“This Gospel (of St. John) refutes all heresies.”
St. Thomas, Prologue, Commentary on the Gospel of St.
John
“It is not fitting to be a delicate member of a Head
Crowned with thorns and crucified, nor the unmortified bride of a suffering
Spouse.”
St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi
“To trust to
an unfaithful man in the time of trouble, is like a rotten tooth, and weary
foot.”
Proverbs 25:19
As Archbishop
of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now known as Pope Francis, kneels down
to receive the “blessing” from Protestant ministers before thousands. Buenos Aires, 2006.
Passiontide
The two weeks of Passiontide begin today,
the first week being known as “Passion Week,” and the second week being known
as “Holy Week.”
This day -- Passion Sunday --
memorializes the increasing antipathy against Christ from the Jews who would
not accept Him and accused Him of sorcery and of being blasphemous and
possessed by a devil. From today until Maundy Thursday, the Júdica me
and the Glória patris at the Introit and Lavabo are omitted from Masses
of the Season (not Feasts).
Today, statues and sacred images
(except for the Stations of the Cross) are veiled with purple cloth beginning
at the Vespers of Passion Sunday, and they remain covered until the Gloria of
Holy Saturday, at which point Lent ends and Eastertide begins. Catholics cover
statues and icons, etc., in their homes for the same time period (the cloth
shouldn’t be transluscent or decorated in any way).
This veiling of the
statues and icons stems from the Gospel reading of Passion Sunday (John
8:46-59), at the end of which the Jews take up stones to cast at Jesus, Who
hides Himself away. The veiling also symbolizes the fact that Christ’s
Divinity was hidden at the time of His Passion and death, the very essence of
Passiontide.
At the Vespers Mass on Holy Saturday,
Lent ends and Easter begins: the statues are unveiled at that time in one of
the most glorious liturgical moments of the entire Church year, a moment that
affirms His divinity and proclaims that “He is risen!”
When Jesus therefore
had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his
mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy
mother (Jn. 19: 26-27).
Honor thy mother all
the days of her life; for thou must be mindful what and how great perils she
suffered for thee (Tob. 4:3).
Oh, all ye that pass by
the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow (Lam. 1: 12).
“Give me a
soul that is humble and I will tell you it is holy; if it is truly humble it is
truly holy; if it is very humble it is very holy and adorned with every
virtue.”
St. John Eudes
I have called myself
the “Immaculate Conception”. To you I call myself, “Mother of the Sorrowful
Heart”. This title willed by my Son, is dear to me above all others. According as it is spread everywhere, there will be granted graces
of mercy, spiritual renewal and salvation.
Blessed Virgin Mary to
Berthe Petit, March 25, 1912
The Synagogue is nigh
to a curse. Obstinate in her error, she refuses to see or to hear; she has
deliberately perverted her judgment: she has extinguished within herself the
light of the Holy Spirit; she will go deeper and deeper into evil and at length
fall into the abyss. This same lamentable conduct is but too often witnessed
nowadays in those sinners, who, by habitual resistance to the light, end by
finding their happiness in sin. Neither should it surprise us, that we find in
people of our own generation a resemblance to the murderers of our Jesus: the
history of His Passion will reveal to us many sad secrets of the human heart
and its perverse inclinations; for what happened in Jerusalem, happens also in
every sinner’s heart. His heart, according to the saying of St. Paul, is a
Calvary, where Jesus is crucified. There is the same ingratitude, the same
blindness, the same wild madness, with this difference: that the sinner who is
enlightened by faith, knows Him whom he crucifies; whereas the Jews, as the
same apostle tells us, knew not the Lord of glory...let us turn the indignation
we feel against the Jews against ourselves and our own sins; let us weep over the
sufferings of our Victim, for our sins caused Him to suffer and die.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Passion Week
Holy
Week Schedule 2020
1. Palm Sunday, April 5: 9:00 AM,
Blessing and Distribution of the Palms followed by Procession and Mass with the
reading of the Passion according to St. Matthew
2. Holy Monday, April 6: Mass 8:30
AM
3. Holy Tuesday, April 7: Mass 8:30 AM
with the reading of the Passion according to St. Mark
4. Holy Wednesday (Spy Wednesday), April
8: Mass 8:30 AM with the reading of the Passion according to St.
Luke. 18:00 Tenebrae (Note: Tenebrae is the office of Matins and Lauds
for Holy Thursday anticipated. Booklets with the Divine Office for the
hours of Tenebrae in both Latin and English are provided.)
5. Maundy (from Mandatum meaning, “commandment”) Thursday, April 9: Mass
13:00 followed by Procession to the Altar of Repose, Stripping of the Altar,
Vespers (recited recto tono), Mandatum (optional), Vigil at Altar of
Repose; 18:00 Tenebrae
6. Good Friday, April 10: 11:00 Confessions,
11:30 Rosary of Reparation, 12:00 Mass
of the Catechumens with the reading of the Passion according to St. John, the
Great Intercessions, Veneration of the Cross, Mass of the Pre-sanctified,
Vespers (recited recto tono); Tre Ore (three hours) completed with
Stations of the Cross, Sermon on the Passion; 18:00 Tenebrae
7. Holy Saturday, April 11: 7:00 AM Blessing of the New Fire &
Paschal Candle, Exultet, Prophecies, (Blessing of the Font and the baptism of
any catechumens), Litanies, Mass of Easter Vigil with unveiling of the statues
during the Gloria, Vespers;
Easter Food may be blessed by if requested; 14:00 Matins & Lauds of Easter
8. Easter Sunday, April 12: 9:00 AM Mass
The Heart of My Mother has the right to be called Sorrowful and I wish
this title placed before that of Immaculate because She
has won it Herself. The Church has defined in the case of My Mother what I Myself had ordained – Her Immaculate Conception. This right
which My Mother has to a title of justice, is now,
according to My express wish, to be known and universally accepted. She has
earned it by Her identification with My sorrows, by
Her sufferings: by Her sacrifices and Her immolation on Calvary endured in
perfect correspondence with My grace for the salvation of mankind.
In Her co-redemption lies the nobility of My Mother and for this reason
I ask that the Invocation which I have demanded be approved and spread through
the whole Church. It has already obtained many graces; it will obtain yet more
when the Church will be exalted and the world renewed through its Consecration
to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother.
Our
Lord Jesus Christ, explaining the title Sorrowful
and Immaculate honouring His Mother to Berthe Petit, September 8, 1911
Seven Promises to those who meditate
on Our Lady’s Tears and Dolors from St. Bridget of Sweden
The Blessed Virgin grants seven graces to the souls
who honor her daily by saying seven Hail Marys while meditating on her tears
and dolors:
1.
“I will grant peace to their families.”
2.
“They will be enlightened about the Divine
Mysteries.”
3.
“I will console them in their pains and I will
accompany them in their work.”
4.
“I will give them as much as they ask for as
long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my Divine Son or the
sanctification of their souls.”
5.
“I will defend them in their spiritual battles
with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their
lives.”
6.
“I will visibly help them at the moment of their
death--they will see the face of their mother.”
7.
“I have obtained this grace from my divine Son,
that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors will be taken
directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness, since all their sins will
be forgiven and my Son will be their eternal consolation and joy.”
The Seven
Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
1.
The prophecy of Simeon, 2. The
flight into Egypt, 3. The loss of the Child Jesus in
the Temple, 4. Mary meets Jesus carrying His cross, 5. The Crucifixion, 6. Mary receives the Body of Jesus from the
cross, 7. The burial of the Body of Jesus in the tomb
With the exception of
formal hatred against God, which constitutes the deadliest of all sins and
of which the creature is rarely culpable -- unless he be in Hell -- the
gravest of all sins are those against faith. The reason is
evident. Faith is the foundation of the supernatural order, and sin is sin
insofar as it attacks this supernatural order at one or another point;
hence that is the greatest sin which attacks this order at its very
foundations... Hence, heretical doctrines -- and works
inspired by them -- constitute the greatest of all sins,
with the exception of formal hatred of God, of which only the demons in
Hell and the damned are capable. Liberalism, then, which
is heresy, and all the works of Liberalisn,
which are heretical works, are the gravest sins known in the code of the
Christian law.
Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, Liberalism is a Sin
The miracle performed
by our Savior almost at the very gates of Jerusalem, by which He restored
Lazarus to life, has roused the fury of His enemies to the highest pitch of
frenzy. The people’s enthusiasm has been excited by seeing him, who had been
four days in the grave, walking in the streets of their city. They ask each
other if the Messias, when He comes, can work greater wonders than these done
by Jesus, and whether they ought not at once to receive this Jesus as the
Messias, and sing their Hosanna to Him, for He is the Son of David. They cannot
contain their feelings: Jesus enters Jerusalem, and they welcome Him as their
King. The high priests and princes of the people are alarmed at this
demonstration of feeling; they have no time to lose; they are resolved to
destroy Jesus. We are going to assist at their impious conspiracy: the Blood of
the just Man is to be sold, and the price put on it is thirty silver pieces.
The divine Victim, betrayed by one of His disciples, is to be judged,
condemned, and crucified. Every circumstance of this awful tragedy is to be put
before us by the liturgy, not merely in words, but with all the expressiveness
of a sublime ceremonial.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Passiontide
“Charity is the life of the
soul, even as the soul is the life of the body.”
St. Thomas
God deliver us when we
fall into any imperfection, from saying: ‘We are not angels! We are not saints!’ Although we are not, still, it is the
greatest help to believe that, with the aid of God, we can be if we strive our
hardest. There is no fear of His failing
to do His part if we do ours. Since we
came here for nothing else, let us put our hands to the plough, as they
say. Let there be nothing which we know
would further our Lord’s service that we dare not undertake with the assistance
of His grace. I wish such audacity to
exist in this house - it always increases humility. Ever nourish this holy daring, for God aids
the valiant and is no respecter of persons.
Both to you and to me He will give the help needed.
St. Teresa, The Way of Perfection
The True Church of Christ is the work of God, the doctrine she teaches
contains the truths of God; now, the more attentively truth is examined, the
more illustrious it must appear; and Almighty God has given such splendid
testimony to the truth of His religion, that the more it is examined with
sincerity, the more it convinces and delights. Here, then, lies the difference:
when a member of the Church of Christ considers his religion, he cannot have
any reasonable grounds of doubt concerning it, and the more he examines, the
more convinced he must be of its truth. But one brought up in a false religion,
if he thinks at all, cannot fail to perceive the strongest grounds of doubt;
and the more he examines, the more its falsehood must appear, for falsehood can
never bear the light of unbiased and impartial examination.
Bishop George Hay of Scotland (1729-1811), The
Sincere Christian
CONSOLATION UNDER CALUMNY
When Christ told the Jews the truth,
He received insults and calumny; they called Him a Samaritan, that is, an
unbeliever, a heretic, one possessed of a devil. This was a terrible slander,
and it must have pained Him exceedingly, but at the same time it is a great
consolation to those who are innocently calumniated, when they consider that
Christ Himself received nothing better. St. Augustine consoles such by saying:
“O friend, what is there that can happen to you that your Saviour did not
suffer before you? Is it slander? He heard it, when He was called a glutton, a
drunkard, a heretic, and a rebel, a companion of sinners, one possessed of a
devil; He even heard, when casting out devils, that He did so by Beelzebub,
prince of devils” (Matt. 9, 34). He therefore comforts His apostles, saying, If
they have called the good man of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his
household (Matt. 10, 25)? Are the pains bitter? There is no pain so bitter that
He has not endured it; for what is more painful, and more ignominious, than the
death of the cross? For think, says St. Paul, diligently upon him who endured
such opposition from sinners against himself: that you be not wearied (by all
contempt and calumny), fainting in your minds (Heb. 12, 3).
How and why did Christ defend Himself against those who slandered Him?
Only by denying with the greatest
modesty the things with which they reproached Him, saying that He had not a devil, that He was not a Samaritan, because He honored His
Father not in their manner, but in His own. In repelling this calumny while He
left the rest unanswered, Christ removed all doubt in regard to His divine
mission, thus vindicating the honor of God, and securing the salvation of man.
Christ thus teaches us by His own conduct to defend ourselves only against
those detractions and insults which endanger the honor of God and the salvation
of man, and then to defend ourselves with all modesty; by no means however to
do it, if they injure only our own good name, for we should leave the
restoration of that to God, as exemplified by Christ, who knows better than we
how to preserve and restore it.
When are we overcome by evil?
When we wish to
take revenge. “Revenge is no sign of courage,” says St. Ambrose, “but
rather of weakness and cowardice. As it is the sign of a very weak stomach to
be unable to digest food, so it is the mark of a very weak mind to be unable to
bear a harsh word.” “Are you impatient,” says the same saint, “you are
overcome; are you patient, you have overcome.”
What should we do if our reputation is injured?
We should leave its revenge, or
its defense and protection to God, who has retained that for Himself. “But as a
good name,” says St. Francis de Sales, “is the main support of human society,
and as without it we could not be useful to that society, but even hurtful to
it on account of scandal, we should feel bound, for love of our neighbor, to
aim after a good reputation, and to preserve it.” We should not be too
sensitive about this, however, for too great a sensitiveness makes one
obstinate, eccentric, and intolerable, and only tends to excite and increase
the malice of the detractors. The silence and contempt with which we meet a
slander or an injustice, is generally a more efficacious antidote than
sensitiveness, anger, or revenge. The contempt of a slander at once disperses
it, but anger shows a weakness, and gives the accusation an appearance of
probability. If this does not suffice, and the slander continues, let us
persevere in humility’ and lay our honor and our soul into the hands of God,
according to the admonitions of the Apostle.
How do we “heap coals of fire on the head of our enemy?”
When we return him good for evil,
for seeing our well meaning towards him, the flush of shame reddens his face
for the wrongs he has done us. St. Augustine explains these words thus: “By
giving food and drink or doing other kindnesses to your enemy, you will heap
coals, not of anger, but of love, upon his head, which will inflame him to
return love for love.” Learn therefore, from the example of Christ and His
saints, not to allow yourself to be overcome by evil, but do good to those that
hate and persecute you.
How had Abraham seen Christ’s day?
In spirit, that is, by. divine
revelation he foresaw the coming of Christ and rejoiced; also, he heard, by
revelation from God, with the other just in Limbo, that Christ’s coming had
taken place, and derived the greatest comfort from it.
Why did Christ conceal Himself
from the Jews, instead of taking vengeance?
