Are you looking for Solutions for America in Distress

You are in the right place to find out about what is really going on behind the scenes in the patriot movement in America, including solutions from Oathkeepers, Anna Von Reitz, Constitutional Sheriffs, Richard Mack, and many more people who are leading the charge to restore America to freedom and peace. Please search on the right for over 10,360 articles.
You will find some conflicting views from some of these authors. You will also find that all the authors are deeply concerned about the future of America. WHAT THEY WRITE IS THEIR OWN OPINION, just as what I write is my own.


Tuesday, May 27, 2025

International Public Notice: End All Support for the Israeli Regime

 By Anna Von Reitz

Why should we all end all support for Israel?  

Israel has become what it should hate; by focusing attention on past wrongs, it has internalized those atrocities and now repeats them, only this time, they are the brutal oppressors, the racial "elites", and the IDF have become the storm troopers.  

The rest of us can, from a safe distance, observe this process in action, and see that, as Hannah Arendt said, "we become what we hate" if we are not brave and circumspect enough to make other choices.  

Something similar happens with abused children.  About 20% of those who have been abused as children refuse to abuse their own children, because they realize the horrific injustice and damage that abuse causes.  

Even though they have suffered themselves, they learn the lesson and consciously choose not to harm others. 

Unfortunately, up to 80% of those who are abused, simply learn how to abuse and grow up and go on to become abusers themselves. 

This is what has happened with Israel and many of the Diaspora Jews who have returned there to their ancient homeland, now free to create the lives they always wanted --- except that they have dragged the horrific baggage of the past along with them.  

Having been the victims of racial, ethnic, and religious prejudice, they now pour out these same venoms on their hapless neighbors.  

They have become what they hate. 

This process is exacerbated by feelings of fear and constant worry. They never want to be victims of violence again, so what do they do? 

They invest every penny in "defense" and concentrate all their energy on war, and they swagger around and demean everyone who isn't an Israeli, and create a system of apartheid that only guarantees that yes, they will be hated and disrespected and yes, they will be 
endlessly engaged in war, war, and more war --- and more violent, deranged, and delusional thinking.  

Israel has become the Aggressor, but they are so habituated to playing the role of the Victim, that they can't even perceive their role reversal. 

Israel, under Netanyahu, is the equivalent of a violently insane person who has escaped from the sanatorium, and is now armed with nuclear weapons. 

This should be a matter of the gravest concern for the entire world, but especially a matter of ultimate concern for the people living in Israel and calling themselves Israelis.  They probably don't realize it, but they have painted a target on their own backs. 

Many major nations, including our own, have quietly (very quietly) restructured their own hypersonic missile and space-based programs to intercept Israeli aggression, and if necessary, put Israel down like a rabid dog. 

None of this would be necessary, except that the Israeli Government, hellbent on finally getting its piece of the Middle Eastern Oil Pie and capitalizing on the planned opening of the Eastern Mediterranean Oil Basin and the new East Sinai Canal, has not only carpet bombed the Gaza Strip, but has -- as if in a mental feedback loop -- done it a second time, and followed up by deliberately interning and starving the 2.5 million survivors of this atrocity. 


Starving civilians is not "defense".  It's genocide.  Israel's whole over the top wildly overstated response to the bought-and-paid-for Hamas attack reeks of preplanning, and the location of Gaza with respect to the oil and canal projects is damning.  

We see you, Israel.  We all see you.  

We see Kensington Palace, too, and the Brit part in trying to foist off "the State of Israel, Inc." as another franchise of the British Territorial Crown Corporation calling itself the United States of America, Inc.

The Brits want Israel to get its paws into the new oil and canal developments, so that they can profit, too, via kickbacks and share interests.  That's why MI6 paid Hamas for the October Surprise attack. That's why Israel mysteriously dropped its normally airtight border defenses to expedite the attack.  

None of this had anything to do with the Palestinians peacefully living in Gaza.  It had to do with money and manipulation and corporate greed, with criminal foreign mercenary activity against civilian populations, with corporation plans to steal a crucially important little piece of land.  

Through it all, the people of Gaza remained clueless and innocent. They didn't know about the plans for an East Sinai Canal.  They weren't told that they were ten miles away from the biggest new value-added oil refinery development site in history.  

Even their fellow Muslims initially turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, itself a comment on how chronic and routine Israeli abuse of the Palestinian population, both Muslim and Christian, has been. 

It was only later, when the whispers spread and the totally inappropriate scale of the Israeli response became self-evident that the Muslim Brotherhood acted like a brotherhood, stirred their stumps, and brought forward their own plan to restore Gaza. 

