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French rebel as grocery stores begin demanding COVID passport |
Posted by: Stone - 08-21-2021, 07:26 AM - Forum: COVID Passports
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French rebel as grocery stores begin demanding COVID passport
Over the past few weeks, France has extended COVID pass requirements to nearly all basic venues
including bars, cafés, restaurants, cinemas, trains, stadiums, and gyms. Supermarkets are the latest addition to this list.
Fri Aug 20, 2021
PARIS, France (LifeSiteNews) — Some French supermarkets are now requiring their customers to show a COVID pass before entering.
The measure is sparking much controversy as a video showing police blocking the entrance of a supermarket to a group of people has immerged on Twitter.
Over the past few weeks, France has extended COVID pass requirements to nearly all basic venues including bars, cafés, restaurants, cinemas, trains, stadiums, and gyms. Supermarkets are the latest addition to this list. This week, some French supermarket chains have announced that they are now requiring customers to show a valid COVID pass before entering stores whose surfaces exceed 20,000 square meters (approximately 215,278 square feet), in areas where the COVID incidence rate is over 200 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Notices informing shoppers of the new regulation have been placed at the entrance of many supermarkets. One from Carrefour (see above) reads: “Welcome! From Monday August 16 onward, have your COVID passes ready for a serene shopping experience.”
There are only two ways French citizens can obtain the “sanitary pass.” One is to show proof of a “full vaccination package” which becomes valid a week after receiving both shots of a COVID-19 vaccine. The other is to show proof of a negative PCR or antigen test result obtained within the last 72 hours (an extension from the previous standard of 48 hours). The cost of PCR tests is currently covered by French social security, but as of mid-October this will no longer be the case.
A fine of up to 750 euros (approx. $818 US) is applicable to people presenting a fake or fraudulent COVID pass. The fine increases to 1500 euros (approx. $1754 US) for a second offense and to 3750 euros (approx. $4384 US) for a third.
The French department (administrative region) of Gironde, which launched the use of COVID bracelets on Wednesday, is one of 24 departments where the new measure applies. A prefectorial decree released on August 13 indicated that the COVID pass would be required to access the ten biggest supermarkets in the department from Monday, August 16 to Tuesday, August 31.
The document states: “Because of the active circulation of the virus (…) COVID pass checks will be carried out at the entrance of the stores before people are allowed to move freely.”
According to Franceinfo, the 24 departments have enforced the COVID pass since August 16 for access to a total of 144 supermarkets.
The new measure is not universally popular. Some claim it has no legal basis, even according to Decree 2021-1059 of August 7, that is, the new French law on the management of the COVID crisis. This legislation specifies that the extension of the COVID pass must be carried out “with conditions guaranteeing access to essential goods and services, including, in some cases, public transport.” Those against the new measure interpret this passage in a way that would make barring access to supermarkets to people without a COVID pass illegal.
A video appeared on Twitter showing a group of people with no COVID pass gathered in front of an E. Leclerc supermarket in Pau, a city in southwestern France, demanding entry. When security guards and police barred them from entering, the protestors shouted “Discrimination” before demanding to see a document proving the legal basis of this policy. They then shouted for the manager.
In response to complaints from the many customers who deem the measure illegal, the French supermarket group Carrefour issued a statement simply inviting the unhappy customers to take their grievances to the Prefects:
“The application of the COVID pass was dictated by the prefectures. We only apply the rules that were communicated to us,” wrote Carrefour group, adding that according to the prefectorial decree, “the COVID pass is required to enter these supermarkets regardless of the types of goods intended to be purchased.”
The prefecture of Gironde explained that some supermarkets with a surface equal to or exceeding 20,000 square meters might be exempt from the rule in cases where no smaller business is available nearby to serve people without a COVID pass. Each prefecture is responsible for studying the area around the supermarkets that are affected by this measure. This means that in supermarkets where the rule is maintained, no exemptions can be granted to anyone because it is thought that people without a COVID pass can buy their groceries elsewhere in the area. For this reason, no one without a COVID pass will be allowed access to supermarkets where the pass was made obligatory even for the purchase of essential goods.
The prefecture of Haute-Garonne also indicated that prefects are within their right to shut supermarkets that do not conform to the new law, especially if multiple violations are reported by police.
In reaction to all this, some have called for the boycott of big supermarket chains, which means they now face losing a significant part of their customer base. Small businesses, on the other hand, might experience a sudden boom, at least in areas where the new decree applies.
According to the Conseil Constitutionel, France’s highest constitutional authority, the COVID pass, implemented since August 9, is expected to apply until November 15, 2021. However, the timeframe may either be shortened or extended depending on “the necessity” as the spokesperson of the French government Gabriel Attal indicated on July 28.
“We will use the COVID pass as long as it is necessary,” said Attal
He added, “As soon as we won’t need the pass anymore, we won’t use it.”
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Vaccination center destroyed in Toulouse |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 10:15 AM - Forum: Global News
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Vaccination center destroyed in Toulouse
BP Via Teller Report| August 20, 2021
A vaccination center vandalized and 500 doses destroyed near Toulouse – France 24
Toulouse (AFP)
A Covid-19 vaccination center near Toulouse was vandalized overnight and 500 doses were destroyed, we learned Tuesday from corroborating sources.
No registration or claim was observed on site, the mayor of Saint-Orens-de-Gameville, Dominique Faure, told AFP.
“This is classic vandalism: tables and chairs were broken as well as two computer screens,” she said, adding that the alarm system with which the associative room has been transformed into a vaccination had not worked.
Five hundred doses of vaccine were also destroyed on the spot, according to a source close to the investigation.
A complaint was lodged by the town hall of the town and the investigation is entrusted to the research section of the Toulouse gendarmerie and the Villefranche-de-Lauragais research brigade, the Toulouse prosecutor’s office told AFP. .
The vaccination center should resume its activities “before the end of the week”, hopes Ms. Faure.
These acts of vandalism occur in a context of strong mobilization against the “health dictatorship” set up by the government, according to opponents of the health pass and the compulsory vaccination of caregivers.
Demonstration against the health pass and compulsory vaccination of caregivers on August 14, 2021 in Nantes Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS AFP / Archives
Several tens of thousands of people have been demonstrating every Saturday for the past five weeks.
At the beginning of August, the premises of the Order of Nurses in Toulouse had been vandalized, in particular with anti-health pass tags.
In July, an arson destroyed a tent hosting a vaccination center in Urrugne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) and another had been vandalized in Lans-en-Vercors (Isère), with anti-vaccine inscriptions tagged on the building.
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US Investigates Moderna Jab After Data Show 2.5x Higher Risk Of Heart Inflammation |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 10:12 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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US Investigates Moderna Jab After Data Show 2.5x Higher Risk Of Heart Inflammation
ZH | AUG 20, 2021
The Internet's social-media censors have been extremely vigilant at suppressing every tidbit of COVID vaccine "misinformation" that comes their way. So, as readers might imagine, drawing attention to publicly released data about the rare (but sometimes deadly) side effects associated with both mRNA and adenovirus-vector jabs has been...a challenge.
But let's back up: over the past couple of months, health authorities in the US and Israel connected rare instances of myocarditis - that is, inflammation of the heart - to the mRNA jabs produced by Pfizer and Moderna. After a hurried secret meeting with its advisors in late June, the FDA reluctantly released a warning about a "likely association" between incidences of myocarditis and the new side effects.
And now, a new twist: On Thursday evening, the Washington Post published a report claiming that the Moderna coronavirus vaccine may be associated with a higher risk of myocarditis in younger adults than previously believed. The report relies on new data from a Canadian study that has yet to be released.
How much more dangerous is the Moderna jab than the Pfizer? Well, the preliminary data leaked to WaPo show the risk of myocarditis might be as much as 2.5x higher for the Moderna jab.
The news represents the latest bump in the road for Moderna's high-flying stock, as patients (especially younger men in their 20s and 30s deemed at highest risk to suffer the side effect) now have an incentive to prefer Pfizer's jab over Moderna's (if they still have any confidence in the mRNA jabs at all, that is).
WaPo's sources stressed that the new research hasn't yet been concluded, and that there's still plenty of work to be done before the FDA decides whether to attach another warning label to the Moderna jabs. The sources also claimed that the new data "are not slam bang".
Quote:The investigation, which involves the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is focusing on Canadian data that suggests the Moderna vaccine may carry a higher risk for young people than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, especially for males below the age of 30 or so. The authorities also are scrutinizing data from the United States to try to determine whether there is evidence of an increased risk from Moderna in the U.S. population.
The two people who described the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing review because they were not authorized to discuss it.
