A right or estate inherited from one’s ancestors

Patrimony

I held my grandfather’s hand as he died.  I watched him take his last breath.  I loved him deeply, even though I didn’t know him well.  He crossed the Tiber to enter the Roman Catholic Church before I was born.  His wife, my grandmother, died before I was born.  I’m told she was a Christian Scientist.  My grandfather married an Irish Catholic from Hallowell, Maine.  Her name was Gertrude Collins.  His name was Lawrence Stuart.  My middle name is Stuart.

My earliest memories include Maine and my Roman Catholic grandfather.  From my home in Maryland I idolized him, and his remote northern land called Maine, in my youth.  He was the state’s Commissioner of Parks and Recreation at the time.

While distant with their emotions, they were always loving toward me.  When I think of my mother’s parents today I think of the word virtue.  They were both gone before I had an opportunity to really get to know them.  They remained aloof, but loving.

While I was able to hold my grandfather’s hand as he died my last memory of my step grandmother is of her writhing alone, and nearly naked, in a bare hospital bed in a room just down the hall from where my grandfather died.  I felt like nobody cared.  She died not long after.  She was a devout woman.  Prayerful.

When I was twitterpated by politics as a lobbyist for the Christian Civic League of Maine I wanted to visit the State House with my grandfather.  He was way up in years by that time.  He refused without explanation.  His decision arouses curiosity in me to this day.  He served as a Commissioner for many years, and was a personal associate of one of Maine’s most powerful Senators ever, Edmund Muskie.  I frolicked as a child in Maryland with the only dog I ever loved or owned.  His name was Muskie.

I’m pleased now that my grandfather didn’t go to the State House with me.  I was immature.

My grandfather’s father was a professional educator in Maine’s government run school system.  His father was a cartographer in the state as it entered the twentieth century.  He mapped the wilderness of northern Maine before there were roads and automobiles.  He would have travelled by train, horse and on foot to accomplish his tasks.  The homes he built in South Paris, Maine are still standing.  I’ve driven by them.  They passed out of the family long ago.

I know very little about my ancestors.  America is designed to erase our connection to them.  America is now entering her last phase of debauchery.  Our once great nation is psychologically erasing our connection to our own DNA.  Unsatisfied with burning the bridge to our familial past America has eliminated civil marriage and replaced it with government enforced fornication.  As if to pulverize the last remaining vestiges of the collapsed bridge, the government is now forcing us to “respect” the gender choices of insane individuals.

I was encouraged yesterday morning as I answered the questions posed to me by the Priest of Holy Angels Roman Catholic Church here in Mt. Airy, North Carolina.  It was evident from his questions that the Church honors patrimony, in her paperwork at least.  The Mass feels just as weak as the United Methodist Church worship services I attended as a youth.  Disconnected from tradition, from the past.  Modern.

At least the small chapel, erected in 1921, is a bridge to our architectural roots in European Christendom.  It is beautiful and holy.  It is set apart.  I learned that the altar in the chapel was re-oriented in recent years by a traditional Priest who offered the Latin Mass.  He is no longer here, unfortunately.  I would enjoy participating in that historic rite.

My best friend, Paul Madore of Lewiston Maine, will stand with me as my sponsor at the Easter Mass for my initiation into the Church in a couple months.  Lest you think my decision to become Roman Catholic is mostly personal please allow me to dissuade you from that conclusion.  I have been thinking about this for decades.  I look forward to writing and speaking about it in coming months, and years, as God opens doors.

I love my Protestant roots and heritage.  The Protestant Church brought me into Christianity.  Christianity begins with baptism.  I was baptized in a United Methodist Church as a youth.  I have served on the front lines of Christianity’s war with the modernists for my entire adult life.  I intend to ratchet up that dedication as a Roman Catholic both inside, and outside, the Church.

My fight is not with Protestants.  My fight is with the devil and his demons.  My fight is with the maggots who are consuming the patrimony of the Church and Christianity.  They must be squashed for the sake of goodness, truth and beauty.

Amen.

This announcement creates an uncertain financial future for me.  I know that I am likely to lose some … if not all … of my remaining donors.  Professional work became impossible for me many years ago due to the corruption of Christianity, and our American culture.  I’ve been praying about going back to FedEx.  If this happens I will attempt to continue producing this daily column, but I doubt that will be possible.  I will stop my daily LIVEstream show.  I may write at least one written column a week.  Thanks for your prayers and support of this unique pilgrimage called Michael Stuart Heath.