WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT, CHARLIE BROWN

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 “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” isn’t the only Advent hymn. Thank God, because it's hard to sing and hardly melodic. A reader who once played the organ in a Novus Ordo parish church in New Zealand, and was heartily sick of "O Come" every year, thought she'd introduce the congregation to "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence".

It didn't go down too well. Its tune, "Picardy", is so easy to sing but the NO congregation stayed shtum while the organist performed a solo. Maybe our reader's poorly-judged choice of  the processional hymn that Advent contributed to her subsequent banning from the organ (and arranging flowers for Our Lady and St Joseph in the sanctuary too). 

Then our reader discovered the Traditional Latin Mass - well over an hour's drive away - and a congregation who loved "Let All Mortal Flesh", and immediately included it in their Latin hymn book. Ann Barnhardt says below that she's willing to bet you've heard it, but that's either a typo or American Catholics are different from the New Zealand variant, because it's highly unlikely to be known here, even among Latin Massgoers. Which seems a great shame. Do listen to the Benedictine nuns of Gower, Missouri, render it a cappela.

https://youtu.be/VlqzUxhim_k

St James the Less (El Greco) 

“O Come, O Come Emmanuel ” isn’t the only Advent hymn.

I’m willing to bet that you have heard the achingly gorgeous “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”. The melody that we use today is called “Picardy”, a French medieval folk melody, but the hymn is ANCIENT, from the earliest days of the Holy Catholic Church. 

 

The words are from the Cherubic Hymn (sung at the Offertory) of the ANCIENT Rite of St. James the Less, son of Alphaeus, Apostle, Bishop of Jerusalem, and cousin of Our Lord. We’re talking the first DECADES after Our Lord’s Passion, Resurrection and Ascension. St. James the Less, Bishop of Jerusalem, was martyred in AD 62, and this is from his Rite.

 

The title comes from Habakkuk 2: 20.

 

But the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him.

 

Dominus autem in templo sancto suo : sileat a facie ejus omnis terra!

 

 

The Benedictine nuns of Gower, Missouri

Here are the Benedictine nuns of Gower, Missouri, the selfsame community founded by Mother Wilhelmina Lancaster, found incorrupt two years ago, singing this exquisite Advent hymn off their CD, which I recommend that everyone have in their collection. These nuns truly give us all a foretaste of heaven with their pure, clear voices.

 

Please do contemplate these heart-rending verses as the Sisters’ voices draw us nearer to heaven, and to Our Eucharistic Lord even now, during this all-too-brief season of Advent.

 

Mother Wilhelmina Lancaster, pray for me, pray for us.

 

Lord Jesus Christ, in the crib, on the Cross, and in the Most Holy Eucharist, have mercy on us.

 

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Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the Body and the BloodHe will give to all the faithful

His Own Self as heav’nly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the pow’rs of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six-winged seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the Presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
“Alleluia, Alleluia

Alleluia, Lord Most High!”

https://youtu.be/VlqzUxhim_k

 

Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” can’t be truly appreciated and understood until you know that it is the story of the miraculous healing and conversion to Christianityof a Diabolical Narcissist Jew Userer.

 

 

 

It’s getting to be that time for the traditional viewing of “Scrooge” (1951). With the recent push for so-called “Noahide Laws” which would categorize significant portions of the Bible and the Holy Mass and any proselytizing of Jews as “antisemitic hate speech”, this piece hits even harder this year. Let us pray with Holy Mother Church:

“…for the faithless Jews: that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.“

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I have written on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” before, but it has been several years, and I think a recapitulation is in order given current events.

 

The late, great Alastair Sim in the 1951 film, "Scrooge"

 

The 1951 film “Scrooge” starring Alastair Sim is the definitive film version of “A Christmas Carol”.  It is traditional viewing for me on Christmas Eve night, and has been since childhood.  For those of you with any ties to the Kansas City area, the old independent Channel 41 would show “Scrooge” at 10:00pm on Christmas Eve annually, followed by either Luciano Pavarotti’s ARSH 1978 Christmas concert, or (sigh) the non-Christian Mormon choir singing Christmas Carols.