One of the people familiar with the review emphasized it is too early to reach a conclusion. The person said the agencies must do additional work before deciding whether to issue any kind of new or revised warning or recommendation about the situation. In June, the FDA added a warning label for the Pfizer and Moderna shots — both known as mRNA vaccines — about increased risk of myocarditis.
“We have not come to a conclusion on this,” one of the people familiar with the investigation said. “The data are not slam bang.”
The FDA and CDC both said they're looking into the data. To be sure, WaPo notes that the side effects remain "extremely rare" - or at least "very uncommon." Probably...
Quote:The myocarditis side effect is extremely rare and even if it is more likely in people receiving the Moderna vaccine, it probably is still very uncommon. Officials want to be careful not to cause alarm among the public, especially when officials are trying to persuade more people to be vaccinated amid a surge of cases fueled by the fast-moving delta variant.
So far, the FDA and CDC's official position is that the threat posed by COVID is far worse than any threat posed by vaccine side effects, and that all Americans over the age of 12 should get the jab. But as with any recent scientific judgment, there are others in the community who disagree - some who believe that the risk of side effects for young people might just outweigh the risk of harm from contracting COVID, which - as we have reviewed before - is virtually nil.
Quote:“There might be a 2.5 times higher incidence of myocarditis in those who get the Moderna vaccine compared with Pfizer's vaccine.” Any risk at all for young people under 17 is unacceptable https://t.co/vz1REfaaj8
— Sue Cook (@SueC00K) August 20, 2021
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A Declaration of Faith (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus) |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 10:06 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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A Declaration of Faith
by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and Eternal Image: perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, Only of the Only, God of God, Image and Likeness of Deity, Efficient Word, Wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and Power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal and Eternal of Eternal. And there is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever.
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St. Ephraim the Syrian: The Pearl -- Seven Hymns on the Faith |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 09:55 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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The Pearl -- Seven Hymns on the Faith
Hymn 1
1. On a certain day a pearl did I take up, my brethren; I saw in it mysteries pertaining to the Kingdom; semblances and types of the Majesty; it became a fountain, and I drank out of it mysteries of the Son.
I put it, my brethren, upon the palm of my hand, that I might examine it: I went to look at it on one side, and it proved faces on all sides. I found out that the Son was incomprehensible, since He is wholly Light.
In its brightness I beheld the Bright One Who cannot be clouded, and in its pureness a great mystery, even the Body of our Lord which is well-refined: in its undividedness I saw the Truth which is undivided.
It was so that I saw there its pure conception — the Church, and the Son within her. The cloud was the likeness of her that bare Him, and her type the heaven, since there shone forth from her His gracious Shining.
I saw therein His trophies, and His victories, and His crowns. I saw His helpful and overflowing graces, and His hidden things with His revealed things.
2. It was greater to me than the ark, for I was astonied thereat: I saw therein folds without shadow to them because it was a daughter of light, types vocal without tongues, utterances of mysteries without lips, a silent harp that without voice gave out melodies.
The trumpet falters and the thunder mutters; be not daring then; leave things hidden, take things revealed. You have seen in the clear sky a second shower; the clefts of your ears, as from the clouds, they are filled with interpretations.
And as that manna which alone filled the people, in the place of pleasant meats, with its pleasantnesses, so does this pearl fill me in the place of books, and the reading thereof, and the explanations thereof.
And when I asked if there were yet other mysteries, it had no mouth for me that I might hear from, neither any ears wherewith it might hear me. O you thing without senses, whence I have gained new senses!
3. It answered me and said, The daughter of the sea am I, the illimitable sea! And from that sea whence I came up it is that there is a mighty treasury of mysteries in my bosom! Search out the sea, but search not out the Lord of the sea!
I have seen the various who came down after me, when astonied, so that from the midst of the sea they returned to the dry ground; for a few moments they sustained it not. Who would linger and be searching on into the depths of the Godhead?
The waves of the Son are full of blessings, and with mischiefs too. Have you not seen, then, the waves of the sea, which if a ship should struggle with them would break her to pieces, and if she yield herself to them, and rebel not against them, then she is preserved? In the sea all the Egyptians were choked, though they scrutinised it not, and, without prying, the Hebrews too were overcome upon the dry land, and how shall you be kept alive? And the men of Sodom were licked up by the fire, and how shall you prevail?
At these uproars the fish in the sea were moved, and Leviathan also. Have you then a heart of stone that you read these things and run into these errors? O great fear that justice also should be so long silent! Ecclesiastes 8:11
4. Searching is mingled with thanksgiving, and whether of the two will prevail? The incense of praise rises along with the fume of disputation from the tongue, and unto which shall we hearken? Prayer and prying [come] from one mouth, James 3:10 and which shall we listen to?
For three days was Jonah a neighbour [of mine] in the sea: the living things that were in the sea were affrighted, [saying,] Who shall flee from God? Jonah fled, and you are obstinate at your scrutiny of Him!
Hymn 2
1. Whereunto are you like? Let your stillness speak to one that hears; with silent mouth speak with us: for whoever hears the stammerings of your silence, to him your type utters its silent cry concerning our Redeemer.
Your mother is a virgin of the sea; though he took her not [to wife]: she fell into his bosom, though he knew her not; she conceived you near him, though he did not know her. Do thou, that are a type, reproach the Jewish women that have you hung upon them. You are the only progeny of all forms which art like to the Word on High, Whom singly the Most High begot. The engraven forms seem to be the type of created things above. This visible offspring of the invisible womb is a type of great things. Your goodly conception was without seed, and without wedlock was your pure generation, and without brethren was your single birth.
Our Lord had brethren and yet not brethren, since He was an Only-Begotten. O solitary one, you type exact of the Only-Begotten! There is a type of yours in the crown of kings, [wherein] you have brothers and sisters.
Goodly gems are your brethren, with beryls and unions as your companions: may gold be as it were your kinsman, may there be unto the King of kings a crown from your well-beloved ones! When you came up from the sea, that living tomb, you cried out. Let me have a goodly assemblage of brethren, relatives, and kinsmen. As the wheat is in the stalk, so you are in the crown with princes: and it is a just restoration to you, as if of a pledge, that from that depth you should be exalted to a goodly eminence. Wheat the stalk bears in the field; you the head of the king upon his chariot carries about.
O daughter of the water, who hast left sea, wherein you were born, and art gone up to the dry land, wherein you are beloved: for men have loved and seized and adorned themselves with you, like as they did that Offspring Whom the Gentiles loved and crowned themselves withal.
It is by the mystery of truth that Leviathan is trodden down of mortals: the various put him off, and put on Christ. In the sacrament of oil did the Apostles steal You away, and came up. They snatched their souls from his mouth, bitter as it was.
Your Nature is like a silent lamb in its sweetness, of which if a man is to lay hold, he lifts it by its ears in the form of a cross, as it was on Golgotha. He cast out abundantly all His gleams upon them that looked upon Him.
2. Shadowed forth in your beauty is the beauty of the Son, Who clothed Himself with suffering when the nails passed through Him. The awl passed in you since they handled you roughly, as they did His hands; and because He suffered He reigned, as by your sufferings your beauty increased.
And if they showed no pity upon you, neither did they love you: still suffer as you might, you have come to reign! Simon Peter showed pity on the Rock; whoever has smitten it, is himself thereby overcome; it is by reason of Its suffering that Its beauty has adorned the height and the depth.
Hymn 3
1. You do not hide yourself in your bareness, O pearl! With the love of you is the merchant ravished also, for he strips off his garments; not to cover you, [seeing] your clothing is your light, your garment is your brightness, O you that are bared!
You are like Eve who was clothed with nakedness. Cursed be he that deceived her and stripped her and left her. The serpent cannot strip off your glory. In the mysteries whose type you are, women are clothed with Light in Eden.
2. Very glistening are the pearls of Ethiopia, as it is written, Who gave you to Ethiopia [the land] of black men. He that gave light to the Gentiles, both to the Ethiopians and unto the Indians did His bright beams reach.
The eunuch of Ethiopia upon his chariot Acts 8:27 saw Philip: the Lamb of Light met the dark man from out of the water. While he was reading, the Ethiopian was joy, and journeyed on!
He made disciples and taught, and out of black men he made men white. And the dark Ethiopic women became pearls for the Son; He offered them up to the Father, as a glistening crown from the Ethiopians.
3. The Queen of Sheba 1 Kings 10:1 was a sheep that had come into the place of wolves; the lamp of truth did Solomon give her, who also married her when he fell away. She was enlightened and went away, but they were dark as their manner was.
The bright spark which went down home with that blessed [Queen], held on its shining amid the darkness, till the new Day-spring came. The bright spark met with this shining, and illumined the place.
