Dyslexia tutor/ proud grandma/ Sacred Heart
Joined November 2020
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True Drew retweeted
Not a clump. Not a choice. A child.
Repost so someone sees it today.
#ProLife
True Drew retweeted
Catholic Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein has vetoed a bill that would have legalized abortion in the Catholic-majority country! The decision marks the first time Prince Alois has exercised his veto during his reign.
True Drew retweeted
A remarkable Catholic treasure has emerged from centuries of obscurity in York: a medieval prayer scroll so rare that only eleven examples are known to survive anywhere in the world. What makes this particular discovery extraordinary is what it reveals about how our ancestors prayed.
Hidden among the historic collections of the Bar Convent in York, the beautifully preserved manuscript dates from around 1475, just decades before the English Reformation would transform the country's religious life. It is known as an Arma Christi scroll, from the Latin for the 'weapons of Christ', a reference to the instruments of Our Lord's Passion: the Cross, the nails, the crown of thorns, the lance and the other objects associated with His suffering and death.
For medieval Catholics, these were not simply illustrations of historical events. They were aids to meditation, drawing the believer into contemplation of Christ's sacrifice and the mystery of redemption. The scroll contains a devotional poem known as O Vernicle, associated with the image of Christ's face on the veil of St Veronica.
But the York manuscript possesses a feature that makes it unique among the surviving examples. After each verse appear responses written in red ink, suggesting that the scroll may have been used for communal prayer as well as private devotion. That is a fascinating discovery because it challenges assumptions about how these devotional manuscripts functioned.
We sometimes imagine medieval Catholicism as a religion experienced principally through the clergy and the ceremonies of the parish church. Yet the evidence increasingly reveals a much richer devotional world, in which laypeople prayed, meditated and participated in the Church's spiritual life in their homes and communities.
The Arma Christi tradition reminds us that medieval Catholics were deeply familiar with the physical details of Christ's Passion. The instruments of His suffering became a language through which ordinary believers contemplated the cost of redemption.
There is another extraordinary dimension to this story.
The manuscript somehow survived the upheavals of the Reformation and eventually found its way into the collections of the Bar Convent, an institution established in 1686 during a period when English Catholics continued to face serious legal restrictions. We do not yet know precisely how the scroll arrived there, who preserved it or why it remained unnoticed for so long. Those unanswered questions form part of the research being undertaken by Dr Hannah Thomas, whose work was the subject of a University of York lecture on 20 October.
What fascinates me is the continuity this object represents. A prayer composed for Catholics in late medieval England survived into a world in which the public expression of that same faith had become dangerous. It was preserved within a Catholic institution that itself embodies the extraordinary resilience of English recusancy.
We should not pretend that we know the manuscript's complete history, but its survival is a tangible connection between the devotional life of pre-Reformation England and the Catholic communities that endured afterwards. How moving is that?
Nearly 550 years after its creation, the scroll can still direct our attention to precisely what its original readers contemplated: the wounds of Christ and the love revealed through His Passion.
For all the extraordinary historical questions this discovery raises, perhaps its most important lesson is that the Catholic faith was never simply a matter of institutions, politics or ecclesiastical authority. It was also lived through prayer, memory and devotion, often in the most intimate circumstances of ordinary life.
This little scroll offers us a rare glimpse into that world, and into a spiritual inheritance that is still very much our own.
True Drew retweeted
THERE IS NOTHING TO MOCK BEFORE DEATH. 🙏🕯️
In these hours, we are reading many comments under the post dedicated to Father Patricio, who died while celebrating the Holy Mass. Among them, unfortunately, there are also many faces laughing. And honestly, we are sorry to see so much lightness in the face of death of a man, of a priest, of a person who was celebrating the Eucharist.
We are free to believe or not in God. Everyone can have their own ideas about the Church, about faith, and about religious institutions. No one claims that everyone thinks the same way. Freedom of thought is a right, but respect for death and for the pain of others should be a human duty.
It is not necessary to be religious to understand that before death, we need silence, respect, and humanity. One can disagree with a priest's faith, one can not recognize oneself in the Church, but this does not justify turning a tragedy into a reason to laugh or mock.
Behind that news, there is a life that has ended, there are people who can suffer, there is a community that is crying, and there is a priest who, as we have learned, died while celebrating the Mass.
