…have mercy on us and on the whole world.

H/T Street Called Straight

Pics.

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ²So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

³ So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴ Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷ as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸ Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹ (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹²and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

¹⁷Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Jesus Appears to His Disciples

¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Socon or Bust  wishes all of its readers a very Merry Christ-mass (it is, after all, a Catholic feast day ) and a holy and prosperous New Year.

We remind our readers to do the Catholic and anti-eco-worship thing:  desist from erecting artificial Christmas trees if at all possible.

Instead, cut one of these things down from Mother earth and put it up in your living room to celebrate Christ’s victory over paganism and false religion.

Who knows? Your days of being able to do it could be short, if David Suzuki and the eco-grinches have anything to do with it.

Merry Christmas!

Get the Gospel out.  Even sneaky ways like this.

Occupy.

Do your part to oppose the eco worshippers.

Light’em up!

Can you imagine any of our fuddy-duddy professionals in this country doing this?

Video interview with Little Drummer Boy.

CBC (of all media) picks up the story here.  Video is going VIRAL! From Winnipeg of all places. God does have a sense of humour. 

Bitch slap

that heretic.

In CanChurch today, there are no heretics.   Remember this 70′s song? There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy.  There’s just you and me and we just disagree. Woooo…Wohoho.

Re:  St. Nicholas’ sacking:  it’s the same thing that would happen today, isn’t it?  Tell the truth and shame the devil. Remember LifeSite and how the Bishops refused them entry?  It’s the same damn thing. Somethings never change.

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas day, everyone!

John Paul II was the Pope of my youth.  He inspired me greatly in his life and in his writings.  He was the “Pope of the Unborn” and the “Pope of Truth”.  For many of us in our 40s, he helped define and shape us as Catholics and also to focus our efforts against what he termed the “Culture of Death” and to build up and promote the “Culture of Life”.   For me personally and for many of us pro-life activists, we have devoted much of our lives to answering his call.  This was a man that was sent by God to show us the way in an increasingly dark world.  And he did that, even to his last days, which perhaps taught us more than all of his magnificent writings. 

He wasn’t perfect and there are some legitimate criticisms of how he governed the Church.  But none of us can deny his incredible pro-life legacy, his amazing witness, and his rock solid teachings.  Like my wonderful wife keeps reminding me, our greatest strengths sometimes are our greatest weaknesses.  It’s a great ironic truth.  And we should all keep that in mind in assessing his significant legacy, indeed any legacy.  He was able to reach as many people as he did because he became the first ever truly metropolitan, universal Pope in the world. 

My fondest memory of John Paul II, even tough I had never met him personally, actually occured on Apr.9, 2005, a week after his death.   That was the day 15,000-20,000 Canadians assembled on Parliament Hill to support the traditional definition of marriage.  I’ll never forget it, really, because that day for me secured the certainty that one day John Paul II would be declared a saint.  On April 9 2005,  John Paul made an indelible imprint on Parliament Hill as the hundreds of placards bearing his face testified to.  To be honest, I was rather taken aback by the display and marvelled at it.  I knew instantly that he was with us on the Hill that day, and was more powerful and real than he ever was when he walked this earth.   In looking back at it all, even my speech had JPII written all over it, which makes his witness even more personal and remarkable for me.

Something told me that day that he would return to take care of unfinished business in Canada. I firmly believe that when we put a stake through the beast of abortion in this country, it will have a lot to do with John Paul II’s strong arm in heaven doing the pounding.

Santo Subito.

Below is a wonderful song by Mark Mallet that our family listens to often. I love it. I hope you will love it too.

John Paul II, pray for Canada!  Pray for Benedict, your friend and confidant!  Pray for me, Steve, and all pro-life activists!

December 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A growing number of Christian churches are joining forces with a grass-roots movement known as the Advent Conspiracy, which is seeking to “do away with the frenzied activity and extravagant gift-giving of a commercial Christmas.”

The group was founded by Portland pastor Rick McKinley, who with a group of fellow pastors realized that their own, and their congregations’, focus during the time of Advent revolved more around secular consumerism than preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ.

“What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists,” McKinley observed.

“And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?”

“None of us like Christmas,” McKinley said in a Time.com report, adding, “That’s sort of bad if you’re a pastor. It’s the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don’t spend enough money, someone will think I don’t love them.”

McKinley, whose church donates money to dig wells in developing countries through Living Water International and other organizations, saw that a fraction of the money Americans spend at retailers in the month of December could supply the entire world with clean water.

As a result he and his friends embarked on a plan to urge their congregations to spend less on presents for friends and family, and to consider donating the money they saved to support practical and tangible charitable works.

“If more Christians changed how they thought about giving at Christmas,” he argued, “the holiday could be transformative in a religious and practical sense.”

McKinley observed that at first church members were uncertain. “Some people were terrified,” McKinley recalled. “They said, ‘My gosh, you’re ruining Christmas. What do we tell our kids?’”

Soon though, the idea caught on and McKinley found that not only were people “relieved to be given permission to slow down and buy less” but were “expressing their love through something more meaningful than a gift card. Once church members adjusted to this new conception of Christmas, they found that they loved it.”

According to the Time.com report the Advent Conspiracy movement has exploded, counting hundreds of churches on four continents and in at least 17 countries as participants.

The Advent Conspiracy video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube and the movement boasts nearly 45,000 fans on Facebook.

To find out more about the Advent Conspiracy please visit their website here.