4. There are in the sea various fishes of many cubits, and with all their greatness they are very small; but by your littleness the crown is made great, like as the Son, by whose littleness Adam was made great.
For the head is your crown intended: for the eye your beauty, for the ear your goodliness. Come up from the sea, you neighbour to the dry land, and come and sojourn by the [seat of] hearing. Let the ear love the word of life as it loves you!
In the ear is the word, and without it is the pearl. Let it as being warned by you, by you get wisdom, and be warned by the word of truth. Be its mirror: the beauty of the Word in your own beauty shall it see: in you it shall learn how precious is the Word on High! The ear is the leaf: the flesh is the tree, and you in the midst of it are a fruit of light, and to the womb that brings forth Light, you are a type that points.
You He used as a parable of that kingdom, O pearl! As He did the virgins that entered into it, five in number, clothed with the light of their lamps! To you are those bright ones like, you that are clad in light!
5. Who would give a pearl to the daughter of the poor? For when it hangs on her, it becomes her not. Gain without price that faith, all of which becomes all the limbs of men. But for no gold would a lady exchange her pearl.
It were a great disgrace if you should throw your pearl away into the mire for nought!
In the pearl of time let us behold that of eternity; for it is in the purse, or in the seal, or in the treasury. Within the gate there are other gates with their locks and keys. Your pearl has the High One sealed up as taking account of all.
Hymn 4
1. The thief gained the faith which gained him, Luke 22:42 and brought him up and placed him in paradise. He saw in the Cross a tree of life; that was the fruit, he was the eater in Adam's stead.
The fool, who goes astray, grazes the faith, as it were an eye, Zechariah 2:8 by all manner of questions. The probing of the finger blinds the eye, and much more does that prying blind. the faith.
For even the diver pries not into his pearl. In it do all merchants rejoice without prying into whence it came; even the king who is crowned therewith does not explore it.
2. Because Balaam was foolish, a foolish beast in the ass spoke with him, because he despised God Who spoke with him. You too let the pearl reprove in the ass's stead.
The people that had a heart of stone, by a Stone He set at nought, Matthew 21:42 for lo, a stone hears words. Witness its work that has reproved them; and you, you deaf ones, let the pearl reprove today.
With the swallow Jeremiah 8:7 and the crow did He put men to shame; with the ox, yea with the ass, Isaiah 1:3 did He put them to shame; let the pearl reprove now, O you birds and things on earth and things below.
3. Not as the moon does your light fill or wane; the Sun whose light is greater than all, lo! Of Him it is that a type is shadowed out in your little compass. O type of the Son, one spark of Whom is greater than the sun!—
The pearl itself is full, for its light is full; neither is there any cunning worker who can steal from it; for its wall is its own beauty, yea, its guard also! It lacks not, since it is entirely perfect.
And if a man would break you to take a part from you, you are like the faith which with the heretics perishes, seeing they have broken it in pieces and spoiled it: for is it any better than this to have the faith scrutinised?
The faith is an entire nature that may not be corrupted. The spoiler gets himself mischief by it: the heretic brings ruin on himself thereby. He that chases the light from his pupils blinds himself.
Fire and air are divided when sundered. Light alone, of all creatures, as its Creator, is not divided; it is not barren, for that it also begets without losing thereby.
4. And if a man thinks that you are framed [by art] he errs greatly; your nature proclaims that you, as all stones, are not the framing of art; and so you are a type of the Generation which no making framed.
Your stone flees from a comparison with the Stone [which is] the Son. For your own generation is from the midst of the deep, that of the Son of your Creator is from the highest height; He is not like you, in that He is like His Father.
And as they tell, two wombs bare you also. You came down from on high a fluid nature; you came up from the sea a solid body. By means of your second birth you showed your loveliness to the children of men.
Hands fixed you, when you were embodied, into your receptacles; for you are in the crown as upon a cross, and in a coronet as in a victory; you are upon the ears, as if to fill up what was lacking; you extend over all.
Hymn 5
1. O gift that came up without price Isaiah 55:1 with the diver! You laid hold upon this visible light, that without price rises for the children of men: a parable of the hidden One that without price gives the hidden Dayspring!
And the painter too paints a likeness of you with colors. Yet by you is faith painted in types and emblems for colors, and in the place of the image by you and your colors is your Creator painted.
O you frankincense without smell, who breathes types from out of you! You are not to be eaten, yet you give a sweet smell unto them that hear you! You are not to be drunk, yet by your story, a fountain of types are you made unto the ears!
2. It is you which are great in your littleness, O pearl! Small is your measure and little your compass with your weight; but great is your glory: to that crown alone in which you are placed, there is none like.
And who has not perceived of your littleness, how great it is; if one despises you and throws you away, he would blame himself for his clownishness, for when he saw you in a king's crown he would be attracted to you.
3. Men stripped their clothes off and dived and drew you out, pearl! It was not kings that put you before men, but those naked ones who were a type of the poor and the fishers and the Galileans.
For clothed bodies were not able to come to you; they came that were stript as children; they plunged their bodies and came down to you; and you much desired them, and you aided them who thus loved you.
Glad tidings did they give for you: their tongues before their bosoms did the poor [fishers] open, and produced and showed the new riches among the merchants: upon the wrists of men they put you as a medicine of life.
4. The naked ones in a type saw your rising again by the sea-shore; and by the side of the lake they, the Apostles of a truth, saw the rising again of the Son of your Creator. By you and by your Lord the sea and the lake were beautified.
The diver came up from the sea and put on his clothing; and from the lake too Simon Peter came up swimming and put on his coat; John 21:7 clad as with coats, with the love of both of you, were these two.
5. And since I have wandered in you, pearl, I will gather up my mind, and by having contemplated you, would become like you, in that you are all gathered up into yourself; and as you in all times are one, one let me become by you!
Pearls have I gathered together that I might make a crown for the Son in the place of stains which are in my members. Receive my offering, not that You are shortcoming; it is because of my own shortcoming that I have offered it to You. Whiten my stains!
This crown is all spiritual pearls, which instead of gold are set in love, and instead of ouches in faith; and instead of hands, let praise offer it up to the Highest!
Hymn 6
1. Would that the memory of the fathers would exhale from the tombs; who were very simple as being wise, and reverend as believing. They without cavilling searched for, and came to the right path.
He gave the law; the mountains melted away; fools broke through it. By unclean ravens He fed Elijah at the desert stream; and moreover gave from the skeleton honey unto Samson. They judged not, nor inquired why it was unclean, why clean.
2. And when He made void the sabbaths, the feeble Gentiles were clothed with health. Samson took the daughter of the aliens, and there was no disputing among the righteous; the prophet also took a harlot, and the just held their peace.
He blamed the righteous, Hosea 1:2 and He held up and lifted up [to view] their delinquencies: He pitied sinners, Matthew 9:13 and restored them without cost: and made low the mountains of their sins: Luke 18:9 He proved that God is not to be arraigned by men, and as Lord of Truth, that His servants were His shadow; and whatsoever way His will looked, they directed also their own wills; and because Light was in Him, Song of Songs 2:17 their shadows were enlightened.
3. How strangely perplexed are all the heretics by simple things! For when He plainly foreshadowed this New Testament by that of the Prophets, those pitiable men rose, as though from sleep, and shouted out and made a disturbance. And the Way, wherein the righteous held straight on, and by their truths had gone forth therein, that [Way] have these broken up, because they were besotted: this they left and went out of; because they pried, an evil searching, [yea,] an evil babbling led them astray.
They saw the ray: they made it darkness, that they might grope therein: they saw the jewel, even the faith: while they pried into it, it fell and was lost. Of the pearl they made a stone, that they might stumble upon it.
4. O Gift, which fools have made a poison! The People were for separating Your beauteous root from Your fountain, though they separated it not: [false] teachings estranged Your beauty also from the stock thereof.
By You did they get themselves estranged, who wished to estrange You. By You the tribes were cut off and scattered abroad from out of Sion, and also the [false] teachings of the seceders.
Bring Yourself within the compass of our littleness, O Gift of ours. For if love cannot find You out on all sides, it cannot be still and at rest. Make Yourself small, You Who is too great for all, Who comes unto all!
5. By this would those who wrangle against our Pearl be reproved; because instead of love, strife has come in and dared to essay to unveil your beauty. It was not graven, since it is a progeny which cannot be interpreted.
You showed your beauty among the abjects to show whereto you are like, you Pearl that art all faces. The beholders were astonied and perplexed at you. The separatists separated you in two, and were separated in two by you, you that are of one substance throughout.
