In Search of Grand Duke Michael with Captain Peter Sarandinaki (Part I)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkZPXmfcmQc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkZPXmfcmQc
“…in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” – Philippians 2:12 A good father should want his children to fear him – just a little bit. Otherwise, they would have almost
“Can we do anything else but trust in God? God calls us to do much, and we have not much time to do it.” – Fr. Seraphim Rose On the Feast of “The Entry of
“Father asks to have it passed on to all who have remained loyal to him and to those on whom they might have influence, that they not avenge him; he has forgiven and prays for
In order to save my life, God sent me the one saint who perfectly exemplified the human attributes that I most feared: FatherhoodMasculinityStrengthBraveryFortitude For as long as I could remember – I yearned to embody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MovYyaRqScs
“He who does not live in Christ…already lives in the Abyss, and not all the treasures of this world can ever fill his emptiness.” – Fr. Seraphim Rose, "Nihilism: The Root of Revolution of the
“…icons, just as well as the Scriptures, are expressions of the inexpressible.” – Vladimir Lossky I grew up around icons. My father was an immigrant from Sicily. What little he brought with him to the
Above: Marie Spartali Stillman, "How the Virgin Came to Brother Conrad in Offia and Laid her Son in his Arms," 1892. “What he would have liked, without admitting it, was for the whole world, forever
Bring aid to one who has solace nowhere nowSave in you and your Son.I beg you, order the sacred doorsTo be opened to me;Mistress of heaven, allow me to look uponThe royal marks of the
Give me the strength to seek you; Oh, you who allowed me to find you, and who gave me the hope of finding you more and more. – Saint Augustine For much of my life,
Above: Eugène Burnand, "The Prodigal Son" (1908) My dad was a good father. I didn’t always think so. When I was a kid, I thought he ignored me; he paid more attention to his work,
Above: Marooned, Howard Pyle (1909) During Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, she innocently referred to those with a “sexual preference;” according to the Human Rights Campaign, the correct term is
Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not. – Isaiah 53:3 Since childhood,
Above: "Blessing in the Village" by Hans Bachmann, late-19th century. “No one is ever holy without suffering.” ― Evelyn Waugh, “Brideshead Revisited” I have been around the world of traditional (trad) Catholicism for over 20
Above: “The Icon Corner” by Vasily Maximov, 1869. “On our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering. We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no other sort of love. I want
Above: "The Holy Family (detail)" by Rafael Flores, 1857. St. Junipero Serra was a Spanish Franciscan priest and Friar who founded a series of missions in what would later become the State of California. Throughout
An often-repeated mischaracterization about St. Joseph, especially in films depicting the Holy Family, is that he initially thought that the Virgin Mary had committed adultery before their betrothal. According to St. Matthew: “When as his
(Above: G.P. Paltz, "The Prodigal Son," early 20th century.) For this child did I pray, and the Lord hath granted me my petition, which I asked of him. (1 Samuel 1:27) When I was a
On the night of October 8, 2017, my life changed forever. A fire swept through the lofty peaks which surround the Napa Valley. There was no time to gather any of my belongings. I simply
In my mid-to-late-twenties, I looked pretty extreme. I think almost everyone who knew me before had given up on me: an aunt I rarely saw, a close friend of my fathers, even some of my
Above: Jean Louis Forain, "Return of the Prodigal Son" (late-19th Century). On June 12, 2017, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, issued an official decree “Regarding Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ and Related Pastoral
(Pictured above: Jeremy Irons as Charles, Anthony Andrews as Sebastian, and Jonathan Coy as Kurt in the 1981 UK miniseries “Brideshead Revisited.”) The 1945 novel “Brideshead Revisited” by English Catholic-convert Evelyn Waugh maintains an odd
Above: John Dickson Batten, “The Family” (1886) I have no recollection of seeing my parents pray when I was a child. We never prayed the Rosary together as a family. I probably knew one prayer
“And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” (Luke 2:48) In his book “The Fatherhood
Saint Joseph: One cannot love Jesus and Mary without loving the Holy Patriarch. Love Saint Joseph a lot. Love him with all your soul, because he, together with Jesus, is the person who has
On the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, just north of San Francisco, is one of my favorite places to spend a quiet and sunny day walking and hiking. The area, part of the
In his interview with Dave Rubin, Bishop Robert Barron said the following about homosexuality: In a certain way I wouldn’t want to press it further than that. That’s the Church’s job to say no to
When I returned to the Church of my ineffectual, 1970s, guitar-strumming, hand-holding around the altar youth – I was an ex-porn actor and Satanist; I was half-dead and half of my backside was hanging-out; I
As a lonely and rejected little boy, my first discovery of gay pornography was like a miracle. In a sense, after years of being either ignored or mercilessly teased by other boys, and thus adoring
Once I looked into the hole of hell. It was opened wide as if by a massive speculum. And what I saw inside was beautiful. Then, only for a mere second, I could see everything.
(Above: “The Prodigal Son” by Nikolay Losev, late-19th Century.) "The Holy Spirit is not an artist who draws the divine substance in us, as though he were alien to it. It is not in this
(Pictured above: “Wandering in a Field” by Vasily Perov, 1879.) In 1988, as a young, confused, and rather naïve teenage boy, I made a pilgrimage of sorts to the Castro District of San Francisco. In
(Pictured above: Archbishop Jose Gomez with Fr. Chris Ponnet, Arthur Fitzmaurice, and the Plasencias.) At the 2017 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress a number of speakers are scheduled to talk about the LGBT issue. For
“And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.” –Pope Francis When I curiously returned to
(Pictured above: The opening segment from Madonna's MDNA Tour.) Recently, I attended Sunday Mass at a Southern California Catholic parish that also advertises an active LGBT ministry. The church was located in a rather well-to-do
(Pictured above: detail from “Saint Francis in Meditation” by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1635-9) “…many individuals think they are not praying when, indeed, their prayer is deep.” – St. John of the Cross After years of
A good Catholic priest, who was very instrumental in my recovery from both same-sex attraction and an addiction to pornography, always had the same recommendation for me whenever I talked with him about my great
St. Alexius of Rome lived from about 410-460 AD; this period was at the heart of cultural, social, and political collapse in the already waning Roman Empire; during this period, as a whole, Rome was
For the most part, my childhood in Catholic parochial schools was a nightmare. Almost from the get-go I was a rather shy, artistic, and introverted kid. I was woefully uncoordinated and completely disinterested in the