How much longer.
All spontaneity has been crush"d out.

Posting a little late on this thread, but hopefully some of you will still see it.
Recommending to any of you who have not read St. Alphonsus Liguori's
"Preparation for Death" that you take the time to read this awesome book!!

https://www.amazon.com/Prep...

What is love? Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more.

I recently went to a funeral for one of my wife's relatives. The NO's funeral Mass known as the Mass of the Resurrection. May as well been a canonization Mass as the priest pretty much straight up said that the deceased is in heaven right now. Thankfully, the deceased was a practicing Catholic who loved our Lord and went to Mass practically every day. Thanks be to God for that. However, not even a word about his judgement or our future judgements, not a word about praying for his soul which could very well be in purgatory right now! Only rejoice because he's in heaven! Dear God, save us!

Gone is the Requiem Mass, with its black vestments, the harrowing Dies Irae, and the reflection on the last four things for the deceased and for ourselves. These thoughts should be on the mind of every person attending the funeral. Instead, the Novus Ordo even has destroyed dying as a Catholic and has given us the false facade of rainbows and sunshine where "everyone goes to heaven!".

May these souls and all the faithful departed rest in peace. We must pray for them all as well as ourselves!

Michael,

Just listened to your remarkable tribute to John Venarri. It was a challenging subject which you dealt with in your usual masterly manner!

What prompted my comment were your words that John was one of those Catholics who recognized his "duty to defend "the truth of Christ at the moment of history when it was under virulent attack". He will now know that the most important of those truths under attack is Original Sin. The fundamental truth rejected by the entire Church. I can only hope and pray that wherever John is, he can do something to stir traditional Catholics to the enormity of the situation. Theistic evolution has not only moved in, it has taken over.

Peter

A nice tribute to your friend and fellow warrior John.....and also the reflections on death and the reality we are currently facing are appreciated.

By the way, keep the catacombs, I wish I had some to flee to at times.

Magnificent tribute to +John Vennari. Also, thank you for mentioning +Fr. Nicholas Gruner - very apropos, since today (4/29) is 2 years since he passed away.

Christ is risen from the dead, conquering death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life.

Paschal Troparion

Remnant TV is excellent. This episode was no exception. A friendly suggestion. Have you considered changing your set? I ask because when I've sent your videos to friends who
aren't traditional Catholics (or even Catholics) they almost always comment on how weird they think the video set is (why is he in a dark basement with fake skulls they ask). I get the catacomb idea and it doesn't bother me, but for those not of a traditional or Catholic mindset it can be jarring. I fear that your important message is being lost and that the set can be a distraction to the important message you're trying to spread. Just food for thought. Keep up the great work regardless of what set you use. :)

May John Vennari, through the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima, find eternal rest in the most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ!

The one thing that scares (sorry, it's the only word I can think of) me about RTV is the very beginning when the lit fuse starts sparking. (Maybe someone is a Mission: Impossible fan?) Otherwise. I love RTV.

Very good reflection!

Nice video on the Four Last Things and a reminder to us all that there is nothing more real in this life, this reality hidden from our senses but given to us through the gift of faith, is all that matters. I will miss John Vennari and what he represented with Catholic Family News. But death comes to us all and is either a reward or a punishment. I pray that John, Gretchen and all of our dearly departed happily reside in heaven or will be shortly loosed from their sins

although i never knew john, it seems safe to say that he set a great example for everyone he met on how to live a truly catholic life. i like to think that, even though he didn't quite speak aloud the words, "now and at the hour of our death, amen," he said them mentally before his soul left his body. in any case, the blessed mother knew what he meant to say next and that's all that matters. .... recently, about a month and a half ago, my best friend passed over into the spiritual world. my wife and i were at his house visiting with him and his wife on the night before he died in his sleep. we had no clue that he was going to die that very night. everyone was surprised by his sudden passing. personally, when that happened, it really made me confront the eventuality of my own death. am i prepared to meet my maker? not really. are any of us? it's possible that, at least in my case, the death of the people closest to us helps to ease our fear of dying. i look forward to seeing my mom and dad and my best friend again. my hope is that they will be there to ease my transition into the spiritual world when my time comes. .... so take heart in knowing michael, that john vennari will be waiting for you when your time arrives, and that you will have an eternity to reignite your friendship with him. god bless john for a life well lived, and for all of the lives that he touched and were made better by knowing him.

True stories:

Our late cantor passed away in his sleep. Two days before, he was in church, healthy and smiling. He sat down in his chair after dinner and passed away October 1, 2002 - 12 years to the day that my grandmother (Dad's mother) passed away. Both were very devoted to Our Lady and prayed the rosary daily.

Also, my grandmother (Mom's mother) and my uncle both died in their sleep. The day my uncle passed away, he told my aunt he was going upstairs to take a nap. She said that he never took a nap this early. He replied that he was going to take a nap anyway because he was tired. When my aunt went upstairs to check on him, he was blue and cold. She called the priest who anointed him and gave him absolution.

New Year's Day 2015 Mom and I went upstate for his viewing and Parastas that evening. The next day was the funeral Liturgy and Parastas again, then to the cemetery for the military funeral service. He got a 3-gun salute because he was a sergeant in the Army. The Army had an honor guard, taps was played, and my aunt received the U.S. flag from an officer. Not a very Happy New Year.