They saw not your beauty, because there was not in them the eye of truth. For the veil of prophecy, full as it was of the mysteries; to them was a covering of your glistering faces: they thought that you were other [than you are], O you mirror of ours! And therefore these blind schismatics defiled your fair beauty.
6. Since they have extolled you too much, or have lowered you too much, bring them to the even level. Come down, descend a little from that height of infidelity and heathendom; and come up from the depth of Judaism, though you are in the Heaven.
Let our Lord be set between God and men! 1 Timothy 2:5 Let the Prophets be as it were His heralds! Let the Just One, as being His Father, rejoice! That Word it is which conquered both Jews and Heathens!
7. Come, You Gift of Holy Church, stay, rest in the midst of Her! The circumcised have troubled You, in that they are vain babblers, and so have the [false] doctrines in that they are contentious. Blessed be He that gave You a goodly company which bears You about!
In the covenant of Moses is Your brightness shadowed forth: in the new covenant You dart it forth: from those first Your light shines even unto those last. Blessed be He that gave us Your gleam as well as Your bright rays.
Hymn 7
1. As in a race saw I the disputers, the children of strife, [trying] to taste fire, to see the air, to handle the light: they were troubled at the gleaming, and struggled to make divisions.
The Son, Who is too subtle for the mind, did they seek to feel: and the Holy Ghost Who cannot be explored, they thought to explore with their questionings. The Father, Who never at any time was searched out, have they explained and disputed of.
The sound form of our faith is from Abraham, and our repentance is from Nineveh and the house of Rahab, and ours are the expectations of the Prophets, Genesis 15:6 ours of the Apostles.
2. And envy is from Satan: the evil usage of the evil calf is from the Egyptians. The hateful sight of the hateful image of four faces is from the Hittites. Accursed disputation, that hidden moth, is from the Greeks.
The bitter [enemy] read and saw orthodox teachings, and subverted them; he saw hateful things, and sowed them; and he saw hope, and he turned it upside down and cut it off. The disputation that he planted, lo! It has yielded a fruit bitter to the tooth.
3. Satan saw that the Truth strangled him, and united himself to the tares, and secreted his frauds, and spread his snares for the faith, and cast upon the priests the darts of the love of pre-eminence.
They made contests for the throne, to see which should first obtain it. There was that meditated in secret and kept it close: there was that openly combated for it: and there was that with a bribe crept up to it: and there was that with fraud dealt wisely to obtain it.
The paths differed, the scope was one, and they were alike. Him that was young, and could not even think of it, because it was not time for him; and him that was hoary and shaped out dreams for time beyond; all of them by his craftiness did the wicked one persuade and subdue. Old men, youths, and even striplings, aim at rank!
4. His former books did Satan put aside, and put on others: the People who was grown old had the moth and the worm devoured and eaten and left and deserted: the moth came into the new garment of the new peoples:
He saw the crucifiers who were rejected and cast forth as strangers: he made of those of the household, pryers; and of worshippers, they became disputants. From that garment the moth gendered and wound it up and deposited it.
The worm gendered in the storehouse of wheat, and sat and looked on: and lo! The pure wheat was mildewed, and devoured were the garments of glory! He made a mockery of us, and we of ourselves, since we were besotted!
He showed tares, and the bramble shot up in the pure vineyard! He infected the flock, and the leprosy broke out, and the sheep became hired servants of his! He began in the People, and came unto the Gentiles, that he might finish.
5. Instead of the reed which the former people made the Son hold, others have dared with their reed to write in their tracts that He is only a Son of man. Reed for reed does the wicked one exchange against our Redeemer, and instead of the coat of many colors, wherewith they clothed Him, titles has he dyed craftily. With diversity of names he clothed Him; either that of a creature or of a thing made, when He was the Maker.
And as he plaited for Him by silent men speechless thorns that cry out, thorns from the mind has he plaited [now] by the voice, as hymns; and concealed the spikes amid melodies that they might not be perceived.
6. When Satan saw that he was detected in his former [frauds]; that the spitting was discovered, and vinegar, and thorns, nails and wood, garments and reed and spear, which smote him, and were hated and openly known; he changed his frauds.
Instead of the blow with the hand, by which our Lord was overcome, he brought in distractions; and instead of the spitting, cavilling entered in; and instead of garments, secret divisions; and instead of the reed, came in strife to smite us on the face.
Haughtiness called for rage its sister, and there answered and came envy, and wrath, and pride, and fraud. They have taken counsel against our Redeemer as on that day when they took counsels at His Passion.
And instead of the cross, a hidden wood has strife become; and instead of the nails, questionings have come in; and instead of hell, apostasy: the pattern of both Satan would renew again.
Instead of the sponge which was cankered with vinegar and wormwood, he gave prying, the whole of which is cankered with death. The gall which they gave Him did our Lord put away from Him; the subtle questioning, which the rebellious one has given, to fools is sweet.
7. And at that time there were judges against them, Luke 23:14-15 lo, the judges are, as it were, against us, and instead of a handwriting are their commands. Priests that consecrate crowns, set snares for kings.
Instead of the priesthood praying for royalty that wars may cease from among men, they teach wars of overthrow, which set kings to combat with those round about.
O Lord, make the priests and kings peaceful; that in one Church priests may pray for their kings, and kings spare those round about them; and may the peace which is within You become ours, Lord, You that are within and without all things!
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August 20th - St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 09:17 AM - Forum: August
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August 20 – Feast of St Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church
The valley of wormwood has lost its bitterness; having become Clairvaux, or the bright valley, its light shines over the world; from every point of the horizon vigilant bees are attracted to it by the honey from the rock which abounds in its solitude. Mary turns her glance upon its wild hills, and with her smile sheds light and grace upon them. Listen to the harmonious voice arising from the desert; it is the voice of Bernard, her chosen one. “Learn, O man, the counsel of God; admire the intentions of Wisdom, the design of love. Before bedewing the whole earth, he saturated the fleece; being to redeem the human race, he heaped up in Mary the entire ransom. O Adam, say no more: ‘The woman whom thou gavest me offered me the forbidden fruit;’ say rather: ‘The woman whom thou gavest me has fed me with a fruit of blessing.’ With what ardor ought we to honor Mary, in whom was set all the fullness of good! If we have any hope, any saving grace, know that it overflows from her who today rises replete with love: she is a garden of delights, over which the divine South Wind does not merely pass with a light breath, but sweeping down from the heights, he stirs it unceasingly with a heavenly breeze, so that it may shed abroad its perfumes, which are the gifts of various graces. Take away the material sun from the world: what would become of our day? Take away Mary, the star of the vast sea: what would remain but obscurity over all, a night of death and icy darkness? Therefore, with every fiber of our heart, with all the love of our soul, with all the eagerness of our aspirations, let us venerate Mary; it is the will of him who wished us to have all things through her.”
Thus spoke the monk who had acquired his eloquence, as he tells us himself, among the beeches and oaks of the forest, and he poured into the wounds of mankind the wine and oil of the Scriptures. In 1113, at the age of twenty-two, Bernard arrived at Citeaux, in the beauty of his youth, already ripe for great combats. Fifteen years before, on the 21st of March, 1098, Robert of Molesmes, had created this new desert between Dijon and Beaune. Issuing from the past, on the very feast of the patriarch of monks, the new foundation claimed to be nothing more than the literal observance of the precious Rule given by him to the world. The weakness of the age, however, refused to recognize the fearful austerity of these new comers into the great family, as inspired by that holy code, wherein discretion reigns supreme; for this discretion is the characteristic of the school accessible to all, where Benedict “hoped to ordain nothing rigorous or burdensome in the service of God.” Under the government of Stephen Harding, the next after Alberic, successor of Robert, the little community from Molesmes was becoming extinct, without human hope of recovery, when the descendant of the lords of Fontaines arrived with thirty companions, who were his first conquest, and brought new life where death was imminent.
“Rejoice, thou barren one that bearest not, for many will be the children of the barrn.” La Ferté was founded that same year in Châlonnais; next Pontigny, near Auxerre; and in 1115 Clairvaux and Morimond were established in the diocese of Langres; while these four glorious branches of Citeaux were soon, together with their parent stock, to put forth numerous shoots. In 1119 the Charter of charity confirmed the existence of the Cistercian Order in the Church. Thus the tree, planted six centuries earlier on the summit of Monte Cassino, proved once more to the world that in all ages it is capable of producing new branches which, though distinct from the trunk, live by its sap, and are a glory to the entire tree.
During the months of his novitiate, Bernard so subdued nature that the interior man alone lived in him; the senses of his own body were to him as strangers. By an excess, for which he had afterwards to reproach himself, he carried his rigor, though meant for a desirable end, so far as to ruin the body, that indispensable help to every man in the service of his brethren and of God. Blessed fault, which heaven took upon itself to excuse so magnificently. A miracle (a thing which no one has a right to expect) was needed to uphold him henceforth in the accomplishment of his destined mission.
