Building Pipelines & Pondering the Divine. Catholic father chasing beauty in my work (DevOps engineer) history, poetry, and liturgy
Ohio, USA
Joined October 2022
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Michael Merimee retweeted
You may have seen religious influencers, bishops, and other prominent Christian voices criticizing Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco after a headline circulated saying that the Church is “not there to convert.”
There is context beyond the headline.
Cardinal Vesco is Archbishop of Algiers, where a small, international Catholic community lives in a Muslim-majority society. Algerian law restricts efforts by non-Muslims to convert Muslims, and Christian communities face real pressures.
Speaking about the Church in Algeria, he said: “We are the Church of this people. Not a proselytising Church, not a Church that is there to convert, but a Church that aspires to be one of the components of this people.”
He wants Christians to share in the life of their Algerian neighbors: serving, praying, speaking of Christ, and building real friendships with Muslims. He speaks of a Church rooted among the people, rather than a foreign presence or a besieged fortress.
That instinct deserves to be heard. The Gospel is not spread by pressure, manipulation, treating people as projects, or exploiting another person’s poverty or vulnerability. Christian witness should be recognizable in love, humility, courage, and the kind of fraternity that makes a person want to know why we have hope.
At the same time, the concern raised by his wording is understandable. The Church cannot abandon the proclamation of Jesus Christ, nor act as though it does not matter whether someone freely comes to know Him, believe in Him, and enter His Church. Dialogue and charity are part of how the Gospel is lived and offered.
Cardinal Vesco’s words should be understood in light of his decades of ministry and experience in Algeria. They also invite a thoughtful discussion about how the Church bears witness to Christ and calls others to follow Him.
Michael Merimee retweeted
It’s a remarkable thing to be a Catholic priest in these days.
I assume to some extent it’s always been like this but for the most part, we really didn’t know how bad many of our leaders are.
In the end, a man leaves seminary taken with the idea of Church and the rest of his life is the reality of the Church taking that idea from you and smashing it to pieces.
At core, the problem is that our leaders are selected by our leaders.
When they choose a Bishop, the most important trait is “who does this guy know?” and Jesus does not have to be on that list of people.
This week, we’ve had one Cardinal choose for the second year in a row to give an award to an abortion radical.
Now we have a cardinal who thinks leading people to Christ is a bad idea.
Ugh.
The church is led by all kinds of men: some are saints in the making, some are vaguely aware of the basics of Christianity, some are functional atheists.
A vast majority of them hace two things in common:
1. Absolutely, positively no accountability.
Neither of these Cardinals will face any consequences from their brothers or from the Holy Father.
It’s just not done.
2. Absolutely, positively no long term experience as pastors in churches.
They don’t know the grind.
They don’t know God’s people.
They have almost no sense of the reality of the daily life of a Christian; they have no “smell of the sheep” on them.
I’ve been at a critical stage in my life for the last few years, and so much of it centers around the simple reality: I can look at the problem, describe it, bemoan it, try to get the people in charge to see it.
That has born absolutely no fruit.
What do we do?
We charge forward boldly and with great joy.
Each of us reading this is part of the problem.
I am part of the problem.
I am a sinner, and I have affection for some of my sin.
But I also have something that you do as well: the grace, joy, and love of Jesus.
We have the Holy Spirit in us that raised Jesus from the dead.
Each of us reading this has everything we need from God to be a saint.
I mean it.
We absolutely have to decide to love Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and press forward, knowing that the Good Shepherd is alive and well, guiding us, protecting us, genuinely caring about us.
The problem has been described and complained about ad nauseam.
Enough.
Let’s get busy being the answer.
Let’s get busy being saints.
“In the heart of the Church, I will be love”
-St. Therese
LATEST: Cardinal Vesco says the Catholic Church is “not there to convert”
The Archbishop of Algiers said: “We are the Church of this people. Not a proselytising Church, not a Church that is there to convert, but a Church that aspires to be one of the components of this people.”
He called proselytism “poison” because it treats another person’s religion as false, and argued Christians should choose fraternity over seeing themselves as a “besieged fortress.”
Read the full report at @RealAdVaticanum
advaticanum.com/article/card…
Michael Merimee retweeted
Released Stig and The Rise of @GoJacksFB a year ago this week
I’ve since sold several thousand copies
Thank you to everyone who’s bought one and spread the word
And a thank you to @HolyNutmeg for allowing me tell his and the program’s story
Michael Merimee retweeted
Intelligence must draw on memory. The mind must not simply compile data — as an algorithm now does more quickly than we can — but recall lived experiences, which contain depths of meaning that only the human soul can recognize, and connect more deeply with the goodness of these experiences. Everything that is good begins “with the Spirit” and thus possesses a breath, a dynamism and a sense of communion that, once experienced, are engraved upon the heart. vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
Michael Merimee retweeted
In Pearl Harbor the Japanese struck first.