Here we are, on the back end of the second wave of carpet bombing, faced with Israeli war-mongering incursions in Lebanon and Syria, too, staring down Israeli refusals to allow food and water and medical supplies into Gaza.  

Israel by any secular and reasonable standard, should not exist; the fact that it does is due to Jacob Rothschild paying the Bank of England and the British Crown an immense amount of money to "lease the property" for use as a "Jewish homeland"--- from their unlawful Balfour Declaration-created military protectorate.

As on so many other occasions, the British Government exercised sovereign powers it doesn't actually have, to cover the butts of the British Crown officers engaged in illegally and immorally setting up these phony "military protectorates" on other people's land and soil, and then manipulating the "protectorate" to sell property interests that the British Government never had, didn't win by war, and can't justify when held feet first to the fire.

Jacob Rothschild's supposition that the Protectorate had the right to sell him a lease on land that never belonged to Britain, like the British Government's supposition that it could do such a thing, was all based on their own arrogant presumptions and very little else.  

Certainly, the people in the region were mystified.  They had been living in the region peacefully for generations, Jew, Muslim, and Christian alike, when suddenly, all these Jews fleeing from mostly Russia and Eastern Europe appeared like an invading army of refugees, plopped down, drew lines on a map, and started calling themselves "Israel".  

The people paying for this and allowing this, meanwhile, lived thousands of miles away and were spared the realities and injustices their unlawful and illegal meddling created. 

We have moved on from blaming the Israelis for their False Identification Psychosis enshrining and patterning after the Nazis, and even moved on from the ridiculously criminal meddling of the "British" Government.  

To us, even the rat-pack scrabbling over the East Sinai Canal development and the Eastern Mediterranean Oil Basin is droll, because we know that the days of Big Oil are at an end. It has been more than a hundred years since Tesla's patents on Free Energy processes were entered.  It's all Open Source now.  

What disturbs us is the sight of Donald Trump crying over a couple Mossad Agents getting gunned down, but not a single tear over 20,000 Palestinian children in Gaza.  It may be classic British Crown behavior, but it's still unsettling, and shows a disturbing displacement of values. 

If you zoom out to the big picture, this same lack of accountability for the results of one's own actions, this lack of sympathy, this tribal elitism that exalts one's own blood and denigrates everyone else's is the root of British and Roman madness. 

Their "tradition" cripples their hearts and distorts their perceptions.  Having bought into their own Big Lie, they force it on everyone else.  
The rest of us, unimpaired by their delusions of superiority, have a difficult time keeping up with their twisted and self-aggrandizing assumptions of power and ownership based on theft and deceit.  

Acting unaware of the East Sinai Canal and concurrent Eastern Mediterranean Oil Basin developments, all Donald Trump could do was look at the bleeding destruction of Gaza and its people, and muse about high-rise hotels and casinos dotting the coast.  All he was willing to do was declare it a wasteland, and hand-wave at some future philanthropic replacement home for the victims. 

That's not enough.  That's not even sane. 

Somewhere in the back of our minds and hearts, we all realize that we witnessed something unhinged when Trump visited Gaza, and we all have to pay attention to that.  We witnessed it again, when he broke down over Mossad Agents, but apparently, felt nothing for the 20,000 murdered-for-profit children of Gaza. 

And this realization is triggering something else, a deep-seated Shinola Sensor Alarm: doesn't it seem strange to you, that a man who has positioned himself as the Savior of all the Missing Children, the buster of child-trafficking rings and the nemesis of blood-sacrifice ritual cults, should show no concern --- no concern at all --- for the children of Gaza?  Nothing for the 20,000 already dead, and nothing for the survivors of the Israeli Blitz?  

This lapse in the optics just won't go away.  It can't be made up for, with any number of great, reassuring photo opportunities of Trump kissing babies.  

Children are children. They are all owed our protection and care. They all deserve security and peace, clean food and water, medical care when they need it, decent homes and communities--- which their parents were working hard to provide for them in Gaza--- until the Board Rooms in London and Bern interfered, and the greedy, ugly, scheming, unfeeling old white men sipping their gin interfered. 

Just like all the great revelations of DOGE showing the criminality and lack of accountability of Congress and the Agencies mean nothing when not followed up with arrests and violent restructuring; and, just like exposure of election fraud means nothing without addressing the nature of the election itself-- and how merely "political" elections have been used to substitute for valid public elections for over a hundred years. 

The stick began to beat the dog, the dog began to chase the cat, the cat began to chase the rat that ate the cheese that sat in the house that George built.  We owe it to ourselves to continue this process and we owe it to our children and to children everywhere to continue this process with relentless determination. 

