Winterpeg or Bust

Two professional hockey teams have migrated from my old home of Atlanta to the land of the Canucks.
* The Flames, now in Calgary, were the home team when I was a youngster.
* A few years ago the Thrashers flew north and become the Jets when they landed in Winnipeg.

A recent conversation with an awesome Ottawa pilgrim friend brought to mind the one substantial trip I’ve ever made across the Canadian border (plane changes in Toronto count as visits, to be sure, but they don’t really give you a flavor for the locale).
 
My multi-day trip was to Winnipeg for a friend’s wedding, which was a Sung Mass in the Latin. It was a delightful time, and the big day for my friends was a joyful one for all of us.
 
I also did a little site-seeing while I was in Winnipeg, driving my Rubicon jeep around the city. Flowing through Winnipeg are two rivers, the Assiniboine and the Red. I traversed the Red River a couple of times in my Rubicon, and perhaps because the wedding Mass had been a Latin experience, my mind turned to things Roman during one of the crossings. “When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, the fields of Rome ran red with the blood of civil war,” I thought. “And now here I am crossing the Red River in my Rubicon Jeep.”
 
My geek credentials thus firmly established, I hummed a Gloria Patri and continued on my way.

The Japanese Get it Done

This morning the BBC reported about a Japanese baby boy who was born premature by emergency C-section at 24 weeks. Weighing in at a little over half a pound at birth, he was discharged home at a weight of seven pounds after being cared for in the hospital for five months.

He was the smallest infant born to ever be discharged from a hospital.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47382058

This demonstrates that we have the medicine and science to keep a baby alive who is born as young as six months.
Last Monday, meanwhile, the U.S. Senate voted (Cf. Sasse’s bill S. 311) against protecting babies born alive following failed abortions (Cf. infanticide).

Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-senate-votes-53-44-to-end-infanticide-of-born-alive-babies-but-fai

The wording of the bill was, “If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws.”

So, we have the knowledge and the means to save a baby who survives an abortion. We just don’t want to. Clearly the defect is in the will and in the intention, not in the understanding, the medicine, or the science.

Panorama View of Nativity Sets

Innocent Confidence

Innocent people are joyful. The unhappy world hates and aborts children, who are entirely innocent.

They have poured out the blood of the Saints as water, round about Jerusalem. And there was none to bury them. Avenge, O Lord, the blood of Thy saints, which has been shed upon the earth.
- Tract for the Mass of the Holy Innocents (Psalm 78: 3, 10)
 
“Flowers of the martyrs! Pray for us, that we may obtain child-like simplicity of heart, whence comes that unreserved confidence in God, which leads man to the perfect accomplishment of His holy will. May we bear the cross with patience, when He sends it, and desire nothing but His holy will.”
- Dom Guéranger

Matthew 2:13-18
As soon as they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, Rise up, take with thee the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt; there remain, until I give thee word. For Herod will soon be making search for the child, to destroy him.
He rose up, therefore, while it was still night, and took the child and his mother with him, and withdrew into Egypt, where he remained until the death of Herod,
in fulfilment of the word which the Lord spoke by his prophet, I called my son out of Egypt.
Meanwhile, when he found that the wise men had played him false, Herod was angry beyond measure; he sent and made away with all the male children in Bethlehem and in all its neighbourhood, of two years old and less, reckoning the time by the careful enquiry which he had made of the wise men.
It was then that the word spoken by the prophet Jeremy was fulfilled:
A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and great mourning; it was Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because none is left.