But “A Christmas Carol” took on a whole new life and depth of meaning for me when, after my in-depth study of Diabolical Narcissism several years ago, I realized that the reason why “A Christmas Carol” is such a compelling story, is because it depicts an all-out miracle.  The “transformation” of Ebeneezer Scrooge is nothing less than the supernatural healing of a full-blown Diabolical Narcissist psychopath.

 

The pre-conversion Scrooge character is a classic DN.  He is a cerebral narcissist – highly successful in his profession, a miser, caring for nothing but “his work” – which just happens to be usury (Usury? In London? Nooo….), sitting alone in his room every night, lovelessly single, devoid of human empathy, haughty, critical and disdainful of everyone and everything, looking down on and actively resentful of normal, loving people – embodied by his clark, whom he psychologically abuses, Bob Cratchit, and his family.

 

Love, joy, gratitude and generosity disgust and enrage Scrooge. He hates occasions of happiness, and actively seeks to disrupt and destroy them, especially holidays.  The people around him walk on eggshells to his face – but either pity or dislike him behind his back.  In the “Ghost of Christmas Future” act, Scrooge is genuinely surprised to discover that almost everyone is glad that he is dead – the exception being Bob Cratchit himself, the most direct recipient of Scrooge’s abuse.  Bob Cratchit is thus a metaphor for Christ.

 

Not only does “A Christmas Carol” firmly establish in its opening act the total lovelessness of Scrooge, the total self-purgation of all charity from his soul, but it even shows HOW IT HAPPENED, and the exact moment when Scrooge made the conscious choice to expel all love from his soul and to never love again.

 

That moment happens when young Scrooge’s beloved sister, Fan, dies in childbirth.  Ebeneezer Scrooge’s mother, it is revealed, also died in childbirth, and Scrooge’s father blamed him for her death, and “never forgave him”, abusing him, and them sending him away.  As is so common, Scrooge, already wounded, repeated the very error of his father and blamed Fan’s newborn infant son for her death.  Even worse, Scrooge, whether implicitly or explicitly, also declared war on God – Love Himself – by rejecting love and consciously emptying himself of it.  The very moment of this decision is shown at the 32:54 timestamp.

 

Immediately, Scrooge descends into psychopathic usury, and, as we have discussed, even descends into that horrific sexual perversion – ASEXUALITY, by dumping his fiancée and living a life of LOVELESS, MISERABLE, ELITIST SOLITUDE.  Even his only “friend”, Jacob Marley, he held in indifference and even contempt.

 

The other point here which is TOTALLY lost on the modern world is the fact that EBENEEZER is quite possibly the most HEBREW name ever, and that EVERYONE understood when Dickens wrote the book that Scrooge was one of the many JEWISH USURERS in London.  So, this story isn’t merely about the healing of the heart of a miserable old narcissist, A Christmas Carol is the story of the miraculous conversion to Christianity of a JEW.

 

The story closes with the words, “And it was always said that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”

 

That, friends, means that Ebeneezer Scrooge, an ethnic Jew and atheist (as almost all ethnic Jews today are), received baptism and became a believing Christian.  It is left to the reader to understand that the Cratchit Family were his “sponsors” in this.  It is also obliquely implied at the beginning of the story that Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, married a Christian girl – “it was the making of me”, and thus invites Scrooge to their home for Christmas dinner.

 

So, if you can spare the time this year, do sit down and watch this, and see if the “Christmas morning” scene wherein Scrooge is miraculously healed of his Diabolical Narcissism, and radiates genuine love and joy, doesn’t pack a bit more of a punch.  Because for a Diabolical Narcissist psychopath to be thus healed is a greater miracle than levitation, bilocation, or most any other physical miracle.

A Merry Christmas to one and all!  God bless you, everyone!

This day you shall know that the Lord will come, and save us: and in the morning you shall see His glory.

https://youtu.be/bsMYwgnfKAE

 

60th Anniversary: Linus Van Pelt on Translation Accuracy of the Gloria, and Moral Fortitude

 

(Linus first delivered his Gospel recitation 60 years ago last night- 9 December 1965. It’s a pleasure every year to demonstrate how important translation accuracy is, especially in the domain of the One True Faith, and recapitulate Linus’ subtle instruction on moral fortitude. –Alpha Bravo ’25)

 

https://youtu.be/rKqF9yUlOwg

 

That really is a sweet little clip. The child who voiced Linus had such a quintessentially warm American accent, even down to the little lisp. Magic in a bottle – from the voices to the soundtrack. It was made in 1965 and stands as a marker of the end of the Christian American culture, only recognized now in retrospect.