Because the time of His death had
not come; because He would show His meekness and patience and teach us that we
should avoid our enemies rather than resist them or take vengeance on them;
Christ wished to instruct us to avoid passionate and quarrelsome people, for it
is an honor for a man, to separate from quarrels: but all fools are meddling
with reproaches (Prov. 20, 3).
PETITION When Thine enemies calumniated Thee, most
meek Jesus, Thou didst answer them with tender words, and when they were about
to stone Thee, Thou didst depart from them, whilst we can scarcely bear a hard
word, and far from yielding to our neighbor, defend and avenge ourselves most
passionately. Ah! pardon us our impatience, and grant
us the grace to bear patiently the wrongs done us, and when necessary, answer
with gentleness for Thy glory and the salvation of our neighbor.
[The Ancient Doctors]
knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock
the ears of Catholics, they sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous
maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to
insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been
compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in
phraseology, distort the confession of the faith which is necessary for our
salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation.
This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the
circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be
tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in
teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error… In order to
expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency
in every century, no other method is required than the following: Whenever it
becomes necessary to expose statements which disguise some suspected error or
danger under the veil of ambiguity, one must denounce the perverse meaning
under which the error opposed to Catholic truth is camouflaged.
Pope Pius VI, Apostolic
Constitution, Auctorem Fidei (1794)
Your adversaries are mighty, their forces very great, their vantage not
unknown, their malice experienced: but your Captain has always conquered, your
cause has in the end always advanced, your predecessors never lost the field;
wherefore then should you have less hope of the victory? Christianity is warfare,
and Christians are spiritual soldiers… Now cometh the winnower with his fan to
see who is blown away like light chaff and who resists the blasts like massy
wheat… Many may seem faithful in the clam of the Church, but when the blasts of
adversity bluster against them, few are found in the fruit of martyrdom.
St. Robert Southwell, priest, martyr
Such attempts can nowise
be approved by Catholics, founded as they are on that false opinion which
considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they
all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us
all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His
rule. Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also
in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little,
turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly
follows that one who supports those who hold these theories and attempt to
realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion.
Pope Pius XI, Mortalium
Animos
Who can tell all it was necessary to suffer for the establishing of the
Congregation (of Jesus and Mary), and in every way and from all sides and for
nearly thirty-six years? Have we not been abandoned sometimes even by our best
friends? Have we not been calumniated by innumerable defamations? The world and
hell have used all their endeavours to annihilate this Community in its
infancy. But what are all the forces of the universe against a worm of the
earth, an atom, which is in the hands of the Almighty and under the protection
of the Queen of Heaven? The more the works of God participate in the cross of
His Divine Son, the more do they participate in the graces and blessings which
flow from it.
St. John Eudes, from his Memoir
JESUS PERSECUTED THE FIRST SUNDAY OF THE PASSION
PRESENCE
of GOD ‑
O Jesus, help me to enter into the mystery of Your Passion; deign to associate
me with it, so that I may participate in Your Resurrection.
MEDITATION:
I. Today
Passiontide begins, a time especially consecrated to the remembrance and loving
contemplation of the sorrows of Jesus. The veiled crucifix and statues, the
absence of the Gloria in the Mass and the Gloria Patri in the
responsories of the Divine Office, ‑ are all signs of mourning by which
the Church commemorates Our Lord’s Passion. Pope St. Leo exhorts us to
participate “in the Cross of Christ, in order that we also may do something
which will unite us to what He has done for us, for as the Apostle says, `if we
suffer with Him, we shall be glorified with Him.’” Therefore, we must not only
meditate on Jesus’ sufferings, but also take part in them; only by bearing His
Passion in our heart and in our body (Cf. 2 Cor 4,10) shall we be able
to share in its fruits. So it is that in the liturgy of this season the Church
repeats more insistently than ever: “If you hear the voice of the Lord, harden
not your hearts.” The voice of the Lord makes itself heard these days, not by
words, but by the eloquent testimony of deeds, by the great events of the
Passion ‑ a mystery which gives us the most convincing proof of His
infinite love for us. Let us, therefore, open our heart to the sublime lessons
of the Passion: let us see how much Jesus has loved us and how much we ought to
love Him in return; let us learn that, if we wish to follow Him, we, too, must suffer
and bear the Cross with Him and after Him. At the same time, let us open our
heart to a lively hope; for our salvation is in the Passion of Jesus. In
today’s Epistle (Heb 9,1 1‑15) St. Paul presents to us the majestic
figure of Christ, the Eternal High Priest, who “by His Blood, entered once into
the holies, [that is, heaven] having obtained eternal redemption.” The Passion
of Jesus has redeemed us; it has opened once again our Father’s house to us; it
is then the motive for our hope.
2.
The Gospel (Jn 8, 46‑59) narrates an instance of the pressing
hostility of the Jews, an evident prelude to the Passion of Jesus. In their
hardened hearts they had absolutely refused to acknowledge the mission of the
Savior; as a result, they schemed in a thousand ways to oppose His teachings
and to belittle Him before the people by declaring Him a liar and one possessed
by the devil. Their animosity had increased to the point where they decided to
stone Him: “They took up stones therefore to cast at Him.” Jesus’ death was
already decreed by the Jews, but the hour fixed by His Father had not yet come,
so “Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the Temple.”
This passage in the Gospel allows us to
consider the conduct of Jesus in the presence of His persecutors: we see zeal
for their souls, meekness, personal disinterestedness, and total abandonment to
God. St. Gregory the Great wrote: “Consider, beloved brethren, the meekness of
the Lord. He, who had come to remit sins, said, `Which
of you will convince Me of sin?’ He, who by virtue of His divinity,
could justify sinners, does not disdain to prove by reasoning that He is not a
sinner.”
The calumnies continued: “Thou art a Samaritan
and hast a devil.” The divine Master answered, always with meekness, only what
was necessary to testify to the truth “I have not a devil, but I honor My
Father, and you have dishonored Me.” Then He placed
His reputation and His cause in the hands of God. “I seek not My own glory; there is One that seeketh and judgeth.” In the
meantime, throughout all the discussions, He did not cease to instruct and to
enlighten minds, attempting to draw them away from error. Always forgetful of
Himself, He thought only of the good of souls. It was precisely in these
painful circumstances that Jesus gave us precious instruction: “He that is of God, heareth the words of God .... If any man
keep My word, he shall not see death forever.” Let us gather these
lessons from the lips of our persecuted Master, and keep them in our heart with
a jealous care. In our day, too, the world is filled with His enemies, those
who oppose His doctrine and despise His Passion. Let us, at least, believe in
Him and be His faithful friends.
COLLOQUY:
“Praise be to You, O
most merciful God, who willed to redeem us and restore us by the Passion, the
sufferings, the scorn, and the poverty of Your Son, when we were wretched
outcasts and condemned prisoners. I run to Your Cross, O Christ ‑ to
suffering, scorn, and poverty; with all my strength I desire to be transformed
in You, O suffering God‑Man, who loved me so much that You endured a
horrible, shameful death for the sole purpose of saving me, and to give me an
example, so that I would be able to endure adversity for love of You. It is the
perfection and true proof of love to conform myself to You, O Crucified One,
who for my sins willed to undergo a cruel death, delivering Yourself
entirely to tortures, as a victim. O my suffering God, only by reading the book
of Your life and death shall I be able to know You and
to penetrate Your mystery. Grant me, then, a profound spirit of prayer, a
pious, humble, attentive prayer, springing not only from my lips, but also from
my heart and soul, so that I shall be able to understand the lessons of Your
Passion!
“In
this book, I see Your infinite goodness and mercy,
which made You take upon Yourself our condemnation, our scorn, our sufferings,
rather than leave us in such a wretched state. I see the unlimited bounty, the
care, the diligence You showed to save us and lead us
back to the heavenly kingdom. I see the infinite wisdom by which You redeemed us, saved us, and glorified us in an ineffable
manner, through Your mercy, without harming Your justice. While You died a painful death, You vivified everything and
destroyed that death common to us all.
“Yet more, in the book of Your Cross I see
Your infinite meekness, by which, although being cursed, You did not curse nor
avenge Yourself, but on the contrary, You pardoned and won heaven for the very
ones who were crucifying You” (St. Angela of Foligno).
Why is there such a fury against religion now? Because
religion is the one reliable force that stands in the way of the power of the
strong over the weak. The one reliable force that
forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law. The one reliable force that restrains the hand of the man of power.
In an age of power-worship, the Christian religion has become the principal
obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power…. Left to himself, Man can in
a matter of minutes justify the incineration of populated cities; the
deportation, slaughter, disease and starvation of inconvenient people and the
mass murder of the unborn. I have heard people who believe themselves to be good, defend all these things, and convince
themselves as well as others. Quite often the same people will condemn similar
actions committed by different countries, often with great vigour.
For a moral code to be effective, it must be attributed to, and vested in, a
non-human source. It must be beyond the power of humanity to change it to suit
itself. Its most powerful expression is summed up in the words ‘Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends’.
Peter Hitchens, English journalist and author, The Rage Against God
Everything around us urges us to mourn. The images of the saints, the
very crucifix on our altar, are veiled from our sight. The Church is oppressed
with grief. During the first four weeks of Lent, she compassionated her Jesus
fasting in the desert; His coming sufferings and crucifixion and death are what
now fill her with anguish. We read in to-day’s Gospel, that the Jews threaten
to stone the Son of God as a blasphemer: but His hour is not yet come. He is
obliged to flee and hide Himself. It is to express this deep humiliation, that
the Church veils the cross. A God hiding Himself, that He may evade the anger
of men - what a mystery! Is it weakness? Is it, that He fears death? No; we
shall soon see Him going out to meet His enemies: but at present He hides
Himself from them, because all that had been prophesied regarding Him has not
been fulfilled. Besides, His death is not to be by stoning: He is to die upon a
cross, the tree of malediction, which, from that time forward, is to be the
tree of life. Let us humble ourselves, as we see the Creator of heaven and
earth thus obliged to hide Himself from men, who are
bent on His destruction! Let us go back, in thought, to the sad day of the
first sin, when Adam and Eve bid themselves because a guilty conscience told
them they were naked. Jesus has come to assure us of our being pardoned, and
lo! He hides Himself, not because He is naked - He that is to the saints the
garb of holiness and immortality - but because He made Himself weak, that He
might make us strong.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Passiontide
“You say that My Father is your God, and you have not
known Him; but I know Him.” Their obstinacy in refusing to acknowledge Jesus
as the Messias, has led these men to ignore that very God, whom they boast of
honoring; for if they knew the Father, they would not reject His Son. Moses,
and the Psalms, and the Prophets, are all a dead letter to them; these sacred
Books are soon to pass into the hands of the Gentiles, who will both read and
understand them. If, continues Jesus, I should say that I know Him not, I should be like to
you, a liar.” This strong language is that of the angry Judge who is to
come down, at the last day, to destroy sinners. Jerusalem has not known the
time of her visitation: the Son of God has visited her, He is with her, and she
dares to say to Him: Thou has a devil! She says to the
eternal Word, who proves Himself to be God by the most
astonishing miracles, that Abraham and the prophets are greater than He!
Strange blindness, that comes from pride and hardness of heart! The feast of
the Pasch is at hand; these men are going to eat, and with much parade of
religion, the flesh of the figurative lamb; they know full well that this lamb
is a symbol or a figure, which is to have its fulfillment. The true Lamb is to
be sacrificed by their hands, and they will not know Him. He will shed His
Blood for them, and it will not save them. How this reminds us of those sinners,
for whom this Easter promises to be as fruitless as those of the past years!
Let us redouble our prayers for them, and beseech Our Lord to soften their
hearts, lest trampling the Blood of Jesus under their feet,
they should have it to cry vengeance against them before the throne of the
heavenly Father.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Passion Week
“The wisdom that is from above is first chaste.”
James 3:17
During the preceding four weeks, we have noticed how the malice of
Jesus’ enemies has been gradually increasing. His very presence irritates them;
and it is evident that any little circumstance will suffice to bring the deep
and long nurtured hatred to a head. The kind and gentle manners of Jesus are
drawing to Him all hearts that are simple and upright; at the same time, the
humble life He leads, and the stern purity of His doctrines, are perpetual
sources of vexation and anger, both to the proud Jew that looks forward to the
Messias being a mighty conqueror, and to the pharisee, who corrupts the Law of
God, that he may make it the instrument of his own base passions.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Passiontide
Thou sayest I hoped and I was not heeded. Strange words! Do not blaspheme the Scriptures! Thou wast not heeded because thou didst not
confide as thou should have; because thou didst not wait until the end of the
trial; because thou wert pusillanimous.
Confidence consists above all in raising up our
soul in suffering and in danger and in elevating the heart to God.
St. John Chrysostom
THAT ALL HOPE AND CONFIDENCE IS TO BE
FIXED IN GOD ALONE
LORD, what is my confidence which I have in this life, or what is my
greatest solace amongst all the things that appear under Heaven? Is it not Thou, my Lord God, of Whose mercies there is no number? Where was it ever well to me without Thee, or
when was it ever ill with me when Thou wast present? I had rather be poor for
Thy sake, than rich without Thee. I
prefer rather to sojourn upon earth with Thee, than to possess Heaven without
Thee. Where Thou art, there is Heaven;
and there is death and Hell, where Thou art not. Thou art all my desire, and
therefore I must needs sigh after Thee, and cry and pray.
In short, I cannot fully confide in anyone to bring me seasonable help in my
necessities, save only in Thee, my God. Thou art my hope, my confidence, my
comforter, and in all things most faithful.
All seek the things that are their own; Thou designest only my salvation
and profit, and turnest all things to my good.
And although Thou expose me to various temptations and adversities, yet
all this Thou ordainest for my good, who art wont to
prove Thy beloved servants a thousand ways.