The Generals and their Handlers must be utterly convinced that the game is kaput and their own rumps are on the line.  Just like P Diddy.  

For our own sanity and safety, we cannot allow the Swiss-British-Roman nexus to continue, and we can't allow any new version of the same old crap --cloaked as other nations or going by other names-- to remain.  

Allowing the enslavement or denigration of any man, only serves to guarantee our own.  It doesn't matter how or by whom the wretched dish is served; liver disguised as sirloin will taste the same. 

We are constantly amazed that people remain so naive, and don't understand that when they release a wild beast intending for it to eat their neighbors, that same beast can return at night and feast off them, instead. 

Right now, Israel's current political leadership is the ravening Beast, promoting endless war in the name of elitism and self-interest, ginning up False Flags to excuse their own unjust enrichment, pushing their tentacles into not only Gaza, but into Lebanon and Syria, which are sovereign nations and have been sovereign nations for centuries before any modern version of Israel was breach-born on Jacob Rothschild's blanket. 

They are standing in the way of their own ultimate enrichment and everyone else's, by continuing to foment war among the nations.  

Vast stores of wealth, the very "storehouses of the Lord", have been set aside for all the nations of the Earth, so that people everywhere can live in peace and plenty, once they give up war as the answer to anything, and give up elitism.  

This should be so easy for the Jews to do, even based on their own scriptures.  The "chosen of God" have always been chosen on an individual basis.  There are plenty of examples where Jews have earned the wrath of God throughout the Old Testament, and so, by their own actions and inactions, their own lust and greed, their own violence and disobedience, they were not chosen at all.  These individuals and even entire Jewish kingdoms were rejected. 

There was no special racial or religious "Pass Go, Get $200 Free" card for Jews in Old Testament times and there certainly isn't one now. 

So we call on the Israelis to look --- really look --- at what Netanyahu and Company are doing in their names, and we are asking is this really what you believe in?  Because if you think that you are so "special" that you can engage in endless war-for-profit and just kill the survivors of your rampages, steal resources and destroy property belonging to your neighbors, and then leave the survivors to starve --there is nothing in all of Jewish history and nothing in The Ten Commandments to suggest that this is true. 

God may have given you the land, but you lost it; other people, other generations inherited it.  And now when you have returned, you didn't come as conquerors.  You came as refugees, hurt and desperate, slipping in the back door on a ticket that other people paid for.  

Learn the lesson you should have learned already. 

When you are abused, the lesson is about why you shouldn't abuse others.   

Issued by: 
Anna Maria Riezinger -- Fiduciary
The United States of America
In care of: Box 520994
Big Lake, Alaska 99652

May 26th 2025

---------------------------

See this article and over 5300 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

To support this work look for the Donate button on this website. 

How do we use your donations?  Find out here.

Monday, May 26, 2025

International Public Notice: 2015 Bankruptcy and Where We Are Now

 By Anna Von Reitz

Ten years after they went rogue in 2005, the Federal Reserve ran out of luck.  After promoting a thoroughly unlawful and illegal Blood Money system on our shores -- based on labor contracts and performances -- for over a hundred years, a series of events led to the Federal Reserve's demise as banks.  

There are no Federal Reserve Banks anymore and there haven't been for years.  What you are looking at today are investment and management firms operating under similar names (and yes, we have run into that before, haven't we?) 

How did this happen?  What does it mean? 

In the spring of 2012, Winston Shrout went to Jakarta and worked with another man whose name I don't have permission to divulge, who was Settlor for a major foreign trust.  In 1935, the Federal Reserve had borrowed the use of $2.4 million metric tons of gold from this trust and had promised to pay 4% per annum for the use of it, but, typical for the Federal Reserve, they never paid the 4%.  

None of it.  Ever. 

After 77 years, the amount owed was almost five million metric tons of gold, so the Trust set up a commercial lien on all 12 Federal Reserve Banks--- which were due to re-charter in January of 2013. They couldn't re-charter with that lien hanging over them, and they couldn't repay it, so..... they aren't banks anymore, though they give the appearance that they are. 

Now, how does this circumstance impact us --- understanding that the "Federal Reserve" is a consortium of private banks --- and not actually part of our American Government at all?

The Federal Reserve Banks held the records of our Exemptions and issued bonds against them.  If you received a Social Security Card any time from about 1985 to 2013, the alphanumeric bond number was printed in red on the back of the SSN card.  Each letter corresponded to the particular Federal Reserve Bank, so, for example, "my" bond was held by the Chicago Federal Reserve. 

