FATHER ABBOT LEONARD BEING CALLED HOME BY GOD

Dear Friends in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Our good friend The Rt. Rev. Father Abbot Leonard Giardina, O.S.B., founder of the Abbey of Christ the King in Cullman, Alabama is being called Home to be with God as I write this missive. He has been ill for a while as you all know and has suffered a stroke, (maybe a series of small strokes, as is common with his condition and at his age) and is now in the Cullman Regional Hospital. I am asking all of you to pray for him as he leaves the planet. We believe in the Communion of Saints and I know that prayer is powerful and that it will help him as he prepares to meet the good Lord Whom he loves so much and for Whom he fought with all his strength and talent.

It is my belief that the terrible treachery that befell him at the end from those that should have been his staunchest allies and friends, his very Benedictine Family of monks, this could very well be the cause of his dry martyrdom and could also have led to his earthly end by causing such stress and sadness. I do not know. God knows and it is God to Whom we must all answer.

I am so very grateful for the great witness to Divine Love that was the work of Father Abbot and I consider him my Father in the Faith and will miss him terribly. His passing will be a great blow to the True Faith both in the country and all over the world. He never faltered in his Love for God and the Catholic Faith and left all that was familiar and safe to follow the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, which are bloody footsteps! He could not abide the tearing down of the Holy in the aftermath of the False Council and made a place that is holy indeed and has been a refuge for thousands over the years.

Now that Satan has shifted the monks of the Abbey like wheat no one knows what will happen to this magnificent place. It is reported that the two monks who are left, the ones who threw everybody else out and who waited to do this when Father Abbot was too ill to vote or even have a say, are in discussion with the Newchurch that Father Abbot loathed! Will they turn over the property and bank accounts to the local diocese, of which Father Abbot wanted no part? Will they allow the barbarians inside the Gates of the Holy City? Time will tell. What is terrible is that instead of having his beloved monks and nuns around his bed praying for him as he died, which every holy abbot should have and that includes Abbot Leonard!, he is dying in a cold hospital which precludes the countless visitors that would be filling the Abbey Church and offering their prayers in union with his final agony!

God has asked much of this good monk. God has asked him to die with strangers and outside the monastery which he founded; Away from those whom he loved and thought loved him! Like Our Blessed Lord and Saviour the Chosen have abandoned him and he is left with those who officially have accepted the architects of the False Council. Who could have thought of this turn of events? Only God and it is to God that Father Abbot goes.

The last time I was privileged to visit the Abbey the good Abbot told me personally that: “They think I’m crazy! All I talk about is the Love of God. That is all that is important and all that I stress now and they think I don’t know what’s important. They are preparing something and I fear the worst. What matters is that we are right with God and that we are prepared to meet Him when He calls. That final day is what you should be ready for! Never stop loving God and never forget you are a priest!” I will never forget and I will also never forget the wonderful apostolate of this great man who is dying after having been betrayed. To God all hearts are open; All desires known and from Him no secrets are hid! God knows and God will have mercy on him. He is leaving this life a hero of the Faith. He is leaving this life as a faithful Benedictine monk and nothing anyone now does can rob him of the reward Almighty God has prepared for those who love Him. Onwards and upwards, dear Father Abbot! Go to God in the Heart of Mary Immaculate and leave this Vale of Tears! What beauty awaits you! What joy! What Love!

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MARY CHRIST MASS, 2010

Golda Meier once said,”Don’t be so humble- you’re not that great!” I love this saying because it is so true. In Heaven there are all sorts of saints. There are saints who were bold on earth and saints who were timid. Saints who were eloquent and saints who were tongue tied stammerers; Saints who were rich and saints who were poor. All kinds, shapes, sizes and many different charisms of saints but there was one thing that all of them had in common: They were all humble. No matter what lane on the One Path they followed they all were humble.

Our Blessed Saviour showed us all the way in humility from the very beginning by the circumstances surrounding and about His birth in the stable in Bethlehem, (which is Hebrew for House of Bread!) His dearest Mother was most humble and great Saint Joseph also showed the way of humility. Can you just imagine how much he wanted his beloved spouse and the Son of God to be born in better circumstances? I often think of this and how he must have wanted for something better but he did what God asked of him through the dreams that God sent him and through the ministry of the Angel of the Lord. Saint Joseph believed his dreams! Enough so to take his family into exile in Egypt! Amazing. What a wonderful example of obedience. He obeyed not only the Divine Authority but the civil authority as well and trusted God to make it all right. And God did make it all right. Good Saint Joseph had the Blessed Mother and the King of Kings at his deathbed. What a reward for a life of obedience and humility.

Our Blessed Mother also was raised to the highest that it is possible to have been raised, she who practiced humility from the beginning. She, the Queen of Humility bearing the King of Humility in the most humble of circumstance. All of this by way of example to us all.

