Thursday was the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ), when the Church expresses especial gratitude for the most precious gift of the Blessed Sacrament. On Maundy Thursday we also commemorate the Last Supper, but given our focus on the solemnity of Our Lord’s passion, the Church defers a full celebration to the first available Thursday after the completion of the Easter/Ascension/Pentecost cycle.
Reflecting upon the events of Passover is helpful to our understanding of this great Sacrament. We recall that God commanded the Hebrew people to slaughter an unblemished male lamb and smear its blood on the lintel and posts of the their dwellings. But they were also to roast and then consume its meat; the remaining portions were to be consumed by fire so that nothing remained. Thus the paschal lamb became food for their journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.
The Church Fathers understood that the sacrifice of Passover was a type of the Mass, and so, not surprisingly, the Mass both parallels and fully completes the Passover. Christ himself takes the place of the unblemished lamb, providing the one and only sinless sacrifice that atones for all sins, from the Fall until the final Judgement.
But equally important is that under the New Covenant, we too consume the Paschal Lamb. Our Lord becomes viaticum or food for our journey from slavery to sin to eternal freedom in the Kingdom of Heaven. In every Mass, Our Lord makes Himself present under the species of the consecrated Bread and Wine. We become partakers of His Body and His Blood.
If this is what we profess, how can we possibly take the Mass lightly? How can we think that our attendance and participation is not important? Our Lord gives us a stern warning as recorded in S. John’s Gospel: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. That is, unless we participate faithfully in the Mass, we run the risk of failing to attain to eternal glory.
The Epistle for this Sunday after Corpus Christi opens for us the central element of this great mystery: the love of God that He intends to in dwell us. As we participate in the Mass, we receive the life of the Godhead into our souls. The love that is God permeates our inmost being! God’s love transforms us and allows us to fulfill the commandment to love on another.
My one consistent prayer for this parish is that we grow in our love and appreciation of this great Sacrament. Quite often there are weekday Masses in which only one or two parishioners are present. While there can be legitimate conflicts that prevent us from attending Mass, my fear is that too often we take the Mass for granted.
Corpus Christi reminds us of the central place of the Mass in the life of the faithful Christian. May we pray that this great Sacrament of love enliven us. And may we then in turn grow more deeply in our love for God and for each other.
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The Thing About ‘Pride Month’ They Don’t Want Anyone to Figure Out
BY: Brandon Morse
It’s June, which means there’s a small section of the population that has access to way too many platforms that amplify their voices, opinions, and grievances to decibels that make them seem a lot more than they are.
I refuse to acknowledge what the left calls “Pride Month,” and for many reasons.
For starters, I think it’s a rack of babyback BS that if you do anything extraordinary for this country, you may get a day.
Serve as President? You get a day.
Serve in our military? You get a day.
Die for our country? You get two days.
But be a man who thinks he’s a woman, or rub your genitals against someone with the same kind of genitals… and apparently that’s worthy of having an entire month dedicated to you. Act as a degenerate in public, force your niche fetish on children, and display your cluster B personality disorder in ways that range between annoying and deadly, and apparently, you’re worthy of having 30 days of pop-culture kneeling before you.
It never seemed fair to me, but the point of Pride Month isn’t to celebrate an accomplishment like the three holidays above. The point of this month isn’t even about recognizing people in the LGBTQ+ community. At least, not ultimately.
The point is politics.
Start by asking who this month-long celebration is actually for. Who is actually being celebrated here?
You may say, “Well, obviously it’s for homosexuals and transgender people,” and while you may say that because rainbows are plastered on every surface possible and homosexuals dance in the street wearing next to nothing in front of children, you’d actually be mistaken.
See, these people aren’t actually the focus of the celebration. They’re just the tools being used for a purpose. They’re a message delivery system.
So then what’s the message?
That’s easy. The message is “Western culture is a patriarchal system that must be deconstructed and its Judeo-Christian values dismantled in order to achieve true equality and acceptance for all.”
If that sounds hyperbolic, then just sit with the attitudes behind Pride Month for a minute.
The first thing being celebrated is a rejection of Judeo-Christian values. Homosexual fornication, denying God’s perfection by stating He made a mistake during an individual’s creation, accusations of bigotry and hatred via views about “love” being a sin, etc., etc., etc.
The LGBTQ+ movement and its activists have always attacked Christianity and churches as their primary opponents. Seeing as how our nation’s foundation is based in Christianity, the left sees the LGBTQ+ movement as incredibly useful.
Moreover, “Pride Month” villainizes masculinity, the protective barrier between a free nation and one dominated by tyrants. If you can destroy the concept of “men,” and villainize masculinity, or even redefine it, then order withers away. Moreover, masculinity tends to lean rightward, and the less masculine your nation, the less likely it is to put masculine qualities in its governmental structure.