You know how the US responded??
The US bombed the fucking shit out of them. Won the war.
Long series boys. Game by game. New day Monday. Time to respond.
#GuardsBall #StandGuard
Michael Merimee retweeted
BREAKING:
Speaking to reporters aboard the papal plane to Algeria on Monday, Pope Leo XIV said:
“I think that the people who read will be able to draw their own conclusions: I am not a politician, I have no intention of entering into a debate with him. Rather, let us always seek peace and put an end to wars. I am not afraid of the Trump administration. I speak about the Gospel, I am not a politician. I do not think the message of the Gospel should be abused in the way some people are doing. I will continue to speak out loudly against war, to try to promote peace, multilateral dialogue between states in order to seek the right solution to problems. The message of the Church is the message of the Gospel, blessed are the peacemakers; I do not see my role as that of a politician, I do not want to enter into a debate with him. Too many people are suffering in the world.”
Michael Merimee retweeted
Absurd and inhuman violence is spreading ferociously through the sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, with no regard for people’s lives, which are considered at most collateral damage of self-interest. But no gain can be worth the life of the weakest, children, or families. No cause can justify the shedding of innocent blood.
Michael Merimee retweeted
People think that @Pontifex is getting political because they idolize the state. They think it’s a ‘political issue’ to denounce the slaughter of innocents. It’s a ‘political issue’ whether to enter into wars of choice. It’s a ‘political issue’ to ask help the needy.
Before this ever hits politics it’s a moral issue. You’ve been brainwashed. Open your eyes! Is what you do good???
Michael Merimee retweeted
Even today there are tombs to be opened, and often the stones sealing them are so heavy and so closely guarded that they seem to be immovable. Some weigh heavily on the human heart, such as mistrust, fear, selfishness and resentment; others, stemming from these inner struggles, sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations. Let us not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by them! #Easter
Michael Merimee retweeted
Aristotle: “The tyrant is also very ready to make war; for this keeps his subjects occupied and in continued need of a leader…[It is] characteristic of a tyrant’s policy…[that] the flatterer too is held in honor…those who keep him company in an obsequious spirit, which is the function of flattery. This makes tyranny favor the baser sort, in the sense that a tyrant loves to be flattered, and no man of free spirit will oblige him. Respectable men…refrain from flattery, and base men are useful for base deeds…Anyone who shows a rival pride and a spirit of freedom destroys the master-like character of the tyranny. Thus the tyrant hates such people as destroyers of his rule…All these and their like are marks of tyranny and ways of maintaining it; and they are utterly depraved” (The Politics, Book V, Chapter XI)
Michael Merimee retweeted
The wars that stain the present moment with blood are the fruit of the idolatry of power and money. Let us not grow accustomed to the clamor of weapons and images of war! #Peace is not merely a balance of power. It is the work of purified hearts, of those who see others as brothers and sisters to be protected, not enemies to be defeated. #ApostolicJourney vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
Michael Merimee retweeted
Enemy: The Germans' War, pt. 2 - The Work of the Men
As the starving, exhausted people of Germany process their defeat in the Great War, they face a new enemy more terrible than any they faced in the trenches. (Link below)
Michael Merimee retweeted
WAR
Eye for an eye
While both sides lie,
Blood on the field
Where both sides die.
War on the mind
While rich men grind,
Hands of the poor
In the chains they bind.
Greed in the heart
Of those who start,
Calls for the young
To play their part.
War in the throats
of the bleating goats,
sung from their pride
and the siren notes.
"Enemy Enemy"
Both sides cry,
While noble men
For nothing die.
"Come to our side"
the war man lies
"We fight for your good
and the poor man rights."
Blood on the hands
of waring clans,
Peace in the heart
Of a common man,
Death takes his son
And the father breaks,
Hate fills his heart
As revenge bakes.
"Join us join us"
The recruiter calls,
And the father turns
To the blood stained halls.
Through the town
The soldiers tear,
The father finds
A Family scared.
He takes his knife
And hate he slakes,
A son is dead
Revenge is fed.
He rapes the mother
While her child looks on,
"Blood for blood"
Will become his song.
This child grows up
Till a son he kills,
A mother he rapes
And the pit he fills.
