My Country Tears of Thee
Bob and Penny Lord wrote this in 1999. You must judge why, it would appear, the Lord has chosen to share this with you, now!
My Country Tears of Thee
My Country tears of thee,
sweet land of liberty; Of thee, I cry!
My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty;
Of thee I sing.
Land where our fathers died
Land of the pilgrims' pride
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!
When did we stop singing this love song to our country?
It was so subtle; did it just sort of disappear with many of the other patriotic traditions that our country stood for? How many of us still remember this song, reminding us of the price paid by our fathers--the hopes and dreams of our ancestors, as they struggled in filthy disease-ridden holds of ships bringing them to a new land of promise and freedom for all? Writing about Mother Cabrini and the reason she came to our country, we became aware of the struggle, the crosses our families bore to give us a land of promise. Our grandparents never shared their pains. They were just happy to be Americans
I can still see my father holding his hand over his heart, as he pledged allegiance to the flag and to the country it represented. He was so proud to be an American; his blue eyes filled with tears as his rich tenor voice rang out, singing the National Anthem. He did not take this country, he did not take the flag, for granted; he loved it all. During the Second World War, he died every day, waiting for his oldest son to come home from war, but never cursed the war that could have taken his beloved child from him. His son was fighting to keep this country free!
We ask how many remember My Country tis of thee; better yet, how many remember the words to our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner? Has this anthem, which is supposed to be a song of praise and devotion to our country, been reduced to merely a signal that a baseball game is about to begin? Listen to the echo of voices, American voices, united for the last two hundred years--no longer Jew or Gentile, a people with a heritage and culture of their own, a melting pot no longer divided by barriers of race, color, or creed--a people under God!
Listen to these words our ancestors proclaimed and the love they had for our country, as they sang our National Anthem and join in!
"Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming,
And the rocket's red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
O thus be it ever, when freeman shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must,
When our cause it is just,
And this be our motto--`In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
(emphasis in bold by author, solely)
The American Revolution was successful because we were a people under God! The French and the Russian Revolutions failed because they were not. They persecuted the Church and set themselves up as gods; and they failed!
In God is our trust, not in promises made and broken by His creatures, but in God! Have we forgotten we were founded under God and consecrated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 1846, by the First Council of Baltimore, declaring the Mother of God:
"Mary in her Immaculate Conception-Principal Patron of the United States?"
One nation under God...
Do tears come to our eyes when our flag is raised and we say our Pledge of Allegiance?
Pledge of Allegiance!
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
When we made our Pledge of Allegiance, we made an oath to our flag and to our country, a country founded under God; we made a promise to love and protect our country and flag. And many young men and women gave their lives because they believed in those words, and in the flag, and in the nation for which it stood. Did they die in vain? Have we so soon forgotten? We have always been a nation which could boast patriots! We were patriotic! We have always loved our country! What has happened to us?
Have we sold out our God for other gods? In the Old Testament, we hear Samuel complaining to God that the people are asking for a king. God told Samuel to give them what they wanted, for it was not Samuel they were rejecting but Him! God said they had been rejecting Him from the time He led them out of Egypt--they had deserted Him and served other gods. The Lord told Samuel to tell them they could have a king, but to be sure to advise them of the price they would have to pay.
"...he (the King) will make them plow his land and harvest his harvest then make his weapons of war and gear for his chariots. He will also take your daughters as perfumers, cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, of your vineyards and olive groves and give them to his officials. He will tithe your crops and vineyards to provide for his eunuchs and his officials. He will take the best of your manservants and maidservants, of your cattle and your donkeys, and make them work for him. He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out on account of the king you have chosen for yourselves, but on that day God will not answer you." (Sm 8:10-18
The Jews got their king and all the Lord had promised them. Can't we learn by the mistakes of those who have preceded us, before it is too late?
We want to cry, but instead we write!
When we think of our lost innocence, our lost dream, we want to cry and never stop crying; instead we write! We have always believed in our country. Now, we feel like Rip Van Winkle, and we have awakened to find a strange warped world. At times we feel as if we are on a speeding train out of control, and we're crying out, "Stop the train; we want to get off." And no one seems to hear us! We feel as if we are having a nightmare, with everyone around us walking in a daze and only a few are aware of the catastrophe that is brooding on the horizon.
Do we think for one moment that God is going to allow the abuse of His Son to continue? No sooner do they depict Our Lord Jesus as a sinner of one kind, having heterosexual relations in The Last Temptation of Christ, than they put on a play Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ, meaning the Eucharist) presenting the Sinless, Precious Son of God as a homosexual engaging in perverted acts with the Apostles. In all these incidents, they show God, Who is Perfect committing mortal sins, breaking His own commandments. And we do nothing!