Under which probation Thou oughtest not less to be
loved and praised, than if Thou didst replenish me with heavenly consolations. In Thee, therefore, O Lord God, do I place
all my hope and refuge; on Thee I cast all my tribulation and anguish; for I
find all to be weak and inconstant whatever I behold out of Thee. For neither will many friends be of service
to me, nor can powerful auxiliaries assist me, nor wise counselors give me a
profitable reply, nor the books of the learned give me consolation, nor any
precious substance ransom me, nor any secret place secure me, if Thou Thyself
do not assist, help, strengthen, comfort. instruct,
and guard me. For all things which seem
to be for our peace and for our happiness, when Thou art absent are nothing,
and contribute nothing to our felicity. Thou, therefore, art the fountain of
all good, the height of life, and the depth of wisdom; and to trust in Thee
above all things is the strongest comfort of Thy servants. Unto Thee do I lift
up my eyes; in Thee, O my God, Father of mercies, I put my trust. Bless and sanctify my soul with heavenly
benediction, that it may be made Thy holy habitation and the seat of Thine
eternal glory: and let nothing be found in the temple of Thy Divinity that may
offend the eyes of Thy majesty. According to the greatness of Thy goodness and
the multitude of Thy tender mercies, look down upon me, and give ear to the
prayer of Thy poor servant, a far distant exile in the region of the shadow of
death. Protect and preserve the soul of Thy poor servant amid so many dangers
of this corruptible life, and direct him by Thine accompanying grace, along the
path of peace, to the land of perpetual light. Amen
Thomas a Kempis, The Following of Christ, chap. 5
Novus
Ordo St. Pope JP II –the defender and promoter of the homosexual cabal within
the Catholic Church, such as, the egregious pederast, Fr. Marcial Marciel!
John Paul Is No Catholic Saint - Remember that whole pedophilia scandal
he ignored and the perpetrators he promoted?
By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff, Apr 24, 2011
(Newser) – On this Easter,
Maureen Dowd turns to another resurrection of sorts next Sunday: The
beatification of Pope John Paul II, or “PR boost” that Pope Benedict hopes to
get from the “swiftest ascension toward sainthood on record.” And while there
was much to love about the “skiing cardinal, mountain-climbing poet, kayaking
philosopher, (and) singing author,” the “indelible stain” of the sex abuse
scandal that John Paul presided over makes next week’s ceremony a charade. “How can you be a saint if you fail to
protect innocent children?” Dowd wonders in the New York Times.
“John Paul forfeited his right to beatification when he failed to
establish a legal standard to remove pedophiles from the priesthood, and simply
turned away for many years,” she writes. The former pontiff failed to
investigate credibly accused pedophiles, refused to put the clergy under the
microscope, and “was passive to an absolute fault,” one author tells Dowd. “He
failed in mountainous terms.” So rather than mumbled apologies and checks the
Vatican slips to sex abuse victims, Dowd concludes that simply “not beatifying
or canonizing John Paul would be hugely symbolic.”
I gaze upon the
children of men to see whether anyone feels compassion for me, and, alas! I see
but few. If many forget me, at least you, my daughter, do not forget me. Consider
how much I have suffered.
The Blessed Virgin Mary
to St. Bridget of Sweden
If Religious
Liberty were true those who profess it as true would have to respect the rights
of anyone who denies it. Liberals would
have to respect the liberty of Catholics to practice Catholic tradition and
profess the truth of dogmas. But that is
not what they do. Their hypocrisy does not bother them in the least because
Religious Liberty is nothing more than an ideological weapon to destroy God’s
Church.
And every prophetic warning from the Mother of God speaks
of an unspeakable punishment!
“The rich patrimony [of John Paul II’s teaching] has not yet been
assimilated by the Church. My personal mission is not to issue many new
documents, but to ensure that his documents are assimilated.”
Benedict XVI, Interview on
John Paul II’s Legacy, October 16, 2005
“George Weigel, author of Witness to Hope: The
Biography of Pope John Paul II, calls this papal study of human sexuality “one
of the boldest reconfigurations of Catholic theology in centuries” – a
“theological time-bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences ...perhaps in
the twenty-first century.” At this point the Pope’s vision of sexual love “has
barely begun to shape the Church’s theology, preaching, and religious
education.” But when it does, Weigel predicts, “it will compel a dramatic
development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed” (pp.
336, 343, 853).”
Christopher West, Theology of the Body Guru
True
Doctrinal Development –
If you sow wheat, you get an increase in wheat; if you sow lies, you
get an increase in lies.
“The growth of religion in
the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of
years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same.
There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age;
yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old,
insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are
changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An
infant’s limbs are small, a young man’s large, yet the infant and the young man
are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had
when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these
were already present in embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when
old which was not already latent in them when children.
This, then, is undoubtedly
the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most
beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts
and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant...
In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of
progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age,
and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect
in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper
members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property,
no variation in its limits...
This rather should be the result,--there should be no discrepancy between the first and
the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the
increase, doctrine of the same kind--wheat also; so that when in process of
time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under
cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but
the nature of each kind must remain the same.”
St. Vincent Lerins, Commonitory
Virtue cannot grow in the company of vice. If the one is to flourish,
the other must perish. Clear away, then, what is superfluous and vicious, and
that which is wholesome and virtuous will at once spring up. Whatever you
withhold from your lusts will turn to the profit and advantage of your
spiritual life. Therefore let us take heed to cut down by a diligent
self-examination the noxious growth of faults, vices, and defects, if we wish
to see the flowers of every virtue bloom forth in the garden of our souls.
St Bernard
St. Paul says, “If we judge ourselves we shall not be judged.” If we
examine and search into our conscience, submitting it to a rigorous trial, and
if, when we discover any sins, we wash them away with tears of contrition, we
shall not be judged by God; in other words, we shall escape punishment at His
awful judgment.
Rev. Cornelius a Lapide, The Great Commentary
“To mortify one passion, no matter how small, is a greater help in the
spiritual life than many abstinences, fasts, and disciplines.”
St. Philip
Neri
St. Francis of Paula’s life
was one of great innocence; and yet we find him embracing, from his earliest
youth, mortifications which, nowadays, would not be expected from the very
worst sinners. How was it that he could
do so much? And we, who have so often sinned, do so little? …The saints
punished themselves, with life-long and austere penances, for the slightest
sins; and the Church can scarcely induce us to observe the law of Lent, though
it is now reduced to the lowest degree of severity. What is the cause of this want of the spirit
of expiation and penance? It is that our
faith is weak, and our love of God is cold, because our thoughts and affections
are so set upon this present life, that we seldom if ever consider things in
the light of eternity…. The laws of fasting and abstinence are broken… because
the spirit of immortification renders every privation intolerable,
and every interruption of an easy comfortable life insupportable… The
conscience gets accustomed to these annual transgressions, and ends by
persuading the sinner that he may be saved without doing penance.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, The Feast of St. Francis
of Paula
Luther
casting stones in a glass house
The peasants have taken upon themselves the burden of three terrible
sins against God and man; by this they have merited death in body and soul...
they have sworn to be true and faithful, submissive and obedient, to their
rulers... now deliberately and violently breaking this oath... they are
starting a rebellion, and are violently robbing and plundering monasteries and
castles which are not theirs... they have doubly deserved death in body and
soul as highwaymen and murderers... they cloak this terrible and horrible sin
with the gospel... thus they become the worst blasphemers of God and slanderers
of his holy name.
Martin Luther, Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, 1525
The
Novus Ordo Church by any other name would smell the same!
Pope John Paul II’s first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, was addressed primarily to members of the “sons
and daughters of the Church.” So,
exactly what Church is this that he was addressing? Not once does the word “Roman” appear in the
letter. Not once does the word
“Catholic” occur. The letter is
addressed to the “Church of the New Advent.”
This Church is referenced by name four times in the document. The Church of the New Advent traces its roots
to Vatican II Council. Pope John Paul II
said in the letter that,
“I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This
inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly
new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council.” The Church of the New Advent in “an utterly
new way, quite unknown previously” has its own worship, doctrines, morality and
traditions which are entirely foreign to the Roman Catholic Church. This Church
of the New Advent has not “struck deep roots.”
In fact, it has no roots at all.
We should be thankful to God that Pope Francis, who is entirely divorced
from any Catholic teaching and tradition formation that might mask his actions,
should make evident to all the “utterly new” moral implications of the Church
of the New Advent’s “utterly new” doctrines in a manner in which no faithful
Catholic can fail to recognize as utterly foreign to the Church founded by
Jesus Christ.
Vatican
Confirms what is Common Knowledge!
Pope
Francis “reveals his thought” by his “actions, gestures, attitudes, and
omissions.”
One cannot say that Pope Francis did not actually answer the cardinals’
Dubia, at least indirectly. His actions,
gestures, attitudes and omissions reveal his thought as much as explicit words.And the support he has given to bishops’
conferences that interpret Amoris
Laetitia as a
permission, at least in principle, for divorced and civilly “remarried”
Catholics to receive sacramental absolution and Communion makes clear his own
interpretation of Chapter 8 of Amoris
Laetitia.
Francesco Cardinal Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council
for Legislative Texts
“But they act in a contrary way, for they come full of impurity to this
mystery, and not only of that impurity to which, through the fragility of your
weak nature, you are all naturally inclined (although reason, when free will
permits, can quiet the rebellion of nature), but these wretches not only do not
bridle this fragility, but do worse, committing that accursed sin against
nature, and as blind and fools, with the light of their intellect darkened,
they do not know the stench and misery in which they are. It is not only that
this sin stinks before me, who am the Supreme and Eternal Truth, it does indeed
displease me so much and I hold it in such abomination that for it alone I
buried five cities by a divine judgment, my divine justice being no longer able
to endure it. This sin not only displeases me as I have said, but also the
devils whom these wretches have made their masters.
Not that the evil displeases them because they like anything good, but because
their nature was originally angelic, and their angelic nature causes them to
loathe the sight of the actual commission of this enormous sin.
God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogues
My union with You in Holy Communion will be more perfect to the degree
that I become more like You by the practice of the
virtues.
St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi
“Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of
God?”
James 4:4
No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has
always been detested by all those who live according to God.…
Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys
elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to
the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate,
servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an
insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy.…
They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great
things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things,
which could never make them happy.... Just as people participate in the glory
of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others. He
who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the
greatest sin.
St. Bernardine of Siena, Sermon
Now it can be said briefly that those who defend blindly and
indiscriminately any judgment whatsoever of the Supreme Pontiff concerning
every matter weaken the authority of the Apostolic See. They do not support it;
they subvert it. They do not fortify it.
Peter has no need of our lies; he has no need of our adulation.
Fr. Melchoir Cano, O.P., First Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca,
Theologian at the Council of Trent
“As the Sacred Scripture says, the Sodomites were wicked and
exceedingly sinful. Saint Peter and Saint Paul condemn this nefarious and
depraved sin. In fact, the Scripture denounces this enormous indecency thus:
‘The scandal of Sodomites and Gomorrhans has multiplied and their sins have
become grave beyond measure.’ So the angels said to just Lot, who totally
abhorred the depravity of the Sodomites: ‘Let us leave this city....’ Holy
Scripture does not fail to mention the causes that led the Sodomites, and can
also lead others, to this most grievous sin. In fact, in Ezechiel we read:
‘Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and
abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put
forth their hand to the needy, and the poor. And they were lifted up, and
committed abominations before me; and I took them away as thou hast seen’
(Ezech. 16: 49-50). Those unashamed of violating divine and natural law are
slaves of this never sufficiently execrated depravity.”
St. Peter Canisius, S.J., Doctor of the Church
Around
four o’clock in the afternoon on January 3rd 1944, in the convent
chapel of Tuy, in front of the Tabernacle, Our Lady urged Sister Lucia to write
the text of the Third Secret and Sister Lucia recounts:
“I felt my spirit inundated by
a mystery of light that is God and in Him I saw and heard the point of a lance
like a flame that is detached touch the axis of the earth and it trembles:
mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The
sea, the rivers and clouds exceed their boundaries, inundating and dragging
with them in a vortex, houses and people in a number that cannot be counted; it
is the purification of the world from the sin in which it is immersed. Hatred,
ambition, provoke the destructive war. After I felt my
heart racing and in my spirit a soft voice that said: ‘In time, one faith, one
baptism, one Church, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic. In eternity,
Heaven!’ This word ‘Heaven’ filled my heart with peace and happiness in
such a way that, almost without being aware of it, I kept repeating to myself
for a long time: Heaven, Heaven!!”
A Path Under the
Eyes of Mary (Um Caminho sob o olhar de
Maria), published in 2013 by the Carmel of Coimbra
Unintended
blessings from Pandemic
De Mattei: Is
the Corona Virus “the black swan” of 2020?
Roberto de
Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana | March 25, 2020
“Our Lady
asked for something more: the specific consecration of Russia, done by the
Pope, in union with all the bishops of the world. It is this act, until now
never done, that everyone is waiting for, before it is too late.”
[……]The world’s interconnected economy is proving itself to be a
precarious system, but the impact of the Corona Virus is not only economical
and sanitary, it is also religious and ideological. The Utopia of
Globalization, which until September 2019, seemed to prevail, is [now]
undergoing an irremediable debacle. On September 12, 2019, Pope Francis had
invited the leaders of the major religions, and the international exponents of
the economic, political and cultural world, to participate in a solemn event
which was to take place in the Vatican on May 14, 2020: the Global Compact on
Education. Around the same time “the prophetess” of deep ecology, Greta
Thunberg, arrived in New York for the U.N. Climate Change Summit 2019, and Pope
Francis on the eve of the Amazon Synod, sent a video- message to her and the
participants at the summit, manifesting his full consonance with the globalist
aims.
On January 20, 2020, the Pope addressed a message to Klaus Schwab,
Executive President of the World Economic Forum (WEF), of Davos, underlining
the importance of an “integral ecology”, which takes into account “the
complexity of the interconnection of our common home”. But by then a mysterious
virus had already begun to inflict a deadly blow on “the global village”.
A few months later, we find ourselves faced with an absolutely
unprecedented situation. Greta is forgotten, the Amazon Synod a failure, the
world’s political leaders reveal their incapacity in dealing with the
emergency, the Global Compact is off and St. Peter’s Square, spiritual centre
of the world, is empty. The ecclesiastical authorities conform to (sometimes anticipating)
the restrictive decrees from the civil authorities who forbid Masses and
religious ceremonies of any kind. The most symbolic and paradoxical event is
perhaps the closing of the Sanctuary in Lourdes, par excellence place of
physical and spiritual healing, that barred its doors, for fear that someone
might get ill there, praying to God for his health. Is it all a maneuver? Do we find ourselves
faced with a totalitarian power that is restricting the freedom of citizens and
is persecuting Christians? […..]
De Mattei on
the Francis Pontificate: Six (now seven) Years of ‘Hypocrisy and Lies’
Aldo Maria Valli:
Professor: De Mattei, not a day passes without this pontificate causing new
confusion and doubts for many of the faithful. The declaration about other
religions made at Abu Dhabi has provoked a great amount of concern. It seems
there is no way of avoiding the fact that it is problematic. How do you
interpret it?