Jesus Our Lord and King calls us to practice humility, as well. To practice that which is our own particular daily duty and thereby to become the saint that He wants to reward forever in Heaven.

There is one thing your sinful servant has learned in his life that I would like to pass on to you. God is so gracious and kind that though he wants us to be humble in order to more align ourselves to the graces He wishes to bestow upon us, He will grant this precious gift of humility without ever humiliating us! I used to think that humiliation was a necessary component of becoming humble. Yes and no. God may allow it if it will benefit us in the long run but it is not a forgone conclusion. The secret is knowing what humility really is. It is merely knowing and accepting the reality of who we are. Nothing. We are nothing without Christ. We can not attain anything worthwhile without Him and we can never hope to be with Him forever if we do not accept this simple but profound truth. With Christ we can do all things! With Christ we are powerful beings. With Christ we are friends of the Blessed Mother, the Holy Angels and all the Saints. Without Christ we are dung, to put it mildly, because dung has an actual good quality, it fertilizes the soil. Without Christ we are not even good fertilizer!

Remember that God loves you with an everlasting love. Love that melts the snows. Love that never wants us to be hurt but that wants to lift us up to the heights but to be like Him we must accept who we are without Him, accept the free grace He offers to become like Him and then accept whatever He sends us in order to accomplish that one, all important goal of this earthly life.

Think on the humility of Our Lord’s birth this year. Think on the humility of the Holy Family and the great strength it took to be obedient to the Word of God. Remember to love all and not to gossip. Pray for your enemies and strive to love those who are unloveable. Do the best you can to be willing to be willing and God will bless you beyond measure; Pressed down, shaken together and running over as scripture tells us. Pray for me and know I pray for all of you. I especially appreciate all the messages you send and above all the prayers you offer for me! Thank you with all my heart. As always, I send my priestly blessing to each of you and all those you love. Benedicat Vos, Omnipotens Deus+

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The Great Feast of The Immaculate Conception

Today is the great feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of her dear mother, St. Ann. Holy Mother Church, I believe with a foreknowledge of the terrible times ahead, through the Vicar of Christ upon earth codified and proclaimed that Our Blessed Lady, from the first moment of her conception, by the infinite merits of Jesus Christ upon the Cross of Calvary was shielded from original sin (and kept free of all sin throughout her life). How can this be, when Our Lord had not entered the world in the incarnation at the time of her conception? This is an easy question to answer. The Almighty and Ever Living God is the Lord of Time! He is the Eternal Now. He is eternally present. This is why He could say, “Before Abraham was, I AM!” He can do what He wills, when He wills and how He wills. He reached back in time to protect His Mother from the stain of original sin and through His merits kept her free of sin throughout her life. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He Who lived the life we can not live and Who died the death we can not die, He Who is purity Itself granted this purity to His dear Mother so that He would be born of a most pure vessel. This is logical and was always and everywhere believed by the Church.

When Holy Mother Church proclaims a dogma She does so in order that it be protected and enshrined from all attack now and in the future. All of this is explained in Holy Writ and Holy Tradition. We must never forget that the Faith existed before the Bible! Yes, the Holy Bible is the Word Of God but it was birthed by the Church founded by Her Saviour and it was the Magesterium of the Church, in union with the Pope that chose the books that would comprise the Holy Bible! St. Paul told us to “Hold on to the traditions that you have been taught…” The Bible is the book of the Church and it is the Church alone that has the authority from Jesus Christ to interpret Holy Writ.

The word that the Holy Gospel uses to tell us what St. Gabriel said when he greeted Our Lady was KEREKATOMINE, (phonetically spelled!) The meaning of this word is: “You who already enjoy the full fruits of redemption!” For this reason the angel prostrated himself before the Maid and proclaimed, “Hail, thou FULL OF GRACE!”- Kerekatomine!, “the LORD, (“Adonai”) is with you! Blessed are you above all women upon earth!”

Yes, this is a great day and the twentieth anniversary of my ordination to the Holy Priesthood. The good Lord deigned and allowed that your unworthy servant and friend should be ordained to the Holy Priesthood and for better or worse I am a priest forever, according to the Order Of Melchizadek. Pray for me today! I remember all of you at the altar of the Lord and to Our Blessed Mother. Today I bless all of you from my chapel with the Holy Relics of the Cross of Our Lord and the Veil of the BVM. May God work miracles of grace and assistance in your life. I love and respect you all. Benedicat Vos, Omnipotens Deus!+

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ONLY GOD WILL NEVER LEAVE

“Where would I be without my friends? I’d be a beginning without an end. I’d be a way in with no way out. I’d be a foundation without a house…” This is the beginning of a poem I wrote a long time ago and it’s words have come back to my mind recently. It is so true that man will always fail us. We fail ourselves! We betray ourselves with self sabotage and by our sins of yesterday and today. I do not say tomorrow, because there is always the hope that we can correspond to the grace of God and escape the traps our fallen nature would have us trip in the future. “Save us from the time of trial…” which is one translation of “Lead us not into temptation.” The good Lord would have us always pray that we escape our own natures so as not to fall into evil and the horrors it always brings.

