The problems of 'trans-ecumenism' when Canterbury goes to Rome.

Pope's Leo's effusive hospitality does little to engage with and confront reality.

GAVIN ASHENDEN. APR 28 ∙ PREVIEW

Is ecumenical respect a one-way street? There was a great deal of respect at the meeting between Pope Paul 6th and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in March 1966 marked a moment of proximity on the trajectory of the possible return of schismatic Anglicanism to the mother Church that may never have been closer. 

Anglicanism had experienced a deep wave of nostalgia for the sacrament of the Mass which gave birth to the Anglo Catholic movement. Rome had begin the process of negotiation with the spirit of the age that was to move it closer to the novelties of the Reformation Churches in the Second Vatican Council.

Nearly sixty years later, the trajectory of Anglicanism has been torn out of orbit and moved not only beyond the reconciling reach of the most hospitable of ecumenical gestures from Rome, but in the judgement of many, beyond the boundaries of orthodox Christianity itself.

Sarah Mullally is not only the first woman to be ‘produced’ by the appointments system of the Anglican establishment, but she represents a rebuke to orthodox Christianity not only in her person, but also in her convictions.

She is the expression of a Church that has drunk deep from the rage of contempt and antipathy that is an aspect of feminism, and carries a full range of progressive views which she imposes on the tradition of the Church like a rebuke.

The right to kill children in the womb is one of those views. The right to promote sterility in adult romantic relations is another.

If she represents the full impetus of secular feminism in its assault on deeply embedded Christian belief and culture which the Catholic Church represents, the Catholic Church should temper the respect it owes to the head of a Protestant denomination with a degree of caution and wariness.

In fact, there was no caution or wariness in Pope Leo’s greeting of the feminist pro-abortion Anglican woman archbishop. 

Should there have been? Should niceness and diplomatic politeness have been modified by fidelity to those values Sarah Mullally repudiated?

More: https://open.substack.com/pub/drgavinashenden/p/the-problems-of-trans-ecumenism-when?r=2x82t4&utm_medium=ios

Catholicism loses members in most countries surveyed: Pew

 Many Catholics left the faith or joined the Protestant Church as the latter showed gains in several regions 

People worship at the Satchmo Summerfest Jazz Mass, honoring New Orleans jazz legend Louis Armstrong, in historic St. Augustine Catholic Church on Aug. 3, 2025. (Photo: AFP)

By Gina Christian, OSV News

Published: April 25, 2026 05:15 AM GMT

A new analysis from Pew Research Center has found that Catholicism has lost more members than it has gained in most of the 24 countries surveyed, while Protestantism has seen net gains in several nations, especially Latin America.

The shifts are due to religious switching, or leaving one's childhood religious identity for another in adulthood.

Pew published its findings April 23, based on data from its surveys of 24 countries spanning Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.

The center's 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study provided the data for the U.S., while international data was drawn from surveys conducted during the spring of 2024.

Pew noted the latter data included additional countries not referenced in the April 23 analysis, since the overall percentages of Christians in those nations was too small (1% or less) to statistically differentiate between Protestants and Catholics.

Those who leave Catholicism "tend to join Protestantism or disaffiliate from religion altogether," said Pew, noting that "disaffiliation is especially common in parts of Europe and Latin America."

In contrast, those who leave Protestantism "tend to become religiously unaffiliated," said Pew, which defines "religious nones" as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular."

Even with the losses sustained, Catholicism remains the majority religion in eight of the 24 nations studied, with Poland, the Philippines and Italy topping the list.

Pew noted that 96% of the Polish population was raised Catholic, with 92% still identifying as such in adulthood. The Philippines, where 88% are raised Catholic, has also seen a high adult retention rate, with 78% of that nation's adults still regarding themselves as Catholic. In Hungary, 57% of adults identify as Catholic, with 59% of the population having been raised Catholic.

Italy has experienced higher losses, with 89% of the nation's adults raised Catholic, and 67% of them identifying as such.

In Mexico, 66% of adults regard themselves as Catholic, although 87% of the nation's population is raised in the faith. In Peru, where 81% are raised Catholic, 63% of adults still identify with the faith.