Professor Roberto De Mattei: The Abu Dhabi declaration made on
February 4, 2019, signed by Pope Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar affirms
that “the pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and
language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.” This affirmation contradicts the
teaching of the Church, which says the one true religion is the Catholic
religion. In fact, it is only by Faith in Jesus Christ and in His Name that men
can attain eternal salvation (cf. Acts 4:12).
On March 1, during the ad limina
visit of the bishops of Kazakhstan to Rome, Bishop Athanasius Schneider
expressed his perplexity to Pope Francis about the Abu Dhabi declaration. The
pope replied to him that “the diversity of religions is only the permissive
will of God.” This answer is deceptive, because it seems to admit that the
plurality of religions is an evil permitted by God but not willed by him, but
the same is not true of the diversity of sexes and races, which are positively
willed by God. When Bishop Schneider expressed his objection to him, Pope
Francis admitted that the phrase “could be understood erroneously.” Yet the
pope never corrected or rectified his affirmation, and in fact the Pontifical
Council for Interreligious Dialogue, at the request of the Holy Father,
directed all bishops to see to the widespread diffusion of the Abu Dhabi
declaration so that it “may become an object of research and reflection in all
schools, universities and institutes of education and formation.”
The interpretation which is thus
being spread is that the plurality of religions is a good thing, not an evil
that is merely tolerated by God. It seems to me that these deliberate
contradictions are a microcosm of the entire pontificate of Pope Bergoglio.
How would you, as
a historian of the Church, summarize the past six years?
As years of
hypocrisy and lies. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen because he appeared
to be a bishop who was “humble and profoundly spiritual” (thus did Andrea
Tornielli salute him in La Stampa), one “who would reform and purify the
Church.” But none of this happened. The pope did not remove the most corrupt
prelates either from the Roman Curia or from individual dioceses. He has done
so only when, as in the McCarrick case, he was forced to by public opinion. In
reality, Francis has revealed himself to be a political pope, the most
political pope of the last century. His political persuasion is that of
left-wing Peronism, which detests, in principle, every form of inequality and
is opposed to Western culture and society. When transferred into the
ecclesiastical realm, Peronism joins with liberation theology and leads to an
effort to impose synodal democratization on the Church, which strips her of her
essential nature.
The summit on
sexual abuse seems as though it has already been forgotten. It was full of
nice-sounding expressions which the mainstream media trumpeted, but it did not
lead to anything new. In general, how do you judge the way in which the Holy
See is addressing this crisis?
In a clearly
contradictory way. The anti-abuse norms that have just been approved by
Pope Francis circumvent the real problem, which is the relationship between the
tribunals of the Church and the civil courts, or, seen more broadly, the
relationship between the Church and the world. The Church has the right and
duty to investigate and judge those accused of crimes that violate not only
civil laws but also ecclesiastical laws, established by canon law. In this
case, it is necessary to open a regular penal trial in a Church tribunal that
respects the fundamental rights of the accused and is not conditioned by the
results of any civil trial.
Today, instead, in the case of
Cardinal Pell, the Vatican has said it will open a canonical trial, but first
it needs to “wait for the outcome of the [civil] appeals process.” In the case
of Cardinal Barbarin of France, condemned to six months in prison with
probation and also awaiting an appeals process, there has similarly been no
announcement of any canonical trial. When Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria,
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was called to
testify in the Barbarin case by the judges in Lyon, the Vatican invoked
diplomatic immunity, but it did not do this for Cardinal Pell. This policy of
different standards for different people is part of the climate of ambiguity and
duplicity we are living in.
During this
pontificate, new norms have been introduced for monastic life, and in
particular for the cloister. Some monastic communities are very worried,
because they consider these new norms a threat to contemplative life. Do you
share this concern?
Yes, it seems as though there is a
plan to destroy contemplative life. I very much appreciated the articles you
have dedicated to this theme on your blog. The constitution on women’s
contemplative life Vultum Dei Quaerere of June 29, 2016, and the Instruction
Cor Orans of April 1, 2018, suppress every form of juridical autonomy and
create federations and new bureaucratic organisms as “structures of communion.”
The obligation to be part of these structures means that monasteries lose, de
facto, their autonomy, which is dissolved into an anonymous mass of monasteries
that are all moving toward the dissolution of
traditional monastic life. The modernist “normalization” of the few monasteries
that still resist the revolution would be an inevitable consequence. The
juridical suppression of contemplative life we are moving toward does not,
however, signify the end of the contemplative spirit, which is becoming ever
stronger in response to the secularization of the Church. I know monasteries
that have succeeded in securing juridical indepedence from the Congregation for
Religious Life and maintain monastic life, supporting the Church in this crisis
with their intercessory prayer. I am convinced that, as it once was said, the
prayer of the cloisters rules the world.
The sixth
anniversary of the election of Pope Bergoglio has passed, even if it felt a bit
subdued. One has the impression that even people who once supported him are
beginning to distance themselves from him. Is this impression mistaken?
We know that there are forces that
want to destroy the Church. Freemasonry is one of these. Yet an open battle
against the Church is never productive, because, as Tertullian wrote, the blood
of martyrs is the seed of Christians. And this is why, for at least two
centuries, a plan was formulated by anti-Christian forces to conquer the Church
from within.
We know that in the 1960s, the
Soviet Union and communist regimes of Eastern Europe infiltrated many of their
men into the seminaries and Catholic universities. Some of these climbed the
ladder and became bishops or even cardinals. But such intentional complicity
and activity is not necessary to contribute to the self-destruction of the
Church. It is also possible to become unknowing instruments of someone who
manipulates from the outside. In this case, the manipulators chose the most
suitable men, men who displayed doctrinal and moral weakness, influenced them,
conditioned them, and at times even blackmailed them. The men of the Church are
neither infallible nor impeccable, and the Evil One constantly places before
them the temptations which the Lord renounced (Mt 4:1–11).
The election of Jorge Mario
Bergoglio was directed by a clerical lobby, behind which may be seen the
presence of other lobbies or strong powers. I have the impression that the
ecclesiastical powers and powers outside the Church that worked for the
election of Pope Bergoglio are not satisfied with the results of his
pontificate. From their point of view, there have been many words but few
practical results. Those who sponsor Pope Francis are ready to abandon him if
radical change does not take place. It seems he is being given one last chance
to revolutionize the Church in the Amazon Synod this coming October. It seems
to me that they have already sent signals indicating this.
What signals are
you referring to?
To what happened after the summit
on pedophilia, which was an obvious failure. The large publications of the
international press, from Corriere della Sera to El País, did not hide their
disappointment. It seems to me that the announcement made by the German
Bishops’ Conference by its president, Cardinal Marx, that they will convoke a
local synod that will make binding decisions about sexual morality, priestly
celibacy, and the reduction of clerical power, should be understood as an
ultimatum. It is the first time that the German bishops have expressed
themselves with such clarity. They seem to be saying that if the pope does not
cross the Rubicon, they will cross it themselves. In both cases we would find
ourselves facing a declared schism.
What consequences
would such a separation have?
A declared schism, although evil
in itself, could be guided by Divine Providence toward the good. The good that
could arise is the awakening of so many people who are asleep and the
understanding that the crisis did not begin with the pontificate of Pope
Francis but has developed for a long time and has deep doctrinal roots. We must
have the courage to re-examine what has happened in the last fifty years in the
light of the Gospel maxim that a tree is judged by its fruits (Mt 7:16–20). The
unity of the Church is a good that should be preserved, but it is not an
absolute good. It is not possible to unite what is contradictory, to love truth
and falsehood, good and evil, at the same time.
Many Catholics
feel discouraged as well as betrayed. Our faith tells us that the forces of
evil will not prevail, and yet it is difficult to see a way out of this crisis.
Humanly speaking, it seems that everything is collapsing. How will the Church
come out of this crisis?
The Church is not afraid of her
enemies, and she always wins when Christians fight. On February 4 at Abu Dhabi,
Pope Francis said there is a need of “demilitarizing the heart of man.” I
believe, on the contrary, that there is a need of militarizing hearts and
transforming them into an Acies Ordinata, like the one who stood in prayerful
protest at Piazza San Silvestro in Rome on February 19 and confirmed the
existence of a Catholic resistance against the self-destruction of the Church.
There are many other voices of resistance that have made and are making
themselves heard.
I believe we must overcome the
many misunderstandings that often divide the forces of good people. Instead, we
must seek a unity of intention and action among these forces, while maintaining
our legitimate different identities. Our adversaries are united in their hatred
of the good, and so we ought to be united in our love for the good and for the
truth. But we must love a perfect good, a good that is whole and without
compromise, because He Who sustains us with His love and power is infinitely
perfect. We ought to place all our hope in Him and only in Him. This is why the
virtue of hope is the one we ought to cultivate the most, because it makes us
strong and perseverant in the battle we are fighting.
Professor Roberto
De Mattei, President of the Lepanto Foundation, interviewed by Italian
journalist Aldo Maria Valli, translated and published by OnePeterFive, April 4,
2019
Fruits
of Feminism: The Catholic Historian, Christopher Dawson, says that no
matriarchal society has ever produced a high culture in the history of mankind!
In the U. S. 68% of all children are born to an unwed mother or to a
mother that will soon be divorced. The
Catholic family that was the building block for Catholic culture and thus
western civilization is gone and leaving only crumbling husk that cannot
continue.
Clinton Foundation Data from 2014 TAX YEAR
Have you wondered why the Clinton
Foundation’s donations collapsed so suddenly after Hillary was no longer in a
position of influence? Perhaps this summary will provide some insight??
The
return lists 486 employees (line 5)! These 486 people were paid $34.8
million, plus $91.3 million in fees and expenses, to give away $5.1 MILLION in
charity which is less than 3% of the Foundation’s assets!
This is real. You can check the return
yourself (see below). The real heart of the Clintons can be seen here. Staggering
but not surprising. These figures are from an official copy of the Bill, Hillary
and Chelsea Clinton Foundation for the tax year 2014. The copy of the tax return is from
the National Center for Charitable Statistics web site (http://nccs.urban.org/) . You can obtain the latest tax return on any charitable organization
there.
The Clinton Foundation:
Number of Employees (line 5) 486
Total revenue (line 12)
$177,804,612.00
Total grants to charity (line 13)
$5,160,385.00 (this is less than 3%)
Total expenses of
$91,281,145.00
Expenses include:
Salaries (line 15)
$34,838,106.00
Fund raising fees (line 16a)
$850,803.00
Other expenses (line 17) $50,431,851.00 (HUH??????)
Travel
$8,000,000.00
Meetings
$12,000,000.00
Net assets/fund balances (line 22) $332,471,349.00
It is alleged that this is one of the
greatest white-collar crimes ever committed. And just think---one of the
participants was a former president and the other the Democratic nominee for
president of the United States. When justice is served they will have
hell to pay.
The
true Catholic Faith: “Grounded and Settled, and Immovable”
Yet now he hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to
present you holy and unspotted, and blameless before him: If so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and
immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have
heard… (Col 1:22-23).
St. Paul
The
IRISH Famine: 1845-1852 – or tricks of political and religious persecution the
English taught “Uncle” Joe Stalin
FOOD for APOSTASY: Now Ireland, who suffered hundreds of years of
persecution and would rather starve to death than apostatize from the Catholic
faith, could not be held by the Novus Ordo religion!
Throughout the entire period of the Famine,
Ireland was exporting enormous quantities of food. In Ireland before and after
the famine, Cormac O’Grada points out, “Although the potato crop failed, the
country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed
the population. But that was a ‘money crop’ and not a ‘food crop’ and could not
be interfered with.”
In History Ireland magazine, Christine Kinealy,
a Great Hunger scholar, lecturer, and Drew University professor, relates her
findings: Almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the ports of
Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London during 1847, when 400,000 Irish men,
women and children died of starvation and related diseases. She also writes
that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually
increased during the Famine. This food was shipped under British military guard
from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland; Ballina, Ballyshannon, Bantry,
Dingle, Killala, Kilrush, Limerick, Sligo, Tralee and Westport. A wide variety
of commodities left Ireland during 1847, including peas, beans, onions,
rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, animal skins, rags,
shoes, soap, glue and seed. The most shocking export figures concern butter.
Butter was shipped in firkins, each one holding 9 imperial gallons; 41 litres.
In the first nine months of 1847, 56,557 firkins (509,010 imperial gallons;
2,314,000 litres) were exported from Ireland to Bristol, and 34,852 firkins
(313,670 imperial gallons; 1,426,000 litres) were shipped to Liverpool, which
correlates with 822,681 imperial gallons (3,739,980 litres) of butter exported
to England from Ireland during nine months of the worst year of the Famine. The
problem in Ireland was not lack of food, which was plentiful, but the price of
it, which was beyond the reach of the poor.
Celil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the
Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger:
Ireland 1845-1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered
relations between England and Ireland “as the indisputable fact that huge
quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period
when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation.” […….]
(Protestant) Landlords were responsible for
paying the rates of every tenant whose yearly rent was £4 or less. Landlords
whose land was crowded with poorer tenants were now faced with large bills.
They began clearing the poor tenants from their small plots, and letting the
land in larger plots for over £4 which then reduced their debts. In 1846, there
had been some clearances, but the great mass of evictions came in 1847.
According to James S. Donnelly Jr., it is impossible to be sure how many people
were evicted during the years of the famine and its immediate aftermath. It was
only in 1849 that the police began to keep a count, and they recorded a total
of almost 250,000 persons as officially evicted between 1849 and 1854.
Donnelly considered this to be an
underestimate, and if the figures were to include the number pressured into
“voluntary” surrenders during the whole period (1846–1854) the figure would
almost certainly exceed half a million persons. While Helen Litton says there were
also thousands of “voluntary” surrenders, she notes also that there was
“precious little voluntary about them.” In some cases, tenants were persuaded
to accept a small sum of money to leave their homes, “cheated into believing
the workhouse would take them in.”
West Clare was one of the worst areas for
evictions, where landlords turned thousands of families out and demolished
their derisory cabins. Captain Kennedy in April 1848 estimated that 1,000
houses, with an average of six people to each, had been leveled since November.
The Mahon family of Strokestown House evicted 3,000 people in
1847, and were still able to dine on lobster soup.
After Clare, the worst area for evictions
was County Mayo, accounting for 10% of all evictions between 1849 and 1854. The
Earl of Lucan, who owned over 60,000 acres (240 km2)
was among the worst evicting landlords. He was quoted as saying ‘he would not
breed paupers to pay priests’. Having turned out in the parish of Ballinrobe
over 2,000 tenants alone, the cleared land he then used as grazing farms. In
1848, the Marquis of Sligo owed £1,650 to Westport Union; he was also an
evicting landlord, though he claimed to be selective, saying he was only
getting rid of the idle and dishonest. Altogether, he cleared about 25% of his
tenants.