So, we are betrayed by ourselves. We are betrayed by our loved ones. We are betrayed by our friends. We are also betrayed by society and there are always the forces arrayed against us in the realm of the spirits. Add to this that we fail ourselves and our friends and family. They are hurt by our actions as we are hurt by them. What is one to do when faced with all of this? There is only one thing a Catholic can do. Run, do not walk to the Heart of God! To the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Blessed Mother! It is there that we will be comforted. It is there that we will be accepted. It is there that we will be forgiven and learn to forgive and also release that which no longer serves the greater good. He alone never leaves us or forsakes us. He alone is our help and our salvation. He alone wants to fellowship with us always and everywhere. He is the Friend that never leaves. He is the Father that never abandons His child. He is the spouse that never betrays. He is always there. He is the unseen Guest at every meal and the silent Listener to every conversation. He knows how to heal a broken heart and He longs to do so. We have but to ask.

So many people are hurting in our world. They come begging and bleeding from the wounds inflicted by life and hurtful people who have forgotten how to love. It is up to each and every one of us who calls themselves a lover of Christ to be there for them with a prayer and a hand, when possible. We must remind them that there is nothing that can happen to them that God will not give the grace to bear and transcend. God wants us to be happy. He wants us to live in joy and know the sweetness of His Heart. He gives us the sacraments as the normal way of grace but also His Love and Presence are everywhere and can be accessed anytime through a willing heart. People need to be reminded of this in these times when true and valid sacraments are hard to find. God’s grace does not cease until the end of time. Right now we are in the world and I believe that while there is still breath within us there is the possibility of Divine change and miracles. God has no hands but ours. We must be His voice. If we call ourselves Christian we must never forget that it is not up to us to condemn but to bless. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us!” Our Blessed Lord would have us believe that and act on it.

Today I renew my pledge to forgive all who have wronged me. To ask forgiveness of all whom I have wronged and to remember that I must give others what I would have given to me, an understanding heart and the hand of friendship. This Thanksgiving remember those who are hurting and suffering. Those who are being tortured and persecuted for their beliefs, especially for the Church in exile and suffering around the world. Right now priests and nuns are being martyred. Right now our neighbor is suffering and trying to survive hard times. Pray for them. Be there for them. Do what you can, where you are and how you may. I love you all and remember you at the altar of God and in my prayers. I send you my priestly blessing from my little oratory and lift the Holy Relics to send the Love of God and His protection to you and those you love. Happy Thanksgiving! God send His Holy Angels to keep you safe in motion. Pray for me and thank you with all my heart.

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Alleluia!

Christ is risen, Alleluia!  He is risen indeed, Alleluia!  Dear friends, I am off to the Abbey of Christ the King in Alabama as I right this for a much needed time of prayer and counsel with the good Lord and to live for a time among the true Benedictines of the remnant Church.  You will all be in my prayers and I thank you for all the feedback that this humble website has received already!  Each and every communication will be answered and every prayer request will be honored.  Keep in mind that the website is being built a little at a time and the finished product is still a ways away but we have a very gifted and talented webmaster and there will be some beautiful things coming your way.

Pray and sacrifice for yourselves and the world, always uniting these to the Cross of Christ and to Him and His merits in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass… all through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Our Lord is never outdone in generosity and can refuse His Mother nothing!  With confidence be grateful for the Catholic Faith.  Be fearless and joyful and happy, for this is the mark of a Christian!

One recommendation I make to you is to read some scripture every day and inspiring books.  This is so important.  Guard what you put in your mind!  It becomes your consciousness and we are the sum total of our consciousness at any given time.  Christ must increase and we must decrease.  This can happen without pain if we but choose to love with joy.  If you do not have it ask it and it will be given you.  You do not have because you do not ask.  Ask Our Blessed Mother for the graces and strength necessary to fulfill our daily duty.  Small acts filled with love avail not much but everything!  Do not worry about feelings.  Sentiment can be a trap and feelings are not facts.  The fact is that God loves you and wants the best for you and will give you the kingdom.  All He asks is willingness.  Sometimes just the willingness to be willing is all we can muster.  God honors this and knows how to best help you.  Trust and love.

Till next time remember:  God is still on the throne and prayer changes things!

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