Do you see what’s happening? It’s the forced erosion of traditional values that are represented by conservatives and, by and large, the Republican Party. Pride Month is really just a rallying moment for the Democrats when all is said and done. It’s a chance to make them seem like the good guys in the room. The ones who care, and believe in love, and equality, and inclusion.
But really, it’s just normalization of degeneracy and anti-traditionalism to achieve enough cultural influence that people sour on conservatism and conservative values. Politics is downstream of culture, and this is one of those cultural battlefields.
Keep in mind, Democrats don’t actually care about the LGBTQ+ community. They’re just useful, is all. You can see what the left truly thinks about homosexuality or transgenderism when they’re attacking conservatives by accusing them of being homosexual, or forget about the community completely when another group becomes way more useful.
In the end, Pride Month is just an attempt to reinforce a sacred cow that’s already been milked to death. The celebration of Pride Month is way more muted than in previous years. Not every corporation is immediately jumping on the bandwagon like they used to. You still get holdouts here and there that want to make statements, but at this point, it feels more like middle fingers to other groups than a celebration.
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How ‘In God We Trust’ ended up on our currency
BY: Billy Hallowell, The Washington Times (June 5, 2026).
Secularists intent on feigning that God has no place in the political and cultural spheres are often faced with some uncomfortable rebuttals and realities.
Among them, “In God We Trust” is a slogan and proclamation that has long been emblazoned on American currency. And while debate has centered around its presence, few likely know the story behind how it unfolded — and why it matters.
Jon Brown of The Christian Post recently delved deep into the background of Matthew Rothert Sr., a Presbyterian furniture manufacturer from Arkansas who, after feeling compelled in 1953 to get “In God We Trust” on paper currency, embarked on that very journey.
It should be noted that Rothert was in a Chicago church on June 21, 1953, when he felt the Holy Spirit give him the idea to get the slogan placed on paper bills. At the time, it was already present on U.S. coins — something that started nearly 100 years earlier.
“’In God We Trust’ was first added to U.S. coins during the beginning of the Civil War, when religious sentiment was on an upswing and concerned Americans wanted the world to know what their country stood for,” Sarah Begley wrote in Newsweek in 2016. “Many wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase on the matter, and he agreed with their arguments.”
The first coin was released in 1864, with “In God We Trust” being adapted from a verse in Francis Scott Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Notably, it was a preacher who reportedly sparked the motto being on coinage. Mark Richards Watkinson, who ran a small church near Philadelphia, wrote a letter to Chase expressing his desire to see America acknowledge the Lord amid the Civil War.
“You are about to submit your annual report to Congress respecting national finances. One fact has been overlooked,” Watkinson wrote. “I mean recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins. What if our Republic were now shattered? Would not antiquaries of succeeding centuries reason from our past that we were a heathen nation?
“From my heart I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.”
Chase took action and directed the Mint to adopt the slogan It was first applied to bronze 2-cent pieces in 1864. Another fun fact is that the director of the U.S. Mint at the time was James Pollock, a Presbyterian minister who also helped make the slogan happen.
Over the years, debate followed “In God We Trust,” and it was removed and reapplied to currency. Yet by 1908, it was back on and remains on U.S. coins today.
Many decades after the coinage issue was settled, Rothert found himself wondering why the same treatment wasn’t given to paper money. After the Holy Spirit prompted him to act, he went on quite a journey, according to his daughter, Alice Rothert Nelson — one that began in the pews that fateful day.
“The collection plate was going around, and he felt God tell him that the coins had ’In God We Trust,’ but it was the bills that went all around the world,” Ms. Rothert Nelson recently told Mr. Brown. “And he believed he should get ’In God We Trust’ on the bills of the paper money, and so that started the campaign.”
Rothert’s advocacy involved letters, speeches and passionate pleas to persuade people of the importance of the U.S. putting the slogan on paper currency. Ultimately, Rothert believed God had sent him on a mission to make it happen.
“The Lord seemed to tell me to do this,” he told the National Enquirer in 1987. “He put the idea so strongly in my mind that I worked on it until I accomplished my goal.”
Rothert continued, “I realized the circulation of American coins was limited to the boundaries of the country, while U.S. paper money circulated worldwide. It looked like Americans were saying they trusted in God only a few cents’ worth.”
His efforts paid off. After working with politicians and ceaselessly advocating, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill in 1955 that brought “In God We Trust” to paper currency, with the first bills bearing the slogan appearing just two years later in 1957.