Bernard was as ardent in the service of God as others are for the gratification of their passions. “You would learn of me,” he says in one of his earliest works, “why and how we must love God. And I answer you: The reason for loving God is God himself; and the measure of loving him is to love him without measure.” What delights he enjoyed at Citeaux in the secret of the face of the Lord! When, after two years, he left this blessed abode to found Clairvaux, it was like coming out of Paradise. More fit to converse with Angels than with men, he began, says his historian, by being a trial to those whom he had to guide: so heavenly was his language, such perfection did he require surpassing the strength of even the strong ones of Israel, such sorrowful astonishment did he show on the discovery of infirmities common to all flesh.
But the Holy Spirit was watching over the vessel of election called to bear the name of the Lord before kings and people; the divine charity which consumed his soul taught him that love has two inseparable, though sadly different, object: God, whose goodness makes us love him; and man, whose misery exercises our charity. According to the ingenious remark of William de Saint-Thierry, his disciple and friend, Bernard re-learned the art of living through men. He imbued himself with the admirable recommendations given by the legislator of monks to him who is chosen Abbot over his brethren: “When he giveth correction, let him act prudently, and push nothing to extremes, lest while eager of of extreme scouring off the rust, the vase get broke … When he enjoineth work to be done, let him use discernment and moderation, and think of holy Jacob’s discretion, who said: ‘If I cause my flocks to be overdriven, they will all die in one day.’ Taking, therefore, these and other documents regarding that mother of virtue, discretion, let him so temper all things as that the strong may have what to desire and the weak nothing to deter them.”
Having received what the Psalmist calls ‘understanding concerning the needy and the poor,” Bernard felt his heart overflowing with the tenderness of God for those purchased by the divine Blood. He no longer terrified the humble. Beside the little ones who came to him attracted by the grace of his speech might be seen the wise, the powerful, and the rich ones of the world, abandoning their vanities, and becoming themselves little and poor in the school of one who knew how to guide them all, from the first elements of love to its very summits. In the midst of seven hundred monks receiving daily from him the doctrine of salvation, the Abbot of Clairvaux could cry out with the noble pride of Saints: “He that is mighty has done great things in us, and with good reason our soul magnifies the Lord. Behold we have left all things to follow thee: it is a great resolution, the glory of the great Apostles; yet we too, by his great grace have taken it magnificently. Perhaps, even if I wish to glory therein, I shall not be foolish, for I will say the truth: there are some here who have left more than a boat and fishing nets.”
“What more wonderful,” he said on another occasion, “than to see one who formerly could scarce abstain two days from sin, preserve himself from it for years, and even for his whole life? What greater miracle than that so many young men, boys, noble personages, all those, in a word, whom I see here, should be held captive without bonds in an open prison by the sole fear of God, and should persevere in penitential macerations beyond human strength, above nature, contrary to habit? What marvels we should discover, as you well knew, were we allowed to seek out the details of each one’s exodus from Egypt, of his passage through the desert, his entrance into the monastery, and his life within its walls.”
But there were other marvels not to be hidden within the secret of the cloister. The voice that had peopled the desert was bidden to echo through the world; and the noises of discord and error, of schism and the passions, were hushed before it; at its word the whole West was precipitated as one man upon the infidel East. Bernard had now become the avenger of the sanctuary, the umpire of kings, the confidant of sovereign Pontiffs, the thaumaturgus applauded by enthusiastic crowds; yet, at the very height of what the world calls glory, his one thought was the loved solitude he had been forced to quit. “It is high time,” he said, “that I should think of myself. Have pity on my agonized conscience: what an abnormal life is mine! I am the chimera of my time; neither clerk nor layman, I have the habit of a monk and none of the observances. In the perils which surround me, at the brink of precipices yawning before me, help me with your advice, pray for me.”
While absent from Clairvaux he wrote to his monks: “My soul is sorrowful and cannot be comforted till I see you again. Alas! Must my exile here below, so long protracted, be rendered still more grievous? Truly those who have separated us have added sorrow upon sorrow to my evils. They have taken away from me the only remedy which enabled me to live away from Christ; while I could not yet contemplate his glorious Face, it was given me at least to see you, you his holy temple. From that temple the way seemed easy to the eternal home. How often have I been deprived of this consolation? This is the third time, if I mistake not, that they have torn out my heart. My children are weaned before the time; I have begotten them by the Gospel and I cannot nourish them. Constrained to neglect those dear to me and to attend to the interests of strangers, I scarcely know which is harder to bear, to be separated from the former or to be mixed up with the latter. O Jesus, is my whole life to be spent in sighing? It were better for me to die than to live; but I would fain die in the midst of my family; there I should find more sweetness, more security. May it please my Lord that the eyes of a father, how unworthy soever of the name, may be closed by the hands of his sons; that they may assist him in his last passage; that their desires, if thou judge him worthy, may bear his soul to the abode of the blessed; that they may bury the body of a poor man with the bodies of those who were poor with him. By the prayers and merits of my brethren, if I have found favor before thee, grant me this desire of my heart. Nevertheless, thy will, not mine, be done; for I wish neither to live nor to die for myself.”
Greater in his Abbey than in the noblest courts, Bernard was destined to die at hom at the hour appointed by God; but not without having had his soul prepared for the last purification by trials both public and private. For the last time he took up again, but could not finish, the discourses he had been delivering for the last eighteen years on the Canticle. These familiar conferences, lovingly gathered by his children, reveal in a touching manner the zeal of the sons for divine science, the heart of the father and his sanctity, and the incidents of daily life at Clairvaux. Having reached the first verse of the third chapter, he was describing the soul seeking after the Word in the weakness of this life, in the dark night of this world, when he broke off his discourses, and passed to the eternal face to face vision, where there is no more enigma, nor figure, nor shadow.
The following is the notice consecrated by the Church to her great servant:
Quote:Bernard was born of a distinguished family at Fountains in Burgundy. As a youth, on account of his great beauty he was much sought after by women, but could never be shaken in his resolution of observing chastity. To escape these temptations of the devil, he at twenty-two years of age, determined to enter the monastery of Citeaux, the first house of the Cistercian Order, then famous for sanctity. When his brothers learned Bernard’s design, they did their best to deter him from it; but he, more eloquent and more successful, won them and many others to his opinion; so that together with him thirty young men embraced the Cistercian Rule. As a monk he was so given to fasting that whenever he had to take food he seemed to be undergoing torture. He applied himself in a wonderful manner to prayer and watching, and was a great lover of Christian poverty; thus he led a heavenly life on earth, free from all anxiety or desire of perishable goods.
The virtues of humility, mercy, and kindness shone conspicuously in his character. He devoted himself so earnestly to contemplation that he seemed hardly to use his senses except to do acts of charity, and in these he was remarkable for his prudence. While thus occupied he refused the bishoprics of Genoa, Milan, and others, which were offered to him, declaring that he was unworthy of so great an office. He afterwards became Abbot of Clairvaux, and built monasteries in many places, wherein the excellent rules and discipline of Bernard long flourished. When the monastery of Ss. Vincent and Anastasius at Rome was restored by Pope Innocent II, St. Bernard appointed as Abbot the future sovereign Pontiff, Eugenius III; to whom he also sent his book “De Consideratione.”
He wrote many other works which clearly show that his doctrine was more the gift of God than the result of his own labors. On account of his great reputation for virtue, the greatest princes begged him to act as arbiter in their disputes, and he went several times into Italy for this purpose, and for arranging ecclesiastical affairs. He was of great assistance to the Supreme Pontiff Innocent II in putting down the schism of Peter de Leone, both at the courts of the emperor and of king Henry of England, and at a Council held at Pisa. At length, being sixty-three years old, he fell asleep in the Lord. He was famous for miracles, and Pope Alexander III placed him among the Saints. Pope Pius VIII, with the advice of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, declared St. Bernard a Doctor of the universal Church and commanded all to recite the Mass and Office of a Doctor on his feast. He also granted a plenary indulgence yearly, for ever, to all who visit churches of the Cistercian Order on this day.
Let us offer to St. Bernard the following Hymn, with its ingenuous allusions;
it is worthy of him by the graceful sweetness wherewith it celebrates his grandeurs:
Hymn
Lacte quondam profluentes, * Ite, montes vos procul, * Ite, colles, fusa quondam * Unde mellis flumina; * Israel, jactare late * Manna priscum desine.