Everything was hunky-dory for decades, but when the Federal Reserve banks failed to re-charter, they lost control of the exemptions 
--- and the collateral.  

The United States, Inc. which was already running a Chapter 11 Reorganization could no longer write-off their corporate franchise debts against our exemptions. 

Step back. Think about how they impersonated us, first as British Merchant Mariners, and after that "persona" was declared legally dead, we were impersonated a second time as Municipal Cestui Que Vie (Roman Inferior) Corporation franchises  

PENELOPE ANN PEABODY, INC., was exactly such a franchise of the UNITED STATES, INC.

THOSE Roman Inferior Trust franchises were using our Exemptions to pay THEIR corporate debts and taxes.

That's why the IRS and Internal Revenue Service kept coming back on us and double-dipping and accusing us of owing debts.  A phony foreign shell corporation had already claimed our exemptions and used them to offset their own debts. That's why they wouldn't honor our requests to swap debts as Mutual Offset Credit Exchange Exemptions.  

The IRS Trust #62 in Puerto Rico couldn't help them, because the actual taxing authority is the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the Philippines (IRS Trust #2).  All these entities and authorities have had their part in defrauding us, stealing our identities, impersonating us, trafficking us, and denigrating our political status -- and all under color of law, while under contract and accepting payment for "good faith service". 

This is just one (1) of the ways that our grossly misdirected public employees have sought to undermine our sovereignty and security, unjustly benefit themselves at our expense, and manipulate the appearance of debt, so that the actual lawful Possessors appeared to be the Debtors instead. 

In our recent comments to the Chinese, consider this an addendum and a simple yet compelling example of how our people have been abused by these same criminally self-interested Federal Citizens pretending to represent us.  This is why we are the "preferential secured party creditors" of all the district corporations, their franchises, and their Principals. 

Each one of us has suffered and each generation for six generations has suffered in ways that can't be calculated as any form of currency or money.  We have borne the physical injuries, the diseases, and the loss of loved ones; we have suffered the loss of education, relationships, careers, dreams, and peace.  We have been unjustly harassed, surveilled, and driven from our homes and businesses, we have had our homes invaded by thieves wearing uniforms, and many of us have been imprisoned or had our assets illegally confiscated or both--- and, most damning,  we were never told the truth. 

There are a great many people who owe us a great deal of money, but for the most part, it is an insurmountable debt -- the kind of debt you can never repay.   That debt is written in the blood and bone of our sons and daughters who were lied to about Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the Somme and Ardennes,  Normandy and North Africa, the Philippines and Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and over 200 lesser conflicts.  Their precious lives have been sacrificed for nothing, their hearts and bodies broken, their minds twisted -- and for those who survived, poverty and oppression at home and more lies.

This is why we work hard every day to heal and repair, to recoup and restore, to help and comfort our own people and all the living people of this planet who have suffered right along with us, who have been impersonated as corporation franchises and subjected to commercial law, who have been the victims of these fiends in nice suits. 

Not paying their corporate tax (because they couldn't use our exemptions to pay it for them anymore) made the UNITED STATES, INC. the Debtor in Possession --- so the British Territorial U.S. Secretary of the Treasury came in as the Receiver representing the phony British Seaman's Estate Trusts, more shelf corporations they created out of thin air (and fraudulently substituted for us) and as the debts piled higher and higher, the UNITED STATES had to come up with an "extra" $440 Billion by May 6th 2015.  

They didn't even try to make it and were forced into Chapter 7 liquidation.  Barack Hussein Obama gloried in it and told his army of lawyers to relabel and redefine all the Americans as bankrupt Puerto Rican Public Transmitting Utility franchises, and sure enough, another new dummy corporation, PENELOPE A PEABODY was "born".  A new round of fraud was about to begin.  

Donald Trump was brought in by the new trustees of the receivership to handle the mop up of the bankruptcy.  All the rest of the "optics" ---the furor over the "stolen election" like "Russiagate" --  was all just manufactured by these foreign actors occupying our stage, to keep us entertained and distracted while they tried to set up another scam --- the Plandemic -- by which they hoped to own us and our estates as "Transhumans" redefined as Genetically Modified Organisms. 

Winston Shrout was railroaded and imprisoned for his part in bringing all this to fruition --- another brave American who has suffered and paid the price of being illegally and unlawfully detained by Vermin who owe him good faith service. 

And of course, nobody has said "Thank you, Winston!" --- until now. 

Just one more note, for those who may not know.  The vast wealth of the St. Germain Trust --- my family trust --- can only be released when there is no active war anywhere in the world.  Right now, Israel is being the pig-headed nasty little short-sighted bully standing in its own way --- and everyone else's. 

