Craigly

Queen of Victory, pray for us! This is a tribute to the woman I am proud to call Mama – the Blessed Virgin Mary. She has helped me much in good times and bad, as she has done for many peoples throughout history. We need her intercession more than ever! Pray the Rosary!

Head over to the Music section to hear my latest cover of Maranatha by Gerard Chiusano.

Within the last century, Jesus appeared many times to Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska with messages of His Divine Mercy. At Jesus’ insistence, Faustina had an image painted of Him. Here are a few:

Jesus also told Faustina to keep a diary. Keep in mind that she had only been educated up to a fourth grade level. This Diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, contains all kinds of spiritual nuggets of wisdom; some of them from Jesus Himself! While reading it through with my wife for the second time, I was inspired to write a song containing some of the passages. I picked out eight sections and set them to music. A couple are direct quotes from Jesus.

There’s much more to learn and explore, so I recommend reading the Diary. Here’s the song:

This tune is the past meeting the present, in a sense. I wrote the music in 2009 at the tail end of the writing of the Revelation Now album with Save Your Nation. It was, then, entitled Brothers We. I was never happy with my vocals on that tune. They never sounded controlled and I cringed every time I heard myself. I even went back in 2015 and re-tracked the vocals and some of the guitars. The music was solid, but the vocals were still very much lacking. Today, I felt the need to revisit it for the sake of the music. I wrote new lyrics and a melody that will, hopefully, be much more palatable. I really enjoy what I’ve done thus far.

As an aside, I’ve been doing my civic duty on jury duty this week. It’s a criminal, not a civil, case. It has made me physically ill. This recording is me putting my best foot forward and wanting to really get my mind off the duties of the week. Click below to hear Heaven Around You. I hope you enjoy it.

 

I’ve been working on a new song that is a far cry from the Catholic Metal tunes. This one is pretty laid back with a very restrained vocal performance. I hope people will enjoy it. It is entitled Kingdom Come and may be heard by clicking the play button below. God Bless!

In writing my latest song, Crushed, it took on a life of its own and became a powerful weapon against evil. The centerpiece of the song is the prayer below. Pray this often for the sake of the Kingdom and for your family. You will be blessed. If you’d like, hit the play button and pray it with me. Be advised that this song delivers a one-two battle punch to the face of evil and its style very much reflects a tone of spiritual warfare.

Prayer for Rebuking of Spirits

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit

Spirits of abortion, greed, idolatry, and malice

Spirits of injustice, pride, violence, and pornography

Spirits of blasphemy, irreverence, slander, and genocide

Spirits of lies, covetousness, euthanasia, and promiscuity

Spirits of adultery, artificial contraception, disobedience, and heresy

Spirits of gluttony, envy, lust, and incredulity

Spirits of scandal, lewdness, apostasy, and sacrilege

Spirits of war, fornication, immodesty, and homosexuality

Spirits of child, corporate, cyber, and drug abuse

Spirits of emotional, gay, human rights, and legal abuse

Spirits of liturgical, patient, personal, and physical abuse

Spirits of political, prisoner, psychological, and racial abuse

Spirits of religious, self, sexual, substance, and workplace abuse

Spirits of the sins of commission, omission, my youth, my age, my body, and my soul

Spirits of my idle sins

Spirits of my serious voluntary sins

Spirits of the sins that I know

Spirits of the sins that I do not know

Spirits of the sins I have hidden for so long, that they are now hidden from my memory

All spirits of division

In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you and command you to go directly, immediately, and without doing any harm to the Eucharistic Presence of our Lord, Jesus Christ in the nearest Catholic Church for Jesus to dispose of as He chooses.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Old Testament has some good inspiration for metal music. This song is based on Psalm 117 (or 118, depending on your Bible) verses 10-14. Here’s the translation I was reading, which is very familiar to those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours:

All the nations encompassed me; 
in the name of the Lord I crushed them.

They encompassed me on every side; 
in the name of the Lord I crushed them.

They encompassed me like bees, they flared up like fire among thorns; 
in the name of the Lord I crushed them.

I was hard pressed and was falling, 
but the Lord helped me.

My strength and my courage is the Lord, 
and he has been my savior.

Chesty Puller (famous Marine), meet the Old Testament! Paraphrasing him in this song: “The enemy is in front of us, the enemy’s behind us, the enemy’s on either flank… we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em!”

In the midst of this song is a prayer for the rebuking of evil spirits. Pray it with me and you and your family will be blessed.

Hit the play button to give it a listen.

I spent seven years in Albuquerque and had the wonderful privilege of playing music with two lovely ladies. Marj played the upright bass and MK played guitar. All of us combined to make beautiful harmonies. We called our little trio Jerusalem Crickett. One day, we got together in the small back room of my house, which was a makeshift recording studio, and recorded 21 songs. It was all done live with no overdubs with the exception of two songs where I added mandolin after the fact. Now, many years later, I am remixing and remastering these recordings using much better computer tools than I had at the time. Hop on over to my Facebook page if you’d like to hear any of it. I may set up a Jerusalem Crickett webpage in the future just to be able to showcase the music in one convenient place.