Leo Freshman Context and Consensus - Assyria & A Prophet

We often find that our academic courses begin in 1900, or perhaps with the French Revolution, or the Protestant Reformation, or Machiavelli, or the discovery of the New World. Whenever we see this happening in our courses, we must be ready to look elsewhere and seek out what we are not presented. The fact is that very few human truths or errors were not already treated by the Greeks, by Plato and Aristotle. Not to know this is a very serious intellectual impediment.

Father James Schall, S.J. Crisis


Yesterday, I had the pleasure to take over classes from Pete Doyle, who has taught on and off here at Leo High School, both as an Irish Christian Brother, lay teacher/coach and Principal since 1967.

One floor above Pete Doyle's classroom Denny Conway '62 and Dr. Jack O'Keefe '59 were conducting ACT and SAT exam prep with seniors and juniors. Denny and Jack volunteer their time and talent.

Pete Doyle and football coach Mike Holmes took a ride over to check on Father Dan Mallette who was brutally beaten and robbed in the early morning hours of Monday, by two thugs who broke into his rectory at St. Margaret of Scotland Church and robbed the saintly man.

I had a roomful of freshmen. We were studying the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. The Son of Amos was known as the Evangelical Prophet, because Isaiah foretold of the coming of the Messiah.

I asked the gents, if they knew the context of Isaiah's ministry. They did - Pete Doyle teaches.

The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians under Tiglath Pileser III leaving the Tribe of Judah and taking most of Israel into Captivity.

The Assyrians ( Medes, Babylonians, Persians, & etc.) were a New World Order in the 800 BC Cradle of Civilization. Israel was plagued by self-interested kings. Ahaz was the Jimmy Carter of the day. The Children of Zion went into Captivity - Babylon.




Isaiah railed against Kings going against God's Will. It is believed that Isaiah was martyred by the son of Hezikiah -Manasseh who cashed in faith for economics.

The guys had the context. We talked about being a prophet. Most of the kids at Leo are African American and most are Baptist and AME Christians, a few are Nation of Islam. To say the least, these guys are schooled in the Old Testament.

Okay, Gents - what is a prophet - Isaiah is said to be one - what makes him a prophet? Raheem?

A prophet appears in a bad situation for his people and speaks to truth.

Nice words. What do they mean?

We got into it. We covered all manner of topic merging to our core issue.

Jabari -A prophet is a guy who is aware of what is going and can make sense of it by what went on before and predict future outcomes.

Joe S.The person who refuses to accept bad terms in exchange for moment a peace is a prophet.

Chris McS. A prophet can not be bribed or bought off.A prophet will not be a crook.

Raheem A prophet believes in more than his own comfort. Like Father Mallette, Hickey!

Context - Father Mallette is beaten viciously, but Father Mallette forgave his torturers.

Consensus That is a prophet, Hickey.

You may say, gentlemen.

I never work a day in my life.

Essay - Quam Videri: Spy Wednesday & Judas and Judy Outrage on MSNBC & the Progressive Media

``Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of Antioch, 1st c. A.D


I went to Catholic grammar school for eight years; attended a Minor Seminary ( St. Augustine's in Holland Michigan) for three years; graduated from a Catholic neighborhood high school ( Little Flower at 78th & Honore); took my Bachelor of Arts at Loyola University; taught at a Catholic high school ( Bishop McNamara in Kankakee); received my Master of Arts at Loyola University; taught and coached at a Catholic boarding school ( LaLumiere School in LaPorte, IN); worked in development at two Catholic high schools ( Bishop Noll Institute & Leo High School) and never once personally encountered or witnessed clergy sexual abuse.

While in the Minor Seminary at Holland, MI run by the great Augustinian priests and brothers I slept in two- tiered bunks in a barracks-like dormitory with forty of my classmates and a priest occupied an adjacent room. Nothing.

At Bishop McNamara, one student, among the many hundreds of boys and girls with whom I had daily contact, reported to me and several of my male colleagues about sexual abuse by a priest in in the rectory of St. George's parish six miles from Kankakee. We reported the abuse to our Principal Father Ken Yarno.

Father Yarno, a graduate of Bishop Mac and varsity football star on the fighting Irish, took direct, immediate and very public action. The priest was arrested in the public eye, cuffed, perp-walked and punished.

The abuse of a child is the most horrific thing human beings are willing to inflict in this life.

The Catholic Church is scourged. But that is not enough for too many who find the Church in adamant opposition to abortion, sexual libertines, financial predators, and political animals.

Yesterday, was Spy Wednesday* in the Catholic Faith's Holy Week that began last Sunday.

I was treated to faux Catholics on MSNBC Hardball - Chris Matthews and Joan Walsh - two the most fatuous and oily fatheads walking on shod feet.

Holy Week and the continuing sex-abuse scandal allowed the French-kissing Judas and Judies of the corporate media - self-styled reformed Catholics - to spew, shout, interrupt and howl calumnies about their points of view ( Walsh shrilled,wailed and keened about the Partiarchy of Male Prelates, because a WOMAN should be the Pope! Mathews did his usual Charlie McCarthy musings and drones) that the insitutional Catholic Church is intrinsically evil. This is the place for politics as the MSNBC Progressive Cheerleading Squad of Matthews, Schultz, Olbermann, Maddow, O'Donnell and their fellow lesser lights taut and taunt as MSNBC ratings plummet.

Pope Benedict XVI has been targeted by the corporate media since long before the Holy Spirit led him to the Chair of Peter - He was Ratzinger - the Pope's bully boy; the Nazi Flak Gunner; the foe of Feminism and dauntless shepherd of the unborn children.

A gutless, but politically correct and protected Bishop, Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, protected pedophile priests and tossed the sins of these lice to Rome and into claws of the enemies of the Catholic Church.

I detest all my sins. One of my biggest sins is the sin of Anger. I would have every child-predator executed - publicly. That's how I roll, I guess and will face my God for that stiff-necked point of view.

I detest the hypocrites of the corporate media who collect huge bags of silver by calumnizing the Church in order to 'Change the Narrative.'

Pope Benedict XVI will survive his Gesthemane and the Church will long outlive the idiot box Judas and Judy shows on MSNBC.


*

For thirty pieces of silver was Our Lord betrayed, as prophecied by Zacharias: 1

Zacharias 11:9 -12
I will not feed you: that which dieth, let it die: and that which is cut off, let it be cut off: and let the rest devour every one the flesh of his neighbour. And I took my rod that was called Beauty, and I cut it asunder to make void my covenant, which I had made with all people. And it was made void in that day: and so the poor of the flock that keep for me, understood that it is the word of the Lord. And I said to them: If it be good in your eyes, bring hither my wages: and if not, be quiet. And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.
St. Luke explains how this vile betrayal happened: a devil entered into Judas:

Luke 22:3-6
And Satan entered into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve. And he went, and discoursed with the chief priests and the magistrates, how he might betray Him to them. And they were glad, and convenanted to give him money. And he promised. And he sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude (see also John 13:2).
But Jesus already knew this would happen, as we know from this earlier exchange with His Apostles, after He revealed that we must eat His Body and drink His Blood. He knew what Judas would do with the free will God gives to all men:

John 6:64-72
The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him. And He said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to Me, unless it be given him by my Father.

After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with Him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?

And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God (see also John 12:26-29 and Matthew 26:25).

Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil? Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray Him, whereas he was one of the twelve.

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