By FR. JAMES ALTMAN
Most people are familiar with the word: Mara-NA-tha. It is a Hebrew word. I never have heard it pronounced any other way. But, as it turns out, where we stress a syllable changes the meaning of that Hebrew word. If we pronounce the word with emphasis on the second syllable — Ma-RA-natha — it means “Come, Lord Jesus,” which is how we should be praying it during this sacred season of Advent. If we pronounce the word with emphasis on the third syllable — Mara-NA-tha — it means Lord Jesus already has come, which is how we should pray it on or after Christmas.
How fitting and proper it is to meditate on the meaning of this holy word as we enter into the Advent season, amidst continued strife, continued threats, continued Godlessness in the world. So how should we prepare for His coming, in remembrance of Bethlehem or in celebration of His Real Presence among us now?
In days gone by, faithful Catholics did not even have to ask that question. Holy Mother Church led and guided our way. Faith was central to all that we did. Our faith went way beyond mere attendance at Holy Mass on Sundays. Some came daily to Holy Mass, others made visits to Jesus present in the Tabernacle. We practiced our devotional life daily.
But then, in the postconciliar period, there was a distinct, seemingly inexorable decline in the numbers of faithful who actually were faithful. Last spring, those weakened in faith — sheep and shepherds alike — unquestioningly acquiesced in Godless restrictions on the practice of our Faith. Coming together at the Holy Mass, receiving the Holy Eucharist, reception of other sacraments, suddenly became nonessential relative to packing into Walmart 1,000 at a time. Few people, if any, were allowed to come to Holy Mass. Relatively few returned after the lockdown.
And now here we are entering Advent with the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. We are living with the threat by Godless government officials to cancel Christmas, just as they canceled Holy Week and Easter. We already find so many shepherds acquiescing in these Godless restrictions.
But whatever happens in the four weeks ahead, we will keep the faith because we know: Christus Vincit — Christ conquers.
On November 20, the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) hosted an online seminar about the “totalitarian” implications of enforced isolation — what I assert is destruction of the human soul.
Austin Ruse, president of C-Fam, was joined by Soviet propaganda expert Stella Morabito, a former CIA analyst who was stationed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Listen closely to what Morabito said. She compared current lockdown measures to social separation tactics used as a “weapon of choice” by Soviet and other Communist regimes. She said: “How do you control people? You isolate them. You control their personal relationships.”
Morabito discussed the “threat of being socially isolated” as the “greatest tool” of totalitarian governments, referencing calculated solitary confinement of political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Enforced seclusion is “all part of the totalitarian mindset.” Further, as with lockdowns, identity politics and political censorship work to “destabilize individual identity” and “sow hostilities between people so that they cannot relate as real human beings.”
Dear family, she said what I have been saying constantly. The anti-social distancing and God-less masking raises within us a suspicion of everyone else as an enemy to our health. So here is the “Frog in Boiling Water” analogy. If you throw a frog in boiling water, he jumps right out because he knows it will kill him. If you put the frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, he does not notice the subtle increases until eventually the boiling water does him.
Dear family, we are that frog sitting passively in the ever-increasing temperature of the water. In an already Grace-less age, we now have added fear and suspicion. The heat has been turned up slowly so we would not notice and now it is red hot and our society is ready to boil over.
Realize exactly what happens to human beings when they are locked down indefinitely, become economically strapped and utterly demoralized. In just this past month, more people committed suicide in Japan than the total number of Japanese who have died as a result of COVID since this all began about nine months ago. Woe to those Godless government agents who impose their Godless lockdowns!
Now wait a minute, Father, some will say, we have to operate with an “abundance of caution.” No, dear family — that ship has sailed. It sailed after the first two weeks of the lockdown last spring. If the lockdown actually worked the first time, why should we be faced with another one? If the lockdown actually did not work, then why should we be faced with another one?
Dear family, we are that frog in boiling water and we know it when we see significant numbers of the population acquiescing in every restriction out of an abundance of cowardice.
It all is based on the Big Lie advanced and relentlessly perpetuated by the media, a lie that has caused massively more damage in the “cure” than by the disease. This is not my opinion, dear family. It is science.
The following is adapted from a panel presentation on October 9, 2020, in Omaha, Neb., at a Hillsdale College Free Market Forum. I understand it was led by Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, where he received both an MD and a Ph.D. in economics.
I recommend that you track down and read the short four-page summary at this web address: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sensible-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/
The panel spoke directly to the actual fatality rate. It spoke on the essential difference between actual COVID infections (hyped by the media at over 10 million and rising) and actual COVID cases. We know that contrary to the hyped number of deaths (250,000+ and rising), the CDC has admitted that only about 6 percent are really the result of COVID (roughly 15,000). The panel asserted that “a lot of fear and confusion has resulted from failing to understand the difference.”
The scientific fact is that the actual fatality rate of COVID is not 3 percent, as originally asserted and used as a pretense for government overreach, but truly less than one half of one percent. In other words, the WHO got it wrong, wrong, wrong, and instigated a global shutdown in doing so. That is what drove public policy in the beginning, and continues to drive public policy now, even though — through actual science — we know better. The Godless continue to sow fear and panic using knowingly false data despite the fact that there now are numerous studies — actual science — from around the entire world that show the fatality rate truly is less than one half of one percent.
So now, the Godless now are trying to cancel Christmas, the very thing we prepare for every year, the celebration of the coming of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Dear family, we have been warned about the Godless Russian error, so can we really be surprised that these Godless tyrants are trying to steal from us our Silent Night, our Holy Night?
Finally, let us comprehend another truth: The UN has estimated that 130 million additional people will starve this year as a result of the economic damage resulting from the lockdowns. Just remember that number — 130 million — the next time you hear someone urge us to show an abundance of caution and go along with Godless government restrictions. They are not showing an abundance of caution toward 130 million additional people who will starve to death this year.
And remember that bit about the Japanese suicides.
Dear family, Almighty God did not design His human beings, made in His image and likeness, to live alone and in isolation. We are meant to be in company with one another. We are meant to celebrate our faith together.
Just six weeks ago, scientists and doctors published the Great Barrington Declaration. It was signed onto by over 52,000 doctors and scientists, along with more than 638,000 private citizens. The declaration decries the “damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.”
“Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” it warns.
Please do yourself, and those you love, a favor by reading this declaration at https://gbdeclaration.org/.
In short, it reads that the only way to get past this is to continue developing herd immunity which is accomplished not by locking down but by letting us all be free. As one example: Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. In other words, dear family, while alive, we should live.
As we begin Advent, as we pray Ma-RA-natha — come Lord Jesus — let us not wallow in the fear-demic, nor live Godlessly. We need more people coming to Church, not further restrictions upon capacity. We need more devotion to living the life of a Catholic, not restrictions upon our prayer and worship and gatherings.
In summary, let us jump out of the boiling water now, before it is too late.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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