[……]Calcutta is credited with making the
first (relief) donation of £14,000. The money was raised by Irish soldiers
serving there and Irish people employed by the East India Company. Pope Pius IX
sent funds and Queen Victoria (head of the Church of England) donated £2,000…..
(about one brass farthing for every Irish Catholic who
starved to death). Wikipedia
Remember in
your charity the following pray requests:
Remember
the welfare of our expectant mother: Victoria
Dimmel,
Thomas Thees, recently hospitalized,
Thomas A. Nelson, long time faithful traditional Catholic the founder
and former owner of TAN Books & Publishing,
suffered a recent stroke,
The
Joseph Cox Family, their
spiritual welfare,
The
Thomas Dube Family, for their
conversion and spiritual welfare,
Luis Rafael Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew, who is seriously ill,
For
the health of Kim Cochran,
the daughter-in-law of Joseph and Brenda Cochran, the wife of their son Joshua,
Louie Verrecchio, Catholic apologist, who has a health problem,
John Minidis, Jr. family, for help in their spiritual trial,
John
and Joann DeMarco, for their
health and spiritual welfare,
Regina (Manidis) Miller, her spiritual welfare and health,
Melissa Elena Levitt, her health and conversion, and welfare of her
children,
For
the grace of a holy death, Nancy
Marie Claycomb,
The
health and spiritual welfare of Tom
Grow, Amanda Gardner, and Alex Estrada,
Conversion
of Annette Murowski, and her son Jimmy,
Brent
Keith from Indiana has petitioned our prayers for the Keith Family,
The
welfare of the Schmedes Family,
and the Mike and Mariana Donohue
Family,
The
spiritual welfare Robert Holmes
Family,
For
the spiritual and temporal welfare of Irwin
Kwiat,
Fr.
Waters asks our prayers for Elvira
Donahy, who is recovering from a stroke,
Kimberly Ann, the daughter of John and Joann DeMarco, for her
health and spiritual welfare,
Mufide Rende, a traditional Catholic from India has asked our
prayers for her welfare,
Mary and Bill Glatz, the welfare of their family,
Barbara Harmon, who is gravely ill, and
still cares for her ailing parents,
Jason Green, a father of ten children who has been seriously
injured,
For
the health and welfare of Kolinsky
and Sorace families,
Fr.
Waters asks our prayers for the health and spiritual
welfare of Brian Abramowitz,
Janine Mullen, for her health and help for her family,
Thomas Schiltz family, in grateful appreciation for their contribution to
the beauty of our chapel,
Carlo A. De Porto, who is in failing health,
Welfare
of Bishop Richard Williamson,
for strength and courage in the greater battles to come,
John Rhoad, for his health and spiritual welfare,
Angelina Montesano family & Helen
Snyder, for their health and
spiritual welfare,
Kathy Boyle, requests our prayers for her welfare,
Michael J. Brigg & his family, who have helped with the needs of the Mission,
Nancy Deegan, her welfare and conversion to the Catholic Church,
Francis Paul Diaz, who was baptized at Ss. Peter & Paul, asks our
prayers for his spiritual welfare,
The
conversion of David Keithley and the
welfare of the Nathaniel Miller family, Rene
McFarland, Scott Osborn, Larry Hitsman, Mrs. Shoup, Cary Shipman and family,
David Bash, Crystal and family, Larry Reinhart, and Cayden Costanzo, are
the petitions of Gene Peters,
The
Drews ask your intercession for the welfare of Brendan McGuire, a young father of three, who has been
diagnosed with cancer,
For
the conversion of Ben & Tina
Boettcher family, Karin Fraessdorf, Eckhard Ebert, and Fahnauer family,
Fr.
Waters requests our prayers for Br. Rene, SSPX who has been ill, and for Fr. Thomas Blute,
Rose Cuono, who is in failing health,
For
the health and welfare of Kathryn
Lederhos, the aunt of David Drew,
Fr.
Peterson asks our prayers for Charles
Valenti, and his wife, Julia,
For
the welfare of Fr. Paul DaDamio and
Fr. William T. Welsh,
The
Drew’s ask our prayers for the welfare of Joe
& Tracy Sentmanat family, Keith & Robert Drew, Christy Koziol & her
children, Fred Nesbit and Michael Nesbit families, and Gene Peters Family, the John Manidis Family, the
Sal Messinio Family, Michael Proctor
Family,
Ryan
Boyle grandmother, Jane Boyle,
who is failing health,
Mel Gibson and his family, please remember in our prayers,
Rev.
Timothy A. Hopkins, prayers for his mother,
the Mission of St. Philomena in Miami, and the welfare of Fr Jean-Luc Lafitte,
Ebert’s
request our prayers for the Andreas
& Jenna Ortner Family,
Joyce
Paglia has asked prayers for George
Richard Moore Sr. & his children, and her brother, George Panell,
For
the welfare of Anthony & Joyce
Paglia, who are responsible for the beautiful statuary in our chapel,
Philip
Thees asks our prayers for his family, for McLaughlin
Family, the conversion of Bruce
Heller, & Janet Gardner,
the welfare of Dan Polly Weand,
the conversion of Sophia Herman,
Tony Rosky, and Carl Ropeter, the welfare Nancy Erdeck, the wife of
the late Deacon Erdeck, and
the welfare of Frank D’Agustino who
is ill, the health of Charles Kanaskie,
and the health of his brother, Thomas
Thees, John Calasanctis, Stephen Cagorski, Tony Rosky, John Bogda, Maryann Reutter, James Parvenski, Kathleen
Gorry, and Cecilia LeBow.
Pray for the
Repose of the Souls:
Victoria Zelaya, the sister-in-law of Claudia Drew, died March 20,
Ricardo DeSilva, died November 16, our prayers requested by his
brother, Henry DeSilva,
Joyce Laughman and Robert Twist, for their conversions,
Roland H. Allard, a friend of the Drew’s, died September 28,
Sandra Peters, the wife of Gene Peters, who died June 10 receiving
the sacraments and wearing our Lady’s scapular,
Rev. Francis Slupski, a priest who kept the Catholic faith and its
immemorial traditions, died May 14,
Martha Mochan, the sister of Philip Thees, died April 8,
George Kirsch, our good friend and supporter of this Mission, died
February 15,
For
Fr. Paul J. Theisz, died
October 17, is the petition of Fr. Waters,
Fr. Mecurio Fregapane, died Jan 17, was not a traditional priest but always
charitable,
Fr. Casimir Peterson, a priest who often offered the Mass in our chapel and
provided us with sound advice, died December 4,
Fr. Constantine Bellasarius, a faithful and always charitable Eastern Rite Catholic
Melkite priest, who left the Roman rite, died November 27,
Christian Villegas, a motor vehicle accident, his brother, Michael,
requests our prayers,
John Vennari, the former editor of Catholic Family News, and for
his family’s welfare,
Mary Butler, the aunt of Fr. Samuel Waters, died October 17,
Joseph DeMarco, the nephew of John DeMarco, died October 3,
John Fergale, died
September 25 after receiving the traditional sacramental rites of the Church
wearing the brown scapular,
John Gabor, the brother of Donna Marbach, died September 9,
Fr. Eugene Dougherty, a faithful priest, fittingly died on the Nativity of
the BVM after receiving the traditional Catholic sacraments,
Phyllis Schlafly, died September 5,
Helen Mackewicz, died August 14,
Mark A. Wonderlin, who died August 2,
Fr. Carl Cebollero, a faithful priest to tradition who was a friend of
Fr. Waters and Fr. DeMaio,
Jessica Cortes, a young mother of ten who died June 12,
Frances Toriello, a life-long Catholic faithful to tradition, died
June3, the feast of the Sacred Heart, and her husband Dan, died in 1985,
John McLaughlin, a friend of the Drew’s, died May 22,
Angela Montesano, who died April 30, and her husband, Salvatore, who died in July 3,
2013,
Charles
Schultz, died April 5, left behind nine children and many grandchildren, all traditional
Catholics,
Esperanza
Lopez de Callejas, the aunt of Claudia Drew, died March 15,
Fr.
Edgardo Suelo, a faithful priest defending our traditions who was working with Fr.
Francois Chazal in the Philippines, died February 19,
Conde
McGinley,
a long time laborer for the traditional faith, died February 12, at 96 years,
The Drew family requests your prayers for Ida
Fernandez and Rita Kelley, parishioners at St. Jude,
Fr. Stephen Somerville, a traditional priest who repented from his work with
the Novus Ordo English translation, died December 12,
Fr. Arturo DeMaio, a priest that helped this Mission with the
sacraments and his invaluable advice, died December 2,
J. Paul Carswell, died October 15, 2015,
Solange Hertz, a great defender of our Catholic faith, died October
3, the First Saturday of the month,
Paula Haigh, died October 21, a great defender of our Catholic
faith in philosophy and natural science,
Gabriella Whalin, the mother of Gabriella Schiltz, who died August 25,
Mary Catherine Sick, 14 year old from a large traditional Catholic
family, died August 25,
Fr. Paul Trinchard, a traditional Catholic priest, died August 25,
Stephen J. Melnick, Jr., died on August 21, a long-time faithful traditional
Catholic husband and father, from Philadelphia,
Patricia Estrada, died July 29, her son Alex petitions our prayers for
her soul,
Fr. Nicholas Gruner, a devoted priest & faithful defender of Blessed
Virgin Mary and her Fatima message, died April 29,
Sarah E. Shindle, the grandmother of Richard Shindle, died April 26,
Madeline Vennari, the mother of John Vennari, died December 19,
Salvador Baca Callejas, the uncle of Claudia Drew, died December 13,
Robert Gomez, who died in a motor vehicle accident November 29,
Catherine Dunn, died September 15,
Anthony Fraser, the son of Hamish Fraser, died August 28,
Jeannette Rhoad, the grandmother of Devin Rhoad, who died August 24,
John Thees, the uncle of Philip Thees, died August 9,
Sarah Harkins, 32 year-old mother of four children, died July 28,
Anita Lopez, the aunt of Claudia Drew,
Fr. Kenneth Walker, a young traditional priest of the FSSP who was
murdered in Phoenix June 11,
Fr.
Waters petitions our prayers for Gilberte Violette, the mother of Fr. Violette, who died May 6,
Pete
Hays petitions our prayers for his brothers, Michael, died May 9, and James, died October 20, his sister, Rebecca, died
March17, and his mother, Lorraine
Hayes who died May 4,
Philip Marbach, the father of Paul Marbach who was the coordinator
at St. Jude in Philadelphia, died April 21,
Richard Slaughtery, the elderly sacristan for the SSPX chapel in Kansas
City, died April 13,
Bernedette Marie Evans nee Toriello, the daughter of Daniel Toriello ,
died March 31, a faithful Catholic who suffered many years with MS,
Natalie Cagorski, died march 23,
Anita Lopez de Lacayo, the aunt of Claudia Drew, who died March 21,
Mario Palmaro, Catholic lawyer, bioethicist and professor,
apologist, died March 9, welfare of his widow and children,
Daniel Boyle, the uncle of Ryan Boyle, died March 4,
Jeanne DeRuyscher, who died on January 25,
Arthur Harmon, died January 18,
Fr.
Waters petitions our prayers for the soul of Jeanne DeRuyscher, who died
January 17,
Joseph Proctor, died January 10,
Susan Scott, a devote traditional Catholic who made the vestments
for our Infant of Prague statue, died January 8,
Brother Leonard Mary, M.I.C.M., (Fred
Farrell), an early supporter and
friend of Fr. Leonard Feeney, died November 23,
John Fergale, requests our prayers for his sister Connie, who died
December 19,
Jim Capaldi, died December 15,
Brinton Creager, the son of Elizabeth Carpenter, died December
10,
Christopher Lussos, age 27, the father of one child with an expecting
wife, died November 15,
Jarett Ebeyer, 16 year old who died in his sleep, November 17, at
the request of the Kolinsky’s,
Catherine Nienaber, the mother of nine children, the youngest three
years of age, killed in MVA after Mass, 10-29,
Nancy Aldera, the sister of Frances Toriello, died October 11,
2013 at 105 years of age,
Mary Rita Schiltz, the mother of Thomas Schiltz, who died August 27,
William H. (Teddy) Kennedy, Catholic author of Lucifer’s Lodge, died August 14,
age 49, cause of death unknown,
Alfred Mercier, the father of David Mercier, who died August 12,
The
Robert Kolinsky asks our prayers for his friend, George Curilla, who died August 23,
John Cuono, who had attended Mass at our Mission in the past,
died August 11,
Raymond Peterson, died July 28, and Paul Peterson, died February 19, the brothers of Fr. Casimir
Peterson,
Margaret Brillhart, who died July 20,
Msgr. Joseph J. McDonnell, a priest from the diocese of Des Moines, who died
June 8,
Patrick Henry Omlor, who wrote Questioning
The Validity of the Masses using the New, All English Canon, and for a
series of newsletters which were published as The Robber Church, died May 2,
the feast of St Athanasius,
Bishop Joseph McFadden, died unexpectedly May 2,
Timothy Foley, the brother-in-law of Michelle Marbach Folley, who
died in April,
William Sanders, the uncle of Don Rhoad, who died April 2,
Gene
Peters ask our prayers for the repose of the soul of Mark Polaschek, who died March 22,
Eduardo Gomez Lopez, the uncle of Claudia Drew, February 28,
Cecelia Thees, died February 24,
Elizabeth Marie Gerads, a
nineteen year old, the oldest of twelve children, who died February 6,
Michael Schwartz, the co-author with Fr. Enrique Rueda of “Gays, Aids,
and You,” died February 3,
Stanley W. Moore, passed away in December 16, and Gerard (Jerry) R.