 

Here’s a super-cool observation on this clip that you might not have noticed before.  Note that when Linus gets to the words of the Angels to the Shepherds, “Fear not…”, he drops his security blanket, the motif for his (and our) fears and insecurities, and leaves it on the ground for the duration of his proclamation of The Word of God. Cool, huh?

 

But, a nit to pick, and a great lesson for all in how important an accurate translation of the Bible is. Most Bibles today read Luke 2:14 as:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

 

The last clause is mangled, as anyone who knows the Gloria in Latin (as one should, because it is said at a plurality of Masses throughout the year) can see.

 

The Vulgate Latin, which is St. Jerome’s synthesis of the original source texts commissioned by Pope St. Damasus I, triple cross-referenced against each other in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew in preparation for the eventual setting of the canon of scripture at the Councils of Rome in ARSH 382, and Carthage in AD 397, reads thusly:

“…gloria in altissimis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.”

 

In English, in the Douay-Rheims translation thus reads:

Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.

 

These are two completely different ideas. Radically different. The first translation has peace and goodwill together as co-subjects, as unqualified universals: “peace, goodwill TOWARD men”. The Vulgate clearly has goodwill not as the COMPOUND SUBJECT along with peace, but as the QUALIFIER. To men OF GOOD WILL. Good will isn’t the subject, it is the OBJECT OF THE PREPOSITION.

 

The Peace of Our Lord is a massively qualified, and extremely rare and precious thing. When the priest says at Mass, “Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum” (The peace of the Lord be always with you), he isn’t just saying “nice things” as filler. This is a profound and precious prayer.

 

Why would God, in His Perfect Justice, wish good will towards those men who are at war with Him, and thus His Church? Is not the Second Person, God Incarnate in the Manger in Bethlehem, the Judge of mankind? Is not the Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes He who will sort the sheep from the goats? Is He not the One who is come to sift the wheat from the chaff?

 

Did He not say:

“Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”

 

Cornelius of Lapide says in his commentary on Luke 2:

 

But all the Latins, and, among the Greeks, Origen, S. Chrysostom, and Cyril, read, and with better reason, for ευ̉δοκία good will, ευ̉δοκίας—of good will, making the hymn consist of two members.

 

For as glory is given to God as to Him who is glorified, so peace is given to men of good will as to those whom the peace of Christ belongs and befits; and in this way the concatenation of the whole sentence hangs better together. The peace on earth cannot be supposed to be other than that which belongs to men of good will.

 

Oh, but if we are under attack by Freemasonic-Communist-homosexualist infiltrators, pushing their heresies of “universal salvation” and Indifferentism, and we want God reduced to an abstract philosophical construct, an “I’m okay, you’re okay” joke of a deity, an effete, toothless “idea” that is merely an excuse for Freemasonic neo-pagan self-worship and narcissistic performance opportunities, then, by all means, mangle and rearrange the Word of God. As the infiltrators tell their victims, “It doesn’t really matter what the original texts said or did not say – all that matters is what today’s translation means to you . . . “

Luke 2:14 is a quick, easy way to check the veracity of any translation of the Bible. Break yours out and check right now. And then, when you find it incorrectly translated, as you almost certainly will, ask yourself what other verses have been mangled. And then ask yourself what you’re missing in the seven books that Luther removed. Uh-oh.

Then, just GET A DOUAY-RHEIMS and use the Church’s authoritative English translation without fear or worry that you are reading Freemasonic-Communist-homosexualist agitprop.

May your Advent Season continue to bear spiritual fruits as we approach the Nativity of the Lord!

This day you shall know that the Lord will come and save us: and in the morning you shall see His glory.

Introit and Gradual of the Mass of the Vigil of the Nativity

Ann Barnhardt and friends

https://www.barnhardt.biz/2025/12/10/linus-van-pelt-on-translation-accuracy-and-moral-fortitude/

 

 

Joseph and Mary on their way to Bethlehem



O Mary, St Joseph, take us to Bethlehem