'These people honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
In vain do they offer me worship as
their teachings are merely the preferences of their own.”
Mark 7:6-7
"I urge you, brothers and sisters, to be wary of those who cause division and undermine the faithful, in opposition to the teachings that you have learned. Shun them. For such people do not serve our Lord, but their own appetites. And by clever words and flattery they deceive the hearts of the innocent and naive."
Romans 16:17-18
"Such is the way with the multitude of men everywhere and at all times; they do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes. And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves. For that contracted, defective range of duties, which falls so short of God's law, is just what they can fulfill; or rather they choose it, and keep to it, because they can fulfill it.
Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct, which may befall them, though their religion mainly lies in certain outward observances, and not a great number even of them."
John Henry Newman
Stocks held steady at the end, despite a little wobbling, at their recent lofty highs.
The Dollar gave up about half its recent gains, falling back down towards 90.
Gold advanced a little, but silver fell back to its open at the beginning of the week.
The trial of Trump in the Senate began today.
The plague wears on taking even those who to the end would not believe it.
Those who would make us mad are doubling down on their madness.
All they have left now is audacity, and shamelessness. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
"It was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.”
Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory
Have a pleasant evening.