I could not agree more with your comments about private opinions. I was quite surprised to read a traditional Catholic blogger who recently wrote: "Why, one wonders, are so few in our day willing to risk (more properly, knowingly incur) the wounds that are reserved for those who plainly speak, explain, and defend their well-formed private opinions concerning the Bergoglian occupation?"

Catholicism is not a religion in which we publicly defend our "private opinions". We can see where this mindset ends by looking to Protestantism and its 30,000+ denominations, and to the multitude of sede-vacantist sects, divided from one another, and the dozens of antipopes the various these groups have "elected" during the past 50 years.

Beautiful and true, as you surely know, about John. However, your delivery of what actually happens when we die was truly awesome and on spot! The Holy Ghost and your Guardian Angel with your cooperation of course, did a superb delivery for all of us.

Excellent message and tribute to Mr. John Vennari. BTW: months before my father's death he was given the privilege of seeing and then communicating with his Guardian Angel. My father was also concerned with the lonely exit of death and his Guardian Angel told him he would be going with him and assured him he would not be alone. My father was hospitalized just before he died and the night before he died he told my mother that he was told by his Guardian Angel that he would die in the early morning and he did with a broad smile on his face. Needless to say my father was a devout Catholic.

James,

Very interesting story. You should write a short article about this and see if Michael would like to publish it in The Remnant.

Thank you James. You are truly blessed to have had such an experience in your family. May God Bless you and keep you on the narrow path to salvation. May the Blessed Virgin Mary watch over you as She surely did with your father.

What is "death" ? "Jesus said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep"" Works for me.

Mr. Matt, to those who knew John Vennari personally like you, what a blessing, for this is a man who was a true friend to all those who held the Catholic faith dearly for eternity's sake. He showed the way in following "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." I don't want to think about him being gone. He really isn't as he will live on in that wonderful testament of his to Christ and His Church that John defended against all who would assault her, the enemies without and the more diabolic enemies within, for the sake of the One True Faith! My family will always remember John in our prayers.

Prayers for the repose of the soul of your loved one, Mr. Matt, and consolation for her family.

God bless you, Mr. Matt, and all those like you for doing what John did, caring enough about the Faith to fight the good fight for it for eternity's sake in this vale of tears in this spiritual war against powers and principalities manifesting itself in the natural plane , and reminding us what it means to be a Catholic in more than name only!

My own hunch concening the afterlife is that we'll find ourselves in a more real environment than the present one. It will be familiar and comprehensible in that the whole point of our earthly existence will be understood -- like coming home rather than arriving in some sort of fairyland. I think it's important to believe that Heaven for us is a place rather than some state of being amongst disembodied spirits. We believe in the Ascension of the transfigured Christ and in the Assumption of Our Lady -- and Christ did say that He was going to prepare a PLACE for us.

I don't know where the prayer 'Eternal rest grant unto hiim/her and . . .' came from, but I tend to change the word 'rest' to 'joy' when saying it for, as it is, it suggests lying in some state of suspended animation, which I feel isn't true -- after all, we do pray both TO and FOR the souls of the departed. However, when all's said and done, we remember that 'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, what things God has prepared for those who love Him' (so please dismiss the foregoing speculation!). And, besides, most of us, I'd guess, would have to get our act together before arriving there by express.

Another way of looking at 'rest' is from Genesis: "...with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life." So, to me, 'rest' implies that we have been liberated from the punishment of this world for the sins of our first parents. Rest or joy, it's all good.

Thanks for this lovely tribute to John Vennari. He was an inspiration mostly because it was obvious just watching and listening to him how sincere he was, how simple and clear in his Faith. He also told the lamest but best jokes!

Ah, yes, the lame jokes were something John and I had in common. Still have some of his saved in e-mail.

Please post some once in a while. We all need a good laugh now and then. (Obviously, death is nothing to laugh about.)

Yes he did! But they were so funny AND lame we laughed anyway.

Thank you for this tribute/thoughtful meditation. Eternal rest grant unto John, dear Lord.
No matter what you think of the "great religions of the world", one thing you can be sure of -- when we die, we are all Catholic.
Since we don't know anything else for sure, I say it's best to keep in mind the pie-in-the-face-theology of Alphonse Liguori's Preparation for Death.

I wanted to thank you Mr Matt and colleagues/friends/faithful for so many things - for bringing my family to the Traditional Church, for introducing us to the likes of John Vennari RIP and for telling it how it is. I can't tell you how much I needed this talk right now. You have articulated the worries that have banging around inside my mind but I couldn't get a handle on.

You are so right about the children. I talk to mine often about the 4 last things (to my limited ability); the importance of being close to Our Lord with the help of Our Lady, the angels and saints; the perils of this world and the very real threat and presence of the devil. But mostly being ready to face Jesus when our time comes. It seems that not many parents find that important. When Our Lord said to the women of Jerusalem 'don't weep for me but for your yourselves and your children' we can see perhaps that those words are particularly appropriate for our time.

This would have made a much better TED talk....

Very moving tribute. Rest in Peace Mr. Vennari and God Bless you Mr. Matt

This video tribute was lovely for many reasons, but none more so than this: the work that John Vennari did had nothing to do with his 'opinion' or about Vennari being 'right' all the time. Instead, because of our collective uncertainty, he clung to what Holy Mother Church has always taught as the only standard by which we can ascertain the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of anything.

This is the lasting legacy of Vennari's work. It is a beautiful thought and a very fine tribute to a very fine man.