your eyes to-day, the rigour of this judgment, which shall be passed on each of us on the last day of our life. Let us consider the terror of the soul, first, when she shall be presented to the Judge; secondly, when she shall be examined; and thirdly; when she shall be condemned.

First point. Terror of the souls when she shall be presented to the Judge.

1. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and, after this, the judgment"--Heb., ix. 27. It is of faith that we shall die, and that, after death, a judgment shall be passed on all the actions of our life. Now, what shall be the terror of each of us, when we shall be at the point of death, and shall have before our eyes the judgment which must take place the very moment the soul departs from the body? Then shall be decided our doom to eternal life, or to eternal death. At the time of the passage of their souls from this life to eternity, the sight of their past sins, the rigour of God's judgment, and th uncertainty of their eternal salvation, have made the saints tremble. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi trembled in her sickness, through the fear of judgment; and to her confessor, when he endeavoured to give her courage, she said, Ah, father, it is a terrible thin to appear before Christ in judgment. After spending many years in penance in the desert, St. Agatho trembled at the hour of death, and said: What shall become of me when I shall be judged? The venerable Father Louis de Ponte was seized with such a fit of trembling at the thought of the account which he should render to God, that he shook the room in which he lay. The thought of judgment inspired the venerable Juvenal Ancina, Priest of the Oratory, and afterwards the Bishop of Saluzzo, with the determination to leave the world. Hearing the Dies Irae sung, and considering the terror of the souls when presented before Jesus Christ, the Judge, he took, and afterwards executed, the resolution of giving himself entirely to God.

2. It is the common opinion of theologians, that, at the very moment and in the very place in which the soul departs from the body, the divine tribunal is erected, the accusation is read, and the sentence is passed by Jesus Christ, the Judge. At this terrible tribunal each of us shall be presented, to give an account of all our thoughts, of all our words, and of all our actions. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he heath done, whether it be good or evil"--II. Cor., v. 10. When presented before an Earthly judge, criminals have been seen to fall into a cold sweat through fear. It is related of Piso, that, so great and insufferable was the confusion which he felt at the thought of appearing as a criminal before the senate, that he killed himself. How great is the pain of a vassal, or of a son, in appearing before an angry prince or an enraged father, to account for some crime which he has committed! Oh! how much greater shall be the pain and confusion of the soul in standing before Jesus Christ enraged against her for having despised him during her life! Speaking of judgment, St. Luke says, "Then they shall see the Son of Man"--Luke, xxi. 27. They shall see Jesus Christ as man, with the same wounds with which he ascended into Heaven. "Great joy of the beholders!" says Robert the Abbot, "great terror of those who are in expectation!" These wounds shall console the just, and shall terrify the wicked. In them sinners shall see the Redeemer's love for themselves, and their ingratitude to him.

3. "Who," says the Prophet Nahum, "can stand before the face of his indignation?--i. 6. How great, then, shall be the terror of a soul that finds himself in sin before this Judge, the first time she shall see him, and shall see him full of wrath! St. Basil says that she shall be tortured  more by her shame and confusion than by the very fire of Hell. "Horridior quam ignis, erit udor". Philip the Second rebuked one of his domestics for having told a lie. "Is it thus", said the kin to him, "you deceive me?" The domestic, after having returned hom, died of grief. The Scripture tells us, that when Joseph, reproved his brethren, saying, "I am Joseph, whom you sold", they were unable to answer for fear, and remained silent. "His brethren could not answer him, being struck with exceeding great fear"--Gen., xlv. 3.Now, what answer shall sinners make to Jesus Christ when he shall say to them: I am your Redeemer and your Judge, whom you have so much despised? Where shall the miserable beings fly, says St. Augustine, when they shall see an angry Judge above, Hell open below, on one side their own sins accusing them, and on the other devils dragging them to punishment, and their conscience burning them within? "Above shall be an enraged Judge; below a horrid chaos; on the right, sins accusing him; on the left, demons dragging him to punishment; within, a burning conscience. Whither shall a sinner, beset in this manner, fly?" Perhaps he will cry for mercy? But how, asks Eusebius Emissenus, can he dare to implore mercy, when he must first render an account of his contempt for the mercy which Jesus Christ had shown to him? "With what face will you who are to be first judged for contempt of mercy, ask for mercy?" But let us come to the rendering of the accounts.

Second point. Terror of the soul when she shall be examined.

