The Way We Live and Die Now

“According to the report “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” issued by Intersociety, over the past 14 years at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants.’

Over 50,000 Christians killed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists – Vatican News

5,068 Citizens Massacred For Being Christians In Nigeria In 2022, 1,041 Slaughtered In First 100 Days Of 2023 – InterSociety (intersociety-ng.org)

“The attackers targeted the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the town of Owo as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, according to local officials. They gunned down parishioners and detonated an explosive device, local media reported.”

Nigeria: gunmen kill dozens in ‘satanic’ attack on Catholic church | Nigeria | The Guardian

The world hates and crushes those not in conformity to its prescribed world-order manifestations.

A prescribed world-order? Above, Islamic extremism carried out genocidal attacks. Here’s another example from the last century:

“Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist- Leninist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. . . In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.”

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead | Hudson

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chronicled the dehumanizing and destructive force of a prescribed world-order – Marxist-Leninist Stalinism – with its relentless steamroller of conformity.

The same crusade to exact conformity to the prescribed world-order is present today. We see this in calls for “Diversity”, conformity in drag. “Diversity” is one of the ruses used to sort out those who conform from those who do not conform to the prescribed world-order.

COVID mandates – lockdowns, masks, social distancing, vaccines, etc. – were all done by edicts to bring about conformity to a prescribed world-order. Turning over America’s sovereignty to the World Health Organization (WHO) is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

A system of spying on people is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

New WHO Pandemic Initiative Uses ‘Listening Surveillance Systems’ To Identify ‘Misinformation & Rumors.’ – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room

A digital currency is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

Digital Dollar: When You Don’t Own Money – In The Tank #395 – The Heartland Institute

Steamroller conformity measures – executive orders, regulations, etc. – are now being rolled out for the “climate crisis”. Any who do not conform will be dealt with one way or another.

The same spirit of the world, with its drive to conformity, existed in the first century.

In the gospel according to Mark, we read that religious and political authorities did not like what was Jesus was saying and doing. Jesus had posed a question to a sabbath synagogue group, which by their non-answer, exposed their hard-heartedness. In spite of their conformity-based silence (who would dare speak out with religious authorities in the room?), Jesus went on to heal a man with a withered hand on the sabbath. Offense was taken, for Jesus didn’t conform to the pre-scribed world-order. He didn’t play by the rules.

“The Pharisees [religious authorities] went out right away and began to plot with the Herodians [political authorities] against Jesus, trying to find a way to destroy him “(Mk. 3:6).

Bearing faithful witness, as the early Christians did when they accurately reported what they had seen and heard of Jesus including what they witnessed during his post-resurrection appearances, is a costly commitment of life as it stands up against the prescribed world-order. Some called the witness subversive and divisive. Others alluded to it as misinformation. What the early Christians testified to did not conform to the pre-scribed world-order and so they had to be put down. Many such witnesses proved the fortitude of their faith in Christ by undergoing a violent death.

“. . . all fortitude has reference to death. All fortitude stands in the presence of death. Fortitude is basically readiness to die or, more accurately, readiness to fall, to die, in battle. . . “man must be ready to let himself be killed rather than to deny Christ or to sin grievously.” Readiness to die is therefore one of the foundations of the Christian life.””

Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (University of Notre Dame Press, 1966) 117, 118

“Just like the early church, we are being persecuted. When I became bishop years ago, I inherited a persecuted church. I had no intention then to let the church lose steam, and I don’t want that happening now. We must not be afraid or lose confidence, but plow ahead with mission in the midst of persecution. Courage only comes from God. Outside of Jesus, your own courage will fail you. When you see the gospel at work saving lives, you count your suffering for nothing.”

Benjamin Kwashi, Archbishop of the Province of Jos, Nigeria

(From the Greek word martus (a witness) comes the English derivation “martyr”.)

“If the world hates you,” Jesus went on,” know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were from the world, the world would be fond of its own. But the world hates you for this reason: that you’re not from this world. No: I chose you out of this world.”

Jesus, in the gospel according to John 15: 18-19

This world hates and crushes those not in conformity to its prescribed world-order manifestations. It hates any exposure of its diabolical machinations working to conform people to the ruler of this world. And that is what the Christian life does – exposes world-order lies.

One testifies that one is not loyal to the prescribed world-order as one embodies new creation-ordered reality – Christ in you – and lives that reality out in the home, in the church, and in the community of creation. As spirit-filled Christians we live in the new creation-ordered world. And that puts us in opposition to any conformity to a spirit-voided prescribed world-order.