What do they have to do for us to speak up! We are told to ignore all they do and they will stop. They have not; they do not; they will not! All that has happened is they have succeeded in de-sensitizing us to blasphemy upon blasphemy against Our Lord, Our Heavenly Mother--the Mother of God, the Priesthood and the Church!
On prime-time television recently, a comedy slipped in a crack about the Host. One of the characters in a sit-com, who plays a bartender, suggested they all go on a treasure hunt. When one of the female characters returned with an Elvis cookie jar she insisted she get points. The bartender said "I plainly said a Communion wafer." She countered with this reasoning, "You need a priest to have a Communion wafer; priests wear collars; dogs wear collars; `You ain't nothin' but a hound dog;' ergo an Elvis Presley cookie jar." The writers fully knew they were making a disparaging remark about the Eucharist, the Catholic Faith and the Priesthood, and they didn't care; they knew we wouldn't do anything. We buy their newspapers, frequent their theaters, watch their television programs, endorse their sponsors; and we must ask ourselves, if by so doing, if by our silent endorsement, do we not share in these sins which cry out to God for vengeance?
A vile act took place at Eastertime in 1999 in San Francisco. A gay group, calling itself "Sisters of Indulgence" applied for a city permit to cordon off a one-block area in a largely gay area of San Francisco on Easter Sunday in order to stage an event, in which they desecrate and ridicule every tradition of our Catholic Church, including the Eucharist, Mother Mary and religious orders, especially women's. These people, drag queens, dress as nuns, wearing outlandish habits, with exaggerated make-up and accessories, planned to have a "Hunky Jesus" contest as part of their lunacy. Naturally, Catholic groups, including the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, campaigned against the city awarding the permit to the group.
In response to the Catholic League pleading with Christian organizations to boycott holding conventions in San Francisco, county supervisor, Mark Leno said, "This boycott is ill-conceived and ill-fated, like the Southern Baptist boycott of Disney. No Catholic rights are being violated."
God the Father so loved us, He sacrificed His only Son for our salvation. The Spotless Lamb of God, the Father's Beloved Son, Our Lord suffered, His last words pleading with His Father to have mercy on us, on those who rejected Him, those who spit upon Him, those who had stood by and said nothing as the crowd chose Barabbas over Him. As I kneel before my Savior's bruised Body on the Crucifix before me, I find myself asking, How much Lord, How much will You take before You come again?
I have always said I could forgive almost anything but the loss of my innocence. I feel as if we have lost everything that made us a people set aside, a decent people whose ancestors came here to seek a better life and, yes, religious freedom. A promise was made to the families who left the land of their birth and all they had ever known to come to this land of the free and the brave. What has happened to all they treasured? In a country founded under God, Our Lord is blasphemed, pictured as a deviate, a homosexual, the worst of sinners. Our dear Mother Mary is maligned and held up to ridicule. It is like we are being attacked by a barrage of rapid-fire artillery. Nothing or no one is immune from outrageous, trash-filled, public demonstrations, especially if that one is Our Lord Jesus, His Mother, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Priesthood!
We were watching the Academy Awards and were particularly impressed with the reverence and honor given to the memory of those who were victims of the Holocaust. But as they were rightfully remembering and mourning the loss of innocent men, women and children, whose only crime was they were Jewish, did not their wounded hearts feel the wounds we have been suffering at the hands of these same movie makers, who continue to make blasphemous movies against Jesus, Our Lord and Savior? Are they not as reprehensible as those propaganda machines, which caused the death of so many Jews, as their propaganda breeds hate and division?
When are brothers and sisters going to stop killing one another? Do those who have money and power now, forget that another group had power and money and they were tried at Nuremberg for the atrocities suffered by the Jewish people? When Edith Stein, a Jewess who converted to Catholicism and became Saint Teresa Benedicta della Croce, and countless others were going to their deaths, she said "Someone will have to pay for this." When the cattle car carrying them stopped at a station and the doors were opened, a man standing by asked Edith Stein if the others knew they were going to their deaths, she replied, "It's better for them not to know." But the time came when the whole world knew and cried.
Let the killing stop; let us stop hurting one another. Stop using the movie and television screen to subject innocent souls to every kind of degradation, perversion, profanity, violence, and brutality, every kind of vile form of behavior imaginable, desecration after desecration demonstrating the lowest regard of God and His Divinity and of man and his dignity as a child of God. The screen, which you dominate, can be a vehicle leading to salvation and eternal life with God or a contrivance leading to condemnation and everlasting damnation in hell. The death of souls is as deadly, if not more so, than the death of bodies. Jesus said, "...do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of those who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (hell)." (Mt 10:28)
He who does not know, is not accountable; but he who willingly leads innocent lambs astray, "it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and thrown into the sea." (Mt:18-6)
When one owner of a baseball team made some remarks, deemed offensive to Jews and Afro-Americans in 1993 and again in 1996, she was suspended. Following that, the Major League Baseball executive council required her to sell her team; and in addition take sensitivity training. Now in 1999, we have a situation with someone who has gone to the limit of any Christian's endurance and tolerance.
