A December 6 podcast on the Virgin Most Powerful Network’s Liber Christo War College, offered Doug Barry, from EWTN’s Battle Ready, as a guest. Host, Dr. Dan Schneider and Barry examined strategies for today’s Catholics to navigate this life in the hope of a happy eternity with God in Heaven.
The entire discussion merits reflection, but the most memorable 10-minute section is about chastising one’s self. Put simply, slight mortification of the body accomplishes two things:
They are noteworthy examples to the Lord that we desire to follow His path, and we are willing to do so with a stone in our shoe. We are called to follow Him, embracing our small crosses. St. Louis de Montfort teaches us that not only by embracing our crosses, do we affirm ourselves as loving slaves of our Savior, and his Mother, but that an acceptance of those crosses make them taste sweeter. “A confection of crosses” awaits him who willfully links his faith to the suffering of Christ.
Additionally, Barry posits that those little denials that we inflict upon ourselves will also keep us sharp for the fight at hand, in whatever form that may take, spiritual or physical. Remember Job: “The life of man upon earth is a warfare.” (Job 7:1) And, again, deferring to St Louis, he admonishes that “He who is too secure in time of peace will often be found too much dejected and fearful in time of war.”
Now, superimpose Barry’s contention; that purposeful control of our desires leads to better experiences in this life and the next, with the latest news about the spending habits of First Son, Hunter Biden. Let alone that Biden slept with his brother’s widow. Let alone that he spent months in a litigation soap opera fighting to deprive his illegitimate daughter, by a stripper from Arkansas, from ever being allowed to take his family’s famous last name. Leave aside that this lawsuit settled with monthly payments allowing him to deny the existence of his own daughter and her mother.
Forget all that. Instead, just focus on this week’s article from Breitbart News, which lays out his financial habits. Federal prosecutors claim that between 2016 and 2019, Biden spent an astonishing $872,000 on professional women (no – not Dylan Mulvaney), pornography and sex clubs. If that weren’t enough, Hunter Biden withdrew $1.6 million from cash machines for God knows what. Aside from the fortune spent on prostitutes, porn and swinging, another $683,000 were spent on what he very respectfully recorded as “various women”. These numbers spent on indulgence are more than some people will ever see in their lifetime. Most befuddling, is that there were expenses for “clothing and accessories” totaling $397,000 during this time period. Why then, in all of those “laptop from hell” videos, was he always naked?
These revelations betray Biden’s life as what seems to be a decade-long Bacchanalian orgy. Eventually a check comes due. And not just the couple of million bucks necessary to fund this spree. Hunter has been charged with “willfully failing to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes. It is hard to fathom the combination of depravity and audacity. Remember Daddy Biden railing against the “one percenters” living it up while good ol’ blue collar Joe road the public train to work every day? Biden the elder loves to whisper weirdly to us all to “pay your fair share” while his son lives the life of Riley. Imagine Elon Musk or Donald Trump Jr, failing to pay taxes for four years?
(Biden never clearly articulates what percentage of citizen earned money is fair for the government to commandeer, but that is a different discussion.) Hunter’s is exactly the lifestyle of the one percenter with which Biden specifically taunts low information voters. Joe’s accusations create a permanent voter base for Democrat politicians to sow a sullen, resentful underclass, gleefully hoping for Leftists to make them equal with the wealthy who live high off the sweat of someone else’s brow. This magic wand of equity pits one American against another. The Biden family behavior would be bad enough if it was just rank hypocrisy. But the not-so-secret secret is that it is exactly because his father is who he is that Hunter can get away with this decadent behavior. It is hypocrisy, but it is more so corruption and deception and fraud.
No one has ever told Hunter “No”. The closest he ever heard was “don’t get caught”. At best, his lower natures ensured he was too arrogant, too drug addled and too stupid to avoid the risk. Another, darker possibility, is that he considered himself too grand for self-control. Here is a man that has literally spent his entire life, and a small fortune, catering to himself. To every desire and every base appetite. He has never denied himself or been denied of anything. It is the Lord’s privilege to judge Hunter. But with his disgusting video escapades he publicly flaunts his violations of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth Commandments.
Application of a Catholic lens while reading about Hunter Biden requires that we circle back to Doug Barry and St Louis de Montfort. Realistically, it is Hunter, and not the political opponents of his father, who is the personification of the rich man who ignored Lazarus. If the story ended there it would still be bad enough. Joe Biden and his family must fall into the Jesuitical definition of Catholic. The type of father who tolerates this behavior and, in fact, enables it, is exactly who we have running this country. And it is this weak man who won’t react correctly when faced with adversity that has allowed times to get tough. That is the cause and effect of what is roiling this country right now. And it is what is to be expected when someone with such disarray in his own house is given leadership of the free world.
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