4. As soon as the soul shall be presented before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, he will say to her: "Give an account of thy stewardship": render instantly an account of thy entire life. The Apostle tells us, that to be worthy of eternal glory, our lives must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ. "For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son;...them he has also glorified"--Rom., viii.. 29, 30. Hence St. Peter has said, that in the judgment of Jesus Christ, the just man, who has observed the divine law, has pardoned enemies, has respected the saints, has practised chastity, meekness and other virtues, shall scarcely be saved. "The just man scarcely shall be saved." The Apostles adds: "Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"--I. Pet. iv., 18. What shall become of the vindictive and the unchaste, of blasphemers, and slanderers? What shall become of those whose entire life is opposed to the life of Jesus Christ?

5. In the first place, the Judge shall demand of sinners an account of all the blessings and graces which he bestowed upon them in order to bring them to salvation, and which they have rendered fruitless. He will demand an account of the years granted to them that they might serve God, and which they have spent in offending him. "He hat called against me the time"--Lam., i. 15. He will then demand an account of their sins. Sinners commit sins, and afterwards forget them; but Jesus Christ does not forget them: he keeps, as Job says, all our iniquities numbered, as it were in a bag. "Thou has sealed up my iniquities, as it were in a bag"--Job, xiv. 17. And he tells us that, on the day of accounts, he will take a lamp to scrutinize all the actions of our life. "And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps"--Soph., i. 12. The lamp, says Mendoza on this passage, penetrates all the corners of the house--that is, God will discover all the defects of our conscience, great and small. According to St. Anselm, an account shall be demanded of every glance of the eyes. "Exigitur usque ad ictum oculi". And, according to St. Matthew, of every idle word. "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it on the day of judgment"--Matt., xii. 36.

6. The Prophet Malachy says, that as gold is refined by taking away the dross, so on the day of judgment, all our actions shall be examined; and every defect which may be discovered shall be punished. "He shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold"--Mal. iii. 3. Even our justices--that is, our good words, confessions, communions, and prayers--shall be examined. "When I shall take a time, I will judge justices"--Ps., lxxiv. 3. But, if every glance, every idle word, and even good works, shall be judged, with what rigour shall immodest expressions, blasphemies, grievous detractions, theft, and sacrileges be judged? Alas! on that day every soul shall, as St. Jerome says, "see to her own confusion, all the evils which she has done. "videbit unusquisque quod fecit."

7. "Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord"--Prov., xvi. 11. In the balance of the Lord, a holy life and good works make the scale descend; but nobility, wealth, and science, have no weight. Hence, if found innocent, the peasant, the poor, and the ignorant, shall be rewarded. But the man of rank, of wealth, or or learning, if found guilty, shall be condemned."Thou art weighted in the balance", said Daniel to Balthassar, "and art found wanting"--Dan., v. 27. "Neither his gold, nor his wealth", says father Alvares, "but the king alone was weighed."

8. At the divine tribunal, the poor sinner shall see himself accused by the Devil, who, according to St. Augustine, "will recite the words of our profession, and will charge us before our face with all that we have done, will state the day and the hour in which we sinned"--Con. jud., tom. VI. He will recite the words of our profession; that is, he will enumerate the promises which we have made to God, and which we afterwards violated. He will charge us before our face; he will upbraid us with all our wicked deeds, pointing to the day and hour in which they were committed. And he will, as the same saint says, conclude his accusation by saying: "I have suffered neither stripes nor scourges for this man." Lord, I have suffered nothing for this ungrateful sinner, and to make himself my salve, he has turned his back on thee, who hast endured so much for his salvation. He, therefore, justly belongs to me. Even his angel-guardian will, according to Origen, come forward to accuse him, and will say" I have laboured so many years for his salvation; but he has despised all my admonitions. "Unusquisque angelorum perhibet testimonium, quot annis circa eum laboraverit sed ille monita sprevit"--hom., lxvi. Thus, even friends shall treat with contempt the guilty soul. "All her friends have despised her"--Lamen., i. 2. Her ver sins shall, says St. Bernard, accuse her. "And they shall say: You have made us; we are your work; we shall not desert you"--Lib., Medit., cap. ii. We are your offspring; we shall not leave you; we shall be your companions in Hell for all eternity.