Issued by: 
Anna Maria Riezinger -- Fiduciary
The United States of America
In care of: Box 520994
Big Lake, Alaska 99652

May 25th 2025

---------------------------

See this article and over 5300 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

To support this work look for the Donate button on this website. 

How do we use your donations?  Find out here.

Sunday, May 25, 2025

International Public Notice: Notice to "the Alliance"

 By Anna Von Reitz

Here's why your announcement about people having to undergo (successfully) "brain wave training" prior to being able to access the new Med Bed technology --- doesn't pass muster: 

(1) We've been hearing about these "Med Beds" for at least ten years and there has never been any mention of any special training, much less "brain wave" synchronization training, in all that time.  This sudden restriction and demand comes only at the same time that this long-awaited technology is purportedly being deployed, so we raise our hands and hold our noses; 
(2) These "Med Beds" have purportedly been wrested from the Evil Ones by armed confrontation and were being used by and for the benefit of these same Evil Ones prior to this. Do you actually expect us to believe that men like this -- criminals and predators --  were all masters of brainwave control and synchronization?  
(3) To us, this appears to be a last-minute limitation or restriction holding the public hostage and requiring people to undergo some kind of brain-washing program, probably tied to subliminal messaging hidden in the "training";
(4) This, in turn, appears to be attached to long term DARPA plans to install "new software" in our brains to make us more docile and controllable, and to insert new false beliefs to replace other older false beliefs that can later be stimulated to predetermine our reactions to a given stimulus--- as if we were Pavlov's dog; 
(5) In full view of "the Alliance" failure to protect millions of our children, and failure to protect our bodies from ChemTrails, earlier vaccine injections full of Mercury and Aluminum, Covid injections that have polluted our genomes, poisons in our water and food, phony mortgages, phony citizenship obligations, phony courts, phony taxes on non-existent federal income, but all too actual evictions from our homes and businesses and extremely realistic stints in "federal" jails and jails run by federal franchise operations --- all while members of the Alliance have been under contract to protect our persons (Article IV) and render good faith service; 
(6) Obviously, these Med Beds had no such rarified calibrations that would prevent them from treating the physical ills of the most depraved individuals on this planet, so the idea that they are too exalted to treat Grandma's bunions without her first becoming a guru is falling flatter than a pancake at a wedding reception;  
(7) We, the living people and public of this country, have paid for everything, including all the Black Ops programs we didn't know we were funding. So by what leap of imagination does the Alliance presume to dictate whether or not the public has access -- free and open access -- to all and any beneficial technology that has been captured?  
(8) From now on, our government needs to serve the living people, not the corporations.  For example, we aren't getting rid of the  oppressive SWIFT monopoly on world banking and financial transactions just to accept QFS, an even more oppressive monopoly consolidation of the same. We will take care of our own money, our own health, our own thoughts and our own beliefs with no "help" from now on; 
(9) We are obviously aware of the intrigues and lawfare which have promoted impersonation fraud against living people, and the system of barratry that profits evil men from it --- we universally oppose the practice of impersonating men as things and extend our objections to all our "persons" in all jurisdictions; 
(10) We feel that in view of recent history, the Med Bed program should be turned over to members of the medical community who stood up against the Plandemic --- men and women like Bryan Ardis and Judy Mikovits, who are trustworthy and who did the right thing even when it wasn't the popular or profitable thing to do, people who sacrificed their careers and resisted bribes and threats to tell the truth; 
(11) We also highly recommend that "the Alliance"--- while engaged in the present clean up operations ---  divest DARPA of all its patents and repeal the "legislation" allowing government employees to take out private patents on government-sponsored research. Divest them too, beginning with Fauci. Seize the assets of all those who have profited themselves by supplanting the Public Interest in public funded research. While you are at it, get rid of the American Medical Association (AMA) and all other organizations that have licensed occupations of common right and imposed European Guilds in our country. They shouldn't even be here; 
(12)  It's the job of the States -- the actual States -- to direct the operations of State Government and it is the job of their Federation to direct operations in international jurisdiction; in the absence of the Confederation it also falls to us to direct operations in global jurisdiction --- as we have done before, 1776 to 1781. We are the respective civilian authorities that you are supposed to be taking your marching orders from, not the various federal Congresses; 
(13) If this is coming as a surprise to anyone, get out your copy of The Constitution of the United States of America and The Federalist Papers which detail the discussions leading up to the creation of the Federal Government in this country; 
(14) At this moment, we need you all to be aware of continuing attempts by the Medical Cabal to criminalize and license occupations of common right in this country--- and the grossly illegal and unlawful prosecution of Dr. Robert Young under the False Presumption that he ever claimed to be a Medical Doctor or needed such credentials to save lives abandoned by the useless patent medicine pushers. 