Pitman, who died January 19, who attended this Mission in the past,
Louis Fragale, who died December 25,
Fr. Luigi Villa, Th.D. author of Vatican II About
Face! detailing the heresies of Vatican II, died
November 18 at the age of 95,
Rev. Michael Jarecki, a faithful traditional Catholic priest who died
October 22,and Rev. Hector Bolduc, who died September 10,
Jennie Salaneck, died September 19 at 95 years of age, a devout and
faithful Catholic all her life,
Dorothy Sabo, who died September 26,
Cynthia (Cindy) Montesano Reinhert, the mother of nine children, four who are still at
home, died August 19,
Stanley Spahalski, who died October 20, and his wife, Regina Spahalski, who died June
24, and for the soul of Francis
Lester, her son,
Julia Atkinson, who died April 30,
Antonio P. Garcia, who died January 6, 2012 and the welfare of his
teenage children, Andriana and Quentin,
Helen Crane, the aunt of David Drew who died February 27,
Fr. Timothy A. Hopkins, of the National Shrine of St. Philomena, in Miami,
November 2,
Frank Smith, who died February 7, and the welfare of his wife,
Delores,
Eduardo Cepeda, who died January 26,
Larry Young, the 47 year old father of twelve who died December
10 and the welfare of his wife Katherine and their family,
Sister Mary Bernadette, M.I.C.M., a founding member of the Slaves of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, died December 16,
Joeseph Elias, who died on September 28,
William, the brother of Fr. Waters, who died September 7,
Donald Tonelli, died August 1,
Rev. Fr. Gregory Hesse, of Austria, a great defender of Catholic Truth, died
January 25, 2006,
Emma Colasanti, who died May 29,
Mary Dullesse, who died April 12, a Catholic convert
who died wearing our Lady’s scapular,
Ruth Jantsch, the grandmother of Andre Ebert, who died April 7,
Derrick and Denise Palengat, his godparents,
Philip D. Barr, died March 5, and the welfare of his family,
Judith Irene Kenealy, the mother of Joyce Paglia, who died February 23,
and her son, George Richard Moore, who died May 14,
For
Joe Sobran who died September
30,
Fr. Hector Bolduc, a great and faithful priest, died, September 10,
2012,
John
Vennari asks our prayers for Dr.
Raphael Waters who died August 26,
Stanley Bodalsky, the father of Mary Ann Boyle who died June 25,
Mary Isabel Kilfoyle Humphreys, a former York resident and friend of the Drew’s, who
died June 6,
Rev. John Campion, who offered the traditional Mass for us every first
Friday until forbidden to do so by Bishop Dattilo, died May 1,
Joseph Montagne, who died
May 5,
For
Margaret Vagedes, the aunt of
Charles Zepeda, who died January 6,
Fr. Michael Shear, a Byzantine rite Catholic priest, died August 17,
2006,
Fr. James Francis Wather, died November 7, 2006, author of The Great Sacrilege and Who Shall
Ascend?, a great defender of dogma and liturgical purity,
Fr. Enrique Rueda, who died December 14, 2009, to whom our Mission is indebted,
Fr.
Peterson asks to remember, Leonard
Edward Peterson, his cousin, Wanda,
Angelica Franquelli, and the six priests ordained with him.
Philip
Thees petitions our prayers for Beverly
Romanick, Deacon Michael Erdeck, Henry J. Phillips, Grace Prestano, Connie
DiMaggio, Elizabeth Thorhas, Elizabeth Thees, Theresa Feraker, Hellen Pestrock,
and James & Rose Gomata, and Kathleen
Heinbach,
Fr. Didier Bonneterre, the author of The Liturgical Movement, and Fr. John
Peek, both were traditional priests,
Brother Francis, MICM, the superior of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary in Richmond, NH, who died September 5,
Rodolfo Zelaya Montealegre, the father of Claudia Drew, who died May 24,
Rev. Francis Clifford, a devout and humble traditional priest, who died on
March 7,
Benjamin Sorace, the uncle of Sonja Kolinsky.
Novena to our
Lady of Sorrows in preparation for her feast and the welfare of the Mission and
the Church begins this Wednesday and ends on the Thursday in Passion Week on
the eve of her feast.
NOVENA TO THE SEVEN SORROWS OF THE
BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
V. Incline unto my aid, O God.
R. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the
Father, etc.
1.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate thee, in the
grief thy tender heart underwent when the holy old man Simeon prophesied to
thee. Dear Mother, through that
afflicted heart obtain for me the virtue of humility
and the gift of the holy fear of God. Hail
Mary, etc.
2.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate those
afflictions which thy most sensitive heart endured during the flight into Egypt
and the dwelling there. O beloved Mother,
by that afflicted heart obtain for me the virtue of
liberality, specially toward the poor, and the gift of piety. Hail Mary, etc.
3.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate that intense
distress which thine anxious heart experienced in the loss of thy dearest
Jesus. O beloved Mother, by that deeply
troubled heart obtain for me the virtue of chastity
and the gift of knowledge. Hail Mary,
etc.
4.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate the
consternation which thy maternal heart experienced when thou didst meet Jesus
bearing His cross. O beloved Mother, by
that deep distress of thy tender heart, obtain for me
the virtue of patience and the gift of fortitude. Hail Mary, etc.
5.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate that martyrdom
which thy generous heart endured in witnessing the last agony of Jesus. O beloved Mother, by that martyred heart obtain for me the virtue of temperance and the gift of
counsel. Hail Mary, etc.
6.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate that wound which
thy mournful heart endured from the lance which tore the side of Jesus and
wounded His most lovely Heart. O beloved
Mother, by thy heart then pierced through, obtain for
me the virtue of fraternal charity and the gift of understanding. Hail Mary, etc.
7.
O most sorrowful Mary, I compassionate thee, for the
anguish felt by thy loving heart when Jesus’ body was laid in the
sepulcher. Dear Mother, by all the
bitterness of desolation thou didst then know, obtain
for me the virtue of diligence and the gift of wisdom. Hail Mary, etc.
V. Pray for us, most sorrowful Mother.
R. That we may
be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us Pray
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord
Jesus Christ, that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy
Mother, may intercede for us before the throne of Thy mercy, now, and at the
hour of our death; through whose most holy soul in the hour of Thine own
Passion the Sword of sorrow passed.
Through Thee, Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, Who
livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost forever and ever. Amen
Prayer to Our Lady of
Sorrows
Most holy
and afflicted Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, thou stood beneath the cross,
witnessing the agony of thy dying Son.
Look with a mother’s tenderness and pity on me, who kneel before thee. I venerate thy sorrows and I place my
requests with filial confidence in the sanctuary of thy wounded heart.
Present them, I beseech thee, on my behalf to Jesus Christ, through
the merits of His own most sacred passion and death, together with thy
sufferings at the foot of the cross.
Through the united efficacy of both, obtain the granting of my
petition. To whom shall I have recourse
in my wants and miseries if not to thee, Mother of Mercy? Thou who have drunk so
deeply of the chalice of thy Son, thou can compassionate our sorrows.
Holy Mary, thy soul was pierced by
a sword of sorrow at the sight of the passion of thy divine Son. Intercede for me and obtain from Jesus Christ
this grace, if it be for His honor and glory and for the good of my soul.
Amen
Why
the Cross?
The thoughtful ones of earth contemplating the scene presented by a
human activity that continually changes its purpose and is powerless to assign
itself any purpose that human reason cannot instantly question, must feel the
pathos of much well-meaning and humanitarian effort. Great generosity is shown
and real kindness is spent in praiseworthy attempts to arrest the ravages of
mortality, especially amongst the young. “Save the children” is an appeal
that finds a ready response in the hearts of the humane and the kindly. Not
with cynicism, but with real sympathy, one may ask, “Save them for what?”
Is it for the adult life that frets itself away in vain endeavours to assign
itself an adequate reason for living? Is it worthwhile to preserve children for
what any person would logically confess to be not worth while? [Footnote: There
is question only of those who have not the view of the aims and objects of life
as furnished by the true faith or even by sound philosophy.] Is this charity of
the kind-hearted dictated by the hope that somehow life for these children may
prove different to what it has been for those who have tried to save them from
death and disease? Are there grounds for hope that the little ones when come to
adult age will light on, by chance, a solution of the problem of existence that
has evaded their grown-up benefactors? What is the use of bestowing health
unless there can be given with it the key to such a use of life as will issue
in happiness? Life is a precious gift when it is accompanied by the knowledge
of how to live rightly and the means to exercise this right living. […..]
Death is not a break, but a stepping stone by which one passes from one
stage to another in the same existence. But man will perversely and blindly
strive to affect a cleavage in that line and persuade himself that the good of
the human life that precedes death can be different from the good of human life
that follows death. The result is that he is necessarily at cross-purposes with
God. It is not surprising that the creature, seeking to gain the goal of
life — namely happiness — by a use of life’s powers and energies at
variance with the design of the Creator, should be continually frustrated in
his main object, should enjoy no peace, and should be involved in contradiction
and become a prey to perpetual dissatisfaction. What is the way out of
this impasse? The way out is through a thorough understanding of
the religion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and a practice based on such
understanding.[…..]
The [Gospel] passages that reveal Jesus in the exercise of works of
mercy, in healing disease, in consoling grief and in overcoming death, are
given an undue emphasis. In this way the central truth is
obscured, the truth, namely, that the conflict of the Redeemer was primarily
with spiritual evil and only incidentally with physical evil. His
purpose was to banish from earth the ills that appear to God as such, not those
that appear so to the pain-dreading nature of man… The gospel is not a record
of a more less successful philanthropic mission.
…To Christians, who persist in thinking that the function of
Christianity is to provide men with good things and banish from their life evil
things — understanding by good and evil what appear such
to fallen human nature — life will speedily prove
unintelligible. To men with such views the mystery of pain becomes
insoluble. In the face of the harsh realities of existence their belief stands
condemned. They have no answer to give to the ever-recurring question: if God
is kind and good and tender towards human suffering, why does suffering
continue to be not only for those that deserve it, but also for those who do
not?
That Jesus, in His power and goodness, did not put an end to all human
suffering shows that, in His eyes, suffering is not the real source of
human unhappiness.
Rev. Edward Leen, Why the Cross?
Pope Francis –
his “most gentle manner”!
They (our most holy predecessors)
knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock
the ears of Catholics, the innovators sought to hide the subtleties of
their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would
allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight
changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith that
is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their
eternal damnation. This
manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances
under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a
synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth
with clarity and excluding all danger of error. Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the
way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly
shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines
in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as
if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement,
or of leaving it up the personal inclinations of the individual – such has
always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish
error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of
excusing it. It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of
doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor St. Celestine,
who found it used in the writings of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and
which he exposed in order to condemn it with the greatest possible severity.
Once these texts were examined carefully, the impostor was exposed and
confounded, for he expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were
obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he
was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time
possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed.
Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, 1794 papal bull
addressed to all the faithful condemning 85 propositions from the Council of
Pistoia, 1786
The Sacrifice of the
Cross wrought the remission of sin in general; in Holy Mass the virtue of
Christ’s Blood is applied to this and that person individually. By His death and Passion Christ collected the
riches which in the Mass are dealt out to us.
His death is a treasury, Mass the key that unlocks it… Observe,
therefore, what it really means to say or to hear Mass. To do so is equivalent to causing God, who
once died for all mankind, to die over again in a mystical manner for me and
you, and for each one present, just as if He suffered death for the sake of
each one individually.
Paolo Segneri, SJ,
1624-1694, famous Jesuit preacher who was made the theologian of the Paenitentiaria by Pope Innocent XII.
That fabled (Judeo-Christian) tradition does not exist, nor does the
“Judeo-Christian ethic.” Though sharing a common origin in the Hebrew
Scriptures, the two faiths read the scriptural texts differently. They believe
in God, but view Him through different lenses. They each have a story, but they
are not the same. They each have a concept of man, but they are not the same.
They are both ethical religions, but with separate ideas of man’s nature,
salvation and destiny.
Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi of the Great
Synagogue, Sydney, Australia.
Published in Jerusalem Post
Situation
Ethics: PEW POLL: 95% of Jewish
Leaders support abortion and “same-sex marriage” for the U.S. but not for
Israel!
The Jewish question of our time does not differ greatly from the one
which affected the Christian peoples of the Middle
Ages. In a foolish way it is said to arise from hatred towards the Jewish
tribe. Mosaism in itself could not become an object of hate for Christians,
since, until the coming of Christ, it was the only true religion, a
prefiguration of and preparation for Christianity, which, according to God’s
Will, was to be its successor. But the Judaism of the centuries [after Christ]
turned its back on the Mosaic law, replacing it with the Talmud (ii.), the very quintessence of that Pharisaism which in so
many ways has been shattered through its rejection by Christ, the Messiah and
Redeemer. And although Talmudism is an important element of the Jewish
question, it cannot be said, strictly speaking, to give that question a
religious character, because what the Christian nations despise in Talmudism is
not so much its virtually non-existent theological element, but rather, its
morals, which are at variance with the most elementary principles of natural
ethics.
On the Jewish Question in Europe; La
Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, 23;10;
October 1890
He
preserved “the basic elements, the bread, the wine,” but so did every
Protestant sect. The question is, ‘Did
he preserve the Sacrifice? Did he
preserve the True Presence?
“Certainly, we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine,
but all else will be changed according to local traditions: words, gestures,
colours, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The
problem of liturgical reform is immense.”
Msgr. Mieczyslaw Malinksi, Mon
Ami: Karol Wojtyla, Le Centurion, 1980, p.220, quoting Cardinal Karol
Wojtyla during informal meeting with fellow Poles during the Vatican II Council
Planning
A Novel Church from the Top Down!
Question - What problems will be oriented differently
by the Council, Your Emminence?
Wojtyla's Answer - Above all, it will serve to give more value
to the authority of each Bishop and to promote decentralization within the
Church, as well as to return to the principle of collegiality, re-evaluate pastoral methods in
force until now, and effectively introduce new methods and ways - at times most
audacious ones.
There is also the question of the
universal character of the Church; there is a change of attitude toward the
ancient cultures of the non-European peoples. It is necessary to de-Westernize
Christendom. The peoples possessing their own ancient cultures have
understandable psychological barriers against Christianism when it presents
itself in its European trappings! The Africanization, Indianization,
Japonization, etc. of Catholicism reveals itself necessary. This consists of
making Christian substances germinate in their cultures. We know that all this
is neither simple nor easy to accomplish.
It is the end of the Constantine
era, which was characterized by a strict accord between the Altar and the
Throne, between the Church and the State, illustrated in its highest point by
the birth of the Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century. We face a grave problem:
to elaborate new forms for relations between the Church and the State, the
right of the Church to religious liberty.
Going further, it is necessary to speak of giving new
importance to the lay people in the Church, and, finally, to develop ecumenical
ideas on a scale unknown until now in the History of the Church.