9. Let us now examine the excuses which the sinner will be able to advance. He will say, that the evil inclinations of nature had drawn him to sin. But he shall be told that, if concupiscence impelled him to sins, it did not oblige him to commit them; and that, if he had recourse to God, he should have received from him grace to resist every temptation. For this purpose Jesus Christ has left us the sacraments; but, when we do not make use of them, we can complain only of ourselves. "But," says the Redeemer, "now they have no excuse for their sin"--John, xv. 22. To excuse himself, the sinner shall also say, that the Devil tempted him to sin. But, as St. Augustine says, "The enemy is bound like a dog in chains, and can bite only him who has united himself to him with a deadly security." The Devil can bark, but cannot bit, unless you adhere and listen to him. Hence the saint adds: " See how foolish is the man whom a dog loaded with chains bites". Perhaps he will advance his bad habits as an excuse; but this shall not stand; for the same St. Augustine says, that though it is difficult to resist the force of an evil habit, "if any one does not desert himself, he will conquer it with the divine assistance". If a man does not abandon himself to sin, and invokes God's aid, he will overcome evil habits. The Apostle tells us, that the Lord does not permit us to be tempted beyond our strength. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able."--I. Cor., x. 13.

10. "For what shall I do", said Job, "when God shall rise to judge me? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him?"--Job., xxxi. 14. What answer shall the sinner give to Jesus Christ? How can he, who sees himself so clearly convicted, give an answer? He shall be covered with confusion, and shall remain silent, like the man found without the nuptial garment. "But he was silent"--Matt., xxii. 12. His very sins shall shut the sinner's mouth. "And all iniquity shall stop her mouth"--Ps., cvi. 42. There, says St. Thomas of Villanova, there shall be no intercessors, to whom the sinner can have recourse. "There, there is no opportunity of sinning; there, no intercessor, no friend, no father shall assist". Who shall then save you? Is it God? But how, asks St. Basil, can you expect salvation from him whom you have despised? "Who shall deliver you? Is it God, whom you have insulted?"--S. Bas., Or. 4, de Pen. Alas, the guilty soul that leaves this world in sin, is condemned by herself before the Judge pronounces sentences. Let us come to the sentence of the Judge.

Third point. Terror of the soul when she shall be condemned.

11. How great shall be the joy of a soul when, at death, she hears from Jesus Christ these sweet words: "Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. Enter into the joy of thy Lord"--Matt., xxv. 21. Equally great shall be the anguish and despair of a guilty soul, that shall see herself driven away by the Judge with the following words: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire"--verse 41. Oh! what a terrible thunderclap shall that sentence be to her! "O how frightfully", says the Carthusian, "shall that thunder resound!" Eusebius writes that, the terror of sinners at hearing their condemnation shall be so great, that, if they could, they would die again. "The wicked shall be seized with the terror at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence, that, if they were not immortal, they should die a second time" But, brethren, let us, before the termination of this sermon, make some reflections which will be profitable to us. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that some listen to discourses on the judgment and condemnation of the wicked, with as little concern as if they themselves were secure against these things, or as if the day of judgment were never to arrive for them. "Heu quam securi haec dicimus et audimus, quasi nos non tangeret haec sententia, aut quasi dies haec nunquam esset venturus!" Cone. i., de Jud. The saint then asks: Is it not great folly to entertain security in so perilous an affair? "Quae est ista stulta securitas in discrimine tanto?" There are some, says St. Augustine, who, though they live in sin, cannot imagine that God will send them to Hell. "Will God" they say, "really condemn us?" Brethren, adds the saint, do not speak thus. So many of the damned did not believe that they should be sent to Hell; but the end came, and, according to the threat of Ezechiel, they have been cast into that place of darkness. "The end is come, the end is come. . . and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee"--Ezec., vii. 2, 3. Sinners, perhaps vengeance is at hand for you, and still you laugh and sleep in sin. Who will not tremble at the words of the Baptist, "for now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire"?--Matt., iii. 10. He says, that every tree that does not bring forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire: and he promises that, with regard to the trees, which represent sinners, the axe is already laid to the roots--that is, the chastisement is at hand. Dearly beloved brethren, let us follow the counsel of the Holy Ghost--"Before judgment, prepare thee justice"--Eccl., xviii. 19. Let us adjust our accounts before the day of accounts. Let us seek God, now that we can find him; for the time shall come when we will wish, but shall not be able to find him. "you shall seek me and shall not find me"--John, vii. 36. "Before judgment," says St. Augustine, "the Judge can be appeased, but not in judgment". By a change of life, we can now appease the anger of Jesus Christ, and recover his grace; but when he shall judge, and find us in sin, he must execute justice, and we shall be lost. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Sermon on the Particular Judgment, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is a serial liar. He is a man of iniquity himself and he has suborned iniquity, impurity, indecency, filth, and degradation in those around him, especially the family’s breadwinner, the “recovering” crackhead named Hunter Biden. Biden’s mouth is an open sepulcher, and is mind, such as it has ever been, is filled with the falsehoods of a false age that was described by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to Blessed Anna Taigi in 1829 as follows:

The precursor signs revealed to the Blessed have little to do with the assumptions of worldly prudence. On November 9, 1820, the priest recorded: 'When you see a happy, quiet day of great contentment, then store food: bread, wine, oil. Money will not be lacking. (...) wicked Rome, cruel Rome, you will see the end of iniquity' (Vol. VI, p. 96). The confusion of ideas is one of the signs that are most found in the records of Mons. Natali. On June 8, 1829, he notes: 'Now reign bad customs, politics, human respect, simulation. There is a general scandal everywhere. This is the greatest and strongest punishment that has fallen upon the whole world: the confusion of ideas. I often told you that before the end we would pass by the Tower of Babel. But the end will come when I see fit' (Vol. VII, p. 468). And in 1828: 'Remember, my daughter, that I told you that the Tower of Babel is installed' (Vol. VII, pp. 375-376). On March 31, 1819, he wrote Mons. Natali: 'the Blessed told me that one day she would not know how to point out, during the first years [of the revelations], she heard that the world would be reduced to such a state that the few priests who remained would be forced to live hidden in the sewers carrying the Blessed Sacrament in their bosom' (Blessed Anna Maria Taigi: The Contemplative of the Struggle between Light and Darkness, Vol. IV, p. 391).

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is an end product of Modernity’s confusion of ideas that leaves no place for Christ the King and His true Church in the lives of nations and even, sadly, in the lives of so many people who consider themselves “good” Catholics even though they support evils that cry out to Heaven for vengeance and suborn extortive acts to shake down oligarchs no matter what it might cost their country as long as it enriches their own coffers by means of dummy bank accounts and shell corporations based in the “First State,” Delaware, a place where he had stored classified documents in a garage next to a Corvette, of course.

Although there are untold numbers of Catholic parents who, despite their best efforts after having given their children all the benefits of the Holy Faith, are suffering today in the pattern of Saint Monica herself, there are, most unfortunately, millions upon millions more who treat their grown children as demigods who must be pampered, enabled, and abetted at every turn no matter what they say, what they do, how they act, or who they hurt. No parent, however including Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, and his wife, Dr. Jill Tracy Jacobs Stevenson Biden, who has been so bold as to wear Rosary beads around her neck while promoting baby-killing in Africa, where so many unsuspecting women have been sterilized by means of “vaccines” imported from the West, has anything other but the empty love of sentimentality for his children if he or she does or says anything that impedes their salvation of their souls by reaffirming them in lives of debauched sin and debauched hedonism; and, similarly no parent has any true love for his children if he omits to do or say anything that could dissuade them from displeasing God by Moral Sin and thus risk perishing in the eternal flames of hell described so vividly by Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri:

13. The reprobate shall be likewise tormented by the stench which pervades hell. The stench shall arise from the very bodies of the damned. “Out of their carcasses shall arise a stink.” (Isaiah 34:3). The bodies of the damned are called carcasses, not because they are dead (for they are living, and shall be forever alive to pain), but on account of the stench which they exhale. Would it not be very painful to be shut up in a close room with a fetid corpse? St. Bonaventure says, that if the body of one of the damned were placed in the earth, it would, by its stench, be sufficient to cause the death of all men. How intolerable, then, must it be to live forever in the dungeons of hell in the midst of the immense multitudes of the damned! Some foolish worldlings say, If I go to hell, I shall not be there alone. Miserable fools! do you not see that the greater the number of your companions, the more insufferable shall be your torments? “There,” says St. Thomas, “the society of the reprobate shall cause an increase and not a diminution of misery.” (Suppl., q. 86, art. 1). The society of the reprobate augments their misery, because each of the damned is a source of suffering to all the others. Hence, the greater their number, the more they shall mutually torment each other. “And the people,” says the prophet Isaias, “shall be ashes after a fire, as a bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire.” (Is. 33:12). Placed in the midst of the furnace of hell, the damned are like so many grains reduced to ashes by that abyss of fire, and like so many thorns tied together and wounding each other. 