If you do not believe, we respect your freedom. If you do not love the Church, we respect your opinion. But we ask you, with sincerity, to respect also those who believe, who suffer, and who choose to pray.
Not everything should become a reason to mock. Not every news story should turn into a battle between believers and non-believers. There are times when, before writing a comment or leaving a laughing face, it would be nice to pause for a moment and ask yourself if what we are doing is truly respectful of human dignity.
Before death, we do not need polemics, provocations, or laughter. We need respect.
And if you do not know what to say, sometimes silence is much more dignified than a thousand words.
We will continue to do what this page exists for: to announce the Gospel, share faith, and invite people to pray, without seeking applause, but trying to bring a little good into people's hearts.
Father Patricio, we entrust you to the Lord. May God welcome you into his mercy and give comfort to those who mourn your passing.
To those who believe, we ask for a prayer. To those who do not believe, we ask for respect. To all, we ask for a little more humanity. 🙏🕯️
Source:corpus domini
True Drew retweeted
There's not a moment's peace or relief from the cameras for Pope Leo it seems.
Moving photographs, never the less, which released today of Pope Leo XIV celebrating Mass in a room on the tenth floor of Rome's Gemelli Hospital, just three days after undergoing surgery for lung cancer.
The medical news is encouraging, his doctors report steady improvement & he's already able to undertake normal daily activities independently, which is pretty amazing given the surgery he underwent. But what struck me most was that the Pope celebrated Mass for the doctors, nurses and hospital staff who have been caring for him, thanking them in his homily for their daily service to the sick and vulnerable.
The Pope's gratitude to his medical team is completely normal for anyone in this situation, many of us have actually been there & the Church has always understood caring for the sick as a profoundly Christian vocation, recognising in those who suffer the face of Christ himself. Medicine & prayer are not in any way competing alternatives, they different expressions of our responsibility to care for the whole human person.
And there, in a hospital room rather than the grandeur of St Peter's Basilica, the Holy Father continues exercising the most essential dimension of his priesthood: offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. St Paul reminds us that God's power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). That doesn't make suffering desirable, nor does it diminish the seriousness of the Pope's diagnosis. But it reminds us that Christian hope is not dependent upon the absence of suffering. May God grant Pope Leo a full recovery, bless the medical professionals caring for him, and bring consolation to everyone facing the fear and uncertainty of serious illness.
Ad multos annos, Holy Father.
True Drew retweeted
BREAKING: 🇫🇷 A major cyberattack has hit supermarket refrigeration systems across France, reportedly causing fresh and frozen food to spoil after hackers remotely manipulated temperature controls.
According to BFMTV, the attack began overnight from Sunday into Monday, targeting older versions of refrigeration-control software supplied by Danish company Danfoss.
The attackers allegedly exploited the systems’ defrosting function, forcing refrigeration equipment to heat continuously instead of keeping products cold. Temperatures were reportedly set as high as 50°C, destroying entire stocks of food within hours.
Several major supermarket chains have been affected, including Intermarché, Super U and E.Leclerc. Metro stores and independent businesses, including butcher shops also have been impacted.
Around 150 Intermarché stores are reportedly affected, according to industry sources cited by BFMTV. The full number of affected locations remains unclear.
The financial damage is already significant. In Haguenau, Alsace, an Intermarché store reportedly lost its entire frozen-food stock, worth approximately €50,000. A nearby Super U allegedly had to discard both fresh and frozen products, with losses estimated at €220,000. An E.Leclerc store in the same town was also affected, although its losses had not yet been calculated.
The combined losses reported at the Intermarché and Super U stores in Haguenau alone amount to around €270,000. Nationwide damage could reach several million euros.
Intermarché reportedly confirmed the incident in an internal communication, warning that several stores had suffered losses of frozen products. Coopérative U also acknowledged the attack and established crisis teams to assist affected stores and coordinate with refrigeration specialists.
Technical investigations are ongoing, and the full extent of the damage has yet to be established.
Authorities and companies are still working to determine the full circumstances of the attack. The identity of the perpetrators has not been confirmed.
True Drew retweeted
😳 — WOW!! THEY EXPECTED 15 COUPLES. 102 SIGNED UP. 🇺🇸
A California diocese launched a small program helping civilly married couples prepare for marriage in the Catholic Church.
The response forced organizers to arrange multiple celebrations. Dozens have already celebrated the sacrament.