Some will mock and jeer those not conformed to their prescribed world-order. Others, as history has shown, may gun down those who do not conform (Listen to homily below). For, unlike Christians who take new creation life from the True Vine (Jn. 15), those of the world-order take their life from the fallen, dried up, and withered branch of ideology. For them, adhering to the ideological life is everything. And so, their scripture might read . . .

“Do not be shaped by new creation-order but be fundamentally transformed by the renewing of your mind with prescribed conformity. Then you and others will be able to disapprove of and resist God’s authority and accept the authority of the world-order.”

Antichrist’s Letter to the church in Media 12:2

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“If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.” -1 COR. 12:26

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Mass for Persecuted Christians

Music: Paul Jernberg

Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven – YouTube

Homilist: Fr. Benedict Kiely (founding director of Nasarean.org)

0:33 – Introit: Look to Your Covenant, O Lord

4:38 – Confiteor / I confess to Almighty God

5:54 – Kyrie / Lord, have mercy

6:37 – Gloria / Glory to God in the Highest

9:39 – Responsorial Psalm: Let the Nations Know

12:45 – Alleluia (traditional Melkite)

14:09 – Homily

31:32 – Universal Prayer / Great Litany (Roman Hurko)

35:15 – Offertory antiphon: You Will Save the Humble People, O Lord

39:51 – Sanctus / Holy, Holy, Holy

41:31 – Pater Noster / Our Father

43:22 – Agnus Dei / Lamb of God

44:32 – Communion antiphon: That Which I Tell You in the Dark

48:15 – The Beatitudes

52:10 – Marian Hymn: We Fly Unto Your Heart of Compassion

53:38 – Closing Hymn: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven

Nasarean.org | Aid & Advocacy for Persecuted Christians in the Middle East

The Voice of the Martyrs (persecution.com)

VOM Radio – LAOS PASTOR: “God is Real and He Healed Me”

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Josiah Lippincott, a Hillsdale college alum and former page for Devin Nunes, has an essay at American Greatness: Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda Is the Only Path Forward. Here are a few excerpts:

“COVID-19 made the weakness of American Christianity painfully clear. Protestant and Catholic churches alike overwhelmingly declared themselves nonessential during the spring of 2020. That was, sadly, merely an acknowledgement of a longstanding reality. . .

The vague admonitions to “have faith” and “follow Christ” that pepper the Sunday morning pastoral exhortations from America’s pulpits generally lack any practical core. America’s pastors, with few exceptions, shy away from fighting for the faith they supposedly love. They lack the sternness and fidelity of their forebears. Compare a St. Augustine to a Pope Francis or a Martin Luther to a David French. Our Christian forebears had iron in their souls. The modern pastor is generally soft. . .

America is awash in men’s groups, Bible studies, discipleship training, women’s seminars, and worship conferences. Yet divorce is through the roof, abortion is common, and homosexuality lauded from the very centers of American financial and political power. Whatever utility all this frenetic religious activity has had for the private faith lives of ordinary Americans, it is abundantly clear it has not had any real benefit for the moral and spiritual health of the nation as a whole.”

Josiah makes the point that “Political power doesn’t flow from scoring debate points in the “free marketplace of ideas.” It comes from the willingness to impose one’s beliefs on others and possessing the resources to do so. 

All morality requires enforcement.”

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Informed Dissent:

“A new pandemic prevention initiative by the World Health Organization will rely on “social listening surveillance systems” to identify “rumors and misinformation,” War Room can reveal.

The initiative – Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) – seeks to “guide countries in pandemic planning” while “incorporat[ing] the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.””

“Module one of the initiative’s blueprint describes how the spread of content deemed “misinformation” amounts to a new “health threat” called “infodemics.”’

New WHO Pandemic Initiative Uses ‘Listening Surveillance Systems’ To Identify ‘Misinformation & Rumors.’ – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room

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Live from the Darian Gap: Chinese Communists Plan to Take Over the United States Exposed (banned.video)

Global warming is the largest scam in human history. pic.twitter.com/NDxwVbBPMG

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 5, 2023

After listing off Ms. Furchtgott-Roth's extensive history of expertise as though it were a bad thing, @SenWhitehouse went on a completely baseless tirade about Heritage's funding.

Unfortunately for him, @DFR_Economics was prepared with the facts. pic.twitter.com/wB1AwHRhEH

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) May 3, 2023

‘Net Zero is taking the world’s population backwards’ | Neil Oliver issues grave Ulez warning – YouTube