14. They are tormented not only by the stench of their companions, but also by their shrieks and lament. How painful it is to a person longing for sleep to hear the groans of a sick man, the barking of a dog, or the screams of an infant. The damned must listen incessantly to the wailing and howling of their associates, not for a night, nor for a thousand nights, but for all eternity, without the interruption of a single moment. 

15. The damned are also tormented by the narrowness of the place in which they are confined; for, although the dungeon of hell is large, it will be too small for so many millions of the reprobate, who like sheep shall be heaped one over the other. “They are,” says David, “laid in hell like sheep.” (Ps. 38:15). We learn from the Scriptures that they shall be pressed together like grapes in the winepress, by the vengeance of an angry God. “The winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty.” (Rev. 19:15). From this pressure shall arise the pain of immobility. “Let them become unmovable as a stone.” (Ex. 16:16). In whatever position the damned shall fall into hell after the general judgment, whether on the side, or on the back, or with the head downwards, in that they must remain for eternity, without being ever able to move foot or hand or finger, as long as God shall be God. In a word, St. Chrysostom says, that all the pains of this life, however great they may be, are scarcely a shadow of the torments of the damned. “Hæc omnia ludicra sunt et risus ad ilia supplicia, pone ignem, ferrum, et bestias, attamen vix umbra sunt ad ilia tormenta.” (Hom, xxxix. ad pop. Ant).  

16. The reprobate, then, shall be tormented in all the senses of the body. They shall also be tormented in all the powers of the soul. Their memory shall be tormented by the remembrance of the years which they had received from God for the salvation of their souls, and which they spent in laboring for their own damnation; by the remembrance of so many graces and so many divine lights which they abused. Their understanding shall be tormented by the knowledge of the great happiness which they forfeited in losing their souls, Heaven, and God; and by a conviction that this loss is irreparable. Their will shall be tormented by seeing that whatsoever they ask or desire shall be refused. “The desire of the wicked shall perish.”(Ps. 111:10). They shall never have any of those things for which they wish, and must forever suffer all that is repugnant to their will. They would wish to escape from these torments and to find peace; but in these torments they must forever remain, and peace they shall never enjoy.  

17. Perhaps they may sometimes receive a little comfort, or at least enjoy occasional repose? No, says Cyprian, “Nullum ibi refrigerium, nullum remedium, atque ita omni tormento atrocius desperatio.” (Serm. de Ascens). In this life, how great soever may be the tribulations which we suffer, there is always some relief or interruption. The damned must remain forever in a pit of fire, always in torture, always weeping, without ever enjoying a moment’s repose. But perhaps there is someone to pity their sufferings? At the very time that they are so much afflicted the devils continually reproach them with the sins for which they are tormented, saying, Suffer, burn, live forever in despair, you yourselves have been the cause of your destruction. And do not the saints, the divine mother, and God, who is called the Father of Mercies, take compassion on their miseries? No; "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven.” (Matt. 26:29). The saints, represented by the stars, not only do not pity the damned, but they even rejoice in the vengeance inflicted on the injuries offered to their God. Neither can the divine mother pity them, because they hate her Son. And Jesus Christ, who died for the love of them, cannot pity them, because they have despised his love, and have voluntarily brought themselves to perdition. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, “On the Pains of Hell,” Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori For All the Sundays of the Year, published originally in 1852 and photographically reproduced by TAN Books and Publisher in 1982, pp. 93-95. The entire sermon is appended below.)

Yes, far more serious charges await us all at the Particular Judgment than can ever be rendered here on this face of this earth, which is why we must have recourse to the tender mercies of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus by making regular use of the Sacrament of Penance.

Our sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer unspeakable horrors in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and they caused Our Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with those Seven Swords of Sorrow, four of which were plunged deep into that same Immaculate Heart during her Divine Son's Passion and Death. We must be punished because of our own sins, and it is important for us to remember that even though the Biden Family Crime Syndicate will not escape scrutiny if its members and beneficiaries persist in their moral and financial crimes until they die, the reality is we are more responsible for the foul state of the world and of the Church Militant on earth than we realize or would like to admit.