Spain sees 80% of its population raised Catholic, but just 45% identify as such in adulthood, while in France, with 60% raised Catholic, only 34% of adults describe themselves as such.

In the U.S., less than one third (30%) are raised Catholic, and only 17% of adults describe themselves as Catholic. Those figures are slightly higher in Canada, where 39% are raised Catholic and 20% of adults identify as such.

More: https://www.ucanews.com/news/catholicism-loses-members-in-most-countries-surveyed-pew/113001

Scripture for today: “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

Lesson from the first letter of St. John the Apostle

1 John 4:1-6
1 Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 By this is the spirit of God known. Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God:
3 And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome him. Because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them.
6 We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Fr. Heimerl: Pope Francis marks the fulfillment of Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich’s ‘dark church’ prophecy

According to German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, the ‘after-church’ will not be a counter-church or a schismatic church, but the Catholic Church itself because it is increasingly distancing itself from Christ.

Pope Francis during his weekly general audience, February 2022Mazur/cbcew.org.uk/Flickr

---

Fr. Joachim Heimerl

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on September 19, 2024. LifeSite has decided to republish it for the one-year anniversary of Pope Francis’ death, which occurred on April 21, 2025. We continue to pray for his soul and for his successor, Leo XIV.

The following essay is the first in a two-part series on the prophecies of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, the ‘synodal church,’ and Pope Francis. Part two can be found HERE.

(LifeSiteNews) — Two hundred years ago, the German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich died in Dülmen, Westphalia. The stigmatized nun saw not only the life of Jesus in her visions, but also the future of the Church. Shortly before her death, she said: “There will be an after-church.”

During Emmerich’s time, such a thing was hardly imaginable, and what would an “after-church” be on top of that? I admit: I wondered about that as well, at least until with Pope Francis the “synodal church” emerged and, with it, a rapid decline.

But one thing at a time: What do Francis, the “synodal church,” and Blessed Anne Catherine have to do with each other?

The key lies in an amendment made by Emmerich, in which she spoke of a “dark church.” By this, she meant a church in which the light of Christ is extinguished. Accordingly, the “after-church” will not be a counter-church or a schismatic church, nor a Protestant “church” like the “church” of the Anglicans or Lutherans. Instead, the Catholic Church itself will be this “post-church” because it is increasingly distancing itself from Christ.

This is where Francis comes into play, who has openly contradicted his predecessors and – at least in part – even Christ Himself. Cardinal George Pell has, therefore, rightly called Francis’ pontificate a “disaster,” one could also say: a pontificate that does not correspond to the will of Christ.

More: https://x.com/shiningsweu/status/2046882570969776401?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

Consistory on the mission: Confirmation of a preoccupying orientation

In a letter published on April 14, 2026, Pope Leo XIV announces the holding of an extraordinary consistory on June 26 and 27 of this year. This meeting of the College of Cardinals, centered on the "mission," fits into a dynamic that is now clearly identifiable: that of an assumed continuity with the orientations of the previous pontificate.

After an initial meeting in January, this new consistory confirms the intention to establish these assemblies as a regular organ of governance. But beyond the rhythm, it is above all the doctrinal line that draws attention. From the first initiatives of the new pope, one observation stands out. Far from a doctrinal rebalancing or a return to the traditional foundations of the faith, the work undertaken in Rome seems to confirm a line already widely drawn.

At the heart of the reflections proposed to the cardinals once again stands the programmatic text of Pope Francis's pontificate: *Evangelii gaudium*. This text is presented by Leo XIV as a "decisive point of reference" that remains, in his view, under-exploited. The Roman Pontiff wishes the cardinals to evaluate what has been implemented and what remains "misunderstood."

Yet, as Abbot Davide Pagliarani emphasized in a recent interview, this orientation rests on a profoundly new conception of evangelization. This consists in reducing the proclamation of the faith to what its promoters call the "kerygma," that is, to an extremely simplified formulation of the Christian message, centered on a few essential affirmations.