This founder of a large Cable News Network addressed the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, peppering his remarks with insults and crude jokes about Pope John Paul II and the Ten Commandments--to the applause and laughter of the audience. He said: "If you're going to have 10 rules, I don't know if adultery should be one of them." When asked what he would say to Pope John Paul II, he responded with an ethnic joke--"Ever seen a Polish mine detector?" and then he showed the audience his foot (according to Marilyn Keefe of the NFPRHA). He further suggested the Holy Father should "get with it. Welcome to the Twentieth Century."
He also called for an international "one-child" policy. For his support of the United Nations Population Fund, last year, to the tune of donating $1 billion dollars to the UN for population control programs, this billionaire and his wife, were awarded the group's NFPRHA President Award.
On a roll, he went on, insisting, "We could do it in a very humane way if everybody adopted a one-child policy for 100 years." Have you visited China, lately, sir?, we want to shout, where, because they are restricted by law to give birth to only one child, parents kill their new-born babies if they are girls, with the justification--they need a boy to help them when they grow old and can no longer work and care for themselves? And even with boys, they are only allowed one. Is that your idea of a humane way, sir? Where would that put you and your wife, if you had been boy number two and her parents had been Chinese living in the present regime or in your New World Order?
His crusade against Christianity began in 1990. While still owner of a Major League baseball team, he called Christians "losers" and pro-lifers "loonies." Having suffered no chastisement, not even a small reprimand, in 1999 he once again boldly attacked--only now he dares to openly wage "politically and morally offensive comments about family life and adultery and other verbal insults on Christians." (Now, he no longer owns the team; but as Vice Chairman of the parent Corporation, and as an officer of the baseball club, he still has a say in the team's activities.)
To give you an insight into this man who dictates what comes into our homes via secular T.V., he said that while he was the father of five children, he had them before he was 30 years old, when he didn't know any better; adding, "Once they were here, I couldn't shoot them." He said now he believes an ideal world population would be 2 billion; it is presently 5.9 billion. Now that means the annihilation of two thirds of the world. The New York Times, in referring to the Demographic Death of Europe, wrote of Italy's -0 population growth; saying that in twenty years for every child under the age of five, there will be 25 over the age of 50, and of these 10 will be older than 80.
The birth rate in Italy is .8 (less than 1) whereas in Palestine it is 8.8 per family. At this rate, it is fairly certain that with Italy cooperating with this systematic annihilation of its citizens, they will surely soon terminate themselves through birth control and abortion, and what a loss to the world that will be. It will be like all the birds in the world have stopped singing, as future Pavarottis and Carusos are no longer allowed to be born. How does that sound? Then who would sing for your television programs, Mr. Cable Network owner and who would watch? Or have you that planned, as well?
An editorial in the Cincinnati Enquirer on February 25th noted: "We'd hate to believe ____ gets a free pass from the owners and the media because he is wealthy and powerful and generous to the right liberal causes--but that's how it looks from the stands." (Wanderer March 18, 1999)
After having received objections from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the man sent a letter to them, in which he said he "regrets any offense his comments may have caused...and extends his heartfelt apologies." William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights said," We certainly accept his apology and this brings closure to the incident." But he continued, "What is disturbing to me is that reportedly, his comments were received with wild applause from the crowd. If he had said the same thing about Indians and blacks, I don't think that would have sat too well with the people there." And that my brothers and sisters is the problem!
If it was important to censure and remove one owner from a ball club because of prejudicial language, are we unreasonable to wonder if there will be equal justice for all? And so, we need ask, Since he was not reprimanded in 1990, will he be in 1999? And to go farther, will others who blaspheme and ridicule, malign and spread untrue gossip and slander against Christ and all Christianity, be reprimanded or at least made to stop, affording the followers of Christ the same courtesy and respect shown to our Lord, which they demand for their people!
Jesus was sold out for 30 pieces of silver! How much will we take for the sell-out of Our Lord, our Heavenly Mother, our nation and the tiny unborn citizens of this nation founded under God? Who has the right to life? We're told the unborn do not have the right to live, because there is not enough to eat due to over-population, and yet farmers are being paid by the government to not grow crops, to keep the prices up.