Inside that pit
A demon waits,
Is slaked until
He wants for hate.
He'll kill this child
But bids his time,
Drinking of blood
And boiling the brine.
The father and child
Will someday fall,
Will someday come
To hells hall.
There they wait
The demons of hate,
Born in the heart
Of men they create.
So round we go
All over the earth,
War is the sound
Of broken man's mirth.
For land and a grand
The soul is sold,
The knife is fed
With the innocent dead.
All the while
On Golgotha hill,
God looks down
With thorny crown.
"Forgive them father"
He prays again,
As a child of ten
Kills his friend.
"Why have you"
Goes the refrain,
"Abandoned us"
In scouring pain.
No land is worth
The price you pay,
When a slave to death
Your children stay.
Eye for an eye
While both sides cry,
Death in the field
Where both sides lie
Michael Merimee retweeted
It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy the more certain we are about the value of education. That is, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to children.
Michael Merimee retweeted
Dr. John Bergsma—one of the great Catholic converts biblical theologians of our day—has a son with deadly brain cancer. The medical expenses have become overwhelming, exceeding what is covered by insurance.
Please support them in their hour of need.
gofundme.com/f/support-franc…
Michael Merimee retweeted
It is clear why many Church Fathers and Saints throughout the ages have said Antichrist will be welcomed not only by the Jews (at least initially), but by a throng of heretics.
As a Catholic, we must stand for the truth as preserved in the Church for 2,000 years.
To the Jews, whose eternal salvation we desire: turn to Christ. The Messiah came (Messiah Ben Joseph). The Messiah will come back (Messiah Ben David). After He came, the demonic oracles were silenced. The Gentiles abandoned the paganism and idol worship of their ancestors and turned in droves to the God of Israel (Jesus called this the “sign of Jonah”). Egypt—that ancient lair of demons that enslaved you—turned from its demon worship, and this not after Abraham or Moses sojourned there, but only after Christ appeared in the world. For 2,000 years, the priesthood, temple, and altar that God removed from among you—which He prophesied would take place—has been maintained in the Catholic Church, where the one sacrifice of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is offered on Catholic altars throughout the world. 40 years before the destruction of the Temple (AD 30)—when Christ was crucified—your own Talmud reports that the scapegoat sacrifice of Yom Kippur was no longer accepted by God (Yoma 39b). Many more have come to the worship of the God of Israel through the Church over the last 2,000 years than ever came before. The Church is the Home of the religion of ancient Israel, now fulfilled and completed in the New Covenant, and extended to Jew and Gentile on equal terms. It is the Home of the “prophet” who Moses commanded you to follow, whose prophecies—particularly of the destruction of the Temple—came true (Deut. 18:15-22). The Church is therefore your Home, and we will rejoice as never before when you return to this Home to which you were the first to be invited, an invitation a remnant of your brethren accepted, and in doing so became its foundation (i.e. the Apostles).
To evangelicals who believe such things, with whom we share the bond of Holy Baptism: repent of your heresies, discover the truth of the Christian Faith as passed down by millennia of your Catholic ancestors (including countless martyrs). Return to the one and only Church founded by Christ, which amidst all the trials and storms of the last 2,000 years (including the sins of its own members) has exhibited precisely that continuity and permanence which you have entirely lacked: the Catholic Church. Your religion is not the religion of your ancestors, or anything close to it. It is not the religion of the Bible or the Apostles, but a recent invention built on the traditions of men—ephemeral, discordant, and protean in all its ways. As a former evangelical who is extraordinarily grateful for many of the gifts I received as an evangelical, I thank God for revealing this disturbing but medicinal truth to me, particularly through the testimony of our ancient Christian ancestors. I urge you to repent, before you too are overtaken by the lies of Antichrist. Perhaps that False Messiah will be interviewed by the Jerusalem Post. But when the real Messiah appears, you can be assured no one will have to view the Jerusalem Post to see Him.
“Christian” Zionist Robert Stearns apologizes to Jews at Jerusalem Post conference for 2,000 years of “Christian history” hurting Jewish people.
He says it's “irrelevant” if Jesus was the Messiah and claims to be part of a new Christian group “serving Zion.”
Follow: @AFpost
Michael Merimee retweeted
Tonight we party for Tomorrow is War!
I have the best team battling non-stop to Save Ohio. They need YOUR support!
Links below!
Michael Merimee retweeted
Wow. Vivek Ramaswamy just REFUSED to commit to ending H1B visas that are replacing American workers. Instead he says Americans need to be more "educated."