Sometimes people are waiting for someone to invite them home. ✝️
True Drew retweeted
I’m telling my sons that Cornell exposes the poverty of a sexual ethic built almost entirely around consent.
We have told young people that sex can be easily detached from marriage, permanence, fidelity, children, responsibility, even love, and that as long as everyone says yes, the encounter is morally legitimate.
That leaves women with an impoverished set of categories afterward. If a sexual experience leaves her feeling ashamed, degraded, used, or disgusted, our culture gives her very little language for saying: I consented, but it was still wrong. I participated in something that was bad for me.
Instead, the options increasingly become: it was liberation, or it was rape.
But there is a third category: consensual sexual behavior can still be degrading, exploitative, reckless, and morally destructive.
Consent matters because sexual coercion or assault is a grave violation of another person. No man has the right to force himself on a woman, exploit her impairment or incapacity, or use her body against her will. But the absence of coercion/assault does not make a sexual act good.
Consent establishes a floor, not a moral vision. It tells us when a boundary has been violated; it cannot tell us what sex is for, where it belongs, or what men and women owe one another before, during, and after it.
Marriage can.
Marriage does not treat sex as a free-floating act whose morality is determined only by whether two people consent in the moment. It reserves sex for a specific context because sex is powerful, consequential, and sacred.
Before the sexual act, a man and woman stand before their families, their community, and God and make a public, lifelong commitment to one another. That commitment gives sex its proper purpose, perspective, and protection. Sex then becomes not merely something two people agree to do, but the bodily expression of a covenant they have already made: fidelity, permanence, mutual obligation, and openness to the children their union can create.
That framework asks much more of a man than, “Did she say yes?” It asks: Have you promised yourself to her? Will you remain faithful to her? Will you accept responsibility for the children sex may create? Will you still be there tomorrow, next year, and fifty years from now?
Marriage offers a richer sexual ethic. It says consent is necessary, but it is not enough.
Sex belongs inside a covenant strong enough to bear its meaning, its potential, its vulnerability, and its consequences.
That is what I want my sons to understand. The goal is not merely to become men who can secure consent.
It is to become men worthy of making, and keeping, the kind of promise that gives sex its proper home.
True Drew retweeted
SSPX Bishop Goldade tells us that Modernism is a “desert” which “kills everything it touches.” Meanwhile, at Mass in my parish this morning…A beautiful Gloria. A reverent liturgy. Full pews. Families, children, young people and old, gathered around the altar for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There are serious questions to be asked about the liturgical crisis and nobody should pretend that the last sixty years have been without enormous damage. But describing the ordinary life of the Catholic Church as a spiritual desert simply does not correspond with what millions of Catholics actually encounter every Sunday. This is not a desert. This is the Catholic Church, alive, worshipping and handing on the Faith. Turn the sound up. Gloria in excelsis Deo!!
True Drew retweeted
Remember this insight from Dostoevsky when they talk about how great life will be when your work is no longer necessary because of artificial tech.
"Very little is required to destroy a person: one has only to convince him that the business he is engaged in
is not necessary to anyone.
~Fyodor Dostoevsky
True Drew retweeted
This absolutely blows my mind. 🤯
British microsculptor Willard Wigan recreated The Last Supper inside the eye of a needle—Jesus and His disciples, sculpted on a scale almost impossible to comprehend.
And seeing it immediately made me think of this verse:
✝️ Matthew 19:24
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Of all the places to recreate The Last Supper… the eye of a needle. That makes this piece even more incredible. ❤️🙏
True Drew retweeted
I applaud Virginia Bishop Michael Burbidge for sounding the alarm.
He has instructed every priest in his diocese to address from the pulpit a dangerous ballot measure that could dramatically expand abortion in Virginia.
Let’s be clear: tearing apart a child in the womb is not healthcare. It is violence against an innocent human life, and we must never be silent about it.
True Drew retweeted
Hace dos meses y medio, cuando tomé posesión de la parroquia, el 90% de los fieles comulgaba en la mano. Literal.
Desde el primer día, dije que usaría el comulgatorio (hermoso, de mármol), aún si no pudiesen arrodillarse (incluso es más rápido dar la comunión así).
Saqué los ministros extraordinarios también y les expliqué que podrían ayudar con los presos y los enfermos, si lo deseaban. Entendieron (nunca les habían leído los documentos de la Iglesia, por cierto).