Hope Rothert Taft, another of Rothert’s daughters, who served as first lady of Ohio from 1999 to 2007, told Mr. Brown that the central lesson of her father’s efforts is God’s ability to accomplish anything through His people.
“I use it as an encouragement to let people know that they can make a difference,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where they come from or what size of a family, or whether they’re well-known or not. They can make a difference, like my father did.”
In the end, Rothert’s efforts serve to also remind us, via our currency, of the supernatural source of our freedom and liberty — and that’s certainly something to celebrate.
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James Talarico, wrong for Texas and America
The Democrats’ mess in the Lone Star State
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (May 31, 2026)
Democrats seem thrilled that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated longtime incumbent John Cornyn in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas last week.
Because Mr. Paxton carries multiple scandals, including a messy divorce, Democrats assume he will be an easy mark in a state known for its traditional values.
Not so fast.
Mr. Paxton has three things going for him. Despite his checkered reputation, he is a confirmed fighter, not a go-along-to-get-along kind of Republican. People seem to have had their fill of the latter.
A fierce and effective defender of constitutional liberties, he has the full support of President Trump, which could be a negative somewhere else, but not in the Lone Star State.
Finally, Mr. Paxton’s opponent is state Rep. James Talarico, a far-leftist who is telling voters that his many zany statements, especially about faith, are being taken out of context. The 37-year-old Mr. Talarico is a seminarian from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a shrinking, fully woke denomination whose version of Jesus is Sen. Bernard Sanders in a rainbow-colored robe and tiara.
Mr. Talarico has given sermons at a church in Austin that offers a cache of explicit “banned books,” including pornographic LGBTQ propaganda for children, such as “This Book Is Gay.”
He called Ten Commandments displays in schools “unconstitutional, un-American and deeply un-Christian.” He said this in 2023, speaking against a state bill requiring the posting of the decalogue in classrooms. He also said the proposed law was “idolatrous … exclusionary, and it is arrogant.”
How about this one? “God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is nonbinary.” He said this on the Texas House floor in 2021 while opposing a bill to keep boys out of girls’ sports.
Responding to some mass shootings, Mr. Talarico wrote a social media post in 2021 echoing President Biden: “Radicalized White men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.”
In a sermon he gave in 2023 at a Methodist church in Austin, Mr. Talarico said, “Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”
Translation: If you are a patriotic American Christian, then you are a hater.
Perhaps the most offensive of all was his invoking the Virgin Mary to suggest that God is OK with abortions. On a Joe Rogan podcast in July 2025, Mr. Talarico said of Mary’s submission to God to have the Holy Spirit conceive Jesus Christ through her: “I say all this in the context of abortion because before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent, which is remarkable. The angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, ‘If it is God’s will, let it be done. Let it be. Let it happen.’ So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create.”
The devil himself could not have come up with a more deceptive interpretation.
Mr. Talarico is trying to justify taking life, not creating it. In his version, Mary calls the shots, not God. However, in Luke 1:26-38, the angel Gabriel tells Mary what will happen. He does not give her a choice. Her response is beautiful.
In addition to misrepresenting the incarnation, Mr. Talarico often slanders the church, saying it ignores social welfare and instead takes on cultural issues, a false dichotomy. The church does both, contributing vastly to charities while serving as the conscience of society.
As for economics, Mr. Talarico unabashedly embraces collectivism, the atheistic ideology that spawned Nazism, fascism and communism and has caused more human misery and mass murder than any other in history. He rejects America’s free market system, which has brought unprecedented prosperity, freedom and scientific advancement.
“We don’t need to reform capitalism. We need to replace it with an economic system rooted in justice and dignity,” he said. Translation: I want to seize your income and property and redistribute it to people other than your family. It is only fair.
Mr. Talarico has a “free-stuff army” plan. It consists of “Medicare for All” (socialist healthcare), a wealth tax on billionaires, universal basic income (paid by taxpayers), free (taxpayer-funded) college, free (taxpayer-funded) childcare, student debt shifted to taxpayers, more power for labor unions, collective ownership of the means of production, and Green New Deal-style climate extremism that would wipe out America’s vital fossil fuels, including Texas’ oil and gas industries.
Mr. Talarico will pretend to be a moderate, the way Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger fooled voters in November. Yet it is doubtful he can explain his way out of this 2022 statement in barbecue-crazy Texas: “It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption and that we try to respect animals in all aspects of society. So I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a nonmeat campaign. We are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.”
Mr. Talarico has been singing a different song lately: “I deny all accusations of veganism. … Our campaign basically runs on barbecue these days.”
Somehow, I do not think Texans will swallow the sauce he is dishing out.
GFK
Observations From The Fifth Estate 