Ye mountains, once flowing with milk, depart to a distance; depart, ye hills that once poured forth streams of honey; Israel, cease to boast freely of your ancient manna.
Ecce cujus corde sudant, * Cujus ore profluunt * Dulciores lacte fontes, * Mellis amnes æmuli: * Ore tanto, corde tanto * Manna nullum dulcius.
Behold one from whose heart ebb forth, and from whose mouth flow out sweet fountains of milk and rival rivers of honey: than such a mouth, than such a heart no manna could be sweeter.
Quæris unde duxit ortum * Tanta lactis copia; * Unde favus, unde prompta * Tanta mellis suavitas; * Unde tantum manna fluxit, * Unde tot dulcedines.
Thou askest whence such abundance of milk originated; whence the honeycomb, whence the swift-flowing sweetness of honey; whence such manna; and whence so many delights.
Lactis imbres Virgo fudit * Cœlitus puerpera: * Mellis amnes os leonis * Excitavit mortui: * Manna sylvæ, cœlitumque * Solitudo proxima.
The showers of milk the Virgin-Mother shed on him from heaven: the mouth of the dead lion was the source of the honeyed rivers: the woods and the solitude so nigh the heavens produced the manna.
Doctor o Bernarde, tantis * Aucte cœli dotibus, * Lactis hujus, mellis hujus, * Funde rores desuper; * Funde stillas, pleniore * Jam potitus gurgite.
O Bernard, O Doctor, enriched with such gifts of heaven, shed down upon us the dews of milk and of this honey; give us the drops, now that thou possessest the full sea.
Summa summo laus Parenti, * Summa laus et Filio: * Par tibi sit, sancte, manans * Ex utroque, Spiritus; * Ut fuit, nunc et per ævum * Compar semper gloria. Amen.
Highest praise be to the Sovereign Father, and highest praise to the Son: and be the like to thee, O Holy Spirit, proceeding from them both, as it was, now is, and ever will be, equal glory eternally. Amen.
It was fitting to see the herald of the Mother of God following so closely her triumphal car; entering heaven during this bright Octave, thou delightest to lose thyself in the glory of her whose greatness thou didst proclaim on earth. Be our protector in her court; attract her maternal eyes towards Citeaux; in her name save the Church once more, and protect the Vicar of Christ.
But today, rather than to pray to thee, thou invitest us to sing to Mary and pray to her with thee; the homage most pleasing to thee, O Bernard, is that we should profit by thy sublime writings and admire the Virgin who, ‘today ascending glorious to heaven, put the finishing touch to the happiness of the heavenly citizens. Brilliant as it was already, heaven became resplendent with new brightness from the light of the virginal torch. Thanksgiving and praise resound on high. And shall we not in our exile partake of these joys of our home? Having here no lasting dwelling, we seek the city where the Blessed Virgin has arrived this very hour. Citizens of Jerusalem, it is but just that, from the banks of the rivers of Babylon, we should think with dilated hearts of the overflowing river of bliss, of which some drops are sprinkled on earth today. Our Queen has gone before us; the reception given to her encourages us who are her followers and servants. Our caravan will be well treated with regard to salvation, for it is preceded by the Mother of mercy as advocate before the Judge her Son.”
“Whoso remembers having ever invoked thee in vain in his needs, O Blessed Virgin, let him be silent as to thy mercy. As for us, thy little servants, we praise thy other virtues, but on this one we congratulate ourselves. We praise thy virginity, we admire thy humility; but mercy is sweeter to the wretched; we embrace it more lovingly, we think of it more frequently, we invoke it unceasingly. Who can tell the length and breadth and height and depth of thine, O Blessed one? Its length, for it extends to the last day; its breadth, for it covers the earth; its height and depth, for it has filled heaven and emptied hell. Thou art as powerful as merciful; having now rejoined thy Son, manifest to the world the grace thou hast found before God: obtain pardon for sinners, health for the sick, strength for the weak, consolation for the afflicted, help and deliverance for those who are in any danger, O clement, O merciful, O sweet Virgin Mary!’
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An open letter from 7 Canadian PhDs supporting the unvaccinated |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 08:44 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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An open letter from 7 Canadian PhDs supporting the unvaccinated
Do not be intimidated. You are showing resilience, integrity and grit. You are coming together in your communities,
making plans to help one another and standing for scientific accountability and free speech, which are required for society to thrive.
Thu Aug 19, 2021
(Dr. Trozzi) – You are not alone! As of 28 July 2021, 29% of Canadians have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, and an additional 14% have received one shot. In the US and in the European Union, less than half the population is fully vaccinated, and even in Israel, the “world’s lab” according to Pfizer, one third of people remain completely unvaccinated. Politicians and the media have taken a uniform view, scapegoating the unvaccinated for the troubles that have ensued after eighteen months of fearmongering and lockdowns. It’s time to set the record straight.
It is entirely reasonable and legitimate to say ‘no’ to insufficiently tested vaccines for which there is no reliable science. You have a right to assert guardianship of your body and to refuse medical treatments if you see fit. You are right to say ‘no’ to a violation of your dignity, your integrity and your bodily autonomy. It is your body, and you have the right to choose. You are right to fight for your children against their mass vaccination in school.
You are right to question whether free and informed consent is at all possible under present circumstances. Long-term effects are unknown. Transgenerational effects are unknown. Vaccine-induced deregulation of natural immunity is unknown. Potential harm is unknown as the adverse event reporting is delayed, incomplete and inconsistent between jurisdictions.
You are being targeted by mainstream media, government social engineering campaigns, unjust rules and policies, collaborating employers, and the social-media mob.
You are being told that you are now the problem and that the world cannot get back to normal unless you get vaccinated.
You are being viciously scapegoated by propaganda and pressured by others around you. Remember; there is nothing wrong with you.
You are inaccurately accused of being a factory for new SARS-CoV-2 variants, when in fact, according to leading scientists, your natural immune system generates immunity to multiple components of the virus. This will promote your protection against a vast range of viral variants and abrogates further spread to anyone else.
You are justified in demanding independent peer-reviewed studies, not funded by multinational pharmaceutical companies. All the peer-reviewed studies of short-term safety and short-term efficacy have been funded, organized, coordinated, and supported by these for-profit corporations; and none of the study data have been made public or available to researchers who don’t work for these companies.
You are right to question the preliminary vaccine trial results. The claimed high values of relative efficacy rely on small numbers of tenuously determined “infections.” The studies were also not blind, where people giving the injections admittedly knew or could deduce whether they were injecting the experimental vaccine or the placebo. This is not acceptable scientific methodology for vaccine trials.
You are correct in your calls for a diversity of scientific opinions. Like in nature, we need a polyculture of information and its interpretations. And we don’t have that right now. Choosing not to take the vaccine is holding space for reason, transparency and accountability to emerge. You are right to ask, ‘What comes next when we give away authority over our own bodies?’
Do not be intimidated. You are showing resilience, integrity and grit. You are coming together in your communities, making plans to help one another and standing for scientific accountability and free speech, which are required for society to thrive. We are among many who stand with you.
Angela Durante, PhD
Denis Rancourt, PhD
Claus Rinner, PhD
Laurent Leduc, PhD
Donald Welsh, PhD
John Zwaagstra, PhD
Jan Vrbik, PhD
Valentina Capurri, PhD
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Big pharma eyes next childhood vaccine cash cow — mRNA vaccines for RSV |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2021, 08:40 AM - Forum: Health
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Big pharma eyes next childhood vaccine cash cow — mRNA vaccines for RSV
Now that COVID vaccines have established mRNA technology as the 'new frontier for vaccine development,' pharma giants have set their sights on an
mRNA vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) — which they hope to add to an already overburdened childhood vaccine schedule.
Fri Aug 20, 2021
(Children’s Health Defense - adapted, not all hyperlinks included below, see original article) – Over the decades since childhood vaccines began rolling out on a widespread scale, pediatric vaccine injuries have left many parents regretful for forgetting or ignoring a basic history lesson.
That lesson, in the words of Harvard medical historian David Jones, is that “when it comes to vaccines and immunization … there always has been a risk and there always will be a risk.”
Sixty-five years ago, families learned about the risks of medical experimentation the hard way when they allowed researchers to use their infants as test subjects for a vaccine against a newly discovered illness dubbed “respiratory syncytial virus” (RSV), a common-cold-like illness now considered to affect “virtually all children,” mostly uneventfully, by age two.
The disastrous RSV vaccine led to the death of two infants and to hospitalization for the majority of other young clinical trial participants.
Since that time, vexed researchers have continued to deploy “trial-and-error approaches.” But they admit the “road to an effective RSV vaccine is paved with challenges,” in large part because of the tricky problem of “vaccine-associated disease exacerbation” — a problem that has also plagued coronavirus vaccines.