So far, the Alliance has been pussy-footing around about mass arresting the lawless scum responsible for actions like this -- people who profit themselves from the misery of others, and who try to ignore the fact that they have no cures despite billions of dollars spent.

Read that -- with respect to cancer, the experts have a 2% overall cure rate, which is what Mother Nature grants us via natural remission.  The billions of dollars being spent on conventional treatment are going into an endless black hole, while at the same time, Dr. Young, functioning as a local shaman, has been able to save an impressive percentage of lives. 

Our employees may have forgotten that the only reason they have a job is to protect us and our assets ---- but we have not; 

The Vermin responsible for prosecuting Dr. Young will try to justify their actions because he unwittingly accepted a "doctoral" degree, but as he was not given disclosure prior to that acceptance, and because he has never pretended to have a medical degree nor been required to function as a "Uniformed Officer" these excuses for Bad Behavior on the part of the court and the State of California Bar Association are just as dishonest and self-serving as all their other excuses. 

The State of California needs to be reamed out like a lemon, starting with their worthless crooked Governor and the members of the California Bar Association.  The sooner they are held accountable and put out of commission, the better; 

(15) Please remember that these incorporated entities have no state immunity, and neither do their officers, officials or appointees. Most of them have been so arrogant that they have not bothered to secure any form of bonding or insurance for their operations.  When they harass Americans and bring False Claims against them in self-interested greed, they need to be prosecuted in the Public Interest.  They are all 100% commercially and personally liable. 

Issued by: 

Anna Maria Riezinger - Fiduciary 
The United States of America
In care of: Box 520994
Big Lake, Alaska 99652

May 24th 2025

---------------------------

See this article and over 5300 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

To support this work look for the Donate button on this website. 

How do we use your donations?  Find out here.

Fifth Sunday After Easter

 In thanks for the redemption the Church sings at the Introit:

INTROIT Declare the voice of joy, and let it be heard, allel.: declare it even to the ends of the earth: the Lord hath delivered his people. (Isai. XLVII. 20.) Allel. allel. Shout with joy to God, all the earth: sing ye a psalm to his name, give glory to his praise. (Fs. LXV.) Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

COLLECT O God, from whom all good things proceed: grant to Thy suppliants, that by Thy inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by Thy guidance may perform the same. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end, Amen.

EPISTLE (James I. 22‑27.) Dearly Beloved, Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be compared to a than beholding his own countenance in a glass: for he beheld himself and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty, and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless, and widows in their tribulation, and to keep one's self unspotted from the world.

EXPLANATION True piety, as St. James here says, consists not only in knowing and recognizing the word of God, but in living according to its precepts and teachings; in subduing the tongue, the most dangerous and injurious of all our members; in being charitable to the poor and destitute, and in contemning the world, its false principles, foolish customs and scandalous example, against which we should guard, that we may not become infected and polluted by them. Test thyself, whether thy life be of this kind.

ASPIRATION O Jesus! Director of the soul! Give me the grace of true piety as defined by St. James.

GOSPEL (John XVI. 23-30.) At this time, Jesus saith to his disciples: Amen, amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father, anything in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto, you have not asked anything in my name. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things I have spoken to you in proverbs. The hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father. In that day, you shall ask in my name: and I say not to you that I will ask the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples say to him: Behold, now thou speakest plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now we know that thou knowest all things, and thou needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou comest forth from God.

Why does God wish us to ask of Him?

That we may know and confess that all good comes from Him; that we may acknowledge our poverty and weakness which in all things need the help of God; that we may thus glorify Him and render ourselves less unworthy of the gifts which He has promised us.

What is meant by asking to the name of Jesus?

By this is meant praying with confidence in the merits of Jesus, "who," as St. Cyril says, "being God with the Father, gives us all good, and as mediator carries our petitions to His Father." The Church, therefore concludes all her prayers with the words: "Through our Lord, Jesus Christ." It means also that we should ask that which is in accordance with the will of Christ, namely, all things necessary for the salvation of our soul; to pray for temporal things merely in order to live happily in this world, is not pleasing to Christ and avails us nothing. "He who prays for what hinders salvation," says St. Augustine, "does not pray in the name of Jesus." Thus Jesus said to His disciples: Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name, "because," as St. Gregory says, "they did not ask for that which conduces to eternal salvation."

Why is it that God sometimes does not grant our petitions?