Who is next? The going rate to kill unborn babies seems to be $1 billion dollars (based on the billion dollar donation we spoke of above). If we believe in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, that life began the moment the Holy Spirit hovered over the Virgin Mother, then we know that at the moment of conception not only Jesus became Man and our redemption began (and this is why, we all bow when praying the Creed during the Mass), we say, "By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became Man), but every baby is formed, as with Jesus, with all his or her genes at the moment of conception. And because of this--abortion is murder, murder of a human being with genes which already determine height, color of eyes, hair, skin and etc! Therefore, if we believe in Jesus' words, "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of Mine, you did for Me," (Mt 25:40) then we have sold out Jesus again, nailed Him to the Cross, only this time in a mother's womb--and the price has gone up!
The prince of darkness has rounded up all the wealth in the world to fight Christ, His Vicar on earth--the Pope and all that we Christians and Jews hold dear, our Judeo-Christian religions, which promote life--not death. It would seem a hopeless situation; we appear outnumbered and outweighed. But we are not! We can make a difference! We, the little people, with our widow's mite built and have supported our majestic, magnificent, glorious Catholic churches. As a child, growing up in a lower middle-class neighborhood, I saw the old and the poor putting $1.00 bills in the collection, 1/6th of the average weekly pay per household. Now, we can dig down deep into the recesses of our hearts and ask ourselves what we can do to stop this holocaust.
Abortion is death of the helplessly entombed in the womb of their mothers, who, when they allow an abortionist to take this life, become a party to murder. We must pass this scientific, as well as theological truth, on to those who are ignorant of the full facts. Not to do so is criminal, and Auschwitz reenacted.
Where does hate begin and when does it stop!
Now I have issue with any form of prejudice. When I heard a certain candidate propose, as part of his campaign, sending all minorities to reservations, I asked those who were expressing the possibility that they might vote for him, because he was in agreement with many things close to their hearts, which reservation did they want to go to; for as I further explained: Prejudice never is satisfied with one set of victims, but devours an entire world, before it is contained.
We are told that we are to be tolerant and love all our children, to act charitably toward our homosexual brothers and sisters; and I have no problem with that. But to label those who are trying to live according to the Ten Commandments, those who are married and honoring their Sacrament of Matrimony or single people living a chaste and celibate life as abnormal, and "those who frown on illicit sex, especially homosexual activities, are condemned as being neurotic and psychotic," (for more on this subject and New Age, read Bob and Penny Lord's book: Scandal of the Cross and Its Triumph, Heresies throughout the History of the Church.
or a new term to harass and intimidate-homophobic, brings images to mind of a topsy-turvy world where up is down and down is up, right is wrong, and wrong is right.
Sin is no longer preached from the Altar (in those churches which can still boast having an Altar). The Church and the country are catering to the likes and dislikes of the majority (according to what the manipulated Polls are saying--the alleged majority is saying); and yet we know that the majority walked away from Jesus, when He gave them the most important mandate--to eat His Body and drink His Blood; and the majority, coerced and manipulated, rejected Him, when Pilate asked the crowd, Whom do you choose? Instead, they selected an insurrectionist and murderer over the Spotless Lamb Who had born for them and would die for them.
A long time ago, I heard "Silence is consent." I have to qualify, and say a long time ago, because there is so much truth being bandied around as politically incorrect, and so much deceit applauded because it is politically correct and inoffensive, even if untrue. But when we say nothing, allowing the manipulated, coerced crowd to determine what is right and wrong--using the strictly humanistic, totally warped rationalism of today, are we not, in essence, saying to the generations who will follow that we believe in sin?
What have you done with my Lord,
with my country, my church, my world?
I can still hear the booming voice of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, "What have you done with my Lord? I too cry out, but not only "What have you done with my Lord? But "What have you done with my country, with my Church, with my world? I feel as if someone has invaded our country, raped and pillaged our land, robbed us of all we have always held dear. You have robbed us of our innocence; someone will have to atone for this. Wake up! Before it's too late--repent! All of us must face the Lord, whether we believe in Him or we worship false gods; and when that time comes, the invoice becomes due.
In the Name of God the Father, Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, let us love one another.
Speak out! Share this book with your family, your friends, neighbors, members of your parish. What can we do? We can change the world! We better, before it changes us so, we no longer recognize ourselves. We love you. But more importantly, Jesus loves you so much He opened His arms on the Cross and gave up His Spirit that you might have life and life eternal.
What you just read was written in 1999. You must judge why, it would appear, the Lord has chosen to share this with you, now!
About the Authors:
Bob and Penny Lord are renowned Catholic authors of many best selling books about the Catholic Faith. They are hosts on EWTN Global Television and have written over 25 books. They are best known as the authors of “Miracles of the Eucharist books.” They have been dubbed, “Experts on the Saints.” Many of the ebooks are now available at Amazon.com.
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Copyright 2011 Bob and Penny Lord
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