The gist of the “exacerbation” issue, also called antibody-dependent enhancement or pathogenic priming, is that the vaccine “primes” recipients to later develop more severe disease instead of protecting them.
Lured by the prospect of a large untapped global RSV vaccine market, manufacturers are nonetheless setting their sights on RSV vaccine development — and not just for infants but also for pregnant women and the elderly.
By 2019, capitalizing on the proliferation of new vaccine technologies, clinical trials were evaluating an estimated 30 candidate RSV vaccines, and scientists were gleefully announcing that the world “might be on the brink of clinical implementation soon.”
The crowded field of RSV vaccine candidates includes messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. In fact, with COVID injections having opened the floodgates to establish mRNA technology as the “new frontier for vaccine development,” pharma giants appear more confident than ever that they are close to finally producing an RSV winner.
In a nod to these hopes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just granted fast-track designation to Moderna for the company’s experimental mRNA-1345 vaccine against RSV. Although the fast-track FDA review applies only to older adults for now, Moderna’s phase 1 trials of its RSV injection also include children as young as 1 year old.
What about safety?
The 1960s RSV vaccine was a disaster in terms of safety, but researchers engaged in subsequent RSV vaccine attempts have tried to steer public attention away from risks and toward a single-minded focus on effectiveness.
With the help of industry-standard study design tricks — such as monitoring adverse events for only a short while or comparing the vaccine against immune-activating aluminum adjuvants or other vaccines (rather than an inert placebo) — manufacturers have managed to keep potential safety problems in the shadows.
The foundational ethical standards underpinning research on human subjects demand special attention to vulnerable populations, including unborn babies, neonates, pregnant women and the institutionalized elderly.
Yet these are precisely the populations that RSV studies have targeted — all flops, with none leading to a licensed vaccine and a bare minimum of disclosure about safety.
For example:
- With no comparison group, Lederle Laboratories (later acquired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, then Pfizer, and now known as New York Center for Innovation) tested a recombinant (genetically engineered) subunit vaccine on three dozen chronically ill institutionalized persons (mean age=87) in the mid-1990s, half of whom, at baseline, “required assistance with walking or used a wheelchair.” Five died within five months of injection, but investigators reported “All deaths were due to medical conditions unrelated to the study.”
- Wyeth administered an aluminum-adjuvanted subunit RSV vaccine or an aluminum phosphate adjuvant “control” to several hundred children ages 1-12 years with cystic fibrosis (late 1990s). Cystic fibrosis is a condition characterized by immune system defects, and aluminum adjuvants can make the immune system go haywire.
- In the early 2000s, in a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, Wyeth gave three dozen healthy women in their third trimester of pregnancy its aluminum-adjuvanted subunit RSV vaccine or a saline placebo, operating under the premise (contradicted by considerable evidence) that pregnant women “respond well to vaccines.” The manufacturer monitored local and systemic reactions in the mothers for just seven days. The researchers reported no noteworthy differences in outcomes for the two groups of infants during their first year of life, although two of the vaccinated babies developed RSV anyway.
- Between 2015 and 2018, Novavax gave more than 4600 healthy pregnant women (28-36 weeks gestation) a “fusion protein nanoparticle vaccine” or a buffer formulation (used to stabilize proteins and generally understudied for toxicity). Fifty-seven (1.2%) of the 18- to 40-year-old participants, more than half recruited in South Africa, did not progress to a live birth. Four in 10 women in the vaccine group, versus one in 10 in the placebo group, reported injection site reactions.
- In June 2020, Pfizer launched a phase 3 trial to vaccinate pregnant women with a subunit RSV vaccine (placebo unspecified). The study design involves monitoring serious adverse events in infants for 24 months, but for only six months in mothers. The trial is ongoing.
One of the RSV vaccines entering clinical trials in recent years — including planned phase 3 trials with a “target population” of two-month-olds — is a viral vector vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that, like the AstraZeneca COVID shot, uses a chimpanzee adenovirus as the vector.
Interestingly, the researchers who identified RSV in the mid-1950s initially found it in chimps, not humans, and called it “chimpanzee coryza agent.” [Note: RSV’s origins will be discussed further in an upcoming article in The Defender].
The gold rush is on
Globally, the highest burden of RSV-attributed illness is in low- and middle-income countries, where 99% of fatalities occur.
For the majority of American babies for whom RSV plays out as a short-lived cough or runny nose — just like any other winter sniffles — an RSV vaccine will offer no benefit. Nor are vaccines likely to help the subset of infants who do go on to develop more serious lung inflammation (bronchiolitis) or pneumonia, children who tend to have comorbidities or weaknesses stemming from prematurity, congenital problems, neuromuscular disorders or a compromised immune system.
Yet, as the calamitous COVID injections are illustrating, virus fears — helped along by propaganda and manipulation of social psychological concepts such as social influence — can persuade parents to adopt and promote measures that run counter to their children’s interests.
To ensure ongoing panic, the media and hospitals are now reporting a summer outbreak of RSV-plus-COVID. Ironically, experts explain the “unusually high” number of RSV cases as “the result of children being largely quarantined last fall and winter, hindering them from building up an immunity.”
Unfortunately, accounts of this “wicked one-two punch” are bound to send some parents into the waiting arms of manufacturers dangling salvation in the form of an RSV vaccine, even if the injection, such as Moderna’s likely forthcoming mRNA shot, uses a technology that mRNA’s creator is warning is risky.
GSK candidly admits in materials shared with the World Health Organization that the company’s vision for its two-dose infant RSV shot is for “co-administration with routine paediatric vaccines” — in other words, incorporation into already overburdened childhood vaccine schedules.
In the U.S., the vaccine schedule for children and adolescents currently includes as many as six dozen doses through age 18: up to 27 doses of 10 vaccines (14 antigens) through 15 months of age, another 13 doses of 8 vaccines (11 antigens) through age 18, plus one to two annual flu shot doses.
The U.S. also just launched its first six-in-one shot for infants despite worrisome safety signals in Europe.
Shocked by the scale and severity of COVID vaccine injuries in their adolescents, some parents are pushing back against the “one in a million” narrative, reminding the world that there is no accountability or liability for injuries caused by any experimental or licensed vaccine.
With roughly 400 adverse events documented in the package inserts of existing childhood vaccines, other parents might do well to consider whether the risks of either RSV or COVID injections are worth the tenuous benefits.
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Georgia Guidestones Meme |
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 01:41 PM - Forum: General Commentary
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Taken from Wikipedia's page on the above Georgia Guidestones:
Quote:A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones[8] in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion—faith—tradition—and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the Earth—Leave room for nature—Leave room for nature.
[...]
Interpretations
Yoko Ono said the inscribed messages are "a stirring call to rational thinking", while Wired stated that unspecified opponents have labeled them as the "Ten Commandments of the Antichrist".
The guidestones have become a subject of interest for conspiracy theorists. One of them, an activist named Mark Dice, demanded that the guidestones "be smashed into a million pieces, and then the rubble used for a construction project", claiming that the guidestones are of "a deep Satanic origin", and that R. C. Christian belongs to "a Luciferian secret society" related to the New World Order. At the unveiling of the monument, a local minister proclaimed that he believed the monument was "for sun worshipers, for cult worship and for devil worship".[5] Conspiracy theorist Jay Weidner has said that the pseudonym of the man who commissioned the stones – "R. C. Christian" – resembles Rose Cross Christian, or Christian Rosenkreuz, the founder of the Rosicrucian Order.
The whole wikipedia webpage is rather interesting as it related to these stones astronomical orientation, etc.
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August 19th – St John Eudes, Confessor |
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 08:14 AM - Forum: August
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August 19 – St John Eudes, Confessor
Saint Jean Eudes, forerunner of devotion both to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was born in 1601, some time after France had been torn apart by the revolt of the Huguenots. The rebels were calmed but relegated to western France by King Henry IV, after he himself returned to the Catholic faith. It was in that region that this young Saint spent his childhood, at Argentan in Normandy, and was educated with the Jesuits of Caen. The father of this first-born of a family of solid and profound virtue, had himself desired the sacerdotal life, and he did not long oppose Jean’s desire to consecrate himself to God as a priest. At eighteen years of age Saint Jean had already composed a treatise on voluntary abnegation, which his confessor obliged him to publish. He was ordained in Paris as a member of the recently founded French Oratory of Saint Philip Neri; his teachers there were Fathers de Berulle and de Condren, two unsurpassed spiritual directors. The governing theme of his meditation, his preaching and his writings was the importance of the redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God, through the intermediary of His Immaculate Mother. Controversy was not lacking in those days, when the Mother of God had been relegated to a very secondary if not insignificant role by the reformers, and Saint Jean did not fear controversy. He chose to study both theology and what we would call debate, as essential preparations for his calling. In those days seminaries were scarce; aspiring future priests themselves sought out the instruction they needed.