Because we often pray for things that are injurious, and like a good father, God denies them to us, in order to give us something better; because He wishes to prove our patience and perseverance in prayer; because we generally do not pray as we ought; to be pleasing to God, prayer should be made when in a state of grace and with confidence in Christ's merits, for the prayer of a just man availeth much; (James V. 16.) we must pray with humility and submission to the will of God, with attention, fervor, sincerity, and with perseverance.

At what special times should we pray?

We should pray every morning and evening, before and after meals, in time of temptation, when commencing any important undertaking, and particularly in the hour of death. God is mindful of us every moment, and gives us His grace. It is, therefore, but just that we think often of Him during the day, and thank Him for His blessings.

How can we, in accordance with Christ's teachings, (Luke XVIII. 1.) pray at all times?

By making the good intention when commencing our work, to do all for the love of God, and according to His most holy will; by raising our hearts to God at different times during the day; frequently making acts of faith, hope, love, and humility, and by repeating short ejaculations, such as: O Jesus! grant me grace to love Thee! Thee only do I desire to love! O be merciful to me! Lord hasten to help me.

What is the signification of the different ceremonies that Catholics use at their prayers?

The general signification is that God must be served, honored and adored, not only with the soul but with the body; when we pray aloud we praise God, not only with the mind, but also with our lips; when we pray with bowed and uncovered head, with folded, uplifted, or outstretched hands, on bended knees, with bowed and prostrated body, we show our reverence and subjection to the majesty of God, before whom we, who are but dust and ashes, cannot humble ourselves enough. These different ceremonies during prayer are frequently mentioned in both the Old and the New Testaments, and Christ and His apostles have made use of them, as for instance, the bending of the knees, falling on the face, &c.

Which is the best of all prayers?

The Lord's Prayer which Christ Himself taught us, and commands us to repeat. When said with devotion, it is the most powerful of all prayers. (Matt. VI, 9-13; Luke XI. 2‑4.)

SHORT EXPLANATION OF THE LORD'S PRAYER

Of what does the Lord's Prayer consist?

It consists of an address, as an introduction to the prayer, and of seven petitions which contain all that we should ask for the honor of God, and for our own salvation. The address is thus: Our Father who art in heaven:

What does the word “Our" signify?

In the communion of saints we should pray for and with all the children of God; we should be humble and preserve brotherly love towards all men.

Who is it that is here called our “Father"?

Our Father is God who has made us His children and heirs of His kingdom through His Son.

Why do we say "Who art in heaven", since God is everywhere?

To remind us that our true home is heaven, for which we, should ardently long, because our Father is there, and there He has prepared our inheritance.

For what do we ask to the first petition: "Hallowed be Thy name?"

That we and all men may truly know, love, and serve God.

For what do we pray to the second petition: "Thy kingdom come?"

That the Church of God; the kingdom of Christ, may extend over the whole earth, and the kingdom of sin and the devil be destroyed; that Christ may reign in our hearts and in the hearts of all; and that God will deign to receive us into the kingdom of heaven when our earthly pilgrimage is ended.

For what do we ask to the third petition: "Thy will be done on earth as it is to heaven ?"

We beg that God would enable us, by His grace, to do His will in all things, as the blessed do it in heaven. In these three petitions we seek, as taught by Christ, first the kingdom of God, that all the rest may be added unto us. (Luke XII. 31.)

For what do we ask in the fourth petition: "Give us this day our dally bread?"

We beg for all necessaries for body and soul

Why does it say, "this day?"

The words "this day" signify that we should not be over anxious for the future, but place all our confidence in God who will provide the necessaries of life.

What do we ask for in the fifth petition: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us?"

We beg that God will forgive us our sins, as we forgive others their offenses against us. Those who make this petition, and still bear enmity towards their neighbor, lie in the face of God, and will not receive forgiveness. (Mark XI. 25, 26.)

What is risked for in the sixth petition: Lead us not into temptation?"

We ask God to avert all temptations or at least not to abandon us when we are tempted. We cannot, indeed be entirely free from them in this world, they are even necessary and useful for our salvation: for without temptation there is no combat, without combat no victory and without victory no crown.

What do we ask for in the seventh petition: Deliver us from evil?"

We beg that God would free us from all evil of soul and body.

INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE PROCESSIONS ON ROGATION DAYS

What are processions?

Processions are solemn religious assemblages of persons marching together, and are instituted by the Catholic Church partly to encourage the piety of the faithful, partly in remembrance of graces received, and in thanksgiving for them. Processions are approved of by the Fathers of the Church from the earliest ages. Those who take part in them in a true spirit will reap wholesome fruit of Christian piety.