Msgr. Mieczyslaw Malinksi, Mon Ami: Karol
Wojtyla, Le Centurion, 1980, p.190-191, quoting Cardinal Karol Wojtyla
during informal meeting with fellow Poles during the Vatican II Council
The
Judgment of the Church against a Heretical Pope
“Further we declare that there are two wills and principles of action,
in accordance with what is proper to each of the natures in Christ, in the way
that the sixth synod, that at (6)Constantinople, proclaimed, when it also publicly rejected
Sergius, Honorius,
Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, those
uninterested in true holiness, and their like-minded followers.
“To summarize, we
declare that we defend free from any innovations all the—written and—unwritten
ecclesiastical traditions that have been entrusted to us.”
Seventh Ecumenical Council, reaffirming the condemnation of Monothelitism and the monothelite heretics by
the Sixth Ecumenical Council, including Pope Honorius
“Further, we accept the sixth, holy and universal synod (6
Constantinople III), which shares the same beliefs and is in harmony with the
previously mentioned synods in that it wisely laid down that in the two natures
of the one Christ there are, as a consequence, two principles of action and the
same number of wills. So, we anathematize Theodore who was bishop of Pharan,
Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, the unholy prelates of the church of
Constantinople, and with
these, Honorius of Rome, Cyrus of Alexandria as well as Macarius of
Antioch and his disciple Stephen, who followed the false teachings of the unholy heresiarchs
Apollinarius, Eutyches and Severus and proclaimed that the flesh of God, while
being animated by a rational and intellectual soul, was without a principle of
action and without a will, they themselves being impaired in their senses and
truly without reason.” [……]
Eight Ecumenical Council, reaffirming the condemnation of Monothelitism and the monothelite heretics by
the Sixth Ecumenical Council which included the Councils judgment and
condemnation of Pope Honorius
“On earth, no
mortal should presume to reproach (redarguere) any faults to the
Pontiff, because he who has to judge (judicaturus) others, should not be
judged (judicandus) by anyone, unless he is found deviating from the Faith.”
Gratian, the
‘Father of Canon Law,’ Decree of
Gratian, (Pars I, D 40, c. 6)
Pope Francis:
An Eschatological Overview
The massive
emphasis on mercy–giving and receiving–is the key to understanding the
eschatological dimension of his pontificate
Vatican Insider | Stephen
Walford | February 8, 2020
[….]This teaching on divine mercy is one
example where a beautiful convergence between authentic private revelation and
the magisterium has enabled the faithful to grasp an essential element of what
it means to live an authentic Christian life. But there is more to it than
that. In the Diary of St Faustina Kowalska, there is a little talked of, but
undeniable theme running through it: the Lord makes clear the season of divine
mercy is for the end times. St Faustina herself was told she would prepare the
world for the Lord’s second coming, while St John Paul II in 2002 referred to
the promise of Jesus to St Faustina that “a spark from Poland will prepare the
world for my final coming” as binding.
It is surely the case that Pope Francis
has–with the prompting of the Holy Spirit–taken what was in part embryonic in
the pontificate of St John Paul II, and placed mercy as the absolute key for
the future of the Church and the world. Its salvific message is plastered
across almost every page of the Holy Father’s writings in one way or another,
as the antidote to the ever increasing evil that offers only death and
destruction.
Fr Spadaro in his essay also touches upon
several teachings and attitudes that I too have long considered as of having
great importance in understanding this Pope: Francis shuns a millenarian view of the future of
humanity where some golden age of peace within history rules; his focus rests
solely on the criteria for a blessed Final Judgement as found in the
Beatitudes. The criteria, therefore is Jesus himself, since the Beatitudes are
in essence, a portrait of the Lord. Furthermore, the Pope sees
opportunities everywhere to build bridges and to invite reconciliation. No
situation or soul is beyond help or redemption in the time God allows for
conversion.
This charism of the Pope is the great dividing line between those who
understand him and those who do not. How can he sting like St John the Baptist,
yet at other times appear far too generous? In reality, he is following the
criteria of Jesus to the letter–some may say even rigidly! He condemns
hypocrisy, narcissism, self- love, and a pharisaical attitude that divides
between “them” and “us.” He continually invites, even demands help for the poor
and marginalised. His constant criticisms in Santa Marta simply warn us that
we will be judged on love, and that no defence attorney will be present if we
live now as armchair Christians with a Jonah syndrome. No, the Holy Father
cares deeply, he knows Jesus recoils at hypocrisy and spiritual apathy and
therefore in his heart, he must give the Church some tough love. What Pope
Francis is obviously aware of, is the sad reality that for even many Catholics,
Jesus’ warning concerning “love growing cold” (cf. Matt 24:12) applies now more
than ever. How many refuse to forgive, to apologise, to give of themselves generously? How many create their own moral code,
with excuses and exemptions? How many prefer to look after their own interests
no matter how much suffering they leave in their wake? This in reality is apostasy from the central
Christian message: to love God and neighbour. And thus charity, repentance,
mercy are watered down to such an extent that they become meaningless.
In an eschatological sense, I see Francis trying to form a Church that
is far more conformed to Jesus himself; one that is authentically evangelical;
one that has its foundations in the dirt and dust of its precious flock; one in
which love and humility are never again overshadowed by the lust for prestige,
power and worldly success. In short, this is the vision of a Church that is
being prepared as the Bride fit for her meeting with the Bridegroom.
Many Traditionalists are right though: there is a war, there is a
powerful enemy, there is an apocalyptic battle being waged, but they are being
seduced by that same enemy. The enemy is Satan, not Pope Francis, or other
Catholics who they don’t agree with. Pope Francis, as a realist, knows the
depth of this spiritual war, but he also knows wounded souls (no matter how
those wounds came about) need love and mercy. They need salvation and are not
to be seen as enemies fighting for the other side. This attitude of mercy is
entirely in line with Jesus rebuking James and John, who suggested sending down
fire from heaven on those who did not welcome the Lord (Lk 9:54).
The division being caused by those opposed to the Holy Father, does
nothing other than serve the cause of Satan in creating confusion and doubt in
the hearts of ordinary Catholics. Satan, of course, does not care too much with
“the world” –he desires far more to destroy the Lord’s work in His Church; to
suffocate the sacramental life from souls and to present preaching as
hypocritical nonsense. He despises this Pope because Francis shines a
light on his deviousness, and because the Holy Father is willing to take risks
for the sake of the lost sheep.
Pope Francis has also contributed to the
Marian Era that began in the mid nineteenth century; a period of time
prophesied by St Louis de Montfort as preparation for the second coming of
Jesus. Not only his very personal Marian devotion, but his emphasis on the
church as Mother in imitation of Mary– including the new Feast of Mary Mother
of the Church– has enabled the Church to reflect ever more the Marian dimension
in its mission to bring the salvation of her Son to all. The Pope’s protection of
Medjugorje should also be seen in this context. This Marian dimension is
essential in the years ahead because it prepares for the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, when divine love will proclaim the final victory; it
moulds the faithful into humble souls who imitate Mary, and who follow her
command to “do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5).
Of course, Pope Francis, like his
predecessors shuns idle speculation and sees a danger in spending time immersed
in apocalyptic literature especially from private revelation. What is important, is to keep an Advent spirit of watchfulness; to
continually discern the signs of the times, but always with a vision of hope
for eschatological glory, and not some intra historical era that will never
come. Faith tells us that we can see a dawn breaking on the horizon, from the
East; we can see the signs that summer is near (Matt 24:32), but we also know
that until that Day arrives, the spiritual war will become more intense. To remain loyal to the Pope and
his magisterium is to have a sure guide for what is still to come; it is to
help avoid the pitfalls that will inevitably hurt us, but above all, it will
keep us close to Jesus Christ.
In the magisterium and prophetic voice of Pope Francis, we are told to
strip ourselves of all that hinders a full adherence to the Gospel:
“Along this journey, the cultivation of all that is good, progress in the
spiritual life and growth in love are the best counterbalance to evil. Those
who choose to remain neutral, who are satisfied with little, who renounce the
ideal of giving themselves generously to the Lord, will never hold out. Even
less if they fall into defeatism, for “if we start without confidence, we have
already lost half the battle and we bury our talents… Christian triumph is
always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner,
borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil”
Even if we do not know the day or the hour,
we do know how to keep our lamps lit; we know how to prepare. A revolution of love, tenderness
and mercy is Pope Francis’ answer to the reality of the Last Judgment, from
which no one can escape, and which in a very real sense is already in progress.
If holiness is grasped with both hands, then the apocalypse holds no fears; in
fact it presents a wealth of opportunities to serve the Lord.
Maranatha is the prayer that can and should live joyfully in the hearts
of the faithful in this season of mercy. We can take it to the poor, the sick,
the lonely, announcing that their liberation is near. And even if centuries are
still to pass by, the Church will live by a new evangelical urgency that will
ensure the torch of hope burns bright until the true light comes to illuminate
a transfigured creation. Pope Francis is playing a vital part in ensuring the
Church prepares well for whatever the Lords asks it to go through in the
future. Let us pray for him and his immensely important task.
COMMENTARY on Overview of the
Eschatology of Francis:
The first problem with
the theologian Stephen
Walford, and it is a huge problem, is that he makes the pope his
proximate rule of faith and not Dogma. He therefore cannot distinguish between
the pope’s personal magisterium based upon his grace of state and the
Magisterium of the Church based upon the attribute of Infallibility that Jesus
Christ endowed His Church. Whatever the current pope says or does becomes his
rule of faith and is necessarily, in his estimation, the work of the Holy
Ghost. Beginning with this colossal error, he works to build a bridge between
the teaching of a heretical pope and the Catholic faithful.
But putting this error
aside, he brings up a question that the Catholic faithful must be able to
answer clearly with the revealed truth of God. So what is wrong with the modern
popes emphasis of divine mercy? The problem is
essentially that they emphasize divine mercy in opposition to divine justice
and not as a different facet of the same jewel. Walford seems to be correct in
that the popes of the Church of the New Advent believe that we are in the last
age of the Church before the second coming of Jesus Christ. They also believe
that this age is the time of mercy (as if other ages were not) and not justice
(as if other ages were).
Benedict/Ratzinger held an interview with
Jacques Servais, S.J. conducted in October of 2015 on questions of Faith and
Justification. The interview was read by the Prefect of the Pontifical
Household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, to a subsequent Conference in November
2015 on Justification and published in March of 2016. In this interview
Benedict/Ratzinger places in constant opposition the attributes of God’s mercy
and God’s justice repeatedly characterizing His justice as “cruelty.” He quotes
in support of his theology John Paul II who was “deeply impregnated with this
impulse,” and Pope Francis whom he praises for his “pastoral practice (that) is
expressed in the fact that he continually speaks to us of God’s mercy.” These
popes all point to the gospel description of the last judgment in which the
criteria for salvation or condemnation are the corporal works of mercy.
Therefore they conclude, what one believes is of no importance but rather what
one does for his fellow man. Thus, after dividing justice and mercy, they drive
a wedge between faith and charity. It is from this that the term
“evangelization” is redefined and distinguished from “proselytism,” heretofore
they have always been considered as necessary compliments as a cause is to its
direct effect. Proselytism, the traditional fruit of evangelization, converting
others to the true faith, is condemned as “solemn nonsense” and the new
evangelization becomes only dialogue to exchange opinions for the end of
promoting corporal works of mercy (which never materialize).
Wisdom is the perfect
knowledge of the most important things in their right order of reference.
Discounting malice, Pope Francis has no wisdom because he has no right order of
reference. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6). Charity,
which is the friendship between God and man, is greater than Faith, which is
believing what God has revealed on the authority of God, but without Faith,
Charity is impossible. No one can have the friendship of God who does not
believe His Truth. Acts of Charity are an extension of the virtue of Charity
because they are entirely grounded upon seeing the image of God in other men.
There can be no Charity without Faith, and although Charity is greater than
Faith, Faith takes precedence in time. St. Thomas considers sins against Faith
as the greatest of all sins because they radically separate the person from
God. In the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles began the work of evangelization
by making proselytes out of the Jews and pagans. When the Faithful of the
Church grew from these labors, the obligation for works of Charity
correspondingly increased. What did the apostles do? They established the
deaconate to attend to works of Charity so that these works of Charity would
not impede the work of evangelization to make new proselytes.
The second coming of
Jesus Christ will be characterized by the Great Apostasy from the Faith as
described by St. Paul: “Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first,
and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition...” (2 Thess. 2:3). Jesus
said, “Will not God revenge his elect who cry to him day and night: and will he
have patience in their regard? I say to you, that he will quickly revenge them.
But yet the Son of man,
when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth” (Luke 18:7-8)?
We are now in the Great Apostasy for at no time in history has the apostasy
been so generalized and extended to the summit of Church authority.
It is impossible to drive
a wedge between God’s justice and God’s mercy. God is perfect Act and infinite
Simplicity. He is present wherever He acts. There are no distinguished parts in
God. Mercy is only possible in the context of justice and vice versa, otherwise
the entire Passion of Jesus Christ becomes meaningless. Jesus does not suffer
the cruelty of His passion from the direct will of the Father but from sinful
men by the Father’s permissive will. It is not the cruelty of God but cruelty
of sinful men. Jesus as the Son of Man willingly suffers His Passion firstly to
give honor and glory to the Father in the name of mankind to the end of
redeeming man from sin.
“Without faith it is
impossible to please God.” It is only through Faith that Charity can exist
without which the merits of the redemptive suffering of Christ’s passions
cannot be personally gained. “Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in
your sins. For if you
believe not that I AM he, you shall die in your sin. They said therefore
to him: Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning (I AM), who also speak
unto you” (John 8:24-25).
In the last judgment when
God makes a radical public distinction between “them” and “us,” Jesus Christ
will say, “When I was thirsty and you gave me to drink” (Matt 35:25). The faithful will ask, “Lord, when did we see
thee… thirsty and give thee to drink?” (37). Jesus will say, “Amen I say to
you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren [that is, ‘As many of you as have
been baptized in Christ, (who) have put on Christ’ (Gal 3:27) when they were
‘born again by water and the Holy Ghost’ (John 3:5),] you did it to me.” Only
the faithful can see the image of God
in the other and the likeness restored by the grace of Jesus
Christ in the “brethren.”
Then He will say to those
on His left condemned to hell, “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to
one of these least (that is, the “brethren” of Christ), neither did you do it
to me” (45). Christ dwells in the souls of the faithful by Charity. Those
condemned did not see Christ in the faithful. Those who are condemned may have
given a drink to the thirsty but without faith, they did not see the image of
God in the other, and therefore, they
did not do it for Him. They were not works of Charity but works of human
philanthropy. Works of mercy do not profit for salvation without Faith. While
Faith can exist without Charity, Charity cannot exist without Faith in this
world. Faith will pass with death but Charity will remain. That is why the last
judgment is determined by acts of mercy and not articles of Faith because at the
Last Judgment everyone will believe.