Such a method, appealing in its apparent simplicity, in reality relegates to the background the entire doctrinal and moral content transmitted by the Church's Tradition. What, for centuries, constituted the richness and precision of the Catholic faith thus finds itself regarded as secondary, or even as an obstacle to proclamation.

The notion of "kerygma" forms the central axis of this orientation. It involves expressing the faith in a few brief, accessible, and immediately "attractive" formulas, intended to spark a personal experience.

But this approach poses a major difficulty: it tends to dissociate the encounter with Christ from the objective truths of the faith that are nevertheless its foundation. Faith is no longer primarily adherence to a revealed content, transmitted and clarified by the magisterium over the centuries; it becomes a subjective experience, detached from the dogmatic formulations that guarantee its authenticity.

Such a perspective inevitably leads to a doctrinal impoverishment. As the Superior General of the FSSPX has pointed out, this method has already produced, under the previous pontificate, a genuine doctrinal void felt in many sectors of the Church.

In this perspective, three main dossiers must be addressed during the consistory.

The reform of the catechism is presented as a priority in the face of the erosion of faith transmission. If the stated intention may seem legitimate, one question remains: will this reform truly restore the integral teaching of the Church's doctrine and morality, or will it fit into the logic of the "kerygma," at the risk of proposing a simplified and incomplete version?

Ecclesiastical communication constitutes a second axis. In a world saturated with information, the Holy See wishes to make its message "more audible." But here again, the difficulty lies not so much in the form as in the content: effective communication cannot compensate for a doctrinal weakening.

The promotion of bishops' pastoral visits, finally, is presented as a means of fostering a "missionary boldness," while avoiding an approach deemed too administrative. However, this orientation fits into a broader vision where pastoral action tends to take precedence over doctrinal clarity.

These various initiatives take place within a more general framework: that of synodal reform. This is presented as the body responsible for discerning, according to contexts, what must be preserved or modified in the Church's teaching and practice.

In practice, this amounts to substituting evolving decisions for the constant responses of Tradition, dependent on consultative processes whose criteria remain vague. Recent experience has shown that this mode of operation can lead to gravely problematic orientations on the doctrinal and moral levels. The danger is twofold: on the one hand, a weakening of the content of the faith; on the other, a growing instability in its expression and application.

The reduction of the Christian proclamation to a minimal core presents an obvious advantage in an ecumenical perspective. By limiting itself to very general affirmations—the love of God, salvation in Jesus Christ—it becomes easier to find common ground with the Orthodox and Protestants.

But this apparent unity comes at the price of integral truth. For what precisely makes the specificity of the Catholic faith—its precise doctrinal content, its theological coherence, its demanding morality—tends to disappear from the discourse. The result is a form of unity without depth, based not on the fullness of truth, but on a reduction of it to its most minimal expression.

The consistory announced for June 2026 thus appears as an additional step in a process already well underway: that of a progressive transformation of the very conception of the Church, of its magisterium, and of its mission.

Behind the themes of "mission" and "communication" looms in reality a profound mutation: a Church where doctrine tends to fade before experience, where Tradition is relegated to the background, and where magisterial authority dissolves into evolving processes.

Faced with these developments, it appears more necessary than ever to recall that the Church's true mission cannot be conceived without the integral transmission of the faith, as it was received from the apostles and faithfully preserved over the centuries. For diminishing the truth does not make it more accessible, but without integral transmission, it truly leads souls to Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Translation courtesy of @FSSPXFR on Twitter/X

https://x.com/fsspxfr/status/2046509571628314769?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

African Tribal Leader Promotes Synodal Polygamy in Cathedral - Leo XIV Remains Silent But Catholics React

On April 16, during the visit of Pope Leo XIV to Bamenda, Cameroon, Fon Fru Asaah Angwafor IV, the tribal leader of the Mankon community, spoke about polygamy. He made the remarks during an interreligious peace meeting in the cathedral.

He is the hereditary "king" of the Mankon people and rules over culture and spiritual tradition. He presides over pagan rites, such as important funerals and ancestral ceremonies. During these events, he wears ceremonial attire alongside elders. He also identifies as 'Catholic'.

