A Hooker’s Courage

This weekend is Transfiguration Sunday on the Liturgical calendar. A month or so ago, we decided to pick Sat. Aug. 6 as the date for our Jericho Rosary Walk around Parliament Hill. The intention 

of this Rosary walk was “to pull down spiritual barriers and walls of division, caused by vaccines mandates“. In our planning for the Walk, someone in our little group mentioned that this weekend was Transfiguration Sunday so we chose that as our theme for the event. Yesterday morning at the Tomb, a healthy number of us gathered in the sweltering heat. I was very surprised at the number that showed up in this weather – 31 people! – not to mention those who were joined with us in prayer who could not make it. That’s a pretty good showing, all things considered.

We started with the Luminous Mysteries and went on to pray the Joyful and the Glorious mysteries by the time we finished. We gathered at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and made our way around Parliament Hill, stopping at select landmarks to say special prayers. It was a “Jericho” moment: we encircled the walls of power in our country to bring down the wickedness which upholds the walls of division, disunity, despair, paranoia, and psychosis in our country. We were there to cast away the darkness surrounding Parliament Hill, and those who prop it up with their worship at the altar of the Health Cult whose adherents fill up their pharmakeia cup to overflowing – even when their fake god of political science has been exposed by real scientists who are quite matter of factly showing us with real evidence that the Vax-emperor is buck-naked and should be deposed. And even some doctors are kind of tired of playing the proverbial fool and are actually calling out this madness. Still, Shakespeare will no doubt not be amused at being demoted from the authority to set vaccine travel policy for Canadian citizens.

This debate was never about science vs. freedom. It was about politicized (

fake) science vs. human dignity and conscience. And everyone of our institutions was on the wrong side of history. Every single one of them. They all failed us miserably – including the Catholic Church whose ministers must repent of the great evil they permitted and even encouraged. Since these are the days of apologies, perhaps it’s time for those who actually have something to apologize for to “man up” and do it right now, and not expect that a future generation 100 years down the road – who have NOTHING to do with our own sin – to do it. This shit is ours to own up to. We need to stop shoveling it down the road and expect innocent and more righteous generations to apologize for our sin. The woke madness needs to join its vaccine cousin on the ash heap of history.

Tragically, the victory is still likely some ways off. This delusion will continue for the foreseeable future – not because of science (which is finally starting to tell us the truth about the vaccines) – but because we are dealing with a religion of human arrogance, pride, power, control and greed whose anti-sacrament is the vaccine itself. The anti-sacrament will continue to be administered aggressively because the aforementioned vices prop it up. And so the blindness remains and will do so until it has claimed the designated number of victims which corresponds to our collective sin and wickedness. That’s how it works, folks. Sin and pride make us stupid and blind, and then they kills us – guilty and innocent alike.

At the end of the day, we know the battle which we fight is not against the men and women of warped and weak minds, manipulated allegiances, and willing puppets of the elite, but rather, we are up against no less than anti-Christ and his legions. It’s so obvious now, you can almost see the demonic physically manifesting in this world. And boy, is there is a lot of darkness surrounding this country right now. Thankfully, God has not left us abandoned. We have a Queen to fight with us who has been appointed by God Himself to defeat the Dragon.

So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Revelation 12:17)

It is the Woman of Revelation, no less, Our Blessed Mother and her little rabble who have been given this mission. The nobodies with Rosary beads taking on the principalities and powers. The humble and the powerless going up against the gates of hell itself. Oh, if we could see through to the spiritual dimension, what, I wonder, would we see? If we could transgress that hidden mirror and step through, how our conventional ways of judging power and strength would be turned upside down. But you can only see through that mirror with the eyes of Faith. Without Faith, it is impossible to please God or gain victory.

As we walked through the sweltering heat, and said our prayers, I was amazed at the endurance of our little group, many of them elderly. We tried to hit the shaded parts and took appropriate rest stops. It was a pilgrimage of sorts. Eight stops along the way, corresponding to the eight markers on the Rosary. We ended up at the Prime Minister’s Office to pray a deliverance prayer because if there was ever a world leader that needed deliverance and maybe even an exorcism, it’s Justin Trudeau. During one of our stops, I had asked everyone to pray that our leaders (especially our spiritual ones) find the virtue of courage to speak the truth against the lies and corruption that is suffocating us. This virtue, more than any other, at this moment in our history is what we need so badly right now. Courage. Courage. Courage.

After our little pilgrimage ended, I made my way home. As I crossed the second last intersection to get to my van parked at City Hall, I saw a very old woman sitting on the sidewalk outside of the Starbucks on Elgin Street. We’re all used to seeing men begging on the streets. That’s bad enough. But the sight of an old woman begging has always bothered me. I’m not sure why. It really bothers me. So I stood there debating with myself if I should approach her, oscillating between engaging her or just crossing the street, moving on, and forgetting about her. But I couldn’t forget her. She looked like my maternal grandmother. She was so tiny, wrinkled, and had a huge smile on her face. Most of the time in these situations, I just move on…the courageous man that I am. But this time was different. If I was going to preach on courage to the pious, I’d better try sampling a taste of it right then and there. (I wonder, really, if it’s courage that we lack in these situations or whether it’s as simple as overcoming our natural awkwardness when confronted with such poverty and loneliness. How many people have been deprived of the Gospel because we have not conquered our awkwardness!)

I finally got the courage to approach her. I knelt down and asked her how she was doing. She smiled. I introduced myself and asked what her name was. In a French accent, she told me her name. I asked her where she lived and she mentioned she was originally from Montreal, but was currently living in some community housing of some sort here in Ottawa. I asked her if she needed anything and why she was on Elgin Street outside in sweltering heat. She said she needed some money. Without thinking, I reached into my pocket, pulled out my wallet and picked out a $20 bill. I handed it to her. “What do you need it for?”, I inquired. She must have forgotten her scripted line because she started with “marijua.…”, but then quickly realized that perhaps that was not the best answer to give me and ended the word before finishing its entirety. For a moment, I felt somewhat stupid and used, but at the same time, I was not surprised. It’s the human condition. Some of us run to drugs to dull the pain of existence, while others escape to other addictions, including our phones. Some addictions are more respectable than others.

She then asked me where I was from and I told her that I lived right here in Ottawa and had just returned from praying on Parliament Hill. She asked me if I had children and I responded that, yes, I had four daughters. And I then I asked her if she had any children. She paused and said, yes, she had three. I silently wondered what happened to her family that she would be on the streets and lonely. I then asked her what she did in her previous life. Her answer floored me.

“I was a hooker. Everyone wanted me to get an abortion. But I said no.”

I was speechless for a moment and then I asked her if I could pray over her. She grinned widely and nodded. And so I prayed with and for her for a minute or so as I looked into her wrinkled face and my grandmother’s eyes. I finished up with the Sign of the Cross and she joined me. I wished her God’s blessing and departed. As I made my way to my vehicle, I wondered to myself just who was evangelizing whom. While I was sharing with her God’s love for her and the life after this one, she was sharing with me what it means to be courageous in the face of evil, what it means not to betray your conscience, even in the face of such intense pressure. Her past life was not exactly a poster for virtuous living, and yet, she showed more courage in standing up to totalitarian evil in her little circle, than the so-called leadership we have in this country today. “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.” (Matthew 21: 31-32)

Courage is what is necessary today. It is the healing tonic to our poison. All we need is a few drops from a minority for the body to be made whole again.

Stand up to these vaccine tyrants who wish to snuff out our dignity. If we don’t put on the breastplate of courage, we will have deserved the coward’s reward in due time.

John Pacheco

St. Joan of Arc Community

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