The worst kind of slavery is slavery to Original Sin, wherein one's soul is captive to the devil and thus blinded from seeing the world clearly and whose disorderly passions are even more inclined to act in accord with the spur of the moment rather than in accord with even natural reason.

Fallen human nature is such, however, that even the the baptized vie with each in acts to aggrandize themselves, their power, and their fame while seeking to escape all just punishment in this life.  Men who fall into the habit of persisting in and multiplying unrepentant Mortal Sins, blind themselves voluntarily as they seek after everything but the Catholic Faith as the means to guide their lives, being content to remain in slavery to devil, whether by means Original Sin or Mortal Sin, as they heap up riches, power, and influence in this life in the belief that this is the singular and all-defining purpose of human existence justifying whatever means are employed to obtained monetary wealth and/or worldly power.

The insanity and madness of Modernity that is supposed to produce "happiness" in this mortal vale of tears winds up producing anxiety and fear and misery and sadness.

This is the time of Antichrist, who has many figures walking abroad amid the lords of Modernity in the world and the lords of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. We must simply endeavor to remain faithful to the very end.

These words from the book that inspired fourteen-year-old Therese Martin to seek admission the Carmel of Lisieux are rather pertinent:

However, it would not be correct to conclude from this testimony that there will be none of the elect left on earth, and that the Son of God will not fail to keep the promise made to His Church, when He sid, Propter electos, dies breviabuntur ("because of the elect, the days will be shortened"). Moreover, St. John, in his [Apocalypse] adds, "And he [the beast] will be worshiped by those who dwell upon the earth whose names are not written in the book of life."

St. Augustine tells us that, in the reign of the Antichrist, thee will be multitudes of martyrs who will display a heroic constancy, and also a number, more or less large, of confessors who will manage to escape into caves and high or sheer mountains, and God will see to it that these sanctuaries shall elude the vigilance and investigations of the persecutors, and will not permit the Devil to point them out them.

Daniel tells us that, at the time of when this terrible persecution breaks out, the abomination of desolation will openly sit enthroned in the holy place. "The king shall do s he pleases," says Daniel. "He shall exalt himself and make himself greater than any god; he shall utter dreadful blasphemies against the God of god . . . He shall have no regard for the gods of his ancestors . . . for no good shall he have regard."

In other words, once the man of sin has cowed the human once by his threats and entangled it in the meshes of his lies and wiles, he will observe no restraint, show his hand, and act openly. He will not permit anyone to worship or invoke any other god than himself, and will proclaim himself sole lord of heaven and earth. Wherever he is not present in person, men will be obliged to pay homage to his image or statue. Et elevabitur, mangifcabitur adversus ominem Deum. He will tolerate neither the Mosaic religion, nor natural religion itself. He will persecute with equal thoroughness Jews, schismatics, heretics, deists, and every sect that recognizes the existence of a supreme being and the immortality of the life to come. Yet God, in His wisdom, will draw good from evil. The horrible tempest that His justice has allowed to be unleashed upon the earth will result in the disappearance of false religions. Along with Judaism, it will abolish the remains of Mohammedans, idolatrous superstitious, and every religion hostile to the Church.

It will deal the finishing blow to the sects of darkness. Freemasonry, Carbonarism, Illuminism, and all subversive societies will vanish in the vortex of wickedness which will be their work, and which they had prepared for centuries in the belief that it would be their definitive, supreme triumph. They will have assisted unintentionally in the establishment of the reign of unity foretold by our Lord: "There one flock then, and one shepherd."

The triumph of the wicked one will be of short duration, but the consolations that follow will be universal, abundant, proportionate to the extent of the tribulations to the Church will have suffered.

However, the final consummation will not come yet, as it is written:

And when the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and loud voices in heaven cried out; the voices of angels and of virgins, together with the voices of confessors and holy martyrs, will hail Christ with praise and acclamations, giving thanks for His victory over the Antichrist, and for the extermination of the wicked. All men, now become worshipers of one and the same God, all professing the same faith, united in the same adoration, sharing the same table, will exclaim in chorus: "The kingdom of this world now belongs our Lord and to his Anointed One . . . We praise you, O Lord God Almighty, who is and who was and who are to come; because You have assumed your great power, and You have begun Your reign. (Father Charles Arminjon, The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, translated by Susan Conroy and Peter McEnerny. Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2008, pp. 67-68.)