In his speech at the cathedral, the tribal leader stated that 'some cultural practices continue to pose challenges' and cited polygamy as an example.

He expressed gratitude that, within the framework of the 2023 and 2024 Synod, African bishops had been tasked with conducting a study on polygamy and its place in the life of the Church.

The tribal chief went on to say that adulterers in polygamous relationships should be able to fully integrate into the Church without being 'judged or rejected'.

Leo XIV did not respond.

However, some of the faithful in attendance reacted with boos.

Gloria.tv

Do Not Be Scandalized

For Catholics waiting in the Cenacle between Christ’s visible departure and the coming of the Holy Ghost.

CHRIS JACKSON MAY 17

The Sunday of Holy Expectation

The Church places us today in a strange and holy interval. Our Lord has ascended. The Paschal candle has been extinguished. The visible presence of Christ has withdrawn from the eyes of men. Yet Pentecost has not yet come. We stand, as it were, in the Cenacle with the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin, not abandoned, not triumphant in any worldly sense, but waiting.

This is why the Introit cries out with such tender insistence: “Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call… Thy face, O Lord, I seek.” The Church does not speak here like a widow who has lost her Spouse forever. She speaks like a bride who knows He has gone to His Father and her Father, His God and her God, and who waits for the promised fire from heaven.

Goffine, in his old instruction for this Sunday, says plainly that this whole week should be used as a preparation for Pentecost, so that by good works and pious exercises we may receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost. He singles out exactly what St. Peter gives us in the Epistle: prayer, charity, the faithful use of grace, and the duties of our state in life.

Christ Ascended, Yet Christ Remains

Do not imagine that the Ascension is an absence in the ordinary sense. St. Augustine says that Our Lord “did not withdraw from us when He went up again into heaven.” He is in heaven by His glorified humanity, yet He remains with us by His divinity, His power, and His love. We cannot be in heaven as He is on earth, by divine nature; but in Him, by faith, hope, and charity, our hearts may already ascend.

This is why a Christian must never live as though earth were his final country. The world tells you to settle down here, to make peace with vanity, to arrange your conscience according to comfort, to be agreeable to error, to make religion useful but never sovereign. The Ascension tears that illusion away. Your Head is in heaven. Shall the members crawl contentedly in the dust?

No. If Christ our Head has ascended, then the Christian life must be an ascent. Our thoughts must ascend. Our desires must ascend. Our homes must ascend. Our work, our sufferings, our friendships, our speech, our very recreation must be drawn upward into the service of God. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?”

“Be Prudent and Watchful in Prayers”

St. Peter begins today with a warning: “Be prudent and watchful in prayers.” He writes as a man who knows that the end of all things is near, not necessarily near by our calendars, but always near to the soul that may be called tonight before the Judgment Seat.

Prayer is the breathing of the soul. A man who does not pray is already beginning to die inwardly, though he may still speak, work, laugh, and prosper. A family that does not pray is leaving its windows open at night while the enemy prowls outside.

But St. Peter does not say only, “Pray.” He says be prudent and watchful. That is, pray like men who know their weakness, like soldiers on guard, like servants whose Master may return at any hour. Pray against the sins that most commonly conquer you. Pray against your temper. Pray against impurity. Pray against human respect. Pray against discouragement. Pray against that subtle pride which allows a man to confess every doctrine of the Faith while refusing to bend his own will before God.

Pope Leo XIII, writing on the Holy Ghost in Divinum Illud Munus , taught that each one of us greatly needs His protection and help, and that the more a man is weak, troubled, prone to sin, or lacking in wisdom, the more he must fly to the Holy Ghost, “the never-ceasing fount of light, strength, consolation, and holiness.”

Charity Covers a Multitude of Sins

Then comes the command that cuts through so much false piety: “Above all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covers a multitude of sins.”

Mark this well. St. Peter does not places charity above all things.

Charity is not sentimental weakness or cowardice before evil. Charity is the love of God poured into the heart and then turned toward the neighbor for God’s sake. Charity tells the truth, corrects, suffers, forgives. Charity refuses to make a throne for one’s own injured pride.