The modern Church of the
New Advent is in true apostasy which is, by definition, the actual denial of
revealed truth. They do not do works of mercy that profit for eternal salvation
because they do not have faith. Yet Walford claims, in a remarkable inversion
of divine Wisdom, that
apostasy is failure in works of mercy. The rank hypocrisy in this claim
is evident in that Catholic institutions doing works of mercy have crumbled
since Vatican II when the age of mercy supposedly got underway. And still, the
popes of the Church of the New Advent do not get it. Only by preaching the
faith will acts of mercy again abound. Jesus said to St. John the Baptist who
resisted baptizing Him, “For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice” (Matt
3:15). The Church of the New Advent cannot have part in the mercy of God
because they have no part with Him to “fulfill all justice.” The blasphemy is
this: the modern popes believe they are more merciful than God.
They proclaim the era of mercy
in opposition to God’s “cruel” justice while essentially removing all
penitential practices during Lent while accusing traditionalist Catholics of being “seduced by
Satan” and “serving the cause of Satan” by the “division… creating confusion and doubt in the hearts of
ordinary Catholics” when they oppose the rank heresy of Pope Francis.
The implications of this division between justice-mercy and charity-faith
overturn the Catholic dogmas on justification. The Church of the New Advent has
a Lutheran conception of justification. In the Servais interview
Benedict/Ratzinger said:
“It seems to me that in the theme
of divine mercy is expressed in a new way what is
meant by justification by faith. Starting from the mercy of God, which everyone
is looking for, it is possible even today to interpret
anew the fundamental nucleus of the doctrine of justification, and have it
appear again in all its relevance.”
Benedict/Ratzinger “interprets
anew” by mischaracterizing the Catholic dogmatic teaching on
justification as “the conceptuality of St. Anselm” which he says “has now
become for us incomprehensible” because it necessarily includes the justice of God. He then adds:
“Only where
there is mercy does cruelty end, only with mercy do evil and violence end. Pope
Francis is totally in agreement with this line. His pastoral practice is
expressed in the fact that he continually speaks to us of God’s mercy. It is
mercy that moves us toward God, while justice frightens us before Him.”
What is worse, Benedict/Ratzinger adds that God “simply cannot
leave 'as is' the mass of evil that comes from the freedom that he himself has
granted. Only He, coming to share in the world's suffering, can redeem the
world.” So God becomes responsible for the “mass of evil” in the world because He is responsible for
granting man “freedom” and is therefore compelled by
justice “to share in
the world's suffering” to “redeem the world”! The end of this is that God has
an obligation in justice for mercy. The corollary to this is that man has an
unconditional right to divine mercy.
God is not compelled to
anything outside Himself. He cannot positively will evil. He can and does
permit evil only because He and He alone is capable of bring good out of evil.
No man can earn God's mercy and eternal salvation on their own merits.
“Charity is man’s
friendship with God based on man’s share in the Divine Life, in the happiness
of God Himself. But man cannot naturally share in God’s own life. Man’s
participation in the Divine Life is a free supernatural gift which God gives to
man. Charity then cannot be acquired by any purely human effort. It is a gift
of God infused in man’s soul by God’s goodness and generosity. Charity, like
the other theological virtues, is a supernatural virtue infused in the will by
God Himself. Who can give man a share in the Divine Love except God Himself?”
Rev. Walter Farrell,
O. P., My Way of Life, Pocket Edition
of St. Thomas
A faithful Catholic in
the state of grace is able to merit eternal life and atone for his sins because
of his union by grace with Jesus Christ in Charity. This is what gives value to
his prayers, penances, and mortifications without which they have no value at
all. This union of Charity with Christ by grace permits the faithful to not
only atone for their own sins but also for the sins of others as St. Paul said,
“Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are
wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the
church” (Col 1:24). And thus:
“The observance of Lent is the very badge of
the Christian warfare. By it, we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the Cross
of Christ. By it, we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength
against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should
mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to
God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian
souls. Neither can it be doubted, but that such negligence would become the
source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.”
Pope Benedict XIV,
encyclical, May 30, 1741
Without the justice of
God there could be no mercy. The faithful rejoice in the justice of God for by
it we are made children of God and can merit eternal life. Those who divide
God's mercy from His justice and believe that eternal life awaits them without
the necessity of Faith and penance are whistling in the wind. There will not have
any part with God in eternal life. May God in His mercy keep us in the right
Faith, a burning Charity and a penitential spirit until our last breath.
Pope Francis never kneels before the Blessed Sacrament!
Why?
Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the
flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I
will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is
drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me,
and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so
he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came
down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that
eateth this bread, shall live for ever. John 6:54-59
For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you
shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. Therefore whosoever shall eat
this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the
body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him
eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh
unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of
the Lord. 1 Cor 11:26-29
Because for
Francis, 'This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?' (John 6:60)
And
if anyone would know, it would be Benedict!
“The greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies
without, but arises from sin within the Church.”
Pope Benedict XVI
As we suffer under the moral and doctrinal
Novelties of Pope Francis, it is evident why he wanted the Novelty Master, Paul
VI, to become another novel Novus Ordo saint.
Montini is the man who defined the Spirit of Vatican II in one word:
NOVELTY in order to please men.
The
Church Teaches:
“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides
that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so
now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel,
besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now
persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I
should not be the servant of Christ.”
St. Paul, Galatians 1,
8-10
“Blind that they are,
and leaders of the blind,
inflated with a boastful science, they have reached that pitch of folly where
they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true nature of the religious
sentiment; with that new system of theirs they are seen to be under the
sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but
despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other vain, futile,
uncertain doctrines, condemned by the Church, on which, in the height of their
vanity, they think they can rest and maintain truth itself.”
St. Pius X, Pascendi
“A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human
reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what
it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find
the fruit outside the Church wherein truth is found without the slightest
shadow of error.”
Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari nos, 1834, quoted by St. Pius X in Pascendi
“It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications of a style inspired
by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells
on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new
aspirations of the modern soul, on a new vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian
civilisation.”
Leo XIII, Jan 27, 1902,
quoted by St. Pius X in Pascendi
Paul
VI Replys:
“... We wish to
make our own the important words employed by the Council; those words which
define its spirit, and, in a dynamical synthesis, form the spirit of all those
who refer to it, be they within or without the Church. The word NOVELTY,
simple, very dear to today’s men, is much utilized; it is theirs... That
word... it was given to us as an order, as a program... It comes to us
directly from the pages of the Holy Scripture: For, behold (says the Lord), I
create new heavens and a new earth. St. Paul echoes these words of the prophet
Isaiah; then, the Apocalypse: I am making everything new. And Jesus, our
Master, was not He, himself, an innovator? You have heard that people were told
in the past ... but now I tell you...– Repeated in the Sermon on the Mount.
“It is precisely
thus that the Council has come to us. Two terms characterize it: RENOVATION and
REVISION. We are particularly keen that this spirit of renovation– according to the expression
of the Council – be understood and experienced by everyone. It responds
to the characteristic of our time, wholly engaged in an enormous and rapid transformation, and
generating novelties in every sector of modern life. In fact, one cannot shy
away from this spontaneous reflection: if the whole world is changing, will not
religion change as well?
Between the
reality of life and Christianity, Catholicism especially, is not there
reciprocal disagreement, indifference, misunderstanding, and hostility? The
former is leaping forward; the latter would not move. How could they go
along? How could Christianity claim to have, today, any influence upon life?
“And it is for this reason that the Church has undertaken some reforms,
especially after the Council. The Episcopate is about to promote the renovation that corresponds to
our present needs; Religious Orders are reforming their Statutes; Catholic
laity is qualified and found its role within the life of the Church; Liturgy is
proceeding with a reform in which anyone knows the extension and importance;
Christian education reviews the methods of its pedagogy; all the canonical
legislations are about to be revised.
And how many other
consoling and promising novelties we shall see appearing in the Church!
They attest to Her new vitality, which shows that the
Holy Spirit animates Her continually, even in these years so crucial to
religion. The development of ecumenism, guided by Faith and Charity, itself
says what progress, almost unforeseeable, has been achieved during the course
and life of the Church. The Church looks at the future with Her
heart brimming with hope, brimming with fresh expectation in love... We can
say... of the Council: It marks the onset of a new era, of which no one can
deny the new aspects that We have indicated to you.”
Paul VI, General
Audience, July 2, 1969
And
we remember the “miracles” attributed to Paul VI that provided “evidence” for
the “sanctity” of this Novelty Master! Two cases where the medical prognosis of
morally degenerate abortionists proved to be incorrect are regarded as a
“miracles”!
“This second miracle attributed to Pope Paul VI concerned the healing
of an unborn in the fifth month of pregnancy. According to the Catholic News
Agency the mother, from Verona in Italy, had an illness that risked her own
life and the life of her unborn and was advised to have an abortion.
A few days after the beatification of Paul VI by Pope Francis in
October 2014, the mother prayed to the now Blessed Paul VI at a shrine in
Lombardy and the baby girl was later born in good health.
The first miracle involving Pope Paul VI took place in California in
the 1990s. It also concerned an unborn which was found to have a serious health
problem that could mean brain damage. Doctors advised that it be aborted, but
the mother entrusted her pregnancy to Paul VI. The child was born healthy. Irish Times, Feb 6, 2018
Heretics
welcome for Novus Ordo Communion! What has been done sub rosa for years is now open practice.
At their spring conference in Ingolstadt, the German bishops conference
agreed that a Protestant partner of a Catholic can receive the Eucharist after
having made a serious examination of conscience with a priest or another person
with pastoral responsibilities, affirms the faith of the Catholic Church,
wishes to end serious spiritual distress, and has a longing to satisfy a hunger
for the Eucharist.
Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register
Pope Francis complains of Political Decay in the West – The
cause? The failure of the Catholic Church to teach Catholic doctrine and
Catholic morals!
Providence is the proper
instrument for change, and the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the
real tendency of providential social forces… it acts through the instincts
and intuitions of our feeble flesh, [demonstrating] that religion and politics
are inseparable, that the decay of one must produce the decay of the other.
Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind
Practice
During Lent
Now, Penance consists in contrition of the soul,
and in mortification of the body; these two parts are essential to
it. The soul has willed the sin; the body has frequently co-operated in
its commission. Moreover, man is composed of both Soul and Body; both,
then, should pay homage to their Creator. The Body is to share with the
Soul, either the delights of heaven, or the torments of hell; there cannot,
therefore, be any thorough Christian life, or any earnest penance, where the
Body does not take part, in both, with the Soul. But it is the Soul
which gives reality to Penance. […….]
But the courageous observance of the
Church’s precept of Fasting and Abstaining during Lent must be accompanied by
those two other eminently good works, to which God so frequently urges us in
the Scripture: Prayer and Alms-deeds. Just as under the term Fasting,
the Church comprises all kinds of mortification; so, under the word Prayer,
she includes all those exercises of piety whereby the soul holds
intercourse with her God. More frequent attendance at the services of the
Church, assisting daily at Mass, spiritual reading, meditation upon eternal
truths and the Passion, hearing sermons, and, above all, the approaching the
Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, - these are the chief means
whereby the Faithful should offer to God the homage of Prayer, during
this holy Season.
Almsdeeds comprise all the works of mercy to our neighbor, and are unanimously recommended
by the Holy Doctors of the Church, as being the necessary complement of Fasting
and Prayer during Lent. God has made it a law, to which he has graciously
bound himself, - that charity shown towards our fellow creatures, with the
intention of pleasing our Creator, shall be rewarded as though it were done to
himself. How vividly this brings before us the reality and sacredness of
the tie, which he would have to exist between all men! Such, indeed, is
its necessity, that our Heavenly Father will not accept the love of any heart
that refuse to show mercy: but, on the other hand, he accepts, as genuine and
as done to himself, the charity of every Christian, who, by a work of mercy
shown to a fellow-man, is really acknowledging and honouring that sublime
union, which makes all men to be one family, with God as its Father.
Hence it is, that Almsdeeds, done
with this intention, are not merely acts of human kindness, but are raised to
the dignity of acts of religion, which have God for their direct object,
and have the power of appeasing his Divine Justice.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Lent
Wisdom
is the most perfect knowledge, of the most important things, in their right
order of reference. Without the “right
order of reference”, Wisdom is impossible. Pope Francis has no Wisdom. He does not even know the “greatest
commandment in the law”!
Master, which is
the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole
mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
Matt. 22:36-38
Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of
the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christ’s disciples:
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”
(Jn. 15:12).
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, (161) On the Proclamation of the
Gospel in Today’s World
Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright
thee;
All things are passing; God never changeth;
Patient endurance attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth in nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.
Bookmark of St. Teresa of Jesus
How beauteous is the courage which we find,
with childlike confidence in God combined!
Who fears his God shall know no other fear -
He heeds not pitying smile, nor unkind sneer.
The
14 promises revealed to Brother Estanislao by Our Lord for those who pray the
Way of the Cross
·
I promise
Eternal Life to those who pray from time to time, The Way of the Cross.
·
I will
grant everything that is asked of Me with faith, when
making The Way of the Cross.
·
I will
follow them everywhere in life and help them, especially at the hour of death.
·
Even if
they have more sins than blades of grass in the fields, and grains of sand in
the sea, all of them will be erased by praying The Way of the Cross.
·
Those who
pray The Way of The Cross often, will have a special glory in Heaven.
·
I will
deliver them from Purgatory, indeed if they go there at all, the first Tuesday
or Friday after their death.
·
At the
hour of death I will not permit the devil to tempt them; I will lift all power
from him in order that they shall repose tranquilly in My Arms.
·
If they
pray it with true love, I will make of each one of them a living Ciborium in
which it will please Me to pour My grace.
·
I will
fix My Eyes on those who pray The Way of The Cross often; My
hands will always be open to protect them.
·
I will
bless them at each Way of The Cross, and My blessing
will follow them everywhere on earth and after their death, in Heaven for all
Eternity.
·
As I am
nailed to the Cross, so also will I always be with those who honor Me in making
The Way of The Cross frequently.
·
They will
never be able to separate themselves from Me, for I
will give them the grace never again to commit a Mortal sin.
·
At the
hour of death I will console them with My Presence and we will go together to
Heaven. Death will be sweet to all those who have honored Me
during their lives by praying The Way of the Cross.
·
My Soul
will be a protective shield for them, and will always help them, whenever they
have recourse.