Hoy, dos meses y medio después y sin siquiera predicar sobre la comunión en la mano, 90 % ya comulga en la boca.
Para terminar la catequesis, ayer prediqué este sermón: al momento de la comunión, el 99% de ellos comulgó en la boca.
La gente, cuando no está ideologizada y se le explica con humildad, entiende.
Holy Communion: In the Hand or on the Tongue?
Homily, September 20, 2026
Last Sunday, in our homily, we reflected on the need to strengthen our catechesis concerning the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Today, continuing with that theme, we would like to conclude these reflections by considering the manner in which we receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.
Few liturgical questions have generated as much discussion in recent decades as the manner of receiving Holy Communion. To understand the issue properly, we need to set ideological positions aside and consider both what happened historically and what the Church has actually taught.
What Happened in 1969?
In 1969, under Pope St. Paul VI, the Instruction Memoriale Domini was issued. Its historical context is important. In a number of places, the practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand had been introduced without authorization, contrary to the discipline then in force. At the same time, the Church was deeply concerned about errors and confusion regarding the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Faced with this situation, the Holy See consulted the bishops of the world. The majority favored retaining the traditional discipline—that is, receiving Holy Communion on the tongue.
Pope Paul VI therefore confirmed the traditional manner of receiving Communion and warned that changing the practice could lead to diminished reverence toward the Blessed Sacrament, the danger of profanation, and the adulteration of true doctrine. Nevertheless, in places where the contrary practice had already become established—particularly in countries with a Protestant heritage—episcopal conferences could request an indult—that is, an exceptional permission—from the Holy See for Communion to be distributed in the hand.
“But Didn’t the Early Christians Receive Communion in the Hand?” someone might ask
There is evidence that Christians in the early centuries of the Church received Holy Communion in the hand. But using this historical fact in isolation can be misleading.
St. Basil the Great, in the fourth century, speaks explicitly about receiving Communion in one’s own hand in circumstances such as times of persecution, when a priest or deacon was not available. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, also in the fourth century, describes the communicant making the left hand a “throne” for the right in order to receive the King. He also insists upon the greatest care that nothing of the Eucharist be lost.
Other early Christian writers likewise testify to the extraordinary care with which the Eucharist was treated and to concern that nothing consecrated should be lost or profaned.
Thus, even when Communion in the hand existed in the ancient Church, we should not simply assume that it was identical in manner, discipline, or surrounding ritual to the modern practice. What is unmistakable in the ancient sources is the profound reverence with which Christians approached and handled the Holy Eucharist.
In any event, the antiquity of a practice does not by itself prove its superiority. If our criterion were simply, “The early Christians did it,” then, for example, all women would have to cover their heads at Mass, none of them could proclaim the readings, and men and women would have to sit separately. Pope Pius XII already warned in his encyclical Mediator Dei that an ancient practice, merely because it is ancient, should not necessarily be considered better.
Over the course of the centuries, the Church’s Eucharistic discipline gradually developed, and increasingly precise measures were adopted to safeguard the Blessed Sacrament.
Why Did This Development Take Place?
Memoriale Domini itself gives us an important explanation. As the Church’s understanding and reverence for the Eucharistic mystery deepened, the custom developed whereby the minister placed the consecrated Host directly upon the tongue of the communicant.
Three elements therefore appear closely related: a deeper understanding of the Eucharistic mystery, greater reverence toward the Blessed Sacrament, and an attitude of humility in receiving Our Lord.
What, Then, Is the Best Way to Receive?
Receiving Holy Communion in the hand, where it is legitimately permitted, is not per se a sacrilege. Nor can we automatically judge a person’s interior devotion on the basis of whether he receives Communion on the tongue or in the hand. But this does not mean that the two manners of receiving must necessarily be regarded as pastorally identical.
The Instruction Memoriale Domini expressly points to the advantages of the traditional manner of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue. Speaking of this traditional practice, it states that:
“This method of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist.”
The document goes on to explain that this traditional manner more effectively safeguards the reverence, decorum, and dignity due to Holy Communion, protects against the danger of profanation of the Eucharistic species, and safeguards the careful attention that the Church has always required regarding the fragments of the consecrated Bread.