Haydock’s old Catholic commentary explains that charity covers a multitude of sins both because it is a great means of atoning for them and because a charitable mind excuses many faults in others.

This is desperately practical. In every parish, every family, every workplace, every circle of Catholics, there are little resentments cherished like relics. There are cold silences nursed for years. There are suspicions, jealousies, old injuries, and remembered slights. And then the same souls kneel and ask for the Holy Ghost.

But the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of charity. He is not drawn to the soul that keeps a private chapel for bitterness. If you wish to prepare for Pentecost, forgive. Make peace. Stop repeating what does not need to be repeated. Cover what charity permits you to cover. Correct only what duty requires you to correct. Speak as one who will answer for every idle word.

The Stewardship of Grace

St. Peter continues: “According to the gift that each has received, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

No Catholic is useless or excused from service. The mother with children, the father at his workbench or desk, the student, the elderly widow, the priest, the religious, the sick man in bed, the child learning his catechism — each has received something. Each must return it to God with interest.

Some are given speech. Then let them speak “as with words of God.” That means no lying, no flattery, no impurity, no useless cruelty, no cowardly silence when duty requires testimony.

Some are given strength. Then let them minister “from the strength that God furnishes.” That means no vanity. No self-advertisement. No pretending that what grace supplied was manufactured by our own greatness.

The Christian does not own his gifts. He holds them in trust. Your intelligence is not yours. Your influence is not yours. Your money is not yours. Your time is not yours. Your children are not yours absolutely. Your body is not yours for sin. All has been received. All must be rendered back.

“You Also Will Bear Witness”

In the Gospel, Our Lord says: “When the Advocate has come… He will bear witness concerning Me. And you also will bear witness.”

This is the order. First the Holy Ghost bears witness. Then the Apostles bear witness. The Church is not built on human enthusiasm. She is not a debating society, a moral improvement club, or a gathering of men who admire Christ as a noble teacher. She is animated by the Spirit of Truth.

Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis that the Church first showed herself before men on Pentecost, when Christ sent the Holy Ghost as Paraclete upon His disciples. He also repeated the great teaching that as Christ is Head of the Church, the Holy Ghost is her soul.

Therefore, if you would bear witness, you must first receive. Do not try to speak for Christ while living apart from Christ or try to defend the Faith while neglecting confession, prayer, Mass, and the duties of your state. The tongue may speak Catholic words while the life gives pagan testimony.

The witness Our Lord asks is not mere talk. It is fidelity under pressure, patience in crosses, modesty when others mock purity, reverence when others grow casual, and doctrine without embarrassment. It is the Sign of the Cross made without shame, the father who leads his family in prayer, the mother who forms souls for heaven, the young man who refuses impurity and the young woman who refuses vanity. It is the worker who refuses dishonesty and the Catholic who would rather lose comfort than lose grace.

The Warning Against Scandal

Then Our Lord gives the severe mercy of warning: “These things I have spoken to you that you may not be scandalized.”

A scandal is not merely something shocking. In the Gospel sense, scandal is a stumbling block, something that causes a soul to fall. Our Lord warns His Apostles because He knows what persecution, betrayal, false religion, and violence can do to men who expected an easy triumph.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Catena Aurea, preserves St. Augustine’s explanation: after promising the Holy Ghost, Christ warns them of sufferings so that they will not be offended. The love of God, poured into the heart by the Holy Ghost, gives great peace to those who love God’s law.

This is a lesson many Catholics never learn. They think peace means the absence of conflict. Christ teaches the opposite. Peace is not the guarantee that enemies will disappear. Peace is the grace not to be overthrown when enemies come.

Our Lord does not say, “You will be admired by all men.” He says, “They will expel you from the synagogues.” He does not say, “The world will understand your motives.” He says, “The hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering worship to God.”

False zeal is one of the most frightening things in religion. Men may persecute truth while imagining themselves defenders of God. Men may destroy the servants of Christ while thinking they are purifying the temple. St. Augustine, again through the Catena Aurea, says Our Lord told them beforehand because trials, when they come upon men unprepared, are overwhelming.