At Caen a pestilence broke out and soon decimated the populace, often deprived of spiritual assistance. Jean Eudes offered to care for them in person, and while the scourge lasted slept outdoors in a field, in an old barrel, to protect his brothers in religion from contagion. In 1639 he was named Superior of the Oratory of Caen by Father de Condren, although the Superior General feared that office could interfere with his missions, from which they hoped for great renovation in western France. Nonetheless, from 1638 until 1642, Saint Jean, with his brethren in religion, was engaged in preaching missions in the dioceses of Bayeux and Lisieux, where the bishops encouraged him and soon were praising him highly. The fruits of these missions were rich and long-lived. Father Eudes was a follower of Saint Vincent de Paul in his ardent desire to evangelize the poor folk, so long neglected, and it was to the people that the preaching of the Oratorian missionaries was addressed. Their missions lasted for several weeks. “Otherwise,” said Saint Jean, “we put a bandage on the wound, but do not heal it.” Processions, hymns, little religious plays, special conferences for specific groups, organization of leagues against duels and blasphemy, and visits to the sick occupied the missionaries’ very full days.
Saint Jean Eudes left the Oratory, a Society of priests which he loved sincerely, like other founders who have been in a similar position, because he was called by God to break new ground in establishing a group of priests without religious vows, destined to occupy posts in the new seminaries of France. The Council of Trent had commanded these establishments everywhere, ordaining that priests be formed to head parishes and to establish in each of them a school. Already in 1658 Saint Jean himself had founded four seminaries in Normandy,—at Caen, Coutances, Lisieux and Rouen. Before the Revolution in France, the Eudists had accepted the responsibility for sixteen seminaries or minor seminaries. This required a foundation in depth in theology and all pastoral duties. Some of his former brethren turned against him when he left them, and he met obstacles also when founding in Caen a Congregation of women to raise up poor girls led astray by ignorance or need. The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity founded by Saint Jean, parent body of the Good Shepherd nuns, have done an immense good in many countries. The Congregation of Jesus and Mary has sent missionary priests to several countries, all over the world. Saint Jean Eudes, who died in 1680, was beatified in 1909 by Saint Pius X, and canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925.
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The Unexpected Pilot |
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 08:08 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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The Unexpected Pilot
Two religious of the Order of St. Francis were sailing on the Sea of Flanders. All at once there arose a tempest so furious that the vessel was swallowed up, with all on board numbering more than 300 persons.
A disastrous shipwreck
The two Franciscan monks were so fortunate as to get hold of a fragment of the wreck, to which they clung. For three days and three nights they were exposed to the fury of wind and waves.
What a fearful situation! Their strength began to fail and at last they could scarcely keep their hold on the planks of safety. At this moment they began to invoke St. Joseph, for whom they had always had a particular devotion.
On that third day, a strong and dignified man with white hair and a beard appeared before them. He deigned to take his place in their rough craft and to unite his efforts with theirs, while sharing their danger.
St. Joseph directs the shipwrecks to a secure shore
He graciously saluted them, and that very salute seems to revive their failing courage and give them new strength. Very soon he took the direction of their singular craft, and brought them safe and sound to shore.
The good religious first thanked Heaven for having saved them; then, turning to the unknown pilot, they begged him to tell them his name.
"I am Joseph," he replied. "I am he whose heart was overwhelmed with seven joys and torn by seven swords of sorrow. My protection is sure to all those who shall make a remembrance of them on earth. Profit by this advice, and make others do so likewise.”
He then disappeared, leaving the monks full of joy and gratitude.
The Sorrows of St. Joseph
1. His doubts about the Virgin Mary.
2. His pain at the lowly poverty of Jesus' birthplace.
3. Watching the circumcision, the first blood of Christ spilt for us.
4. Hearing the prophetic message of Simeon.
5. Taking the Holy Family into exile in Egypt.
6. The arduous trip back from Egypt.
7. The loss of Jesus for three days.
The Joys of St. Joseph
1. The Angel's message of the mystery of Christ's Incarnation.
2. The Savior's birth.
3. The honor of naming Jesus.
4. Hearing Simeon foretell Jesus as the light to Gentiles & glory of His people.
5. Seeing the idols of Egypt fall before the Infant Jesus.
6. The holy life lived with Jesus and Mary.
7. Finding Jesus in the Temple after three days of loss.
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Federal Judge: Vaccine Mandate at Louisiana College Violates Religious Liberty |
Posted by: Stone - 08-19-2021, 07:55 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Federal Judge: Vaccine Mandate at Louisiana College Violates Religious Liberty
A federal judge struck down the vaccine mandate at a Louisiana medical school, holding that it violates religious liberty rights under the Louisiana Constitution, and issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the school
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, issued the order after Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) students Lynn Magliulo, Matthew Shea Willis, and Kirsten Willis Hall alleged the school’s policy infringed on their freedom of religion.
On June 30, 2021, VCOM sent out an email to students notifying them that the school was requiring all students to receive a full coronavirus vaccination to enroll in fall 2021 classes. The email also said religious and medical exemptions, which the college limited, would be heard on an individual basis. However, VCOM later contradicted itself by saying it would not recognize religious or medical exemptions, according to court documents.
The three students dissented and requested exemptions based on “deeply held religious beliefs.” According to the temporary restraining order, the students objected to the vaccine because they believed them to be “devised from aborted fetal tissues, violating their religious beliefs.” They also dissented because the vaccine is approved for emergency use only “and is therefore experimental.”
The students alleged that their exemption requests were subsequently denied, and Magliulo said she was given a deadline via email of July 19, 2021 to either defer school for a year or get a coronavirus vaccine.
After it became clear the students were pursuing legal action against the school, VCOM changed its exemption policy three times, approved the students’ religious exemptions “for the current time,” and ultimately created what Judge Doughty found to be burdensome restrictions that would interfere with the students’ ability to graduate.
One of the school’s excessive restrictions included barring unvaccinated students from participating in Standardized Patient Examinations and Early Clinical Experiences “which are required to advance or graduate,” according to court documents.
Doughty said VCOM further “placed a “Scarlett Letter” type list of requirements on the “unvaccinated,” in which students would be required to disclose their “unvaccinated” status to other students “in order to obtain the other students’ consent to work with the “unvaccinated.”’
The religious exemption was time-limited until one or more of the vaccines currently under Emergency Use Authorization receive full FDA approval. Unvaccinated students were also threatened with suspension if they were caught without a face mask on.
Judge Doughty said the “threat to religious freedom was imminent” when referring to the students’ case, and he said the “potential harm of a constitutional violation, ability to complete their education, ethics charges, and possible expulsion outweighs VCOM’s interest.”
He further noted that restrictions on students’ ability to dissent from the mandate which keeps them from being able to graduate “defeats the purpose of having the right of dissent.”
Louisiana law does not provide a method for institutions to restrict dissent. VCOM would be authorized to exclude unvaccinated students until the end of the disease incubation period or until they present evidence of vaccination. However, that mechanism requires a recommendation from the Louisiana Office of Public Health, which the school does not have.
“Therefore, under Louisiana law, students at VCOM are not subject to VCOM’s mandatory vaccine requirements if the student provides a written statement from a physician that the procedure is contraindicated for medical reason or presents a written dissent from a student or student’s guardian,” the judge ruled.
Solicitor General Liz Murrill, on behalf of the Attorney General, worked with the plaintiff students and their attorney in achieving a “favorable outcome.”
“Even during a pandemic, we must protect the rights of our citizens,” said Attorney General Jeff Landry. “I’m pleased with the court’s decision and glad these students can focus on what’s important: their education.”
“This is a win for the people of Louisiana who have sincerely held religious convictions and other reservations about these vaccines,” added Solicitor General Murrill. “The bottom line is that the law and constitution still apply. We are grateful to Judge Doughty for protecting their rights and upholding the rule of law, and we will continue to work toward an acceptable resolution.”
Doughty further ruled that the school is not allowed to retaliate or discriminate against the students for filing proceedings. The temporary restraining order will remain in effect pending the final resolution of the case, or upon further orders from the same court or higher courts.
“We’re very happy with the decision,” said Michael DuBos, the attorney representing the VCOM students. “We feel it is important to respect individual rights, especially in a time of crisis. If not, it sets a dangerous precedent.”
This case is Magliulo v. Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, No. 3:21-cv-2304 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
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