This is not about turning the manner of receiving Communion into an ideological banner, nor is it about claiming that a person who receives on the tongue is necessarily holier than someone who receives in the hand. Rather, it is about asking ourselves which outward signs most clearly express what we truly believe.
If the consecrated Host is truly the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, then our bodily attitude should manifest that faith. The history of the Church shows a progressive development of signs of adoration, humility, and reverence before the Eucharistic mystery.
Therefore, beyond controversies and personal preferences, perhaps the fundamental question is much simpler:
How can we receive Our Lord with the greatest possible reverence?
Blessed and praised be the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Now and forever, blessed and praised.
Fr. Javier Olivera Ravasi
Saint Monica / St Thomas the Apostle Parish
Archdiocese of San Francisco
True Drew retweeted
It took just one event to expose the modern-day traitors of the Catholic Church & betray all women of the free world. After fighting for womens rights all my life, I am disgusted at this endorsement. The thought of being forced to cover up completely in public by a political system is the definition of suppression to most women in the west. How this idiot could stand there smiling is beyond me. Shame on her & the Catholic Church - as a Catholic myself, I feel the Church has lost its way & is dangerously close to losing all authority in the eyes of the people.
All is Grace—St Therese of Lisiuex
One of my favorite things about Sachin, is he manages to find so much of the positive in the world. I think we need this.
While in my day to day life, I am a happy person, apps like this can inflame the righteous indignation side of me. I see so much evil on here, and especially from people doing evil and calling it good, and it infuriates me.
But one can't live like that. I know it. It's not what Christ wants for us, to be perpetually angry at so much of the injustices in the world. Justice belongs to God. Romans 12:19.
That will come, but I don't want to be guilty of doing what the enemies of Christianity do, and live for tearing down. It's not a way for anyone to live.
At some point, we need to live for creating and building, and I do think accounts like Sachin's are great about looking at the good, and not letting evil weigh us down.
I need to see that myself, because my melancholic nature has a tendency to drag myself down with the wars I want to fight.
True Drew retweeted
To every pro lifer in Virginia:
Please, listen to the Bishop.
In Michigan, Planned Parenthood spent millions of dollars and flooded the airways to ensure we would enshrine in our constitution the most radical pro-abortion position possible.
Catholics lined right up and voted for it.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I have never recovered from it and I don’t know if I ever will.
You can’t know how horrible it feels to wake up one morning and watch the news and know that legalized murder is now the normative part of the life of your state.
I beg you, vote against this horror.
Do not let anything keep you away from the Booth.
Put it in your calendar, show up and vote.
The pro-life movement does not have the backing of any political party, they don’t have a government funded multibillion dollar industry like Planned Parenthood: their blood soaked hands are filled with money.
You won’t be able to use the media to tell the truth, it’s on you.
Share your heart and tell people that at some point, we have to draw the line.
If that’s not a human in the womb, then what is it? When does it become a human? What scientific criteria do people use to make that determination?
These are the only questions that matter.
Everything else is a distraction and a diversion.
Pray. Fast. Lovingly tell people the truth. Vote.
🚨A RARE MOVE by a Virginia Bishop Ahead of Election Day
"Catholic Bishop Michael Burbidge says he has never before asked every priest in his diocese to do what he requested this weekend: read a letter at Mass urging Catholics to oppose two Virginia constitutional amendments on abortion and marriage."
"Across 70 parishes serving more than 430,000 Catholics in Northern Virginia, worshippers heard Burbidge warn against what he called 'two dangerous ballot initiatives'—proposed constitutional amendments that Virginians will decide Nov. 3. Early voting begins Friday."
"The effort follows a joint statement Burbidge issued with Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout in August. In his latest letter, Burbidge urged parishioners to pledge to vote at CatholicsVoteNo.com, cast ballots early beginning Friday, and encourage their family, friends, and colleagues to oppose the amendments." ...
MORE:⬇️
dailysignal.com/2026/09/13/v…
Video: Statement of Bishop Burbidge Instructing Catholics to Vote ‘No’ on Virginia Ballot Questions 1 & 2
True Drew retweeted
Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge has issued an edict calling for information about the life and virtues of Tom Vander Woude, former Christendom College athletic director, as the Diocese considers a possible cause for canonization. Vander Woude died in 2008 after sacrificing his life to save his son with Down syndrome, and the Diocese is asking those who knew him or have relevant information to come forward.