The Catholic Must Not Be an Orphan

The Alleluia gives us Our Lord’s promise: “I will not leave you orphans; I go away and I come to you, and your heart shall rejoice.”

There is the whole mystery of this Sunday. He goes, and He comes. He is hidden, and He is present. He ascends, and He sends. The world sees absence. Faith knows presence.

The orphan spirit is one of the great temptations of Christians. It whispers: You are alone. God has forgotten you. The Church is too weak. The wicked are too strong. Your prayers vanish into the air. Your sins are too many. Your crosses are wasted. Your little fidelity is unseen.

Reject that voice. It is not the voice of the Paraclete.

The Holy Ghost is called Paraclete because He consoles, strengthens, pleads, and stands beside the soul. Goffine says He made the Apostles eloquent and courageous, so that they professed and preached Christ intrepidly, confirming His doctrine by miracles and sealing it by their blood.

The same Holy Ghost must make us courageous. Perhaps not for martyrdom by sword. Perhaps for the quieter martyrdom of perseverance: a long fidelity, a hidden sacrifice, an illness borne without rebellion, a temptation resisted again and again, a duty performed without applause.

How to Spend This Week Before Pentecost

The Church give us this Sunday for preparation.

Goffine gives the old Catholic program. Withdraw somewhat from noise. Speak less. Pray more earnestly. Purify the conscience by contrite confession. Be reconciled with your neighbor. Give alms according to your means. Desire fervently to receive the Holy Ghost.

Make a good confession if you need one. End a quarrel. Stop an occasion of sin. Put away a bad book, a bad habit, a bad companionship, a bad curiosity. Pray the Veni Creator Spiritus or the Come, Holy Ghost each day. Ask for the seven gifts. Ask especially for fortitude, because weak Catholics do not become saints. Ask for fear of the Lord, because casual Catholics do not become saints either. Ask for wisdom, because cleverness without holiness merely gives sin a better vocabulary.

Pope Leo XIII commanded the annual Novena before Pentecost throughout the Catholic Church and attached indulgences to it, urging the faithful to invoke the Holy Ghost with special devotion in these days.

The Eucharistic Secret of St. Paschal

Today, although the Sunday takes precedence, the calendar also remembers St. Paschal Baylon, the humble Franciscan lay brother whose feast falls on May 17. Pope Leo XIII declared him the heavenly patron of Eucharistic Congresses and Associations, and Catholic tradition remembers him as a saint of burning devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

That is no accident of piety. The soul waiting for the Holy Ghost must remain near the tabernacle. The Apostles waited in the Cenacle. We wait before the altar. Our Lord has ascended into heaven, but He has not ceased to dwell among us under the Eucharistic veils.

The Host is the answer to the orphan spirit. The tabernacle is the quiet contradiction of despair. The Mass is the sacrifice of Calvary made present until the end of time. Here is Christ hidden, Christ offered, Christ received, Christ adored.

If you want Pentecost, do not neglect the Eucharist. If you want courage, receive worthily. If you want purity, adore. If you want charity, kneel before the Sacred Host and ask the Heart of Jesus to burn away the coldness of your own.

“That in All Things God May Be Honored”

St. Peter ends the Epistle with the purpose of everything: “that in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

That God may be honored.

That is the end of the Ascension. That is the end of Pentecost. That is the end of the Church, the Mass, the sacraments, the priesthood, the family, the Christian life, and every breath in your body.

So lift up your hearts. Seek His face. Do not be scandalized. Do not live as orphans. Pray with vigilance. Love with constancy. Serve as stewards. Witness without shame. Wait for the Holy Ghost with the Blessed Virgin in the Cenacle of the Church.

And when the world grows loud, when false zeal rises, when charity cools, when the face of Christ seems hidden, answer with the Introit of today’s Mass:

“Thy face, O Lord, I seek. Hide not Thy face from me.”

Come, Holy Ghost. Fill the hearts of Thy faithful. Kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Amen.

(Follow and support the writer Chris Jackson here: https://donate.stripe.com/7sYfZi2bagKWbdV3ZEbV600?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email)