Perhaps the octogenarian in the White House will read Father Arminjon’s words one day and be converted away from his life of perdition, demagoguery, deceit, and the full use of the levers of state-sponsored injustice against his political opponents. We must pity his fate if does not convert and stop his indemnification and celebration of sin in his own life and protecting it under the cover of the civil law while persecuting those who call sin by its proper name and recognize that sanctity, not sin, is the only basis of a just social order.

We, for our part, must remember that our weapon in these times of the open promotion of sin is Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary.

Pray the Rosary.

Pray the Rosary.

Pray the Rosary.

We must enfold ourselves into the love of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we make reparation for our own many sins, which are so responsible for the worsening of the state of the Church Militant on earth and of the world-at-large, as we seek to restore all things in Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

The enemies of Christ the King within in our souls and in the world-at-large will be defeated by Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary and the fulfillment of her Fatima Message.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us. 

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint John of San Facundo, pray for us.

Saints Basilides, Cyrinius, Nabor, and Nazarius, pray for us.

Appendix

The Divine Office on the Feast of Saint John of San Facundo

John Gonzalez was born, the offspring of a noble race, at San Fagondez in Spain, on Midsummer Day in the year of grace 1430. His father and mother after long childlessness, obtained him from God by prayers and good works. From his earliest years he gave clear signs of his after holiness of life. He was used to climb up upon an high place to preach to the other little boys, and to exhort them to be good and to worship God, and he made it his work to reconcile their quarrels. While he was still at home he was given in charge to the monks of the Order of Saint Benedict, at the village of San Fagondez, to teach him his first lessons. While he was thus busied, his father obtained for him the benefice of the Parish, but no persuasions could induce him to keep this preferment. He became one of the household of the Bishop of Burgos, and that Prelate, seeing his uprightness, took him into his counsels, ordained him Priest, and made him a Canon, heaping upon him many kindnesses. However, that he might serve God the more quietly, he left the Bishop's Palace, resigned all his Church income, and betook him to a certain Chapel wherein he celebrated the Holy Liturgy every day, and oftentimes preached concerning the things of God, with great profit to all that heard him

He went later to Salamanca to study, and there being taken into the celebrated College of St. Bartholomew, he did his priestly office, so that he was at once constant to the studies he desired and busy with sermons. Here he had a severe illness, and vowed to take up a sterner way of living. In fulfillment of this vow, he gave to an half-naked beggar the better of the two garments which were all that he had, and then went to a Convent of the friars of St. Augustine, which was then in the richest bloom of rigid discipline. Being admitted therein, he surpassed the most advanced in obedience, lowliness, watchings, and prayer. At the time that he had charge of the table, one keg of wine abundantly sufficed in his hands for all the friars, throughout an whole year. After his year of novitiate, he undertook the duty of preacher at the command of his Superior. At that time, owing to bloody feuds, all things human and divine at Salamanca were in such utter confusion, that murders were committed almost every hour, and the streets and squares, and the very churches, flowed with the blood of all classes, especially of the nobility.

It was John, who by public preaching and private conversations, softened the hearts of the citizens so that the town was restored to peace. He grievously offended one of the nobles by rebuking him for his cruelty toward his vassals. This man sent two knights to murder him on the road. They had already come nigh him when God sent a terror upon them, so that they and their horses stood still, until they cast themselves down before the feet of the Saint, imploring his forgiveness for their sin. The Prince himself, also, smitten with a sudden dread, despaired of his salvation, till he had sent for John, who, finding him repent of his deed, restored him to soundness. Some quarrelsome men, likewise, who were fain to give him a cudgelling, found their arms stiffen, nor would their strength come back till they had asked his pardon for their wickedness. Oftentimes when he was celebrating the Holy Liturgy, the Presence of the Lord Christ became sensibly manifest to him, and he drank in things heavenly from their Divine Well-head Himself. Oftentimes also he could see the secrets of men's hearts, and foretell strange things to come. He raised from the dead his own niece, aged seven years. He foretold the day of his own death, and prepared himself by receiving most devoutly the Sacraments of the Church, and then fell asleep in the Lord, upon the 11th day of June, in the year 1475. God glorified him by many miracles, both before and after his death. These being duly proved, Alexander VIII. numbered him among the Saints. the Christians took them, and buried them honourably. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint John of San Facundo, June 12.)