Are processions something new?

No, they were the custom in the very earliest centuries of the Church, as testified by the acts of the martyrs, of Saints Cyprian, Lucius, Boniface, and the Fathers of the Church, Saints Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Gregory, and others. They are also founded on Scripture. Thus King David caused the ark of the covenant to be carried in solemn procession to Jerusalem, (II Kings VI.) and Solomon, his son, had it carried in solemn procession into the new temple. (III Kings VIII. 1-6.)

What do processions signify?

Processions are a figure of our pilgrimage on earth; we are strangers and wanderers here below, our journey reaches from this valley of tears to the heavenly Sion, the procession therefore returns into the house of God; our journey leads over the thorny ways of life, the procession therefore takes place in the open air, where the pilgrim is exposed to all kinds of weather; they are a powerful incentive to fervor in prayer for the faithful; when hundreds, even thousands of faithful praise God aloud, or cry to Him for help and mercy, must not even the coldest heart be roused to vivid, fervent devotion, since Christ has promised to be present even where two or three are assembled in His name? Processions are an open acknowledgment that praise, thanks and adoration are due to God alone, while they are a public profession of our faith in Christ, the Crucified; they are a solemn thanksgiving for being permitted to profess Christ, our Lord, before the whole world, as also for all the graces obtained through Him; they are a public testimonial of our faith in the one, holy, Catholic Church, whose members are united by the same bond of faith, and who form under their head, Christ, one family in God. Finally, they are a sign of the triumph of Christian faith over the darkness of heathenism. If processions are solemnized with such intentions, with order and dignity, with fervent devotion, in the light of faith, they are indeed a pleasing sight for angels and men

Why are banners and the cross carried in procession?

The cross signifies that we are assembled as Christians, in the name of Jesus, in whose name we begin and end our prayers, through whose merits we expect all things from the Heavenly Father, and whom we must follow: on our journey to heaven; the red and white banners indicate that we must walk in all innocence under the banner of Christ, and fight unto death against sin, against the world and the devil, and be as ready as were the martyrs to give our life for our faith; the blue banners indicate that we must walk the road of self-denial and mortification, with really humble and penitent feelings for our gins. The banners are also emblematic of Christ's victory over death and hell, and of the triumph of His religion over the pagans and Jews.

Why do we go around the fields in processions?

To beg God to bless the fields with His fatherly hand, to give and preserve the fruits of the earth, and. as He fills the animals with blessings, and gives them food at the proper time, so may He give to as also our necessary food.

What is the origin of the procession on St. Mark's day and on Rogation Days?

The procession on St. Mark's day was instituted even before the time of Pope Gregory the Great (607) who, however, brought it into fervent practice, "in order," as he says, 'to obtain, in a measurer forgiveness of our sins." The same pontiff introduced another, called the Sevenfold Procession, because the faithful of Rome took part in it in seven divisions, from seven different Churches, meeting in the Church of the Blessed Virgin. It was also named the Pest Procession, because it was ordered by St. Gregory to obtain the cessation of a fearful pestilence which was at that time raging in Rome, and throughout all Italy. This pestilence so poisoned the atmosphere that one opening his mouth to sneeze or gape would suddenly fall dead; (hence the custom of saying God bless you," to one sneezing, and of making the sign of the cross on the mouth of one who gapes). The same holy pope ordered the picture of the Blessed Virgin, which is said to have been painted by St. Luke, to be carried in this procession, and that the intercession of this powerful mother be these supplications and the pestilence asked. God heard ceased. It is said that the processions in Rogation Week owe their origin to St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne in France; in the neighborhood of which city there were, in the year 469, terrible earthquakes which caused great destruction, the fruits perished and various plagues afflicted the people. The saintly bishop assembled the faithful, recommended them to seek refuge in the merciful God, and led them in procession around the fields. Such processions spread over France, and gradually throughout the Christian world; they are held in order to obtain from God the averting of universal evils, such as war, famine, and pestilence, and are, at the same time, a preparation for the Ascension of Christ who is our most powerful mediator with His Father, and whom we should invoke especially during these days.

With what intentions should we take part in a procession?

With the intention of glorifying God, of thanking Him for all. His graces, and of obtaining aid and comfort from Him in all our corporal and spiritual needs; with the view of professing our faith openly before the whole world, and with the sincere resolution of always following Christ, the Crucified, in the path of penance and mortification. He who entertains other intentions and takes part, perhaps, for temporal advantages, or for sinful pleasures, or to avoid labor, &c., sins against God and the Church who weeps over and condemns such abuses.